SONNET IN STAINED GLASS by Bettie M Sellers

My father's house is slowly falling down
since no one is about to tend the creaks
in sagging floors or smear tar on the leaks
that drip in widening circles dark and brown.
The slanting chimney drops a loosened stone
clattering down the roof of rusted tin;
and windows gape like old men caught in
toothless yawns that breathe a sigh and moan.

But lately I have hung its ancient door
from hand-wrought hinges of a new design.
Remembered shadows I hold rightly mind
are dancing green and amber on my floor
where summer afternoons, the sun will trace
a wicker chair, my father's face.


Previously published, and included in the collection
MORNING OF THE RED-TAILED HAWK,
(1981) Green River Press
University Center, Michigan 48710




Bettie M. Sellers, Poet of the Month
at LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE
(for the Month of March, 2009)


Bettie M. Sellers

EDUCATION:

B.A., LaGrange College, laGrange, Georgia, 1958

M.A., University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, 1958

Further Study: Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College, Vermont;

Schiller College, Paris, France;

North Georgia College, Dahlonega, Georgia;

Summer Sessions through University of California, Berkley (at Oxford University, England University of Kent, Cantebury, and a three week session of Anthropology of the Greek Bronze Age in Grece and Crete, 17 Bronze Age sites)

NEH Summer sessions on Modern Poetry at Yale University, on Greek and Roman Culture at Ohio State Univesity, on Greek Tragedy at Dartmouth College, and on Greek and Roman Comedy at The University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Honorary Doctorate of Literature, LaGrange College 1989


TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

Taught in the English Department at Young harris College, 1965-1996

Served as Chairperson of the Division of Humanities, 1975-1985

Goolsby Professor of English, 1986-1996. Retired June 1996.





Bettie M. Sellers was installed in the position of Georgia Poet Laureate
by Governor Zell Miller in 1997.