2021! october 7 & 7 years in missing frank kelso wolfe.

today is 7 years since we lost frank kelso wolfe of royersford borough, montgomery county, pennsylvania, to suicide on october 7, 2014. we miss him so incredibly much, even more in recent months. 2020 and 2021 have been brimming with lessons we feel frank would want us to be easy on ourselves in sifting through, but it often takes conscious effort for that, and we're not always in the most aligned of head-space or heart-space to remember this. life nowadays feels like the most complex it's been for many of us in a while, and it's been doing a whirlwind on our mental health, our bodies, and our bones.

please check back soon for more updates, as we cannot keep up with the world anymore (we still have submissions to post from 2020!), but we will be welcoming ongoing submissions here, with the same process as last year. please feel free to submit even before we can update further here. we welcome your words, your art, your music, your heart on a digital page.

there will be no direct date or physical open mic, the same as last year (we miss steel city coffeehouse & brewery! please support this local business); this is a more creative form of our usual annual event and will be ongoing so that art and words can keep pushing forward with no deadline.

see 2020 submissions info here until 2021 info is updated, but again, it will be the same process, so hopefully that's helpful for everyone, in how it's difficult to for us to keep up, but we're doing our best, like so many of us are right now in our exhausted existences. expect more edits ahead in this post for the 2021 memorial open mic in blog-form nowadays for frank. and thank you for taking the time to visit, to read these tossings of language in the seventh annual memorial open mic, now in blog-form for the second year, since last year kinda basically threw everyday life upside-down.

 

 

<3 

 jen & emily

2020: reflections, bird haiku, another poem, & recipes by maryann neblock.

 

MaryAnn Neblock shares reflectively here—

I feel older in the age of COVID and Trump than my chronological years. I love my husband of 44 years and my 2 adult children. My husband has been my caregiver and strength and helps me through my complicated life and extensive medical history. My family is my lifeline, my foundation. Crohn’s Disease has ravaged most of my adult life, but I try very hard not to measure everything else against it. I’m new to writing poetry and haiku, and it’s offered me some catharsis. My poem "Un•Whole•Y•Ness" was written in a Prednisone-induced bout of insomnia after my Dad passed away in 2017. Bird haiku came about from enjoying seeing birds outside of my house, where we feed them and offer a birdbath to drink and splash around. Cooking is my passion and refuge, and I’ve been preparing food for family since I was 9 years old. Recently, I’ve been photographing my creations and formatting original recipes to share with friends, family, and the recipe index on Kimberton Whole Foods' website. Last year, my husband and I were able to share our love of music and sang at Frank’s 2019 celebration of life at Steel City Coffeehouse. I hope we can honor him again that way in 2021.

The current environment in our country would have been very difficult for a tortured soul; it’s exceedingly difficult for most of us. Rest in peace, Frank. We honor you and your life on this day and beyond.

 

*

 

In 2019, Berks Bards celebrated 21 years as a local poetry-promoting nonprofit in Berks County. MaryAnn served as the featured poet as a bird haiku writer during the celebratory get-together during April as National Poetry Month at Brandywine Branch Distillery & Bistro, in Chester County, not far from the border of Berks County. This video showcases MaryAnn's bird poems she read for the event.

Below is one of her bird haiku samplings, from the video.

 

CROW

Shiny black feathers
You “caw” to me while in flight
Heaven’s wings aloft 

  

*

 

In 2017, MaryAnn wrote a poem about her experience with Crohn's Disease and its impacts on her body in daily life. It is the poem below, which was later published in a newsletter through The Oley Foundation based in Delmar, New York.

Un•Whole•Y•Ness

I lie awake in bed at night
Hoping to fall asleep
To dream..to be whole
The soft whir of the pump
ka-chunk     ka-chunk
Moving liquid nutrients into my heart
And eventually into what’s left of my gut

How did I become this creature?
This artificial being in body
While still real and whole in mind and soul

How can the body fail so as to betray
the spirit that drives me?
And how do I go on from here
To fulfill my purpose with such distraction?

