Tag Archives: poets

Poets’ Forum welcomes two to meeting

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We had a very interesting and entertaining meeting on Saturday, Nov. 21, at the Beverly Public Library, particularly because two new people joined us. They are Mary Miceli of Wenham and Gladys Rydstrom of Hamilton. They shared their poems with us, and in general added greatly to our gathering.

Our theme was Thanksgiving, and we brought poems by others and by ourselves dealing with the subject.

Amy Dengler read a terrific poem of hers that had been published some time ago by Ideal magazine, I think it was. It might be out of print, which would be  shame, since it was wonderful, with talk of little “buttons” of candlewax on the damask tablecloth, the kitchen window becoming a mirror as darkness falls and they wash dishes, and other such great images. Amy is a terrific poet, which you can tell by just checking out some of her other poems under the Introducing Amy Dengler tab to the right.

Jeanette Maes also brought a wonderful poem to share, and even Ellie Latawiec, who is always so self-deprecating, shared a poem.

We were a bit frazzled, or at least I was, meeting in the Fogg Room rather than as usual in the Program room. It took me a while to figure out how to get coffee into our little room. But we had the added benefit of the library’s books sale to take advantage of when we adjourned.

Don’t forget the holiday party, which we host with the Massachusetts State Poetry Society, on Saturday, Dec. 5, at the Beverly Public Library, at 11 a.m. Bring some goodies to share and join in the fun of the Yankee Swap. Spend less than $5, wrap the present, but don’t sign anything! Instead, attach an unsigned poem that describes the contents, and the person who is judged to have best described the contents of his or her package will win the Most Apt Poem contest and $10. The glory is great! (Just kidding…. this is meant to be a fun, light contest, and one mustn’t fret over it.)

Well, until another post, best wishes all.

November Poem… by CKO

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I’ve decided to share a little poem that I wrote about November.  Somehow, I actually like November, even though it’s full of talk about the end of Fall and the beginning of Winter. But, it is still warmish, and it is so brave somehow, those last leaves clinging so gorgeously. Well, maybe I’ll elaborate on that some other time. Here’s my poem, simply called,

A November Poem

— Cathryn Keefe O’Hare

November trees

bare secrets now

through openings

in forest walls

and starlings swoop

on a stage of sky

so blue the white

clouds swarm while

ruddy leaves rustle,

and fall to the ground,

astounded.

And, one more from Diane Giardi

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This poem makes me envious of the two people and their wonderful summer.

And We Will Make Silence

The deer outside our bedroom window

is inches from the screen.

We hunch, whispering, close and still.

We have grown on this island

like seeds under cotton mesh,

bulbs under glass.

We play in this terrarium of sun, moisture and heat.

Cycling paths – strengthening our legs.

Rowing creeks – building shoulders.

Strokes in warm ocean waters – stretching our backs.

And hearts coddled with open-ended time we spend together.

We have few amenities,

but all the peace of mind

our creative souls take hold of.

He will make a boat, a graceful chair.

I will make a teabag print, a sculpture from clay.

And we will make dinner.

And we will make silence.

And we will make love.

Another by Giardi

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I am sorry, but I again became consumed in work and forgot my real life, and I forgot to finish what I’d started when I introduced Diane Giardi last week. Forgive me. I know you will have enjoyed her poems that I’ve already posted here. She won won four awards in the recent Massachusetts State Poetry Soceity’s national contest, that had some 25 categories and hundreds of entries. Here is another of her winning poems.

92 Dreams Deferred

Langston knew

In gut, in soul

Feels the bottom

Feels the whole

…

Wrenching longing

To be

To do

One dream, ten dreams

Ninety-two

…

Unwrapped talents

Unused skills

Passions passing

Dropped

In sills

…

Deflate, debunk

Denounce, deprive

Straight-jacketed ambition

Cobwebbed drive

…

Deaf ears turned

Curtain drawn

Ninety-two dreams

Left unspawned

A satisfying poem from Giardi

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Here’s another of the winning poems by Diane Giardi. Enjoy, and if you get hungry, eat!

Lasagna Layers

You laid down the simmered sauce

of elephant garlic and large-leafed basil,

blended with parsley and plum tomatoes,

setting down a strong foundation.

…

With care you lifted the sheets of

egg-rich pasta

and tucked in the edges neatly

like the corners of a well-made bed.

…

Next, garden spinach, fennel sausage

and aged Pecorina Romano.

After spices

you paused to set the right temperature.

…

Gathering shavings of smoked mozzarella

your fingers slowly sprinkled

a very even, ample blanket,

leaving no corner, no section

in need.

…

It has all it needs.

You have all you need.

It will be delicious.

