Pubbed! Fresh Fish book & MoSt Poetry Center chapbook

What do you know about your statewide poetry people? After my children’s picture book debuted I added nourishing connections in children’s literature, internationally, nationally & statewide which endure. Hey, that’s how I found you, wonderful nest, #PoetryFriday. In crazy 2020 I pursued an added path, answering writing prompts from poem makers in my area who aren’t necessarily involved with literature for children.

From a call for submissions shared by Florida State Poets Association, which I joined, first-time, two original poems found publication online with the Lake Cane Restoration Society in May 2020. This made me a Bard of the Lake, for “Meditation” and also, “Orlando Orilla de Lago”

Through exploring this long noodle of a state’s poetry community, one of my poems is fresh-pubbed in an art book from the Florida chapter of the Studio Art Quilt Associates. More on this in a second. Next, please know I expect to read a new poem online with a poetry community on Sunday, Feb. 21. I wrote it from a prompt-a-day poetry challenge that ran from mid-Dec. ’20 to mid-Jan.’21. [listening/link info is below] 

This newest prompt idea connected with me in two ways. It’s a wordpool. I first learned about (& silly me, forgot about) wordpool from Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge in her nourishing guide poemcrazy. Gary Thomas of MoSt Poetry Center in California brought me back to brilliant Susan by casting a wordpool. This was his Prompt #19/ January 2, 2021. His poem puzzle challenged us to conjure poetry to include: bleach, Blursdays, hellacious, levitate, salty & wig. Thought I: UGH! Didn’t do it.

But came the end of the prompts from MoSt/Gary. I didn’t feel a pull to other of the lines I had scribbled/doodled in response to the great ideas. But. Pinged in my heart by one word, I went back to that #19 Day wordpool. As someone with dear pals who have lost (& recovered) hair due to cancer treatments, and because I’m living/working post-treatment for stage 2+ kidney cancer that I appreciated receiving great surgery for in 2018, time-two around, with the prompt, I acknowledged the wicked word, wig. Dear people, it wigged me out. So, I knew that with my fear of this word, I should dig deeper. The result is my poem, “Shore good friday,” in the fresh-printed MoSt chapbook, which I expect to find in my traditional postal box any day. To listen to how I put wig & those unlikely companion wordpool words into “Shore good friday,” tune in this week, Feb. 21. It’s a MoSt Poetry Center two hour program & my spot is likely in the last hour because fortunately, two fabulous poets are keynotes of this Sunday’s event. I expect to share “Shore good friday” here in a post, later. **Time note** The MoSt link shows Pacific Time, as MoSt is in Modesto, Calif. I’m figuring on 5-7 p.m. EST. 

Back to FRESH FISH. I glom onto this book’s vibrant colors & forms. Rich, luxurious, playful,  delightfully fantastical, sometimes moody hand-made textile artworks ~~ all mesmerize me. International art contributors are from Canada, Sweden and the UK. It’s also a joy to blend with poets not only from my fabulous region of the universe – Florida – but also, who knew poets in Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, Louisiana, Oregon & California would become colleagues in publication?

My favorite FF piece, shown here with bias admitted, is by Maggie Vanderweit, a renowned textile artist in Ontario.  FRESH FISH, Textile Artists and Poets Explore Underwater Life is expected to swim again, as part of a future event in a gallery setting, when traveling members of the Studio Art Quilt Associates convene their delayed in-person international conferencing. 

Susan Goldsmith Woolrdidge        Florida State Poets Association            Studio Art Quilt Associates

 

Bookseedstudio is part of the #PoetryFriday community that visits around on line & when lucky, in person, to celebrate poetry. We are hosted  inventively this week from Haiti by Ruth who is stitching together a community poem! [I added yellow lion lines] & next week, please visit with our host, Karen E.