In the “Always Coming Home” workshop I gave at the Land Full of Stories Conference we began by generating a list of writing topics we could write on when we returned to our homes. Each woman had a new journal to write in with a rose on the front in full bloom–her homecoming journal. We […]
One of the pleasures of the Story Circles Network “Land Full of Stories” Conference I just came home from was meeting Cindy Bellinger. I attended her workshop on journaling, bought her new book on journaling, and enjoyed having her participate in my workshop “Always Coming Home.”
Her website describes Cindy as “a Western girl through and […]
My father wrote this poem recently for his mother’s friend, Susie Bernheart. He says, “Susie was Sweetheart of the Ag Club, and anywhere else she went at the University of Illinois in 1903. In addition to her nice looks and gracious manner she was intelligent and courageous. Her loyalty and her friendship was as solid […]
Critique. I dreaded it. I hated it. I learned from it. And, finally, I was fortunate enough to encounter a teacher, Betsy Davids, who fully understood what critique really meant and what its purpose really was. She saw critique as a form of appreciation, as a time of joining with the piece and giving back […]
Everything I learned about critique, I learned in art school. My art school used to be called the California College of Arts and Crafts, in Oakland, California (for those of us who studied fine arts) and San Francisco, California (for those who studied design and architecture). Curiously, in recent years, the college opted to drop […]
The earth is old. Nothing lasts. All life is kin. Different eyes perceive different worlds, and much remains hidden. Ours is an age of extinctions; ours are the hands of the destroyers. Grief and beauty are knotted together. Curiosity and imagination are fundamental human forces. So are fear and hatred, passion and compassion. None of […]
BUS RUN
by Janet Grace Riehl
(from Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary)
My drumbeat feet
round the corner of our private road
that rushes down towards the river.
A bulldozer a decade past
shaved off the sharp bend in the road
to reduce the odds that downhill cars
crashed into uphill cars.
We trudged up this hill
coming home from school.
But, in the morning,
almost always late,
we […]
GULLY
by Janet Grace Riehl
(from Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary)
I raise my head from the ground
where my eyes were glued
to avoid tripping over my feet.
A cleft joins the two curves of the hill,
a dimple that marks its face like Cary Grant’s.
Matted grass cushions my steps
pattering over yesterday’s mud.
I ran down the hill on this path
to my aunt’s […]
Here are some of the early lesssons I learned growing up on the land of Evergreen Heights…about sex, alcohol, and protecting your territory from intruders.–JGR
GATED COMMUNITY
(from Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary)
Three gates protected our hilltop kingdom.
One at the bottom,
just past the No Trespassing sign.
One at the top,
just short of our house.
And, the gate that barred the […]
Dear Ruth,
Our daughter, Janet, asked me to write a short summary of our marriage of almost sixty-four years on the sixty-fifth anniversary of our marriage. This assignment ranges from the “difficult” to the “impossible”. However, I will try.
Some people said we had a lot of courage to get married in the midst of a […]
