E.J. Wade is a four-time National Endowment of the Humanities Teacher Institute winner. An award-winning poet with three Pushcart Award nominations, her poems have been published in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Women Speak, New Ohio Review, Salvation South, and Callaloo Journal. As Editor for the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, her poetry and photography has garnered multiple awards. Wade holds a Doctor of Education in Disability and Equity in Education from National Louis University focusing on the silencing, exclusion, and invisibility of African American Women with disabilities.
Bio of Kathryn P. Haydon
Kathryn P. Haydon has written six books, including her latest poetry collection Unsalted Blue Sunrise: Poems of Lake Michigan. Her poems have been published in publications such as New Croton Review, Written River, The Bedford Record-Review, Clinch, East on Central, Daily Haiku, and Highland Park Poetry as well as in books, academic journals, and in her first poetry collection. The founder of Sparkitivity, Kathryn writes and speaks widely on creative thinking and the secret strengths of outlier learners.
I used to stand
I used to stand
each evening on the back porch
waiting for the pink moment—
alpenglow.
Now the lake spreads
its rose-colored fondant
neatly from shore
to level horizon.
Talkers complain
when it’s gray;
birds perch at attention,
salute sun’s blushing descent.
From Unsalted Blue Sunrise: Poems of Lake Michigan by Kathryn P. Haydon (Prairie Cloud Press, 2023)
A narrow cloud hangs
A narrow cloud hangs
center-lake today
like Charlie Brown’s bad luck.
But the heron perched
below isn’t sad,
being a bird and all.
His neck,
a question mark,
follows me home.
From Unsalted Blue Sunrise: Poems of Lake Michigan by Kathryn P. Haydon (Prairie Cloud Press, 2023)
Trudging
Trudging
through sand
to mourn
fifty-seven alewives
washed up on shore.
Tears fall
on the altar
of silver bodies
in noontime sun.
The cantor says
the Talmud says
a funeral procession
must yield
to a wedding march.
You wade
ten inches east
water pools
around your feet
and little fish nibble
your ankles.
From Unsalted Blue Sunrise: Poems of Lake Michigan by Kathryn P. Haydon (Prairie Cloud Press, 2023)
Bio of Mark Hudson
Mark Hudson is a published poet, and he became a member of Poets and
Patrons in 2006. It all started when Mark entered their poetry contest
in 2006, and won third place for a poem called “Starvbing artist.” he was asked
to read his poem out loud, and he was too shy to read it, so Caroline read it.
This made him feel part of the group, so he's been a member ever since. He has
fond memories of writing adventures with Poets and Patrons in the past, and
every April at poetry day at Harold Washington library, Mark loves to sit at the table
and represent Poets and Patrons, and he enjoys helping other poets selling their
chapbooks, and his as well.
Mark wrote the following poem about libraries at Skokie library before COVID.
It brings to him fond memories of times where there was no lockdown
and public places were open. For now, we'll just have to keep writing poems.
Bio of Paul Buchheit
Paul is an author of books, poems, progressive essays, and scientific journal articles. His book Sonnets of Love and Joy, was published by Kelsay Books in 2023. His book Alice’s Adventures was published in 2022 by Kelsay Books. His historical novel, 1871: Rivers on Fire, was self-published in 2021. His most recent non-fiction book was Disposable Americans, published in 2017 by Routledge.
Minutes to Christmas
Sing along at: https://boomerboys.org/minutestochristmas.mp3
Christmas Time, Christmas time,
through a silent shroud of snow I hear the church bells chime...
Bright and bouncy children, tumbling on their sleds,
home for steamy cocoa, and crunchy gingerbread...
Love the sound of bells,
love the fond noels,
love the spicy smells,
love the fare-thee-wells...
Christmas is the best time of the year.
Christmas eve, Christmas eve,
time for Santa's elves, and jingle bells, and make-believe...
Stockings on the fireplace, cookies for St. Nick,
children hear the sleighbells as seconds slowly tick...
Love the sound of bells,
love the fond noels,
love the spicy smells,
love the fare-thee-wells...
Christmas is the best time of the year.
Christmas day, Christmas day,
just outside I hear the jingle of a one-horse sleigh...
Kids in their pajamas gather 'round the tree,
all the family singing a yuletide melody...
Love the sound of bells,
love the fond noels,
love the spicy smells,
love the fare-thee-wells...
Christmas is the best time of the year.
Christmas is the best time of the year.
Sherlock Holmes
Here I sit, writing a poem,
I’m writing an ode to Sherlock Holmes.
I’m writing about the great detective,
who solved mysteries that were schizo-affective.
From the likes of the museum of Givernelle,
to the story the hound of the Baskervilles,
Sherlock Holmes will have the intuition,
to come up with the perfect solution.
In London, they have a study in Scarlet,
could it just be a missing harlot?
Or is it the mystery of the Red-Headed League,
Sherlock Holmes never shows fatigue.
Sherlock Holmes makes great deductions,
about London’s latest abductions.
