My new poetry chapbook, called Moving On, published on January 30, 2021, arrived in my mail box this week. Here it is:
It’s kind of cool how this book came about. I wasn’t looking for a publisher. In fact that was the last thing on my mind while my husband was so ill and since his death. Instead the publisher – Cyberwit.net – from India – sought me out. He had read one of my poems in a Story Circle Network journal in the True Words section and offered to publish sixty to seventy of my poems in a chapbook. How could I turn that down? Because of what was happening in my life I took longer that he wanted to get the poems together, edit them, and send them off, but finally I did it.
I love this description of Moving On: “The poems are full of lyrical force and show freshness of style. No doubt, this is a significant work. The poems have great power of observation and originality of imagination.”
Here’s a little sneak peek:
Buddha
“The dead we can imagine to be anything at all.”
Ann Patchett, Bel Canto, HarperCollins Publishers, (2001)
He sits cross-legged in a tree
deep in concentration,
the way he would sit on the floor of his room,
learning against the bed doing homework,
composing music, talking on the phone.
His closed-mouth grin shows
he is pleased to be where he is.
No longer a skinny rail, his cheeks filled out,
his skin clear, his eyes bright.
His tree has everything—soft jazz sounds
flowing from all directions,
deep vees and pillows for sitting and reclining,
the scent of incense and flowers,
branches of books by Miller, Tolstoy,
and Dostoevsky, the music of
Davis, Gould, Bach, and Lennon,
and virtual communication to those he loves.
He needs no furniture, no bedding,
no clothes, no food.
Those necessities are for worldly beings.
The passing clouds give him comfort,
and the stars light his way.
Heaven takes care of him
as he imagines himself
to be anything at all.
***
It’s available here. I hope you like it.
The description at the beginning fits. I don’t usually like poetry, but I am eager to read the others in your chapbook.
Mo
Thanks, Mo. Hope you’ll like them.