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 Gail Denham

Two prize wins in Missouri State poetry contest, and several H.M.; published in Poetic Voices (Pennsylvania); various poems in anthologies and newsletters. A bit slow right now. Working toward poems for Florida anthology and Arizona State Poetry contest. Also the Springfield Writers Guild short story contest.

As my poem indicates, I'm a fan of my husband, Dan, who can fix most everything, and if he stumbles, he reads the instructions. Huge contrast between us – he an Electrical Engineer, me, a right-brained writer. For 40 plus years, I wrote. Many short stories, news articles, poems and photographs were published nationally and internationally. In between, we raised four sons and helped with many grandchildren. As empty nesters, we now stay in touch with family – I write and he still keeps the wood box full, among many other projects. And I'm thankful to God for Dan.

Long ago, it was quiet here in Central Oregon. Pioneers had set up homes, ran ranches, raised crops. But then Californians and folks from the western valleys discovered this land of lakes and mountains. I write of the old, old days when times were slow, growing up in Redmond, we never locked doors. Long time gone. My works have been published nationally and internationally for over 45 years.

We have four sons, lots of grandkids, and love this land also.

They Left Their Bushes

Healthy lilac bushes sit by a wooden
stoop into what was a home. The house
no longer stands, but once it creaked
through hill storms and bent under
winter snow, sheltering a family.

We step between purple blossoms into
the home that was. Almost we smell
a steaming pot of beans, fresh cornbread.
The wind, like the shouts of free range
children, scuttles through.

As we move through the small dwelling
area, family presence surrounds us. We
envision a plank table with red checkered
cloth, imagine mealtime chatter and muted
worry talk of water shortage and failing crops.

Nearby, a tiny orchard remains, planted in hope.
Stunted apple knobs and what might be pear,
fruit that hangs on, even though the family
had to desert this hilly homestead.

We rescue a rusty 1935 license, tuck it beside
flavors of family we imagined, leave lavender
blooms, wormy apples, and an echo of children
laughing.

I cannot forget this place. It spins in and out
of fond memories. I see it now, tucked in the
hills behind Lone Pine. And I always wonder.

(Printed in my 2009 chapbook, “On The Way
to Everywhere” out of print)

Can’t Slow Down

Air vibrates around Mary Beth.
Everyone says so. Even when she’s gone
from the room for perhaps half an hour,
somehow a breeze lists hairs on the arms.

Some say she oughta’ slow down a little
lest the fish swish out of their bowl, while
she whirls the ceiling fan out of orbit.

Ghost Towns

Towns, carved out of sage and barren land,
grew overnight; then the silver or gold mines
petered out, or fire tore through rough hewn
log buildings. Life in that place folded and left.

Loading their carts, hopefuls wandered to another
patch of sticker bushes. The men dug holes in hillsides,
built small mines, threw up see-through shacks, where
tin can lids were nailed over gaps so snow couldn’t
invade. Water was hauled sometimes a mile or two.

Wives cooked over campfires or in small fireplaces,
beat grimy clothes almost clean in buckets
of precious water, or in streams if they were lucky.

Children played tag between tall bushes, put
together rough forts on dusty lots, and chased
jackrabbits. School happened at home with Mom,
by firelight, after chores.

These days huge RVs and SUVs drive quickly
past these hardscrabble sites; children glance
once at ruins of what was, only grow excited
when they spy ice cream stores or shops
that sell plastic toys made in China.

Excursion

Roses needn’t be red, white or yellow.
I see purple in them, as in lilacs and orchids.

I take a few moments to sit in my room,
empty my mind of tiring tasks,
and taste the rose-scented rippling air
of my summers and winters.

In my twilight years, I discover the shades
of my decades, noticing deep colors.
Purple is in my moods, sorrowful or peaceful,

watching sunset’s amethyst clouds
darken the roses or the butterfly’s violet
wings skimming over regal petals.

I feel roses’ moist buds, see the sound
of falling blossoms in sun and rain
during this short stay.

Capturing the Moment (In Memory of Vivian Maier)

Tall, plain with cropped hair,
in and out of eyeshot, she cradles
a box camera, savoring
Chicago’s street theatre.

On a gritty sidewalk, sitting alone,
worn laborer with dusty hands
eats a sandwich from its torn wrapper.

A carefree boy rolls a car tire
without a wobble.

Plump woman, hair in curlers, walks
with poise among passing strangers.

Smug and nifty, another woman,
azure eyes, color of her necklace,
flaunts her orange hat, matching coat.

A man buries his face in his knees
with his arm over his cap,
cocooned from hunger
and perhaps, shame.

Ready for a fun outing,
six kids laugh, crammed into
a station wagon with Grandma.

On the bus, old husband and wife
in their orbit, doze to the wheels’ hum,
her head on his shoulder,
face hidden under his wide brim hat.

