JANUARY IS POETRY MONTH FOR ME

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January has turned into poetry month! First, four of us in Nelson/Castlegar have a new, poetry-writing group! We met for the first time on Saturday, and it was so good to come home with some very valuable feedback on a couple of new poems.

Today (Jan. 21), I'm the poem in your email box if you subscribe to Your Daily Poem, a website out of South Carolina that's tended by Joyce who sends subscribers a poem a day. Near as I can tell, she does this for love of poetry. On her home page, right before the poem, she says, "This site exists for one purpose only: to help dispel the ugly myth that poetry is boring." She features a lot of ODPs, of course, 'cause they're in the public domain, and they're fun to read alongside poets who writing now. (If you are reading this after today—and if I don't get this posted soon, you will be—the link will take you to the current daily poem and you can then find mine in Archives by date or name. If it be your will.) And I have to say, one of the most amazing things about this has been the feedback. A huge thank you to all who left comments. I appreciated them very much.

 At the beginning of the month I drove down to the coast, eventually to a retreat centre near Cowichan Lake on Vancouver Island. There, I spent four days immersed in the alchemy that comes with being surrounded by poets who talk poetry pretty much all the time! It was heaven.

Here's a glimpse of us:

 

For one evening's entertainment we got into groups and presented poems by poets like Dorianne Laux and Alden Nowlan 

and Norman Dubie, who was fêted with affection, big time!

Richard Osler did the heavy lifting when it came to arrangements

Patrick—purveyor of poetry

                                 

                                                      

The occasional glass of wine was consumed

In addition to writing poetry we indulged in some pretty weird neck games.

All too soon, it was time to head for home.

The Similkameen River, about 15 km. west of Keremeos, B.C.

The Hope-Princeton part of Highway 3A in southeast BC. Always a pleasure. These bright, fancy arrows are new since the last time I drove this (which was last month). 

Home             Sweet

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HE GRINS LIKE A SMALL BOY

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Okay, okay, okay, lots to write about, but I keep having to do things like sleep. I was down at the coast for a week, visiting friends and relations and going to a poetry writing retreat. Want to put up some pictures from that, but I'm not done editing them yet and in the interest of trying to post something on a reasonably regular basis, here's a winter poem for Ted, who blows the snow and cuts the wood and warms my body and heart!

HE GRINS LIKE A SMALL BOY

All fall he waits

for the snow to come

he’s done with rain

and the leaves have gone

when white drifts start

to form at last

he heads to the shed

to the old John Deere

and starts him up

with a putt putt putt 

and blows

and blows

and blows

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