He's just posted my story of how I became a writer which includes my poem "Scribbler," from "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary."

You can read the entire post by clicking here to discover what wandering on the land, reading old-fashioned books...and having a blue collar father who writes...can do for you...if you're an impressionable young thing in Southwestern Illinois in the 1950s and growing up on land that's been in the family since the 1860s.

Students! Want to enter the annual writing contest, The Big Write? Get started now. Submission deadline is Sept. 12.

The three top winners in each of two grade level categories: (1) 4th and 5th graders, and (2) 6th through 8th graders, will win $100 for 1st place, $50 for second place, and $25 for 3rd place,

Of course your be reading your winning entries before a live audience at The Big Read Festival. Check out the contest guidelines by clicking here.

The Big Read in Clayton, an annual outdoor book festival, is Oct. 11. The Big Read site posted last year’s winning stories if you wanna see.

Click here to read a fun interview Annette Crymes conducted with a student of one of her writing workshops...presented here in St. Louis Today's book blog as a student prepares to enter this year's Big Write.

Click here to read more about Annette (a.r.) Cryme's passion for art and writing.

I'm one of the judges for the Big Write (as is Annette), and I can hardly wait to read the entries.

Here's a magnificent poem by our friend and neighbor Genie Keller, written on July 4, 2003, capturing the essence of the Declaration of Independence. You'll find other poems of Genie's in the Writing Matters archives. ---JGR

Eric Long photo #95 Smithsonian American Flag

I AM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
by Genie Keller

I was born in 1776 on the 4th of July
Amid strife and the burning question of, why?

My aim to succeed in every way
To Bless my people with hope everyday.
My every word took a solemn beginning
The anticipation of futures and also of winning.

I was written with skill from far above
With meaningful words, blended with love.
The pattern was struck into every mind
To explain what was there for all mankind.
The Truth of the Right belongs to all men
To protect it and Guard it, secured to the end.

Now with hope in our hearts and the will of the state
With life, liberty and pursuit of happiness,
OR, our fate
I pledged to each person, the promise of peace
For Loyalty and Independence never to cease.
I wrote to protect us in all of our Rights
And grant us much strength through out all of the nights.

Story Circle Network National e-letter
July 2008, Vol. 9, No 7

To read this e-Letter on the Story Circle Network web site, click here.

Click here to go to the main Story Circle Network web site.

Write your hearts out!

Maryanne Raphael has written and co-authored 10 books, short stories, poetry, and articles. You can read more about Maryanne and her work on www.authorsden.com/maryanneraphael. She says: "No matter what I'm doing right now, I would rather be writing."

Anais Nin was important in my own life as a woman and as a writer. When I lived in Ghana, some friends came back from home leave in the United States and brought back a set of her journals for me to read which I proceeded to devour. I didn't think of her as someone you could actually meet until I was on my flight back to the States several years after that. I met a woman on that flight who'd met Anais. Now, we meet with Maryanne and listen to her story of how she met Anais Nin. ---Janet Riehl

This story is the introduction to Maryann Raphael's "The Voyage Within," copyrighted 2003.

WHEN I MET ANAIS NIN
by Maryanne Raphael

I was first introduced to Anais Nin through her writing, when I was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris. Immediatley, I identified with her, for like young Anais, I was full of joy, desire, laughter, compassion and curiosity regarding the simple facts of life. I knew I wanted to meet her.

After I left France, I moved to New York City where I began working on a book of interviews called "Women on Women." When I learned Anais was coming to the city, I called her and she agreed to an interview.

I'll never forget the first time I met her. I was standing on the steps of her Greenwich Village apartment when she opened the door. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. With high cheekbones, flawless skin, bright emerald eyes and hair pulled into a bun, her Greta Garbo beauty took my breath away. Dressed in an aquamarine, velvet, floor-length gown, that accentuated her firm and slender body, her presence gave forth an aura of mystery. It was hard to believe she was almost seventy.

