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, May 3, 2009

Going a' Maying


Now that National Poetry Month is over, I can relax a little bit from posting new books by NC Poets nearly every single day on My Laureate's Lasso.

Now that my laptop seems to have died, I can't pull up the photos I'd planned to post today--Mayapple, trillium, wild geranium, purple iris with two yellow show-offs in the middle. Sounds like a poem, so here's your assignment for today, which in our mountains will be a rainy one. Write a poem using wildflowers in it, as many wildflowers as you want. Sure, you can sneak in an iris or two, an azalea, and you can even plant a cabbage head, some broccoli, kale, spinach, some good brown wet soil. Just because it's no long National Poetry Month doesn't mean you can't write a poem! Or read one.

Looks like I'll be posting less, being laptop-less, but who knows? I have my husband's big Dell to work on, which I'm doing now. And I have a few poems up my sleeve, too. Here's one by my friend Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin, from her chapbook Patriate.

Cross-Quarter Day
Something stirring, deep. Day
dawns a minute early, spilling
yellow light across the field, sparking
fires in frost-crystals on fallow rows.
Next to a grizzled nanny, two new lives
quiver on cold new legs, blink east:

                  What’s this?

The seed stirs. The woodchuck turns
in her dreams. All these women
to-ing and fro-ing between worlds,
Persephone, Brigid, Demeter,
lifting up candles, calling out
to one another, it’s enough

                  to wake the dead.

Crocus opens slow cobalt eyes.

          Shhhh
says the sap sleeping in the sarvis tree.
Not yet.
Soon.

3 comments:

Vicki Lane said...

I hate it about your laptop - but, oh my! what a delight of a poem you've posted. The women, to-ing and fro-ing between the worlds -- Magical -- like all the cross-quarter days.

Evening Light Writer said...

Hi Kay, I hope you get your computer issues resolved soon. Sometimes though, it can be a nice break. I took your assignment to heart and wrote this:

Lady’s Slipper
By Mindy Evans

At twelve years old
I saw a Lady’s Slipper
Behind my great grandmother’s house.

Pink, puffed the flower bloomed
Like a woman eight months in
To her pregnancy soaking
Swollen feet in the pool.

Already confused about my own
Body, about the new round
Corners growing soft.
I chose not to pick a flower
So rare that I’ve not seen another
In years.

Kathryn Stripling Byer said...

Vicki, Jeannette's poem is magical. She's one of our best poets, and I hope to post more of her work soon. Mindy--I love Lady's Slipper. The name itself is so evocative, and you've used that name well to reveal a great deal in a short space about your life and the legacy of being a woman.