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.
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 Melissa Huff
Melissa Huff feeds her poetry from the mystery of the natural world and the ways in which body, nature and spirit intertwine. She won awards in 2019 and 2020 in the BlackBerry Peach Prizes for Poetry: Spoken and Heard. Publishing credits include Gyroscope Review, Blue Heron Review, Persimmon Tree, The Road Not Taken andSnapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing. Melissa very much appreciates her Chicago-based workshop group - the Plumb Line Poets.
Wakening
“There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in” Leonard Cohen
Her spirit lies fallow—
a barren plot of parched ground,
an abandoned lot hemmed in by walls
that feed her darkness. In the shadows
a flute begins to play. Notes flicker and fade
like fragments of ancient music—familiar,
though she’s never heard it before.
She senses movement,
a shift in the flow of air,
a trail of warmth along her wounds.
The music strengthens, seeps
into inner crevices, teases out
strands of her forgotten song.
Notes shape themselves
into droplets of water, form a trickle,
grow into rivulets that run
through thirsty cracks. They find
those seeds of wholeness hidden within,
soften them until they split,
sending green shoots skyward.
Her spirit leafs out,
breathing in the light.
— Melissa Huff
Published May 2021 by Blue Heron Review.
This poem was written in response to a painting by Tania Blanco, “Healer of the Soul”.
The Rhinoceros of Versailles
From Calcutta a big creature came;
for King Louis XV it was a present.
The rhino in France would have fame;
A rhino treated better than peasants.
After six months aboard a ship,
the Indians had the rhino to bring.
It was quite a rather long trip,
but a rhino for a famous king.
The rhino was on display in France;
but a villain with a sword caused dismay.
The rhino was cut up with the lance,
and his carcass was not fit for display.
The skin and the skeleton were preserved,
of the most famous rhino ever observed.
Lesson in Aging
I spread their colors
across the counter—tulips
in hues of lemon, lilac,
plum and persimmon—
then scoop them up,
slake their thirst, let them
chatter to each other.
They tilt their heads, laugh
from their bellies, begin
to open themselves to life.
As they age, they widen
their scope, become more
generous, acquire a graceful
drape. Their edges begin
to darken, turn inward
until, one by one, each
petal loosens its hold,
gives in to gravity,
leaving—strewn
across my counter—
curled flakes of color,
still laughing.
— Melissa Huff
First published in Fall 2021 in Gyroscope Review
Bio of Rasma Haidri
Rasma Haidri’s poems and essays appear in Action Spectacle, Under the Radar, Prairie Schooner, Sycamore Review, and Fourth Genre, among other journals and anthologies in the US, UK, Norway, India, Hong Kong, and UAE. She is the author of a poetry collection, As If Anything Can Happen, and three textbooks. Recognitions for her writing include the Southern Women Writers creative non-fiction award, the Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Letters & Science poetry award, Western Michigan University’s Third Coast Conference prize for fiction, NewVerseNews’ Best of the Net nomination, Riddled with Arrow’s Ars Poetica prize, and EasyStreet magazine’s Great American Sentence award. Rasma reads for the Baltic Residency and PRISM and holds an M.Sc. in reading education from the University of Wisconsin and an MFA in poetry and memoir from the University of British Columbia. A first-generation South Asian and second-generation Norwegian-American, Rasma grew up in Detroit, Miami, Manhattan, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and later lived in Wisconsin, France, Hawaii, and Norway, where she now makes her home on a seacoast island. Visit her at www.rasma.org.
Practice
Over there the window
shows morning—gray sky
proves the earth has been turning.
Here nothing moves. A cat.
A child asleep. A pot of tea.
The closed cover of my writing journal.
I do the tai chi form Preparation… Beginning…
all the way to Single Whip.
It’s all I know.
Assume the Spirit of the Crane, the instructor said,
but the shadow I cast was broken. When is a crane - ?
When is unbalance flying?
I asked a man what he does for a living and
he said, I used to be a poet. Why used?
Because I am no longer writing.
I am a poet not writing. Days of not
writing turn into weeks, months,
until the taste of poet
is a wet pill on my tongue, writer
a remarkable piece of clothing I wouldn’t
even know where to buy.
My child hits her head and sick
soaks my non-writing hands that hold her to my body.
Her breath is small cranes flying.
When is a poet - ?
I slice onions, comb the cat, teach a child
to erase words without ripping.
My hands cup water to my baby’s head.
In the window - gray sky. Tomorrow
I will start again from nothing.
by Rasma Haidri
winner of Riddled With Arrows Ars Poetica Award 2018
Filming Fargo
In my hometown they sell legal pot,
It doesn’t make a difference or not.
I’m not supplying the money for a purchase,
I spend a lot of my free time in churches.
The other day I was in a grocery store,
buying bread was the reason for,
An on-duty cop walked in and glared,
didn’t really make me too scared.
Did he think I was going to steal a loaf?
I planned to pay, I ignored the oaf.
Nowadays, who can a copper bust?
Politicians are the ones we can’t trust.
As I walked today, I saw police cars,
I wondered who would be put behind bars.
My paranoia got the best of me,
“They’ll put me in jail, will I be free?”
The police car sirens started blinking,
and my imagination had me thinking.
I went around the corner; a man had me pause,
and I wondered if I had broken any laws.
“Pardon me, sir, would you stop for a bit?