Watson can’t fathom the subtle hints,
Sherlock Holmes, a legend ever since.
Bio of Charlotte Digregorio
Charlotte Digregorio, a retired professor and author of Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All, Ripples of Air: Poems of Healing, and five other award-winning books, writes sixteen poetic forms, has won seventy-three poetry awards, and was nominated for four Pushcart Prizes. She was honored by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in 2018 for her decades of achievements in the literary arts. Her poems have been translated into eight languages; she translates poetry books from Italian into English; and her traveling illustrated poetry show has been featured at numerous U.S. libraries, including the Chicago Public Library, corporate buildings, hospitals, convention centers, restaurants, and museums/galleries. Her individual poems are featured on public transit, at botanic gardens, wooded parks, banks, apparel shops, supermarkets, and wine stores.
Digregorio gives non-fiction and poetry workshops at national writer's conferences, libraries, hospitals and bookstores; is a writer-in-residence at universities; teaches haiku in the public schools; judges national writing contests; speaks regularly at chain bookstores; and is a keynote speaker for non-profit and alumni associations. She hosted a radio poetry program on public broadcasting, and was Vice President of the Haiku Society of America and an Associate of The Haiku Foundation. She blogs about general writing for publication and poetry, and posts work by global poets at www.charlottedigregorio.wordpress.com. (You may contact her at c-books@hotmail.com.)
Digregorio spent much of her adult life on college/university faculties, teaching foreign languages and writing. She holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from The University of Chicago and Pomona College, respectively. In 2014, she authored Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All, that is widely recognized as the definitive book for haiku instruction. Her award-winning titles include: You Can Be A Columnist and Beginners’ Guide to Writing and Selling Quality Features, both Writer’s Digest Book Club Featured Selections; and Everything You Need to Know About Nursing Homes: The Family’s Comprehensive Guide to Either Working With The Institution or Finding Care Alternatives. These four titles have been widely adopted as supplemental texts at universities. She also authored Your Original Personal Ad: The Complete Guide to Expressing Your Unique Sentiments to Find Your Dream Person, a popular title in the 1990s. Her haiku and senryu collection, Shadows of Seasons: Selected Haiku and Senryu by Charlotte Digregorio, is now published in The Appendices of Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All.
Simply Winter
I don’t dread five months of winter.
I wake to a cardinal’s whistle,
morning moon sliding behind clouds,
and snow on cherry branches.
I bend my aging back to pick up the stiff newspaper.
While I brew coffee in my enamel percolator,
Nat King Cole croons “Unforgettable”
from the turntable.
Throughout the day, crows and juncos
flit from oak to beech, icicles dazzle
from the eave. Snowdrifts melt, dark green
soaking through creating calligraphy.
I think of spring, transforming the poplar stump
into a fairy garden with gnomes, and
painting the weathered red birdhouse
for the finches’ and sparrows’ return.
Interrupting my daydreams –
rumbles and lightning captivate.
I don’t dread artful winter.
At dusk, there is calm, neighbors’ shadows
on the sidewalk, and dimly-lit houses.
Waves of wind warm me at night, propelling
the allegro movement of the terrace chime.
My aging hound with yellow teeth yawns wide.
I sit in my velvet armchair, lights out,
gazing at a slice of moon.
I don’t dread easy winter.
Autumn Peace
I look out the window to a beam
of sun on the neighbor’s pine
laden with cones.
In my yard, I cup my arthritic hands
to catch a flurry of gold maple leaves.
Clouds brighten gray sky.
A child’s giggles ride the gentle wind,
followed by a blue jay’s call.
I inhale mist sprinkling yellow waves
of grass. My aging spaniel stretches
her skinny legs under the covered porch.
At sunset, oak tree’s silhouette
looms beneath lavender sky.
My tabby kitten on the window seat
of the cramped kitchen
crawls under the crochet blanket.
Watching a cold full moon,
I bead my silent words of gratitude
for another ordinary day.
Bio of R.M. Yager
R.M. Yager is a retired nurse/teacher/photographer whose topics are marginalized, at risk populations,
poetry is her vehicle to deliver words most people find unspeakable, she hopes to offer inclusion,
wants to stop you in your tracks with controversial humor/tragedy within family and relationships, also writes about nature and whimsy. Her work has appeared in numerous journals across America as well as internationally. Give her a topic she will write you a poem about it!
Old Chair
I am getting older, yet not
much older than he was
when he took me into his life
I find myself sitting
in Dad’s rocking chair
more and more
I need to feel the places
where each day he rested
his calloused palms,
and curled his fingers
on the armrests
over and over
I discovered more about him
long after he had died
he’d lived in an orphanage,
yet never talked about it
he made a home for me
replacing what he’d lost
I rock back and forth
sometimes slow,
sometimes fast
this old piece of wood
is one of the few things
I have left of his
I’m so grateful
to just sit here
in this same place
where he held me
so many times when
I was a little girl
Dreams
Yesterday,
I dreamt of beautiful bodies . . .
black bodies
bouncing
brilliantly
beneath
bountiful blooming
begonias
Last Night,
I dreamt of bodies . . .
Besieging
bulging bosoms of
bless un-bottled breast milk
This morning,
I dreamt of bodies . . .
Mine, Yours, and our newborn babe’s
Raising in the Midst
The women in my family are red . . . tan . . .
coco . . . blue . . . beige . . . black . . .
brown . . . latte . . . mocha . . . olive . . .
copper . . . bronze . . . yella. . . high yella . . .
caramel . . . butternut . . . chocolate . . . bittersweet
and white
Full-figured and outrageously bodacious
colored women who
quilt
bake bread
braid hair
and give birth
to honey-lipped off spring
held hostage by prehistoric rhythms
long ago passed.
Rising up in the midst
of these oak-imaged women
I be mirrored in their gaze
Reflected in their image
recreated in their likeness
regenerated in their spirit
renewed and revitalized
While . . .
washing, cleaning, sewing, teaching
marching, crying, mourning, weeping
they hum ancient spirituals
nesting deep
in the belly
of their womanhood.
Bio of Lynda La Rocca
Lynda La Rocca is a New York City-born poet and freelance writer who has also worked as a reporter for the Asbury Park (NJ) Press and a teaching assistant at Colorado Mountain College in Leadville, Colorado.
Her four poetry chapbooks include The Stillness Between (2009, Pudding House Publications), Spiral (2012, Liquid Light Press), and Unbroken (2023, Kelsay Books); her individual poems have appeared in such publications as The New York Quarterly; THINK: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction, and Essays; Stone Gathering: A Reader; and Encore (National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc.).
Lynda was the 2020 winner in the poetry category of the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, a National League of American Pen Women arts-outreach program, and a “Top-Four” winner in the 2021 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest.
She lives in Salida, Colorado, with her writer-photographer husband Steve Voynick.
The Visiting Hour
He is vanishing before my eyes.
Muscle, tissue, sinew, skin
melting away like a thaw
that knows no hope of spring.
Today, his own hands surprise him—
flesh not of his body,
he cannot remember
what illness caused this pain,
nor whose fingers these are
that have curled and cramped
against his own dry palm.
Circling the room,
he paces without purpose,
this captive who has forgotten
the feel of sun,
the look of sky and moon and star,
who has forgotten the names of days,
afraid of his reflection
when they come to shave him,
the mirror gleaming on his bony skull.
“This is the newest model.
I can get it up to 90 in less than a minute, and it runs so smooth,”
he declares, mistaking his own steel-railed bed
for the sports car that he only drove for show one afternoon,
pretending to the ladies it was his.
He cannot remember his favorite color,
why he raged at the untrimmed hedge,
how he took his coffee,
if his wife had ever loved him.
But this dark chocolate ice cream on the tongue,
now this is something.
Sweet and smooth
smooth and sweet,
it stirs a strange awakening.
Two spoonfuls and his throat is closed again.
“Here,” he whispers, pushing the dish to me.
“I’m getting so bad.”
Chin drooping to chest,
he stares at the floor,
seeing ants where none are crawling.
I kiss his one good hand.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s take a walk.”
In the hall, floor tiles shiny, disinfectant,
metal cart clustered
with plastic cups of applesauce and powdered pills.
“Look there,” he suddenly shouts,
pointing with that one good hand to a flowered window curtain.
“The crocuses, they’re early this year.”
And for an instant then, he smiles.
This poem won the 2007 Writers’ Studio Award for poetry. It was originally published in Progenitor 2007, the literary magazine of Arapahoe Community College, Littleton, Colorado, which sponsored the contest. It also appears online on the Colorado Poets Center website.
Inscription in Stone: New England Cemetery
“It is a fearful thing to love what Death can touch.”
And so it is.
I know, for I love you
through all our restless days,
waves crashing blue-black, frothy white,
against our spilling sands,
so rich, so sweet, so deep
and fine it is, it was,
to know your skin,
to taste your tongue, your salty lips.
They say that you are with me still.
In which closed chamber of my closed heart?
Tell me, whisper,
“I am here,”
and I will tear, with my own hands,
that throbbing heart,
and press it to my open breast
to hold you one small moment more.
It is, indeed, a fearful thing, this love,
this dance into the light.
The fingers snap,
the partners change,
the music patters on again,
unheeding, uninvited, unaware.
This poem was the third-place winner in the Robert Penn Warren Award contest co-judged by John Ashbery (1,255 individual poems submitted); it was originally published in The Anthology of New England Writers 2002. The New England Writers was the contest sponsor.
Bio of René Parks
René Parks is an award winning poet and has presented her academic work at esteemed venues such as the Midwest Modern Language Association conference and Sigma Tau Delta International English Honors Society conference. Her scholarship and creative writing focus on themes central to ecofeminism, healing with nature, and folk stories. She received her BA and MA in English from Governors State University in University Park, Illinois and her MFA in poetry from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri.