Celebrating Poets and Their Songs
By Susan Haley

The head Wolf around the Fox and Quill Wolf Den has come to think of me as his resident poet by my own admission. I’ve confessed my first love being poetry in spite of my numerous prose contributions. Poetry is the genre usually unrepresented by overall writer’s groups as poets tend to gather amongst other poets to find acceptance and appreciation. Now, when National Poetry Month in April rolls around, Jack asks me to provide a poetic submission.

Pulling from a non-ending source of inner voices, rumblings actually, is what gives the writer in me the courage to fly free above the rules and admonitions of genre and the grammatical language of prose. For a poet, metaphor evolves into the absolute. Fantasy can become fact, dreams can become attainable goals, and style and expression can soar. This is especially so if the words and inner personalities are pulled from your very soul.

Simple lines of strung-together words began tumbling out of me on lined yellow paper as soon as I was able to draw clumsy, rather lopsided letters, probably the age of four or so. For nigh over sixty years now, I’ve been dribbling my soul songs onto a page.

I’m beginning to think all writers do at one time or another. It’s common knowledge that many of the classic novelists also wrote poetry. So, I decided to honor Poetry Month by sharing the work of other poets that I’ve come to admire in my work with poets. This past year, I’ve discovered that our own Alpha Wolf also creates the occasional poem. Jack had shared a couple of half-hearted efforts with me over time in our many email banterings, so when he told me he’d written a poem for April, I was expecting something of a more humorous fare. The poem that follows this article really moved my poet heart titled Afghanistan in Moonlight.

Well, my favorite Wolfman, you brought a tear to my eye. Poetry does that to me.

The incredible talent lying hidden in forests of obscurity out there never ceases to amaze me. One poet came to my attention when I was asked to be the Reviewer at an Annual Review for Suncoast Writers Guild. I fell in love with Jim Kelly’s work before I met the man. I want to introduce him with his own words taken from his introduction on his new website: www.jamesokelly.com A website constructed by my own site builder for Sucarha.com, Kathy Killam.

. . . "I wrote poetry for over ten years, mostly for personal satisfaction. When I thirst for comfort, I drink from yesterday's well: a place where robins announce spring's arrival, summer returns to caress bare feet, autumn leaves dance away in colored gowns and winter's first flakes are captured on innocent tongues. Poetry revives these cherished moments, instills a specialness in mundane things we all have known . . ."

That statement, alone, should illustrate what I’m talking about! Following is one of Jim’s short, simple, but profound poems . . .

Sunday ~ By: James O. Kelly

A church clings
To street’s end,
Listens to babble
Of a creek nearby.

Bells echo through the hills,
Plead into skies
Empty of concern

Inside, benches strain
Beneath the weight
Of remorse.

Doors open,
Inspiration scatters like notes
From the organ’s psalm

Old folks and children
Shuffle down the road,
Uncertain of their stations.

Jim Kelly is a master of what poets call "imagery". His new series called "Uncle Joe" is actually building into a story of the days when men traveled the rails in freight cars. Back then, they were known as hobos. Today, they might be called adventurers. It was the first "Uncle Joe" poem that Jim had entered in the Annual Review that literally bowled me over. I’ve been working with him ever since.

The obstacle I run into when attempting to compile a tribute to poets is the space limitation. There are fifteen or twenty I’ve met in the last five years that deserve space here. I do want to mention the name of a Performing Poet whom I credit with being my mentor in the art of reading and presenting a poem, an art in itself. I can write them. Reading them is an entirely different thing. How it is presented can make a good poem better or not so good. Linda Neckel White is a stage performer. She has work on CD’s available at www.poetsrule.com.

I’ve met poets that are so moving to me, I’d love to hear Linda read their work. One is Lauren Jedlan who is a Katrina survivor. She wrote the following poem when her home in New Orleans was ravaged by flood waters . . .

Click on this: next column

The Poet's Garden ~ By: Lauren Jedlan

If only there were a piece of beauty I could find:
a trickling stream, a bed of fern, a cove of green.
A wall surrounds all verdant paths,
One too high to climb.
So I must seek within myself
to hear a fountain singing,
feel blossoms trembling on the wind,
to trace a robin's winging,
to lie beneath a lilac bough
and give its fragrance being.
Thus I shall plant a poet's garden of delight.
To find in times of need,
when hurt and care distort the truth,
and anguish hampers seeing.

Lauren, like me, is an avid lover of Nature and the Universe around us. She adores and respects the flora and the fauna and their right to live and have their space. The balance of our Planet demands it. For Lauren to lose that world around her had to be devastating. When she shared The Poet’s Garden with me, I literally ached for her. She and her husband, John, a musician, have become a blessing in my life.

It would take a book to hold the tributes I would like to give other poets and writers. My new book, just released, Amber Returns to Maine and Other Songs of the Soul holds some of them along with Amber. The above work recognizes three more.

I will close with a poem I wrote for the person that is responsible for me being what I am. I wrote it for my husband, Jerry, on the tenth anniversary of his departure.

A Decade - A Moment ~ By: Susan Haley

A decade . . . a moment,
the then and the now.
The time and the no-time,
Only you, know the how.

How do I see you yet standing here,
still hear your whisper ring in my ear?
How do I feel you in a current of air,
or touch you, in your book by your chair?

Why do I ask? Does it matter at all?
So what, the risk of my sanity, or resultant stakes?
As long as you’re close,
so what, the form that you take?

A storm or a star, a fox or a bird;
a spark of memory at the sound of a word.
Your eyes looking out from the eyes of a son,
a new grandpup, and your love of a dog instantly won.

Some days you’re vague. Some, stay right by my side.
Some days in storms you perfectly hide
others, you soar away and there I can’t go.
Yet, I know you’ll return riding the next rainbow.

A decade, a moment . . . our then and our now.
Some day you’ll take me, and I’ll, too, know the how;
The how of this me in the ‘here’, and you over ‘there’
But today, only you know . . . the when and the where.

And, I wait . . .

August 13, 2009

May you always have rainbows gracing your skies . . .
. . . and butterflies dancing before your eyes.

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"A poem is never finished, only abandoned." - Paul Valery