Sherry Chandler

The Mosaic poets had great fun reading poems of love at Fauntleroy’s Café and Espresso Bar last night. We were pleased to play before a full house, and we gave them all the angles: new love, old love, hot love, cold love, and love gone wrong. The latté and espresso were delicious, the audience was quick and attentive, Sonja Brooks’s fiber art was (and is) brilliant, and Genie Walker’s jazz vocals were easy on the ear. I thought she was especially charming on the sing-along rendition of Happy Birthday. Thanks to all of you for that delightful surprise – and somehow a cherry tart seems like just the right birthday treat for the occasion. Thanks, too, to Genie for giving us a chance to strut our stuff.

Sonja’s art will be there through the end of the month and there are still two more great jazz programs to catch in February — click the program above to view the PDF file for details. The House Writers will be reading fiction on March 3. I’ll post more details as I have them.

For those of you who missed this delightful event (I may be a little prejudiced here), Jean-Marie Welch has agreed to share one of the poems she read last night:

Morning Glories

The summer she was told
he fastened four long pine planters
atop their fence –
above these,
a gossamer trellis
of fine fishing line.

From her bedside window
she could watch
their last shared vision
unfold:

a dense curtain
of morning glories
ink blue
climbing skyward
with no visible
means of support

like his prayer.

      Published in: Appalachian Heritage, summer issue, 2003

I have been talking to Patricia Monaghan, editor of the current NILAS Newsletter. Patricia says:

NILAS is an interesting and important organization, one that breaks down the barriers between academic and non-academic intellectual work. Storytellers, poets, and other creative types are as much part of NILAS as those with academic appointments (the current president is a storyteller).

I was pleased with the femininity of the [current newsletter] collection … that more women seemed to be writing (and writing VERY well) about plants. Also the underlying theme of sensuality–it was all a bit like having the literary equivalent of Georgia O’Keeffe coming into my mailbox.

I give you one more poem from the Fall 2004 Newsletter, this one from Frankfort poet Normandi Ellis. Normandi is the president-elect of the National Association of Poetry Therapy Foundation and works with elders and youth at risk. While Ann Lederer’s poem dealt with harvest and the season’s end, Normandi’s gives us the season’s beginning. These last few sunny lengthening days – some of them warm – remind me that the earth is turning and soon, none too soon to suit me, it will be –

Late April, John’s Branch

This morning on yesterday’s shorn lawn –
dandelion tufts
and rain-drenched violets.
Redbuds recede into green leafing
trees. Bluebells bloom their last
among the tall creek bank grass.
Blues and pinks fade fast –
now comes the season of white dogwood and locusts,
a season of yellow wood poppies.
Underneath the green umbrella of leaves
white mayapples flower.
Rain drips into the red
upturned lips of trillium.

Handing down and trading plants is, it seems to me, a tradition with women so writing about them should come natural to us. The white trillium pictured here has bloomed against the north side of our house for thirty plus years, surviving drought and flood. My late mother-in-law brought it here from the Red River Gorge during a time when the river was going to be dammed and folk were allowed to take what they could find. Fortunately, that damming did not happen, and I consider the trillium a legacy that I guard with care.

The theme of the next NILAS Newsletter (Winter 2005) will be “Experiencing Animal Presence: Totemism, Shapeshifting, Story” – nonfiction and fiction, poetry and artworks that evoke cross-species empathy and communication through what NILAS refers to as totemic expression. Submissions should be e-mailed to Marion W. Copeland, guest editor, or mailed to her at

128 Amherst Road
Pelham, MA 01002

Deadline for submission: Monday March 14, 2005

Addendum: I highly recommend Patricia Monaghan’s two latest collections of poems: Dancing with Chaos (Salmon, 2003) and Homefront (FootHills, 2004).