We’re filming a movie, it will be a hit!”
I followed his directions, and took a stop,
then realized the reason for the cops.
I looked in the alley, they were filming Fargo,
so that was the reason they couldn’t let a car go.
I caught a glimpse of a movie being made,
so there was no reason to be afraid!
Why does authority always make me cower?
Do I fear those people who have the most power?
Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,
so for one day, I’ve escaped my own prison.
A Poet’s Poems
Some Transience Is Eternal
Each poem I create is transient bloom,
Impatience planted for the summer show,
to live and die. These dollops with their doom
Appear and disappear as off they go
Like lives and stars and other life-long tents—
This Universe of God’s evolving time—
The mystery eternity presents
Because a poem is often merely rhyme
And breath and ink and thought—no more than that,
Unless in stone its etched, but even then,
That too will fade and melt and where it’s at
In years ahead is far from human ken.
Yet one—Perhaps—may prove a fertile seed
For fruitful tree when humans find its need.
Bio of Kate Hutchinson
Kate Hutchinson recently retired from a 34-year career of teaching English to high school students and is now experiencing the next phase as family caregiver, library volunteer, and book editor. Her poems have been published widely in literary journals, and she's received two Pushcart nominations. Her latest book is “Map-Making: Poems of Land and Identity.”
The Twining Beneath Our Feet
Upon viewing Vincent VanGogh’s Tree Roots, 1890
What roots and rivulets, what channels churn, as we
walk through forests and fields? On his final day
upon the earth, VanGogh left an unfinished work
of knotted blues and greens – tree roots exposed
in a marl quarry, embedded in fleshy clay and lime.
Was he already imagining the entwining of bone
and sinew among those knotted, gnarling joints?
Perhaps he took comfort from soft mosses
wrapped around fingers of wood, furred cloaks
cushioning weary limbs like a king retiring in his
royal bed, protected from the castle’s winter cold.
How such a thought might bring us comfort, too –
that deep beneath the soil, our empty cages,
doors flung wide to free our winged souls,
may find rest in the ancient silt between
bedrock and air, among the cradling roots
of the very trees that shaded us in life.
Valentine’s Eve
I see you in the crowd
turned out in this arctic town
to mark the U.S. assault
on Iraq, shouts like gunshot—PEACE! NOW!
Bush lynched in effigy, his—my—flag
on fire—my country—
no longer mine, I have none, no one
not even you
speak my language, my mother tongue mute
after the city I loved fell,
twice-buried beneath towers of dust.
You slip from khaki pockets a pencil stub,
small red notebook. Who are you
to be writing when I didn't even think
to bring a journal?
The throng roils, I am a snagged branch
in a surging flood, then
my husband, carrying one daughter,
whispers, I looked for you,
then saw your tiger-striped hair.
On the brink of invasion,
I have no idea
how the world will change.
C.E.S. Wood (1852-1944)
C.E.S Wood from Portland was well-known,
his paintings are famous and many do own.
Also a writer, a soldier and an attorney,
his life was nothing but a wild journey.
He helped found the Portland art museum,
and a local county library, a free gem.
Friends with Ansel Adams, Langston Hughes,
Mark Twain and John Steinbeck, to name a few.
He went to fight Indians in 1874,
then Chief Joseph said, “I will fight no more.”
The two became friends instead of foes,
inspiring Wood to write Indian prose.
He published Mark Twain’s “1601”,
Only fifty copies were in the run.
Sought by many book collectors,
Wood was one of the main protectors.
The Poet in the Desert was his most famous poem,
talked about Oregon, his original home.
His estranged wife he must’ve forgot,
he went to San Francisco with Sarah Erhrgott.
A champion for freedom, a jack of all trades,
Oregon remembers him as his legend doesn’t fade.
Day at the Library
The man looks at books
and examines the pages;
some of the books,
haven’t been read in ages.
Which one to pick?
Which book should he choose?
His glasses are thick;
as each book he’ll peruse.
It’s September at the library;
summer is winding down.
Each book you read,
has a verb or a noun.
But the sentences you read;
could take you beyond.
television not worthy;
to make you feel fond.
A book in your hands,
might not make you rich.
But it will take you to lands,
where your mind pulls the switch.
I sit here content,
the man is far down,
the aisle with intent,
to narrow his search down.
But through books he still looks
for the perfect titles.
When you are not reading,
your brain turns idle.
So go to the library,
and check out a book.
You’ll be happy,
whichever one you took.
Mark Hudson
Family Farm
Like her own face, she thinks, all
that barn needs is a good paint job.
Weather-worn. She knows how
that feels. We've both done our share
in ninety years, she tells it out loud.
How many winters did she trudge
out to milk those dumb beasts
to quiet their lowing, hear the hiss
of steam rising in ice-coated buckets,
see gratitude in their wet eyes?
The paint she called ocean blue –
now faded to weary sky – how proud
she'd been to tell her friends, Turn right
off of 34 where you see the barn roof
shimmering like a lake in the cornfield.
It's been twenty years since Elmer
drove his tractor back 'round the curve
toward the shed, forty since any horses
clopped there, near eighty since she
and her sisters rode the buggy to church
singing She's only a bird in a gilded cage.
She looks out one last time to the barn,
drinks it in deep before her daughter
wheels her away to suffocate in some
small room twenty-five miles away.