Two Meetings

Ramey, Jed and I went to Calera yesterday to the ASPS meeting. This photo is by Jerri H. It seemed to me that I smiled and grinned until my jaws were sore, but she managed to catch me looking--the way my mug looks in this picture--natural, I guess.

The "crowd" at the meeting was very small. When we arrived, a message came about the caterer; on the way to Calera he had been stopped by police, and all the food was unloaded and investigated. But eventually he arrived, and we had lunch. Then the prizes/awards were given out, and Ramey and I each won a couple of second and third prizes.

On Thursday, I went to the Leeds Arts Council where our poetry group entertained Jim and Liz Reed's Birmingham Arts Journal staff. This time there was a huge crowd, and I enjoyed meeting old acquaintances and new.

Something a bit funny happened when I got to the Arts Council--Joan D. hugged me, and one of her earrings got tangled in my hair. We spent about five minutes getting untangled, with everyone laughing at us.

Jed went back to Atlanta today, and I'm resting up for whatever this week has in store.

New Book in the Mail

In today's mail I received a copy of the Georgia Poetry Society's 2014 Anthology. (I wish our ASPS Sampler could be this nice.) Couldn't figure why I got it, because it doesn't have a poem by me in it. But found that it has the three winning poems in the contest that I judged this spring, "The Mnemosyne Award," plus a biographical blurb of me. These are three of the most beautiful previously unpublished poems I've seen in a long time. Wish I could copy them in my blog, but I don't know if that's permitted or not.

The first place one is by a gentleman determined to keep on writing, no matter what happens.

The second place poem is like a fairy thing out of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The third place winner is probably my favorite, though not as technically impressive as the first two. It's by a lady promising to give her companion any three extravagant things he wants in exchange for two tiny paintings and a Nevada sunset.

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I've been thinking of a book consisting of selections from my blog. Like "Seven Years of Something-or-Other." The publishing concern "She Writes" is sponsoring a contest for a book of memoirs. I wonder if blog posts could be called memoirs.

Happy Saturday

Last night Jed and I watched "Lincoln," the Spielberg film with Daniel Day Lewis, after a delicious dinner at Logan's. Earlier in the day, we attended the joint Georgia-Alabama Poetry Societies' meeting in Carrollton. Heard readings of lots of poems, including winners of the student contests. I was happy to see so many poet friends--Jerri, Emily and her daughter, Joe, Virginia, Beth, and others. I won three volumes of poems by the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Natasha Trethewey, for which I'm so grateful. It was a very full and joyous day.

The Georgia Poetry Society hosted this meeting. The prizes were books instead of money, which I think is a good idea. The prizes I won were for two third places and one first.

The Lincoln film was very good. Daniel Day Lewis is such a fine actor. At first I didn't recognize good old Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens in a curly black wig. Sally Field was a great choice to play Mary Lincoln. I didn't know the actor who played Seward, but I liked his portrayal.

Titanic

I know what I'm going to be doing at seven o'clock this evening, Lord willing--watching "Titanic" for the umpteenth time. This one is the James Cameron film. I think I've seen just about every movie that has been made about that disaster; one starred Peter Gallagher and Catherine Zeta Jones. But this one with DiCaprio and Kate Winslett is my favorite.
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Well, this was the big day, for me and Ramey both, as well as other Alabama poets. Jed came over and went to the State Poetry Society fall meeting with us. The luncheon was held at the beautiul Newton-Davis House in Odenville. The food and service were superb, and we had a large crowd, compared to attendance at some of the meetings in recent years.

Ramey won first prize in the "Parody" contest with a great take-off on a poem by Emily Dickinson.

I won two honorable mentions for little poems that I didn't expect would win anything. My "Mother Teresa" poem (on my blog August 30, 2010) won one of 4 prizes that were not designated as 1st, 2nd, etc. (Note: I find later that the winners were assigned places; mine won second place. The contest was named "When the Saints Go Marching In" and Wayne D. of Huntsville won first place with a really fine poem.)

The poem about the Madonna painting by Andrea del Sarto (see blog, September 27) won first prize in that contest. Then I nearly fainted, and did shed a tear or two reading it, when my poem "Ode: On Grief" won the "grand prize," first place in the Alabama State Poetry Society Fall 2010 Award.

Poet Jerri H. (a girl) of Huntsville won the "Performance Poem" award. Hers was a description of what it's like to be a poet--deep, humorous but also dramatic, and very true.

It was a delightful day--or would have been, if one's nerves hadn't been keyed up like banjo strings. Ramey had a book signing (of Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge) after the meeting, at the new shopping mall; and shortly after we got home, Jed had to make tracks back to Atlanta--he's flying to Houston, Texas tomorrow.

I'm still going around in circles, but now I'm going to settle down and watch "Titanic."

Poetry Reading Canceled

This was the night for our poetry reading at the Arts Council, but Cookie called this morning and said it was canceled due to illness and other member business. I'm right disappointed. I had planned to read my Mother Teresa poem, and the one I wrote a long time ago about Andrea del Sarto's Madonna of the Harpies (above).

Somehow my blog has got messed up. It will no longer let me position pictures to left or right; they all come out centered, and I can't control the size. Jed and Ramey say they can't post to it sometimes. I hope everyone will keep posting--hit the Refresh button under View, if you get a "Service Unavailable" message.

I really appreciate Ruth's looking in and posting occasionally. New readers welcome!

I'm glad the picture enlarges when you click on it. I love this painting. The base is decorated with sphinxes, which have been misidentified as harpies, accounting for the popular name of the work. They look more like harpies than sphinxes, I guess.

Andrea was called "The Perfect Painter." Robert Browning wrote a wonderful poem about him and his unfaithful wife--Andrea's wife, not Browning's.

Oops!

I had a big long post going but accidentally lost it. It's just as well, I guess, and I'm certainly not going to do it again.

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When I Was One-and-Twenty

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As I was going to St. Ives

All in the month of May,

I met an aged, aged man

With hair like moldy hay;

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His hair was weedy, his beard was long,

His boots were up to the thigh;

And I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the sky.

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"Rain, rain, go away!"

He cried into the blue;

But the sun shone bright, where never lark

Or even eagle flew.

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So now, whene'er I see my cat

Twirling the kitchen knives,

And look again, and find it's just

A bowl of leeks and chives;

I realize that sight grows dim

After old age arrives,

And I understand that man I met

A-going to St. Ives.

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This is the last of the fall contest poems. It wasn't easy. In this category, you had to take lines from well-known poems and put them together to form what the sponsor called a "Cento." They may throw this one out on technical grounds, because I broke down halfway through and started making up lines.

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I have small hope for the easy poems, ones I wrote quickly, like "Old Abe" and "Mother Teresa." But I'm entering 10, so maybe one or two of the old ones will win something.

A New Poem

Mother Teresa Enters Heaven

Rich men's houses everywhere I look!
And golden streets--I'm in the wrong part of town;
Even the gates I came through gleam like pearls.
Where do the homeless go, the sick lie down?

A new hospital should rise on this spot,
But these great mansions seem to go on for miles.
If I get funding, surely we'll find a site.
Where is that girl who keeps my business files?

Oh, dear, I must have died! I think I know
This place; it's like the dream before my birth.
But I can't stay here--people are cold and ill,
Starving--I must get back to the streets of earth!

"But this is heaven, ma'am," they tell me now,
And, "No one's sick or homeless in this place."
I'm sure they're right--the natives ought to know--
But I think I'll build a shelter, just in case.

jrc 8/30/2010