With a cast of the 1950s and 60s,
the artist tells strangers’ stories,
dawn until dusk, through her keen lens,
when not sustaining herself as a hurried nanny.

She captures ordinary ironies
idling by, lost to others in their daily blur.

When Men Came West

Time ago, grass reached a man’s boot when
he rode his horse toward the west and a dream.
Jack rabbits and coyotes ran this place, burrowed
in lava caves when cougars and bobcats hunted.

Mountains watched over everything, but they
stayed out of what happened. Sheep men came.
Grasses disappeared where their flocks ate
and ate; cattle ranchers built keep-out fences.

Families suffered over deserts, mountains, defied
dangerous rivers where some drowned. Some floated
their wagons down the Columbia on shaky rafts,
built bridges for those who came after. Then many
staggered into Oregon.

Cattle and wheat grew; wells plunged deep into
hard ground, sometimes hit only more dust;
some hunted gold and silver, lost everything;
while many folk, back east, were urged to come.

Whole families marched toward those mountains,
gathered in small towns with dirt streets, plank
roads; cleared land, cut logs for one-room cabins;

called this place bountiful.

Coyotes still talk about the old days, time ago,
when they were alone in a wide-open land; when
tall trees waved wild and sang in constant winds.


Bio of Myron Stokes

Myron Stokes is a 9-year Air Force veteran, and a clinical psychotherapist who counsels combat veterans. He has been writing poetry and short stories for 15 years. His poem, “For My Ancestors,” won first prize in the 2012 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse. A member of the Illinois State Poetry Society and Oak Park Writers Group, he has work published in Margie, International Journal of American Poetry 2005, and the Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize 2007.

History Lesson

When grandpa LeAndrew was kicked by the foreman
then called an uppity, no-account, stupid nigger,
he uppercutted the foreman’s chin,  
booted him in the ribs five times
and watched the man writhe and groan
in Mississippi’s red-clay dirt.
My father said, “Poppa didn’t shit off nobody.
Lord help you if you pissed him off.”

That night my father heard cornered prayers,
fierce whisperings between his mother, Elvinia
uncles, Napoleon, Theophilus,
aunts, Cassietta, Johnnie Mae, and Izora.
Grandma Elvinia, passed seven months with Aunt Kalliope,
paced the planked kitchen floor,
sobbed over and over,
“Lord Jesus, they’re gonna kill’im tonight.”

A mob of car lights blasted the windows,
ravenous as snow wolves.
A riot of drunk curses and vile threats
maimed the magnolias and peonies.
An empty gallon jug of bootleg
shattered the window above the sofa.
Bricks and Coca Cola bottles followed,
destroying Grandma Elvinia’s angel figurines.
My father hid under the bed
with Aunt Senovia and Uncle Jefferson.

“Bring your black ass out, LeAndrew,”
the hooded foreman yelled over and over.
“We got something for your nigger ass!”
Slurred double dares took root in night soil,
splattered the clapboard porch,
slammed against the rocking chairs
Grandma Elvinia and my great aunts
sat on when they gossiped, shelled peas,
stitched quilt fragments. 

Minutes before the invasion,
two hulking silhouettes
slipped out of the house,
snaked silently through the oaks and pines
under the blonde moonlight.
An owl’s soliloquy urged them to hurry.

Grandpa LeAndrew’s and Great Uncle Napoleon’s
calloused fingers caressed their shotguns
on their laps in the pickup,
Grandpa LeAndrew unblinking in his stillness,
wearing Grandma Elvinia’s lemon-yellow
Sunday dress and veiled hat.

 
GrandmaElvinia-GrandpaLeAndrew.jpg

The Pillar

About Fernando Botero’s sculpture, “Standing Woman.”

Woman about town, fashionably plump, she didn’t
work out at a gym nor play games at a power breakfast.
She was your matronly grandmother, a domestic specialist.
In her prime, God-fearing–faith, husband, children first.

Rotund, no-nonsense face, cropped hair, and
stocky legs firmly grounded in home life.
She didn’t have street smarts, but her kids couldn’t
fool her. She knew how to manage her life.
If she had baggage, no one realized it.

She always left the house with feathered hat
tipped to one side, gloves, and sensible shoes,
boundless hips rocking, generous arms swinging.

Wholesomely buxom, she bulged with pride
for family and community. Night out at
the VFW Post, she wore a ruffled dress,
accentuating her huggable build, and had a clutch purse.

She raised money for schools and orphans,
had four kids in six years, balanced a chubby baby
while vacuuming, cooked complete meals,
did piles of laundry, and ironed even the tiniest corners.

She didn’t dream of finding herself.
Sitting beside her hearth with
the knitting circle was her me-time.

When she died, her reputation was bronzed
in neighbors’ minds for living a solid life.
That recognition would have satisfied her.

