2020: a poem by khalid guiden.

 

in 2018 while at firefly bookstore in kutztown, berks county, for a poetry reading followed by an open mic, i met khalid guiden. i could have let my introvert-self keep me from opening introductions socially at the end of the event, but my insides wouldn't let me because the poem he read to the crowd drew an especially real-feeling line to my heart—invisibly in the air—as he spoke each next word into the room. 

compelled by his poem for his grandmother he'd lost shortly after writing this piece for her, i asked him for permission to share it on my poetry-teaching blog. here is what i shared of it back then with some photos he offered to go with the memories and intentions presented through the writing.

we were so grateful to feature him reading this poem at goggleworks center for the arts this spring through berks bards and our one-minute poems program we host every spring during april as national poetry month, what we locally coin as bardfest. khalid read this poem for us after he and two other student poets from kuztown university (by the way, frank also attended this school) were our featured poets in march 2020; this poetry reading became the last one we hosted in-person, since the COVID-19 pandemic began, so my fellow volunteer organizers and i are incredibly aware of how fortunate we were for the many monthly events we hosted in the community for years before abruptly yet safely going virtual, and we remember these students in a sense of awe, as our last in-person featured poets, and because of their time with us and also knowing how hard 2020 has been on young people in school and college in how their worlds were reshaped, challengingly so, in a matter of weeks and months.

please share this powerful poem onward.

— jennifer hetrick

2020: a poem by heather h. thomas.

 

Atonement

Which one travels
toward the stranger?

Who in nightspeed slits
of borders, time zones

word-maps crossing
multilingual

what’s on the tongue
risking trust

without translation
atonement in a zip of light

drawn across the sky’s
at(one)ment

as the light shifts
but does not separate

one with other, one. 

This poem appears in Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureates on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press, 2019) and in Vortex Street (FutureCycle Press, 2018). 

 

Heather H. Thomas is the author of Vortex Street, Blue Ruby (FootHills Publishing, 2008), and other poetry books. Her poems are forthcoming in The Wallace Stevens Journal, Barrow Street, Planet in Crisis, and The Shining Rock Poetry Anthology. Connect with her at www.heatherhthomas.com and on Facebook. 

2020: poems by ruth z. deming.

 

In 2017, Ruth Z. Deming had a creative nonfiction essay about Frank published in an online magazine called Kaleidoscope. We highlighted this on the blog that year.

Ruth has been a dedicated participant in our annual memorial open mics for Frank and always expresses much gratitude for this work we do in his memory and so others can learn from him, so we can all continue learning from him for his own sake and for ourselves in what we have yet to take in through our understanding of who each of us is in this world we share.

She offers some of her poetry via video this year.

Ruth Z Deming, MGPGP, is founder/director of New Directions Support Group, for folks with depression, bipolar disorder and their family members. Visit www.newdirectionssupport.org to learn more. She writes Letters to the Editor to dispel myths about mental health conditions. She has written hundreds of poems and short stories. She lives on a quiet street in Willow Grove, PA, where her art work - made of PVC pipes from Home Depot - graces her lawn.

2020: 2 poems by mimi zannino.

 

HIDING PLACES

where does grief hide
during moments
when vision clears
tears evaporate
the veil of sorrow
sweeps into the current

does it burrow with
furry-backed creatures
nuzzle with their warmth

does it soar above the canopy,
its eagle eye trained on
a rodent fit to die in the
clench of its talons

does it lunge from the bottom
of a cold sea, brace itself against
the chill, witness liquid breath
without choking on its sobs

and when it resurfaces
has it changed just enough to
let you know...

 

*

 

When Words are All I Have

This space is for you.
Here — this conduit —
between brain and heart,
undetectable on an x-ray,
is where the us of you and me
resides, since your body has
gone missing.

It is a floating place,
but we will carve out letters
from our separateness and
scatter them like breadcrumbs
along the distance between us

so, one day, we can find
our way back home.

 

 

Poet, Rosemarie Law (MiMi Zannino) has been a teaching artist with the Maryland State Arts Council since 1989. Most recently, she has researched, written and performed her one-woman living history show: Time-Travel with Virginia Hall, America’s Greatest World War II Espionage agent for audiences from Washington DC to Florida. She also portrays the American Poet, Emily Dickinson followed by a Q-and-A with audiences. EmilyDickinsonLive.com GardenPartyMusic.com

2020: a poem by marilyn LT klimcho.

 

Covid-19

(For context, this poem was written on March 13, 2020.)