With a dancer’s walk, she led me into the living room. Decorated in her favorite colors, lavender, sea green, and aquamarine, the atmosphere was one of tranquility and meditation. Multicolored Indian mirrored pillows enhanced the setting. I relaxed in this artistic environment. We drank light, fragrant tea served in delicate cups and saucers.

I asked, "Can writing improve the world?" Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, with a slight French accent. She said, "I think it depends on what kind of books you read. Many people told me some of the ‘Diaries’ helped them to live."

She laughed when I asked, "if you were marooned on a desert island, who would you like to have with you?" She said, "I can’t answer that. I would lose too many friends. That’s like asking who is my favorite writer?"

She glowed. Her energy was rich and positive. "I’m sorry for writers who succeed too soon," she said. "I think writing creates a world in which you want to live and then others want to live in it with you and that becomes a little universe."

Anais Nin, photo courtesy of Maryanne Raphael

When I asked if she read many novels, she said, "No, I read mostly biographies. We need a fusion of novel and biography. I think we’re going to find a perfect fusion the psychological truth but fictionalized."

She surprised me when she said laughing, "Is it all right to interview the interviewer?" "Feel free," I said. "I’ve always wanted to be interviewed by a world famous author."

Anais laughed again. Then she began questioning me. It was hard to believe that this amazing exciting woman was so interested in my writing, my ideas, my life.

We talked about the place of sex in art. "I prefer to say sensuality, which means the whole range of our physical response to life," she told me. "Otto Rank said the more you give to living, the more you have to give." She sipped her tea, then said, "Most of our sexual vocabulary comes from men since they publish more erotica than female authors." She talked of the womb as the true source of women’s creativity and of the need for a feminine language.

When I asked, "What is your main goal in life," Anais became serious. "To be useful," she said. "If I hadn’t had writing, I wouldn’t have created a world in which I can live and breathe. I think the writing creates a world in which you want to live and then others want to live in it with you and that becomes a little universe."

[There's much more! Read on.]

Because Anais said she'd prefer to study with Marguerite Young over any other writer, I signed up for her class. I sent Anais the first chapters of CHILDREN OF THE RENAISSANCE, the book I wrote in class. She said, "I find the work exciting, but you may have the problem I faced with my surrealistic novels. People were afraid to follow me into that dream state until they had read the diaries. You may want to publish something less threatening first."

I had hoped to publish my novel, but following Anais' advice, I published a nonfiction book, "Runaways" (co-author Jenifer Wolf). I was thrilled when, in spite of being ill with cancer, Anais took the time to write a Preface for my book.

After I moved to Los Angeles, I studied the Psychology of Women with Dr. Eve Jones. I met Ken Merrill, a longtime friend of Anais and her companion Rupert. Ken was the owner of the Yellow Rose Gallery, where Anais gave her first official reading of Volume One of her Diary.

In January 1977, I received one of Anais' famous lavender postcards with the two Pisces fish. It was my invitation to her Memorial service. Shortly afterwards, Ken took me to meet Rupert Pole in the beautiful house he had shared with Anais during the last 30 years of her life. As I entered the house, I could feel her spirit. When I was leaving, Rupert handed me a copy of Little Birds. Anais' ashes were spread over the Pacific so they could travel the world she loved so passionately.

Meeting and knowing this woman, whose works I'd long admired was one of the most exciting events of my life. Anais Nin lived her life in White Heat. The awe and magic I felt the first time I met her has stayed with me as it has with all who knew and loved her. Anais was a compassionate, passionate woman devoted to Peace and Love. She saw the earth with no artificial boundaries and wanted to make the world a better place. She touched me and changed my life.

Anais once told me that, even though she sometimes received 100 letters in a day, she answered every one of them. Today, thanks to her example, much of my daily joy comes from staying in touch with those I love.

Anais taught me to describe my emotions, my deepest thoughts, my worries, my despair, my joy and my growth in my diary. This Spiritual Journal has become a guide through the labyrinths on my own voyage within.