Tomorrow is another day
To push through the daily rituals
Until the whir of the pump once again
Lulls me to sleep..and I become whole

 

*

 

And here are some of MaryAnn’s delicious-as-a-curse-word recipes published through Kimberton Whole Foods—

Unstuffed Peppers
Vietnamese Soup AKA canh chua or cá nấu
Navy Bean Soup 

Ricotta Frittata
Lamb Meatballs with Yogurt Mint Sauce
Southwestern Style Lentil Vegetable Soup

2020: a poem by katy giebenhain.

 

Still Quiet

In the wind colorful bedclothes
wave thoughtfully on the balcony
Behind a pile of shirts,
Fragrant hemp by a spinning wheel

– Emil Lerperger, translated from the German by Jim Wayne Miller

In the wind colorful bedclothes
lift, extending bellies of air. Suppose
the sheets could unpin themselves. Would
they sail far? They could
but won’t. Possibility comes and goes;
in the wind colorful bedclothes

wave thoughtfully on the balcony
prayer flags far from the Himalayas, see
each pillow case spread
their damp seams fed
from sunlight strong and steady;
wave thoughtfully on the balcony.

Behind a pile of shirts,
bare feet, and more pressed skirts
the linoleum warms.
Still quiet, the old clock-arms
shift, preparing for the hour’s alerts
behind a pile of shirts

fragrant hemp by a spinning wheel
piles up its decree. She can feel
that rain is coming,
but does not mind, keeps thumbing
pegs in place. Here is today’s seal:
fragrant hemp by a spinning wheel.

Katy Giebenhain is the author of Sharps Cabaret (Mercer University Press). Her poems have appeared in The Arkansas Review, The Healing Muse, Bridge Eight, The Examined Life Journal, The Glasgow Review of Books and elsewhere.

2020: the song "in the end" by ida maria.

 

i am pretty sure i burned frank a CD copy of the album ''fortress round my heart'' from 2008 by ida maria years ago and that he ended up telling me later how much he liked it, that it really stood out to him. i wish i remembered specifics, but it's more the feeling of it, what i remember best, and that's probably what really counts.

norgwegian musician ida maria børli sivertsen has a lot of upbeat, vibe-you-on-up songs, the kinds built to make you want to dance the hell around. and i love those from her plenty.

but ''in the end'' is a song by her which i love in its slower degrees of movement, one always reminding to slow down in myself, stilling enough to see what's beautiful around me and in what i've known, like the moments i had with frank in our friendship.

this photo below of red-petaled tulips off in the distance is from a springtime walk i took during my workday. it reminds me of catching up fast, to glimpse and capture the scene, and to slow down in appreciating what it can bring to a single heart or perhaps a few or more hearts than just this one in our world. and i feel like noticing art around me to photograph is frank nudging and tapping at me sometimes from the inside, a welcome reminder for me to document would-be missed art for myself and also so others can learn about its existence to experience.

and below here is the song ''in the end'' by ida maria. at least a few times a year, i remember that it's out there, and i play it on repeat. please enjoy it for your heart and for frank's.

— jennifer hetrick

 

2020: 3 poems by rick kearns.

 

plum tree family

the ancient plum tree
dies on a regular basis

new shoots spring from
an eternal root system

new branches grow beside
and around the old ones

now covered with bumps
dark dry but standing still

as the young ones climb
over and around them

with their white blossoms
and promise of sweet blue

plums that feed five generations
of my family that dies, too

but still grows outside
a grand old home, paid for by

the loving but taciturn father
of his beloved daughter who

was my Grandma Kearns, niece
of Sara Estella Dannley, who

gifted the plum tree to our family
100 years ago and now

her grand nephew, my Dad
is 90 and he considers the

gnarly old tree
part of the family, our legacy.

*

Facebook ghosts

joseph took his life

still has a page
on facebook, death has
not removed his profile

the fact that he
hung himself
at night
in a barn

has no bearing
on his social media
presence.

are there ghosts
on facebook?
do the dead
still post?

