100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE - A POET FOR CHANGE, NANCY SIMPSON

I was invited to participate today in a world wide poetry project - 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE. The North Carolina Poets are especially out in number today. I was invited by Joseph Bathanti and Kathryn Kirkpatrick to stuff the e mail boxes of NC Legislators with "political poems. " I did not think I had any political poems, but I learned almost any poet could see their poems change into political poems by simply sending them to a politician.

All of the poems I sent are included in my newest poetry collection  LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE New and Selected Poems published at Carolina Wren Press. If you have my book, you might take a look. Here is what I sent:

Kay Hagan - US Senate under the heading of TRANSPORTATION, "Map."

Richard Burr US Senator from NC sent under the heading of DEFENSE, "Recovery."

Governor Bev Pardue under the heading of ROADS IN APPALACHIA, "Living Above the Frost line."

Heath Schuler, Congressman for NC 11th District under the heading of TRASPORTATION,
"Living Above the Frost Line."

Jim Davis, NC Senator, under the heading of TRANSPORTATION, "Living Above the Frost Line."

James Forrester, NC Senator, under the heading of ENVIRONMENT, "What She Saw and What She Heard."

Don East, NC Senator, under the heading of  HEALTH CARE, "My Father Told Me."

I also sent President Obama a poem about "the transfiguration of evil to good" from my poem
"Skin Diver's Memory."  I believe "everything changes" and evil can change to good. A U-Boat can become a "living reef where creatures of the deep make a home," although that may take decades.

The Skin Diver’s Memory

Beneath the Killing sea

that holds a wealth of secrets,

off the shore of Morehead City,

a German 352 U-boat

with its own rich secrets

is an island of plenty.

The German U-boat

is a living reef,

a plentiful island, submersed.

I’ve been there.  I’ve seen it,

a living reef where creatures

of the deep make a home.

I’ve been there. I’ve seen it,

a torpedo, its mouth crusted,

make a home of the deep

on this deserted battlefield.

I look into the crusted mouth

of a torpedo forgotten

on a deserted battlefield

known as a Torpedo Alley.

A torpedo, forgotten,

is the Heaven for Angelfish.

In Torpedo Alley one day

an angel swam out through the mouth,

out of the Heaven for Angelfish.

It brushed my cheek with its fin.

A fish swam out of a torpedo

and I understood then underwater

the chemistry of a U-boat, the slow

transfiguration from evil to good

off the shore of Morehead City

beneath the killing sea.

by Nancy Simpson

form LIVING ABOVE THE FROST LINE

NEW AND SELECTED POEMS