Since 1974 Karen Duffy has hosted literary readings at her Central West End restaurant, Duff's.

Says Newman: "Our literary agenda is to promote accessible poetry. In the early '90s, poetry had been taken over by academics. It was obscure, unmoving poetry, and it was the only kind most people would come across. We want to promote poetry that an intelligent, educated reader would enjoy — not necessarily an MFA or Ph.D. candidate. You don't have to compromise quality to be accessible."

Eugene B. Redmond is poet laureate of East St. Louis.

Drumvoices Revue is powered by Eugene B. Redmond.

The Kwansaba is a new poetic form invented by Redmond.

Then, there's the Eugene B. Redmond creative writing club....!

In 1995 the kwansaba---a new poetry form---was invented in East St. Louis. The Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club, organized and chartered in March 1986, brought together cultural workers and creative artists searching for "new tools, concepts, vehicles, and challenges within regional and global contexts."

In the early 1990s Kwanzaa (based on a 7-day ritual) Celebration based around the Nguzo Saba (Seven Principles) was introduced to the United States by Dr. Maulana Karenga. Eugene Redmond says in a 2004 Drumvoices Revue that "Over several months I toyed with the Swahili words Kwanzaa (first fruits) and Saba (principles) until the term kwansaba hit me like fresh--or ancestral---love."

The Kwansaba is a poem consisting of seven lines. Each line has no more than seven words. Each word has no more than seven letters. Thus, the form, revolving around the number 7, adding up to 49 words, is based on the seven principles of the Kwansaa celebration.

Redmond continues to explain the importance of the number 7 in "astronomy, numerology, and mythology." In 2004 Drumvoices Revue published a special series of Kwansabas for Katherine Dunham, who arrived in East St. Louis in 1967, "at the height of the Black Arts Movement and one year after the invention of the Kwansaba."

Since then, special contests and themes featuring the Kwansaba have been featured in Drumvoices Revue. I attended a workshop Eugene Redmond led in which he shared Kwansabas inspired by Richard Wright's "Black Boy." Wright wanted his life to "count for something. Drumvoices #15 (2007) featured this example of a kwansaba for Quincy Troupe.

KWANSABA FOR QUINCY TROUPE
by Reginald Lockett

Lion roaming the vast Serengeti of verse
On the Great Plains he stalks words
Dogs the scents of verbs and nous
King of musical lines tracks poetry's song
In the forest there stands his prize,
A sleek gazelle of a poem desired
He makes a quick study and pounces.

The Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club meeting in its 21st year now holds twice-monthly meeting on the first and third Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. in Building B of the Library of teh East St. Louis Higher Education Campus, 601 J.R. Thompson Drive, September through May. All writers, beginners to professionals are welcome.

As we chatted about it, I suggested it might be fun to try as an exchange of letters between the father and daughter. I'm so pleased that Pop agreed to experiment with my idea, yielding the poignant result below.

I particularly thrill to the lines: "Each task you did with love and skill/ Was like a work of art" as that exactly expresses for me the way I see my father approaching his work, and his love for fixing things. ---JGR

________________________________________

Erwin A. Thompson

Dear Daddy,

My dolly, when her arms came off,
You fixed as good as new.
And then you fixed my roller skates,
When they lost a screw.

Each task you did with love and skill,
Was like a work of art.
I've got another job for you.
What do you have to heal a broken heart?

Dear Daughter,

Well, Honey---I don't righly know.
That's a bigger job, by far.
You need to crawl up on my lap,
Or listen to my old guitar

There is a song for everything,
Sorting through the pile.
Soft, sad music for the heart break
And some will make you smile.

You always loved with all your heart,
You gave your treasure to a friend.
You gave your heart to careless hands
With heart break at the end.

I cannot change this careless, thoughtless world
Or its people, and the things they do.
Just come on home, and rest awhile;
And be ready when it's time to start anew.