Idea Germ

An idea germ fell off my pen. I shook
the writing instrument hard; a few more
thought microbes dropped, landed on blankness.

Somehow I liked the way this poem took off
on its own – built a form I’d never seen. Could
this be magic or a mysterious disease?

Strange, after that, for a time, no matter
how much I exposed myself to more contagion,
read new poets, searched newspapers
for unusual words, fed on unwashed dictionaries,
few thoughts infected my page.

Art can be like that – illusive, flighty,
independent with a mind of its own. A bit showy
at times, wanting recognition, but refusing
to be put in a box and labeled.

Sometimes, loping along, I almost see something,
then it wisps into a fog that won’t stay put on paper.
It leaves an artful trail across a window. Quick
I grab my pen, but it steams away.

Never mind. I can wait. I’ll keep placing words,
one after the other, on my page until an image takes shape.
Then I’ll know art and I are on speaking terms again.

Buster Browns

Hated, hated, hated my Buster Brown shoes.
Thick heeled, horseshoe-toed and the color of a Hershey Bar.
Buster Browns on my first day of kindergarten,
for church, birthday parties, field trips, funerals, school pictures,
anytime I wore my brown, clip-on tie and brown corduroys.

I wore my Buster Browns stuffed with pages
of the Milwaukee Journal for a year.
“You’ll grow into them,” my parsimonious mother said.
“Stop complaining. Good shoes are expensive these days.”
A soupy coating of brown Kiwi Shoe Polish
every Saturday night kept my Buster Browns
looking like they did when in the Boy’s Shoe Department at Gimbels.
And did I mention that my father put taps on the heels?

After forty years, the house that put its loving, wooden arms
around a family of six, succumbed to ruin and decay.
Down the fifteen rachitic stairs to the wrecked basement,
dusty cobwebs hung in eerie strands, somber furniture relics,
naked, dismembered dolls with matted hair,
my rusted Radio Flyer, abandoned bikes
and outdated, mildewed clothes in boxes scattered here and there.

On the chipped, buckled tiles
behind the water-damaged encyclopedias,
between the forgotten wringer washer
that nearly crushed my right arm when I was six
and the hulking boiler that banged and hissed
during wintry, Milwaukee nights,
mangled, withered, laceless but still whole,
my size-eight Buster Brown shoes.

Husband

A mighty ship on course. A tortoise, he moves steady,
dives into projects few would tackle. Blessed with skills
to embarrass pony-tailed handymen: changing tires,
rewiring electrical misbehaviors, building sheds.

He exudes how-to, bookkeeper – holding budget wolves
at bay. Computer problems, banes to my existence,
sizzle his brain, a burbling coffeepot of ideas
and “try this” possibilities.

Steam pours out his ears. He attacks kinks, “won’t work”
apparatus – Ahab on the sea chasing monstrous white
whales of modern life. TV hook-ups, sink stoppage, toilet
parts disintegrating in mid-flush – putty in his grasp;

molding them, pliable dough in hands that seek solutions.
Life flows again, for a time, without spasmodic eruption.

And yet, when restless grandchild climbs on long-legged
Levi lap, together they pursue words connected with book
pictures, a find and capture chase.

Grandchild calms to lean against raggy-armed denim shirt,
a worn-out declaration of tractor repair, car valve replacements,
splitting seasoned wood; wood – that guardian against
temperatures dropping relentless cavalcades of cold
on our home, the freeze – wood fire repelled each morning.

Calm wonder, balm of Gilead to my soul. Silver-lined help.
Dozing, open mouthed in recliner each evening, brave protector
against mean winds that ever beat at windows, challenging
“aging” threats, forays of world pressure; bullet trains
of fear not stopping at our station this day.

Solitary Thoughts

A slow afternoon,
I walk past river pines
and bowing poplars,
crinkling leaves
on hard earth.

Sun touches cumulus clouds
glinting amber.
In and out of shadows,
I trail a schoolboy with
knapsack full of autumn.

My worn loafers veer off
the even path.
Buried in wildflowers,
I meditate in whirring wind,
invisible.

Muffled cries of crows
traveling eastward
become silent.
I settle in distant woods
laden with winter.

This poem was originally published in East on Central, 2018-2019.


My Routine

I wake to loose threads
dangling in my head.
From the bay window,

barely visible limbs of
a solitary poplar fan the air.
A train rumbles through the blur.

In my prairie town,
coffee percolates
black and white moments.

I walk out into the chill
stumbling through twigs
and crusty leaves.

Through the maze of day,
I touch shoulders with tall shadows,
hear invisible robins.

With the maple leaves,
street lights change from
green to yellow to red.

Home at night,
I destroy pesky cobwebs
with my feather duster,

settle into my armchair.
Beating time in waning lamplight
to folk songs playing

in my childhood,
I drift into another dawn.

Published in After Hours Journal, Winter 2017