You are delicious.

Mangia, Figlia Bella

Introducing a new member, Diane Giardi

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Diane Giardi  joined the North Shore Poets’ Forum and the Massachusetts State Poetry Society in 2008, after moving with  her husband last year from Southold, NY, to Annisquam in Gloucester.  She had come to the Poets’ Forum’s annual reading held in April for National Poetry Month, and she read some terrific poems during the Open Mic period. We were very happy she joined.

Diane is an artist, with an MFA in clay. She currently teaches art at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols and Endicott College, and she has  taught in the past at The DeCordova Museum School, Syracuse University and The School of The Museum of Fine Arts. To visit her visual arts/education website link to: http://campus.digication.com/dianegiardi

She has enjoyed writing poems since she was very young.  Diane was surprised this month to find out she received four awards in the Mass State Poetry Society’s National Contest, which includes about 25 categories and attracts many entrants.

Here is one of the four … Look for the others over the next few days.

Hanging on Your Every Line

What you underlined

will keep me sane.

I revisit you.

I know you, why that sentence says it all.

How you connect,

what it means and

I’m back in time.

I love the waviness of your line

from deep red marker, to light charcoal pencil, to faded blue pen.

My eyes rest on the stars you created,

highlighting the paragraphs

that describe what mattered in our lives.

I dive into the pages where you wrapped circles around their numbers,

so many years ago.

You speak to me again as I reread

what fed us.

Reinforcing why I love you,

why life, lonelier now is still worth living.

Halloween is coming

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The North Shore Poets’ Forum met on Saturday, and our task was to write a poem, in rhyme, about Halloween. I managed a stanza, but others in our group did wonderfully, especially Roberta Hung, who came up with a villanelle. She won the grand prize, which was nothing more than bragging rights. Still, that’s good.

Anthony Majahad wasn’t able to join us, as he had hoped. But, he sent along a poem to share. It, too, is a villanelle. So, to get you in the spooky spirit, here’s his poem, called “On All Hallows Eve.”

(Again, I’ll indicate stanza breaks with three dots.)

On All Hallows Eve

Souls of the dead return to haunt the living.

Witches ride broomsticks, with their black cats.

October winds mimic souls whimpering.

The full moon shines bright, Hell releases its bats.

…

Evil is in the air, mortals hide and begin shivering,

Warlocks cast spells with cauldrons and bubbling vats,

Cackling witches don their conical hats.

Souls of the dead return to haunt the living.

…

Prayers cannot stop these dead from lingering,

Hell releases demons and black plague rats,

And ghosts fill the night with their bellowing,

While witches ride broomsticks, with their black cats.

…

No one is spared: peasants or aristocrats.

No priest is able to comfort the quivering,

And all hide from the Devil’s diplomats

October winds mimic souls whimpering.

…

Witches and warlocks chant dark spells and sing.

In graveyards, ghouls gnaw dry bones, marrow and fats.

At midnight, the Devil is strengthening,

The full moon shines bright, Hell releases its bats.

…

In the night’s madness, a hastening,

Children afraid of the Devil’s hellcats,

Adults are afraid of almost everything.

At dawn, all is gone; one of night’s only caveats.

Souls of the dead return; church bells begin ringing.

Anthony M. Majahad

October 2002

A rowing poem

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Melissa Varnavas shares this wonderful poem about rowing out to an island for a picnic one summer day that suddenly becomes stormy.

The rowing poem

It started to rain. Wind sent the empty

sandwich bags sailing.

…

I do not remember

if they fluttered off like seagulls

…

or if a sudden gust filled the plastic, fat

like some tuna-loving cat

…

that neglected to look before it danced over

the side of the rocking canoe, touched the waves.

…

Disappeared. It started to

rain. The wind picked up. The tide changed.

…

Remember tying up at some mooring to eat lunch?

It had been such a nice day. Remember the worn out life

…

jackets we used as seat cushions? I turned to face

you, dangled my feet over the sides, tipped my toes into the rocking

…

water. We swayed with waves from passing boats, the smell

of suntan lotion, the day, and the wind, and the clouds, baby

…

oil, diesel, and rain, and the islands. I have danced in the rain

with you like a wet cat so many times, I have forgotten.

…

That day we took our positions again, stern and aft, perched

on white fiberglass. You always steered. I did not know how.

…

We put the boat in at Sandy Point. Picked up our paddles,

stashed the cooler, used the life jackets as seat cushions.

…

Was it me, the weak one, struggling against

the current, pining for any opportunity to give up?

…

I’m sure it was me. I have no courage for such things.

It thundered and rained, after the tide changed

…

and after the wind picked up, and we were nearly home.

