CELEBRATING NATIONAL POETRY MONTH AND CELEBRATING SPRING

On April 20, 2016 Nancy Simpson and other poets celebrated National Poetry Month at Coffee with the Poets, Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville (sponsored by NC Writers Network West.)
Brenda Kay Ledford was also a featured poet. Both poets read springtime poems.This program was started by Glenda Beall during her tenure as Program Coordinator.(Photos taken by Lynn Hamilton Rutherford.)

COFFEE WITH THE POETS AT JOE'S COFFEE SHOP HAYESVILLE,NC

Coffee with the Poets April 8, 2015

Nancy Simpson

Brenda Kay Ledford

April is poetry month and there is no finer way to celebrate than attending Coffee with the Poets, a monthly event held at Joe’s Coffee Shop and Trading Post, 82 Main Street, Hayesville, NC. North Carolina Writers Network-West sponsors this event which meets at10:30 a.m., Wednesday, April 8, 2015.

Recently a visitor to our area said, "This should be on a list of things to do here!"

Two widely published local poets, members of NCWN West, Brenda Kay Ledford and Nancy Simpson, are featured on the program this month. Coffee with the Poets and Writers is open to the public at no charge. Bring a poem or short prose, 1000 words or less, and read at Open Mic. Joe’s Coffee shop serves fine coffees and teas, and snacks can be purchased.

Brenda Kay Ledford is a well-known poet and native of Clay County, NC. She holds a Master of Arts in Education from Western Carolina University. She has done post-graduate work in Appalachian Studies, and the theme of most of her writing is her Appalachian heritage.

Brenda received the Paul Green Multimedia Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians seven times for her books, her collections of oral history, and her blog Historical Hayesville. Her work has appeared in Our State, Carolina Country Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Appalachian Heritage, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Journal of Kentucky Studies, Asheville Poetry Review, Country Extra Magazine, Blue Ridge Parkway Silver Anniversary Edition Celebration, and many other journals.

Finishing Line Press published Brenda’s poetry books: Shewbird Mountain, Sacred Fire, and Beckoning. She co-authored Simplicity with Blanche L. Ledford.  She is also an outstanding photographer as you can see on her blog, Blue Ridge Poet.

Nancy Simpson lives in Hayesville, NC. Through 2010 she served as Resident Writer at the John C. Campbell Folk School. She taught many of the poets and writers in this area in her classes there and at Tri-County Community College. She also taught poetry for ICL at Young Harris College.

Nancy is the author of three poetry collections: Across Water, Night Student, and most recently Living Above the Frost Line, New and Selected Poems (Carolina Wren Press, 2010). She also edited Echoes Across the Blue Ridge (anthology 2010). She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a BS in education from Western Carolina University. She received a NC Arts Fellowship and co-founded NC Writers Network-West.

Simpson’s poems have been published in The Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, Seneca Review, New Virginia Review, Prairie Schooner and others. Her poems have been included in anthologies, Word and Wisdom, 100 Years of N.C. Poetry and Literary Trails of N.C. (2008). Her poems have also been featured in Southern Appalachian Poetry, a textbook anthology published at McFarland Press.

Visit her blog, Living Above the Frost Line to learn more about her.  

Contact NCWN West Representative, Glenda Beall, at 828-389-4441 or glendabeall@msn.com  for information.

Hello Fellow Writers, Every year in April, I try hard to find a way to celebrate National Poetry Month. For sure, there are some big celebrations going on here and there across the state, even around the nation, and you are lucky indeed if you are included. It is far more low key here in the mountains, but once again I have found a way to personally celebrate. When Kathryn Stripling Byer had to withdraw because of family issues as the judge of the Clay County Poetry Contest, I tried to find another judge to take her place. Finally I gave up and saw it as my opportunity to celebrate poetry. This is an annual event sponsored by the Clay County Historical and Arts Council which I co founded with fellow art teacher Reba Beck 23 years ago. I remember we were both on the Arts Council Board of Directors at the time and they wanted us to do art and poetry contests in the Hayesville schools. We talked about it and decided if the council would make it an annual event, we would coordinate the contests. 

I am covered up with poems from the middle school, high school and adult categories, and I have never felt more involved in National Poetry Month than I do at this moment. Still, I am finding it tough to choose the winners from among so many fine poems written right here in Hayesville, NC.