A newly deconstructed tree,
Stacked in my neighbor’s yard
Provides safe harbor
For a flock of sparrows
Sheltering momentarily
Inside the pile of familiar
Limbs gone awry, as if
These sawed branches
Are a new form
Trees have adopted
In response to the age of
Patio fire pits.
The sparrows twitter and flit,
Performing an examination
Of interstices and unnatural
Intersections between
Trunk and branches.
Sparrows are brown and
Ordinary, as ordinary
As you and I, looking
At the breakdown
Covid-19 has created
As we respond to
Spreading infection.
The wider world’s problems
Have found us and the
Unnatural quiet on the
School yards, in the stadiums,
And theaters is evidence
Of that. We flit, furtive,
Through our deconstructed
World, looking at the
Gaping holes, but looking
Also for the connections
That aren’t sawed through.
We sparrows chatter loudly,
Startle easily, react rapidly
Fly off in a new direction.
We are a nervous flock.

Marilyn Klimcho is the author of poems and short stories that have appeared in The Schuylkill Valley Journal, Birdsong, Coast to Coast: The Route 20 Anthology and others. Her award-winning work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

2020: music & history tellings by chris larose & friends.

 

This nearly 17-minute video set in the natural world across in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, brings together music and local river, canal, industrial, and environmental history through the artistic efforts of Chris LaRose, Mike Merling, Emily Neblock, and Cody Young.

While Chris never had a chance to meet Frank, we like to imagine how rewarding and fulfilling their conversations would have been, as Chris is a great person to share brain-space with in talking about life, nostalgia-rich appliances and manufactured-anything from old days, farming, subcultures, and little and big moments of all kinds across days and experiences as people on this earth.

Chris LaRose hails from Lock Haven, PA, playing driving, foot-stomping acoustic blues and genuine historical folksongs. In addition, he plays in a PA Dutch folk/bluegrass duo, a folk & historical folk duo, and leads an electric blues-rock band called Chris LaRose & the Hex Highway Blues Band. Updates on this can be found by searching for the "Hex Highway Blues Band" Facebook page. His original music can be found at ChrisLaRoseMusic.com or by searching for "Chris LaRose Music" on Facebook.

2020: 4 poems by mary mcginnis.

 

Stick Of Lightning


Sleep, like a stick of lightning

pierces and then lets go-

 

the touch of sleep last night

I noticed brought sweating rather than burning. So, it

 

couldn't have been a stick of lightning that

kicked me into memory.

 

Stick of lightning would be a good way for me to exit

without a fuss, like a star burning up in a hurry.

 

Slightly over a year ago, you took your own life-

the star of your own show.

 

You had been planning it for a long time,

deliberately choreographing.

 

I was angry then, but now I get it.

You had the unbearable need for perfection to be restored.

 

For us on the outside, your life looked good:

Buddhism, recognition, menudo with Bob,

 

two bedroom assisted living apartment

with wood and tile floors,

 

dining room across the street where we wrote once.

It's a cliché, what did we know?

 

You left like a stick of lightning with concentrated power,

first no food, then no water. Friends around and by phone.

 

Is that what comes of never complaining

and always laughing?

 

The last time I saw you, you were stung by a bee.

We packed up our picnic and one of us took you to the e. r.

 

Bob, Barbara, and I took a sad little walk.

I lived through this but not that.

 

 *

 

Looser


Let go of the jailhouse of

ordinary time. Because of this virus,

on our honor, we wash our hands,

sanitize our apples,

excite the old-fashioned woman in us who suddenly

remembers she has an oven and might

like to cook.

If you're a man who never has, get

over it!

Sing at the sink while you wash the inevitable

evening dishes.

Remember, time is a slow thread now.

 

Lie in bed a little longer, and enjoy an

old habit long overdue.

Outside at least one window,

some birds keep their song,

even the

ravens hover and watch safely.

 

 
*

 

Part of My Shadow


You're part of my shadow, though gone;

you were the one who picked up little pieces of paper when they fell.

You were the one who made art where dust was.

You were the one who watched birds on afternoons at home and everywhere.

 

I was the one who always talked,

and after you listened, I talked less.

And you did things I didn't want you to do like

gambling in a harmless way and not taking down phone messages.

 

Neither of us care about that now.

You are an anchor in my shadow,

the friend I can still speak to,

the part in me that breathes a little deeper,

the part that holds stones until they are warm.

 

*

 

Death, Don't Break Me Open

Death, don't break me open-

Not yet.

It can't hurt to ask for a big brawny techy

man or woman to show me if my turntable still works.

 

It can't hurt to go to Big Lots again

for the purchase of some weird, in between

food or drink such as Diet Partner Tea.

 

I want a reservation on a not-cruise

so I start to remember my dreams again.

 

Death, don't break me open;

come in fragile politeness as if in a dream.

Bring me a banana dress - I've never had one.

 

Death, you look a little scary,

like white margarine.

Let's see if we can make a deal.
 

 

 

Mary McGinnis, blind since birth, has been writing and living in New Mexico since 1972 where she has connected with emptiness, desert, and mountains. Published in over 80 magazines and anthologies, she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has three full length collections: Listening for Cactus (1996), October Again (2008), See with Your Whole Body (2016), and a chapbook, Breath of Willow, published by Lummox for winning the poetry contest in 2017. Mary frequently offers poetry readings and writing workshops in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico.