During the fifty years when I wrote professionally, poetry bubbled up every now and then, mostly during times of crisis. The work always felt necessary, therapeutic and deeply private. It didn’t occur to me to publish.
When we moved to Santa Barbara, it was my good fortune to meet Perie Longo. During the pandemic, she invited me to join a virtual group in which a small number of women shared their work. Something about being online, in the company of more experienced, highly supportive poets, made it possible for me to ponder, discuss and eventually submit my poems for publication.
Here are some poems that have been published recently:
Bone China was published in Quartet, an an online poetry journal, designed by women over fifty to highlight the creativity of women fifty and over. At the end of the year, I learned that the poem had been chosen as an Editor’s Choice, and my reward was this lovely bowl from Grenadier Pottery!
On Breaking a Knick Knack I Never Liked, Brushfire
Spared and Inconsequential, Anacapa Review
Flowers of Love, Raven’s Perch
Airplane Terminal, Raven’s Perch
Juliette’s Mother, Raven’s Perch
Back to School, Raven’s Perch
We Were Supposed to Grow Old Together, Medicine and Meaning
Tet a Tet, California State Poetry Society