ANNUAL EVENING OF ART AND POETRY

On the evening of April 22th, Tuesday at 5:00 p.m., you are invited to come celebrate with me at the Hayesville High School Lecture Hall. First there will be an art exhibit and a reception for the winners. I will be reading my poems and  poets will read their winning poems. The program never lasts more than one hour. The auditorium will be packed with parents, grand parents and kinfolks by the dozen. It is free and open to the public. If you have not found a way to celebrate National Poetry Month in Hayesville, please come and join us. 

National Poetry Month - Celebrating Poet Joan Ellen Gage.

It's National Poetry Month. My goal this year is to celebrate southern and Appalachian poets. I called for poems that celebrate life itself, poems that especially honor human life and the human spirit.  

Today, Here Above the Frost Line, we celebrate poet Joan Ellen Gage. She lives part of her year in Florida and the rest in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She has two collections:  Water Running Downhill and Embracing Your Inner Cheerleader.

BY DESIGN

by Joan Ellen Gage

What is a breast?

It is, by design, in its simplest form

A source of nourishment

A literal “fountain of youth”

A breast is an ornament

Of the flesh, ascetically varied,

Rounded, pillowed, or arched

An achingly beautiful sculpture of nature

A breast is a haven

For comforting small humans

Or sheltering family and friends

With arms and bodies enfolded tightly, as in prayer

A breast can also give or receive

Pleasure, with our partners

As active participants

In the mating dance of life

A breast is the epitome of the heart

Of womankind, as with our breasts

We nurture, comfort, and love.

That is why we hold them so dear

Through breast cancer, women may

Lose these deeply personal pieces

Of their flesh, that share so much

And give succor to life

But, we must remember that

Women are the origin of strength

In this world, and with or

Without breasts, we are the same!

We will still nurture

We will still comfort

And we will still love

We will do this, by design

from Water Running Downhill

For Tina and all of her sisters

The Invader Within

by Joan Ellen Gage

Was the cause environmental,

Or was it family genetics?

How did this happen?

Perhaps, it was just karma

Bringing me this dark, unwanted gift

This cancer

The alien DNA

Hidden in the structure

Of the genome

Its time bomb releasing

Microscopic invaders burrowing

Into tissue, my tissue

Facing myself in the mirror,

Today, chopping long dark hair

Shorter, and shorter still

Wondering who is this stranger

Who stares back

Stone-faced and resolute?

I begin this deeply personal

Uphill battle, or is it downhill?

Warrior stance—I am ready

“Let’s do this!” to my husband

We travel silently to chemo

Unspoken words blowing through

Our minds like autumn leaves

He holds my hand as we begin

IV dripping, we watch morning TV

Oblivious to the screen, thoughts

Still flowing, overflowing, synchronized

With the IV releasing the drug/poison

I will it to find the interloper

“Seek out the alien intruder, now!”

Many weeks have passed, now

Time has slowed to a turtle’s pace

I have sat in that recliner

Many hours, with needle piercing my flesh,

Chemo flowing, a soft cap covering the baby fuzz

Where my hair used to be

I turn my mind inward, pray and give thanks

Liquid ninja’s course through my veins

“Finish it”, I pray, “amen”.

from Embracing your Inner Cheerleader

For Sheryl and all her sisters

More about the author - click on her site.

http://www.joanellengage.com/

Comments and words of encouragement that celebrate poetry

during this special time of year will be appreciated. Below.

National Poetry Month April 2013

"...My heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the golden daffodils." -William Wordsworth

The Daffodils by William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud    That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,    A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine    And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line    Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they    Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A Poet could not but be gay,    In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie    In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye    Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

a note from Nancy Simpson -- I was assigned to learn this poem from memory for recitation in elementary school. I did commit it to memory, but I did not have full understanding of "daffodil" because I lived in Miami, Florida where there were no daffodils, only hibiscus and bougainvillea. When I moved to the mountains of western N.C. in the sixties, I saw the hill of golden daffodils and you could not shut me up from saying Wordsworth's poem over and over again. Photos here are mine. I grew the flowers and I took the pictures.

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH Coming Soon

Our fellow NCWN West member Jayne Joudon Ferrer hosts YOUR DAILY POEM. I subscribe and get a daily poem. Now that National Poetry  Month is ready to begin, Jayne is offering a chance for all  to get a poem a day during the month of April 2013. Want to? Click below.

If you know anyone who might enjoy celebrating National Poetry Month with a poem a day, invite them to visit www.YourDailyPoem.com, enter their email address in the "Subscribe" box, and click the "April Poetry Parade" option.   Thank you! Jayn