Welcome to where I am, where my kitchen's always messy, a pot's (or a poet) always about to boil over, a dog is always begging to be fed. Drafts of poems on the counter. Windows filled with leaves. Wind. Clouds moving over the mountains. If you like poetry, books, and music--especially dog howls when a siren unwinds down the hill-- you'll like it here.


MY NEW AUTHOR'S SITE, KATHRYNSTRIPLINGBYER.COM, THAT I MYSELF SET UP THROUGH WEEBLY.COM, IS NOW UP. I HAD FUN CREATING THIS SITE AND WOULD RECOMMEND WEEBLY.COM TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A WEBSITE. I INVITE YOU TO VISIT MY NEW SITE TO KEEP UP WITH EVENTS RELATED TO MY NEW BOOK.


MY NC POET LAUREATE BLOG, MY LAUREATE'S LASSO, WILL REMAIN UP AS AN ARCHIVE OF NC POETS, GRADES K-INFINITY! I INVITE YOU TO VISIT WHEN YOU FEEL THE NEED TO READ SOME GOOD POEMS.

VISIT MY NEW BLOG, MOUNTAIN WOMAN, WHERE YOU WILL FIND UPDATES ON WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MY KITCHEN, IN THE ENVIRONMENT, IN MY IMAGINATION, IN MY GARDEN, AND AMONG MY MOUNTAIN WOMEN FRIENDS.




Sunday, March 28, 2010

NCETA STUDENT POET LAUREATE AWARDS


IF YOU (OR ANYONE YOU KNOW) ARE A TEACHER IN THE NORTH CAROLINA PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PLEASE SHARE THIS INFORMATION! THANK YOU.


To read some of last year's winning poems, please go to http://ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/2009/10/first-light-nceta-high-school-laureate.html.


To find more information on these awards, please click on the post heading for the link.


The Poet Laureate Award is given by the family of Kathryn Stripling Byer, North Carolina’s first woman poet laureate.



Eligible Contestants


The contest is open to all North Carolina students in grades 6-8 and 9-12.



Awards Given

The high school winner will receive $250.00 and copy of the winning poem printed on a

broadside.


The high school second place writer will receive $50.00.


The middle school winner will receive $250.00 and a framed copy of the winning poem printed on a broadside.


The middle school second place writer will receive $50.00.


All winners will be recognized by North Carolina’s poet laureate at NCETA’s annual conference.


All winning and honorable mention poems will be published on the NCETA and the NC Arts Council websites.



Requirements


The number of entries allowed per school is determined by enrollment:

Up to 500 (one entry); 501-1000 (two entries); 1001-1500 (three entries); and above 1500 (four entries).

Schools larger than 500 may include only one entry per student.

Poems must be 40 lines or fewer.

The entry must be typed and submitted in electronic format.

No photos, please.

Email one copy of the entry form and entry to ncstudentlaureateaward@nceanglishteacher.org by April 15, 2010.

Mail one copy of the entry form and entry to John York, 804 Westover Terrace, Greensboro, NC 27408. DO NOT use certified or registered mail. Any entries submitted via certified or registered mail will be disqualified.


Saturday, March 27, 2010

MAGPIE TALES: DEMETER'S DAFFODIL


Now is the season when the goddess Demeter welcomes her daughter Kore (or Persephone) back from the Underworld, her joy at the reunion kindling Spring for the world. Here she finds in the first daffodil her beloved daughter's presence.

DEMETER'S DAFFODIL

(for Willow at Magpie Tales)

To dip
into your corolla
carefully one wintry
finger and touch

to my throat
what I hear begin tuning
up downwind,
the little frogs

chorusing cullowhee
cullowhee, Cherokee
shivaree down by

the rain-swollen Tuckasee-
gee, what sweeter
scent than the attar
of you ever
after come back
to me, Golden
Girl!
My laughing daughter!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

REBUILDING MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE

(Magpie Tales)


Rebuilding My Grandfather's House

In the ashes I search for a nail straight enough
to be hammered. (Oh, for a trove of new nails spilling
out of its box like gold coins, silver
earrings, a handful of diamonds discovered
among the debris of my grandfather's house.)

As soon as I find it
I pound with conviction but no skill.
I hold up my battered blue thumb to the sky
and I curse as magnificently
as my grandfather ever did.
Tears streak my dirty cheeks. Each day I quit
and each day I start over again,
using patience I hardly knew I had inherited.
I swear by the toil of my clumsy hands
I will make of this junk-pile a dwelling place yet.

I work best when I take my time,
coaxing woolly worms into a tin can
and letting them go again, dreaming
the night sky unfolds like a blueprint I learn
to read. I dance by the light of the moon
and feel lonely, already at home here.

When I hammer the last nail straight
into the last sagging beam, I will
spit on the edge of my shirt and sit down
on a barrel to scrub my face clean.
I will not look my Sunday-best,
but I cannot wait forever.
The hinges will creak as I open the front door
and call out my grandfather's name.
In the silence that answers, I step
slowly over the threshold,
believing that each board supports me.
I stand in my grandfather's house again.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Vernal Equinox: A Chance for Healthcare Reform


(Sunrise on the first day of Spring)


On this Sunday, the day after the Vernal Equinox, when our Congress has the chance to pass reforms that so many former presidents, all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt, have attempted, I am hoping that the distortions, outright lies, and the viciousness that have accompanied this "debate," including the chanting of the "N word" at black legislators and the spitting on another of them, will fail and that the better nature of American politics will prevail so that here in Jackson County friends I love will no longer have to fear losing insurance coverage when they develop live-threatening illness.

Here's a quote from one of my favorite columnists, Gail Collins.

"We live in an era in which the power of the new hypermedia is so intense and politics so rabid that it’s almost impossible for Congress to do anything more difficult than tax cuts or highway construction. Yet, here’s this huge, complicated, controversial reform — bigger than any domestic program in decades.

If it passes, the short-term political consequences are unknowable. But in 10 years, people will look back in amazement that we once lived in a time when Americans couldn’t get health care coverage if they were sick, when insurance companies could cut off your benefits for being sick, and when run-of-the-mill serious illnesses routinely destroyed families’ financial security."

I wish you a lovely spring. Our early garden is in--spinach, beets, cabbage, broccoli. We are waiting now for the predicted rain to come and water it.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

ALMA: Poems and Drawings


(copyright by Sharyn Jane Hyatt)


Many years ago I self-published with artist Sharyn Jane Hyatt a collection of poems and drawings titled Alma. Those poems were later gathered into my Wildwood Flower, published by LSU Press in 1992. Sherry's drawings could not be included, alas, and I still think about doing another limited edition run of this manuscript.

I thought you might enjoy seeing some of her drawings, so for the next day or two, I will be posting one of them, along with one of the poems.




Sunday, March 14, 2010

MAGPIE TALES: A WOMAN'S HAND

Thanks again to Magpie Tales (http://www.magpietales.blogspot.com/) for bringing this poem up from my memory. It was inspired by the photo below it, courtesy of photographer Louanne Watley's Evelyn Series.

Of all the bones,

these the most eloquent,


lying upturned on the windowsill,

holding a woman's life


mapped in their grasp,

every pulse-beat her heart's story.

(photo credit: Louanne Watley)

The following poem is from my volume Catching Light (LSU Press), based on Louanne's series of photos documenting the last months of a woman who wished to be call Evelyn. Or Eve.

Vanity

Without hands
a woman would stand at her mirror
looking back only,
not touching, for how could she?  
Eyelid. 
Cheek. 
Earlobe. 
Neck-hollow. 
The pulse points that wait to be dusted  
with jasmine or lavender.  
The lips she rubs  
rose with a forefinger.  
She tends the image  
she sees in her glass,  
the cold replication  
of woman, the one  
who dared eat from her own hand  
the fruit of self-knowledge.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

A LITTLE SPRING CLEANING: FINDING OLD PHOTOS

Just a little. I'm not much of a housekeeper, but I did begin going through some old photographs that I keep in various boxes, some framed, but most not, and came across several that drew me up short, made me wonder what time is all about, and how it has its way with us. (This was posted last spring before I was able to scan photos....my apologies.) This is a small photo of my grandmother, Marion Fry Stripling Bailey. She had two husbands; my grandfather died when my dad was 11 or so, of pneumonia, and she re-married. I wish the sharpness were better, so that you could see the expression on her face. She was quite elegant in her youth and a rarity in those days--a well-educated woman who read Latin, poetry, Nostradamus, treatises on Phrenology, Palmistry, and all sorts of other things. She also sewed for her family and kept the household together through the depression. And, oh yes, she was a teacher for several years. The photo below, another small, small image, is my father in his high school graduation regalia. He was a smart one. Can't you tell by that ironic smile? This was taken outside our big house on the farm. The window just behind his head is the one I woke up to in the morning, before we moved my bed to the other side of the room. When my maternal grandparents celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, the photo below was taken at the banquet. It hangs in our hall and was getting pretty dusty. I took it down to dust and decided to photograph it for my blog followers. Ulmont and Carrie Mae Campbell lived on the farm that I've written so much about. They survived the Depression, with six children to feed and numerous animals, including the mules I so detested. The yard was full of chickens and turkeys. And plenty of petunias, lantana, and huge, chomping grasshoppers. The two photos I really wanted to find were nowhere in this group--a head shot of my grandmother in a lace mantilla and me at my third birthday party, in a long organdy dress, sitting on the table beside my birthday cake. When those turn up, I'll let you know. I did find this photo, though, of me and my daughter at her third birthday party. She's wearing the dress I made for the occasion. I've boxes more to comb through, looking for treasures, those images that call the past back again and again, even as I stand in the kitchen at 4:00 in the afternoon, hearing the dogs barking outside for their supper, knowing I need to put these old photos aside and get back to my numerous kitchen duties. I'll let the other boxes wait till tomorrow. A woman's work is never done, true? And remembering is important work.

