The Wildflowers Were In Bloom (photo by Sequoyah School) My goddaughter Jennifer Delaquil’s son R. attends Sequoyah School in Pasadena. On my last trip out to Southern California, I visited them there. Josh Brody, Director Sequoyah School, sent out some wonderful poems and photos from a student outing in their newsletter called “News from Beyond…
He introduced himself as “Crazy Ali”, and he wasn’t thinking about selling something to us. He wanted to share. Crazy Ali, The Turkish Poet (Photo by Marcelline Burns) I asked, “Who gave you that name?” to which he responded with obvious pride, “I gave it to myself more than a quarter century ago. I am…
Marcelline (Marcy) Burns is an author-friend I made through her response to “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary” and continued penpal correspondence with both my father and myself. She is one of my role models I use when answering the question, “What kind of old woman do I want to be?” This was a question posed to…
Put a Poem in Your Pocket and share it. What a great idea…on this day, or any day. Poets. Org lists 30 things to do to celebrate poetry month (April, right?). 31) But, here’s one they haven’t thought of. My father, Erwin A. Thompson, encloses a poem along with his bill to the Great Central…
There’s lots of great poet participation going on over at Poetic Asides blog. Robert provides a poem and poetry prompt each day in April for National Poetry Month.
Photo from www.moonraker.com I met Freida L. Wheaton in 2005 at an African American Art Collectors forum at the St. Louis Art Musem. Mother was alive then, still kicking and needing care. I’d gone off on this huge adventure to the big city and it was on that day I met Freida, in all her…
Writers of the Round Table is a call to action. Corey Blake leads leaders. After decades of experience in the film business, Corey Blake transferred these concepts to the world of developing writers and producing books. Corey Blake is a Dream Producer. To the group of writers assembled at the Missouri Writers Guild Conference in…
Naomi Shihab Nye (Image Credit: Stephen Barclay Agency—Photo by James Evans) As the beauteous Ibtisam Barakat (author of “Taste the Sky”—see post below as well) laid out a table filled with books overflowing with tabbed pages and Naomi Shihab Nye’s wisecracks began to flow alongside her wisdom, we knew we were in for something besides…
I met Linda Darnece Jones at Kwaanza six days into the new year and we started a conversation about her art and poetry. I heard Linda read “Mama’s Powder Puff Was Rough and Tough” at a recent Women’s Art and Vision event and asked her if she’d let us share it on Riehlife, to which…
My Uncle Willard (Davenport) Thompson mostly wrote prose in his life, but we recovered this poem from his papers this winter during my father’s documentation project. Uncle Willard was a brilliant man caught short in the Great Depression who used his creativity to start a literary magazine, Ride the Rails as a hoboe, and, in…