I don't know
I don't know how
to deal with
these cyber ghosts

I played a siguiriya
for an old friend
who is long gone
but his page lives on

I recorded it
onto Messenger
a PM to a dead friend
who use to play

an agonzingly
beautiful siguiriya
one of the old flamenco
songs that rose

out of the mountains
with the help of
duende, and sherry
and pain.


Do the ghosts
On Facebook
Haunt the cloud?

Do they fly
Through the air
On e currents?

I’d like to think
My dead friends
Check their pages

But I’m not holding my breath.

*

the guitar has something to say

the guitar has something to say
the congas circulate blood and
the cajon is shivering with love

i address the guitar
give thanks string cousin
i sing with the congas
taking me with them
back to Mama Africa
I lay hands on the cajon
waiting for the duende
to rise and help me find
the names not spelled
correctly on the ships’ manifests
of the murderous hordes
that brought me here
to meet the me who was
already here but wondering
why the gods allowed this

the guitar has something to say
the congas circulate blood and
the cajon is shivering with love

 

 

Rick Kearns is a poet, freelance writer and musician of Boricua (Puerto Rican) and European heritage from Harrisburg, Pa.  He was named Poet Laureate of Harrisburg in January 2014. His poems have appeared in over 80 journals including The Massachusetts Review, The Painted Bride Quarterly, The Patterson Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Letras (lit review of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, NY) and Chicago Review.  Kearns’ poems are also in two books, five national anthologies, two international anthologies and seven chapbooks. Several of his poems have been translated into Spanish and Portuguese.

He has given readings throughout the US since 1992, including at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café in Manhattan and Capicu in Brooklyn. His poetry is also featured in "The Moon Rides a Black Horse" CD, combining his poetry and jazz performed by the Con Alma Quartet (with whom he collaborated between 2010-2014).

More from Rick Kearns—

YouTube Channel
Hispanic Heritage Month Exhibition
Reading for Poetry 2 + 1, Clark Forum for Contemporary Issues, Dickinson College

2020: art by brook ludy.

 

Brook Ludy is a 20 year old writer/artist living in Richmond, Virginia. She is majoring in Kinetic Imaging and minoring in creative writing. She grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, where she started a business selling her art in high school and has illustrated 2 local children’s books. You can check out her work at www.brookludyart.com as well as on Instagram.

2020: a poem by le hinton.

 

 The Heart of the Matter

I am astonished at the asceticism of olives,
the black keys on an otherwise white piano,
and how jelly tolerates the infidelity
of peanut butter with bread.

I’ve always been a bit slow in appreciating
the finer points of intimacy,
the way stuffed animals casually stand
mouths agape while witnessing
the crumpling of dreams in a bedroom.

The tightly closed leaves of an artichoke
protect it from the lies of Casanovas
and other insatiable insects,

but in the end
most olives lack a beating red center.    

 

                    Originally published in Cerebral Catalyst
                    and Black on Most Days

 

Poet, teacher, lecturer, Le Hinton is the author of six poetry collections including, the Language of Moisture and Light (Iris G. Press, 2014) and most recently, Sing Silence (Iris G. Press, 2018). His work has been widely published and can be found in The Best American Poetry 2014, the Baltimore Review, the Pittsburgh Poetry Review, the Summerset Review, the Skinny Poetry Journal, and in many other publications. His poem “Epidemic” was honored by The Pennsylvania Center for the Book and “Our Ballpark” can be found outside Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, incorporated into Derek Parker’s sculpture Common Thread.

His current collection, Sing Silence (formerly A Chorus for Cotton), was a finalist for "The Best Prize for People of Color" from Big Lucks and an honorable mention for the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize.

He has read his work at the Library of Congress for Grace Cavalieri's long-running  series, The Poet and the Poem; Penn State University for the Pennsylvania Center for the Book's Public Poetry Project; in Charleston, South Carolina, for the Capital BookFest; and in New York City at the New School for The Best American Poetry 2014 release reading.