Earth Day 2013

After several days of heavy downpour, frightening those of us who have watched large hunks of Whidbey Island slough itself into the sea, Earth Day burned glorious with sun.  I celebrated by taking my recyclables to the Bayview Recycle Park, and then taking Snickers for a walk in the woods.

As Snickers took off like a rocket through the underbrush, I strolled the still-muddy wooded path, observing the dappled spots of sun taking their shapes from the leaves and branches above.  Tree trunks lying on the ground, thrown down by winter storms, nursed communities of mosses and ferns.  Overhead, birds swooped and clouds scooted in the wind.  Earth Day, I thought;  how can there be only one day per year to celebrate all this?

We need an ongoing Earth Year, continuous, never-ending, to remind us every minute of every day to honor and respect the overwhelming beauty and complexity of our planet, our home, our Earth.  Maybe it should be called "Earth Age," the era when all humans band together to take back our planetary health.  I hope your Earth Day was as beautiful as mine.  Peace ...

Rainy Day Workshop

On Thursday, April 4, 2013, I facilitated a poetry workshop sponsored by Friends of the Clinton Library.  My friend and fellow poet Pat Kelley Brunjes (Poems from the Desert Floor) presented a short course on how to give an effective reading.  Although our attendance was smaller than anticipated, the participants were enthusiastic and creative.  Here is a photo of two workshoppers in the process of creating ekphrastic poems based on sculpture:

We also created imagination-based poems, recalling looking out windows from our childhoods and what we saw out there.  Finally, we created poems by freewriting using a list of 15 randomly-generated words.  All the poems were interesting and vivid, and some were read in the evening at our 7 PM reading.

APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH!  Host your own event to celebrate poems.  This can be as simple as a group of friends sharing a bottle of wine in your kitchen and taking turns reading poems important to them.  Our workshop was fueled by homemade chocolate chip cookies -- always a good idea for stimulating imaginations.  Read some poems, write some poems, talk about poems, give books of poems as gifts.  My best chum from childhood has requested my new book (Ring of Fire, Sea of Stone and yes this is a shameless plug -- buy it on Amazon!) as her birthday present.

Poetry will set you free!

APRIL 4, 2013: Discover Your Inner Poet

Cookies!  Creativity!  Community!

Come one, come all to a free poetry workshop (afternoon) and reading (evening) at the Clinton Community Hall.  I'll be co-leading a workshop with my friend Pat Brunjes, author of the just-released "Poems from the Desert Floor."  I will work with poets to generate new work, and Pat will present ideas on how to give an effective reading.  We'll meet at the Hall at 3 PM, work until 5, and take a break for revision, dinner, hanging out, etc.  In the evening, all participants will read a poem of their choosing to an enthralled audience of friends, family and fellow poets.

Sponsored by the Clinton Library.  For further information, call Debbie Colfer, Branch Manager at the Clinton Library, 360-341-4280.

Hope to see you there!  Thursday, April 4, 2013 at 3 PM.

Back from SAN GABRIEL VALLEY LITFEST ***

Hi Everyone -- those folks in the San Gabriel Valley and at San Antonio College are a bunch of poetry-loving machines!  My sister and I attended the 3- day litfest, held at West Covina, California's civic center over the long weekend, February 15/16/17.  82 degrees, a gentle Santa Ana breeze, flowers in bloom and palm trees overhead:  what's not to love?  There were four stages going, from noon until 9 PM each day.  When a poet or fiction writer was not reading, s/he was giving a knockout introduction to a fellow reader.  There was music, jewelry, painting, and feng shui advice; there was a special area on the grass for children's literature presentations.  Audiences were unfailingly receptive and generous.

And of course there was fabulous FOOD, from trucks that drove up every afternoon with everything from wild Alaskan cod tacos to churros and waffles.

My reading was at 1 PM on Saturday.  A special surprise was attendance by my 91-year-old mom and her sister, my Aunt Frances, who drove 9 hours from Green Valley, Arizona to attend the reading.

I felt fortunate that my book won the chapbook competition, even more so after hearing work of the other chapbook finalists, especially Terry Lucas -- check out Terry's vivid poems in "Diesel," the anthology of the San Gabriel Valley litfest; here is a link to the bookstore, where my book is also available:  http://sgvlitfest.com/?page_id=630

Here is Terry reading:

A million thanks to John and Ann Brantingham for organizing the festival, and to Michaelsun Knapp for judging the chapbook competition.  (That's Michaelsun and me in the photo below.)  This festival may become an annual event for Sandra and me.

Thanks to everyone who has encouraged and supported my poetry over the years.

***LitFest SCHEDULE***

Here is the link for the schedule at the three-day San Gabriel Literary Festival.  Although my name is not on it (yet), I'm in the group 'Winners of the Chapbook Contest' shown for the Library Stage on Saturday at 1 PM.  I'll have 15 minutes for my reading.  (Remember that saying about everyone having 15 minutes of fame?  I guess this is it.)  Enjoy:

http://sgvlitfest.com/?page_id=870

Stephanie Hammer, although she lives in L.A., is a student in our Whidbey Island MFA Program.  I hope to catch her reading on Saturday at noon, and also Diane Glancy's reading on Friday.  There will be so much poetry going on, it will be impossible to hear every poet.

I'll be posting tales of this experience on this blog after returning to Whidbey February 17.  Stay tuned.

Sheryl's Book Wins a chapbook competition

I'm absolutely THRILLED that my book, "Ring of Fire, Sea of Stone" has been chosen as the winner of the San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival chapbook competition.  I've been invited to do a featured reading at the Festival:  Saturday, February 16, 2013 at 1 PM.  The SGV litfest runs February 15 through 17 at the West Covina, CA civic center.  There will be four (!) stages going, with readings, music, graphic arts; something to interest everybody.  My sister Sandra is going with me and we will do a joint reading of one of the poems from the book.

My book is now available on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Ring-Fire-Stone-Sheryl-Clough/dp/0615755518/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

If you would like to order a signed copy directly from me, I will have copies available upon my return (2/17).  Please send an email to:  <Scatchetpoet@gmail.com> or leave a reply to this post, and I'll be sure to save a copy for you.

Back to work!  I hope to finish a new manuscript of poetry this year, and make significant progress on a novel for which only one chapter is written.

Still Talking

My no-speaking experiment could be called a total failure, as I made it only about two hours between making the decision and speaking to another human.  I put my dog Snickers into the car and drove to a large off-leash area north of where we live; figured I'd be safe with the dog for company.  As she galloped away, I climbed the crest of a small hill after her.  As I topped the ridgeline, a beautiful young Dalmation cruised past me, and shortly behind her came a talkative fellow named Bob.  What could I do after he introduced himself?  Our social conventions do not allow for the possibility of non-response when a stranger tells us his name and offers his hand.  Soon we were chatting amiably on a topic easy for all dog people:  our dogs! -- their names, their ages, their favorite treats, and so on.

I thought of my friend Jim, now deep into his ten-day Buddhist retreat, and I realized that stopping speech could be best done in a controlled environment such as the one he chose.  Jim's experience will be more strict than anything I could handle:  no books, no writing paper (!), and of course no electronic devices.

I'm greatly looking forward to hearing about Jim's experience.