Friday, March 12, 2010

My First Blog Post: Strawberries


(from June of '08)

Everybody knows the story about the poet--yes, of course, she has to be a poet---trying to climb the rockface, while beneath her is a hungry tiger and above her on the summit a hungry bear, let's say a black bear because I'm here in the Blue Ridge. No bear around here is hungry enough to eat anybody, much less a poet, but this is a story, and the teller gets to tell it the way she wants. She even gets to put a tiger in it, even though there are no longer any tigers on our mountain trails. No lions, either. Our poor poet can go neither up nor down, but as she stares straight ahead at the rock, the lichens, the little roots poking out trying to gain their own footing, she notices a patch of wild strawberries growing from a crevice. One particular strawberry calls to her, the most enticing, succulent strawberry she has ever beheld. She forgets the ravenous beasts above and below her and reaches for the strawberry, places it in her mouth, and tastes its sweetness all the way down to her quivering toes, doing their best to keep her balanced for just a while longer.

Strawberry by strawberry, we move through our days, and if we are poets who hang out in the kitchen a lot, as I do, we look forward to this time of year because of----yes, strawberries. This morning I have been preparing strawberries for freezing and jam-making, and I've placed several in my mouth to savor. Why should I resist? The lions, tigers, and bears never go away.
This strawberry I'm reaching for is all I've got. And right now it's enough.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

LONGING FOR SUNFLOWERS


(ON A RAINY DAY AT THE TAIL END OF WINTER, I LIKE LOOKING BACK OVER MY PHOTOS FROM LAST SUMMER!)

THANK YOU TO MY BLOG READERS, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO HAVE LEFT COMMENTS OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS. BECAUSE MY LAPTOP SEEMS UNFORGIVABLY SLOW LATELY, I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO VISIT ALL OF YOUR BLOGS YET, BUT I WILL SOON.

I WILL BE TAKING A SHORT BREAK FROM NEW POSTS OVER THE NEXT WEEK, SO I WILL BE POSTING SOME OF MY FIRST BLOGGING ATTEMPTS, AS WELL AS SEVERAL FROM MY LAUREATE'S LASSO. I HOPE YOU ENJOY THEM.

MEANWHILE, I'LL BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR GREEN, GREEN, GREEN!


Friday, March 5, 2010

MAGPIE TALES: DANCING WITH GANESH


Here's to Ganesh, the Hindu Elephant god, who's ready to have a good time, thanks to Willow's Magpie Tales' writing prompt.


DANCING WITH THE STARS


Ganesh
The Remover of Obstacles
leaps

from the mouse
on which he has been riding
for centuries

shakes off his god- garb
rattles the universe
and rolls the wind up

like a rug from the dance floor
where he does The Funky Pachyderm
Bollywood style

to a standing ovation
on this evening’s Our Galaxy’s Got Talent
for three perfect scores

from the judges
who say he’s the biggest
star they’ve ever had on the show!






(photo from Wikipedia)

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

THINKING MYSELF HOME



The drive home to SW Georgia gets longer and longer, no matter much Sugarland I sing along with on the cd player or how many goosebumps I cultivate while listening to Roderigo's Concierto de Aranjuez on the fm station. (Or Rusalka's Hymn to the Moon, after which I pledge undying devotion to Antonin Dvorak) Thus, this poem, which seems especially apropos, considering I had to head for the flatlands on Monday before the snowstorm hit.


Thinking Myself Home

I have to look up and over the trees
all the way to the mountains I see in the distance,

then hang a left soon as I get there,
thinking my way down the Blue Ridge

and into the piedmont just south
of Atlanta. From there it's a straight

shoot to home,
if I still want to go, which I do

because this is the best way,
by stealth, no one knows I am coming,

no cake to be baked,
and my mother not worrying most of her day

by the telephone, clearly imagining
fifty car pileups,

the ambulance wailing, the whole bloody
nine miles of interstate closed

for the body count.
No idle comments about my new haircut,

my extra pounds. I could be dust
on the air or a bright stab of light passing through.

I don't have to stay long.
I can leave when I want to, without feeling guilty

when I see my father's eyes squinching
back tears as I drive away.

Hello and goodbye. That's it.
And I'm back

in my bedroom that faces south into the side
of these trees, with the radio on

warning Traveler's Advisory. Wrecking-ball hailstones.
King Kong tornado. Megaton Blizzard.

A forecast so unimaginably bad, only a fool
would drive home in this kind of weather.



Tuesday, March 2, 2010

MAGPIE TALES: An Ounce


Ah well, my post is late for Magpie Tales, but here it is anyway, a poem I began when looking at how weights came to be measured. I'm down in SW Ga. now with my mother, and wonder of wonders, she has broadband, so I will be able to continue my posts. Sorry this is late, but I had some stress-related symptoms last night and ended up in the ER!

An Ounce

being twenty pennyweights, I marvel
at such ancient measurements I never think of
when I weigh my cabbages at the supermarket.
Ounces and pounds, but first pennyweights
and before that, a grain--twenty-four

to be honest. No more and no less.
Pennies dropped in the piggy's slot.
Pennies from heaven. A penny for my thoughts,
which weigh nothing. I can hold in my fist
what amounts to an ounce, grubby pennies
I pour from my coat pockets onto the table.

How many grains
from my garden have I tracked
inside, so much weight in my rugs?

My dirty feet tip the scales!