I so wanted to stop. Stash the canoe on the beach and walk

…

back to the truck. or find a phone and call

for help. I have no courage but you pushed.

Said, come on. It was raining and I heard the thunder,

distant. There was the canoe and you and me, some unexpected

…

weather. A cooler with Coronas, Zimas, some Pepsis, tuna sandwiches. The tide

was with us on the way out. Misery Islands out there,

…

on our right. The shore on our left—Quincy, Dane, Lynch, West—

a short swim away. The sun was good and the sea smelled like the sea,

…

smelled like the wind and the rain and the sun and the beer

and the sandwiches. I think we tied to someone’s mooring. I think I

…

turned to face you, dangled my feet over the sides, tipped

my toes into the water, until the wind picked up and the tide

…

changed. We rowed and rowed and got

a fit of the giggles at the thought

…

of getting nowhere. It started to rain. Nothing

happened. That’s not to be expected. We are good

…

and strong and fine so many years from then, weathered,

smelling like sun and sweat and salt and sea, rowing.

…

Mid-laugh the tide took us back

to where we were. And maybe that’s the crux of it. It grew

…

dark. I remember. The tide

changed.

More Melissa

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As promised, here is another poem by Melissa Varnavas. I love the watery images, the “s” sounds and alliteration, and so much more.

Melissa joined in the Massachusetts Poetry Festival on Saturday, as one of the MFA readers. I wasn’t able to go, and I haven’t checked with her about how it went. But, here’s hoping it will help get her used to being a featured reader, since she so deserves to be.

Song for the replacement fish my husband bought

Now the red spikey one disappears itself.

In the next vase, the one with its tail tipped

…

too bright for its white body

turns to peer through lamp-lit layers of water dust.

…

Its soft sway,

stirs the murk. But they

…

make me

their captor,

these shadows that swim

magnified

…

by glass, water. In their artificial ponds they go

around

and vanish

so not so much as a cerulean fin shows.

***

His favorite color is blue. He thinks it’s my favorite color, too.

So, that’s why he bought me that one. It’s why he painted the hallway

…

that deep hue, so dark

I had to dabble over it with sky.

***

The first batch died. Turned over in their vases belly-up,

making the water yellow, their bodies

…

bleeding their brilliant color out.

…

I didn’t really want them, these replacement fish.

I look again and they are all gone, now

…

as they should have been

after the flushing and before the gift.

Introducing … Melissa Varnavas

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I happened to be to one who asked Melissa J. Varnavas to join me one day for a North Shore Poets’ Forum meeting, and she’s been off and running with poetry ever since.

She joined the  Forum and the Massachusetts State Poetry Society. She joined the Tin Box Poets and the Ipswich Poetry Group. She is now a student at Solstice MFA at Pine Manor College creative writing program in poetry, graduating in January 2010. And, her poetry has appeared in the literary journals Margie and Oberon.

We first met at the Beverly Citizen newspaper, where I was the City Hall/Cop reporter and she came on staff as the Education reporter. She tackled all the challenges of being new kid on the block, and she ended up as the editor of the paper, which pleased her immensely, since Beverly is her hometown.

Life being what it is, and sometimes not so nice, she left that job. But, not before winning a number of awards from the New England Press Association and the Massachusetts Press Association

Now, when she has time from her very busy work and school schedule, she writes freelance articles that have appeared in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, Danvers Herald and Boston Now.

She is also the associate director of ACDIS, a professional organization for hospital administrators. And, she’s still winning awards, now with the Specialized Information Publishers Association.

She has agreed to share a few of her terrific poems with us.  Here’s the first one. I’m going to ration these, so you’ll have something to look forward to for the next few days. Then, I’ll put up her Introducing … page so that you can refer back to these terrific poems. Maybe she’ll even add more as the months go by.

(Note: to show stanza breaks I am inserting a line with a few dots, because this program does not like to insert the spaces, for some reason. Also, it flushes left.)

A Blessing: Prayer for My Love

The wind in the trees carries

the cicadas hum, their mating call.

…

He says it’s about love. It’s always

about love with him.

…

He loves me so much it makes him

crazy. He smooths my hair

…

with one, big hand and kisses

my mouth hard. I think of this longing

…

as twilight fields soaked in a purple tinge. His eyes

fill with the dimming light that whispers so soft across the pond.

…

I imagine my passion as a steaming cup

of coffee drunk up in sunshine, memories of chocolate.

…

While his heart, beats in dissonance.

Fear. And loss. And loss. Death.

…

But not now, I say. Not just now.

…

I know this.

I know this.

…

I kiss him back and shudder

as he moves his lips over the blue

…

vein of my left wrist.