“River of Sadness,” poem by William T. Dawson (Office of the Poet)

I met William T. Dawson in Mountainair, New Mexico, in August 2007 for the 10th annual Sunflower Festival centered at the historic Shaffer Hotel. First, I’d attended the Sunflower Poetry Writing workshop, then participated as a featured reader in the Mountainair Poetry & Writers Picnic. This spoken word event is sheltered in the tree-shaded garden [...]

Matthew Freeman’s Poetry @ RAC/STL: “Darkness Never Far”

Matthew Freeman reads from “Darkness Never Far,” at the Regional Arts Commission March 18th at 7:30 on Delmar, across from the Pageant Theater.
Other readers include:
Mary Eden, Jessica Freeman, Dena Molen, Julia Gordon-Bramer, Lisa Ebert, and Kristin Sharp.
Join the St. Louis poetry community for a guaranteed good time. Free refreshments. Music by Tom Cunningham.
About [...]

Inspired Art: Drawing Voices Together (America SCORES St.Louis–Call-for-artists)

Just got this call-for-artists: The Inspired Art Project.
Here’s the event:
The St. Louis Inspired Art Show
Saturday, March 20, 2010 | 6pm to 9pm
Belas Artes Multicultural Center & Art Gallery
1854 Russell Blvd, St. Louis, MO
The Inspired Art Project enlists local artists to create and submit original works, inspired by original poetry written by students participating [...]

“Burleycue” seeking poems, fiction, essays, and visual art!

Call for poems, fiction, essays, and visual art. Deadline February 2, 2010. Join the company of Richard Newman and Phillip Gounis.
Send 1-3 poems, fiction, essays or visual art meditating on the Theme: “Whorticulture.” Culture as a whore? One’s own bumping heads with “whoredom” or society’s misappropriation of the word “whore”? Contribute your own interpretation [...]

Celebrating Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: 146th anniversary with a Poem by Genie Keller

THAT DAY AT GETTYSBURG
The date was 1863, at Gettysburg
This day, I stand upon the quiet field
Now all is silent,
All eyes upon the purpose here.
It was a fragile moment
In a meadow lost in thought
And then the words were spoken
With care and watchful heart.
His words became the paint brush
As it gently left its mark
This is the object [...]

TCM’s Ernest Dempsey review of “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary”

Sightlines
Janet Grace Riehl
iUniverse Inc.
ISBN: 0-595-37499-9
Genre(s): Poetry
Reviewed by Ernest Dempsey
Death sometimes brings about a radical swing in the way the survivors look at life. Janet Grace Riehl, an award-winning author, has written a poetry book Sightlines (iUniverse Inc., Lincoln, 2006) that expresses her feelings about the beauties and frailties of daily life after the death of [...]

“Sensuousness of a Senior,” a new poem by an admirer

The sensuousness of a senior
mocks the confidence of a 20 year old body
When you believe the skin your are in
Is the skin that brought you here
And your mind gives you confidence of who you are
You know that wisdom gives real pleasure
The wisdom that knows chocolate dipped strawberries
Are way better than crackers and cheese
In bed.

“Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary,” 5 star review by Valerie J. Brooks on Good Reads

Valerie’s review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
bookshelves: highly-recommend
status: Read in July, 2008

Janet Grace Riehl writes with the honesty, openness and heart of someone who deeply loves life, but is not shy at hitting, straight on, the messes we have to clean up or the sorrows we must bear.
Her collection, “diary” as she calls it, is [...]

Dempsey’s “Two Candles” poetry collection reviewed by Riehlife

Click here to read an earlier Riehlife post relating to Dempsey’s writing process for “Two Candles.”
Ernest Dempsey uses the defining image of light as the threading metaphor through his collection of 74 selected poems contained in 84 pages. Light as an archtypal image is the perfect connecting theme as Dempsey’s mind roams classic philosophic territory [...]

Blog Action Day: Poverty in the Great Depression. “The Kind of People that We Are”—a poem by Erwin A. Thompson

Blog Action Day is today, with a focus on Poverty. Currently 9,394 Sites with an audience with more than 10,612,112 readers are registered in Blog Action Day 2008. Last year, I participated when bloggers focused on the Environment.
Read my post on how it’s “Easy to be green at the Carelton Hotel in San [...]