A professor by profession and a poet by passion, Dr. Ranjana Sharan Sinha has received many awards for her contribution to literature. Accolade from the former President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam for her poem Mother Nature. She is an eminent poet, author, and a critic. Her poems, short stories and research papers have been widely published in highly acclaimed dailies, magazines, e-zines, journals and archives at national and international levels. Authored and Published 07 books in different genres and 50 research papers covering different themes. Poems published in more than 15 prestigious international anthologies and archives. Research Supervisor, RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur (India).
Recent in digital publications:
* Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)(July 2019) * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review (July 2019) Upcoming in digital publications:
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, HerStry, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. Among others, I’ve been featured on The MethoBlog, on the Plumb Tree’s Wednesday Poet’s Corner, and several times as Second Light Live featured poet.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
And it being Tuesday, here are the responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Gone the Winter Gods for Those of Spring, July 17, which asked poets to write about a season or the seasons and so they do. From spring in Bulgaria to spring in India, from a pensive visit to a cafe in Los Angeles during a humid July to feast of seasons in South Yorkshire, from the sun in Côte d’Azur to rain in Dartmoor, from the promise of spring in San Jose (CA) to the seasons as metaphor and memory in Pakistan, the yearly devisions are weighted with sensual pleasures, rituals, reminders, and symbols.
This week’s collection is courtesy of bogpan, mm brazfield, Paul Brookes, Anjum Wasim Dar, Irma Do, Sheila Jacob, Dick Jones, Frank McMahon, Sonja Benskin Mesher, and Pali Raj.
Enjoy! And do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome. To those who’ve written to ask how to be published on The Poet by Day, participation in Wednesday Writing Prompt is the best way to introduce yourselves.
green green
ah, you won’t remember the sweet October when amber juice drips from the vines
and where does the little grape picker go on that greenest afternoon
ah, the sea got stormy today
little girl, shrink midst the swollen grapes quickly
because the goats’ hooves sing, ah, a joyful god and his dusty entourage,
and a green coluber in the sea of green
ah, you won’t remember the sweet October when you take a sip of juice
july evening warm humidly noisy
in the city i sit between Spring and Broadway streets
at a mall downtown where i’d like to fantasize Bradbury
could be found drinking coffee
looking to my left there are the kids joshing and cussing
rolling on skateboards zephyrs with iphones
to my right hipsters with credit cards today green means something else
micro chips smart chips designer chips vegan chips
i smile Mona L style and sip my Vietnamese coffee straight up
pigeons coo me out seductively with the waffle sound
of their aged wings dusty with the history of my time
here in this old new modern city
a tiny crack on the wall
by the fire department’s emergency pipe
holds my attention but i knit by brows
dainty lilac flowers
offered up to the most attentive student
the teacher dark green weed shows the little creatures
exquisite tiny intricate jewels luring in the bees
another universe within my urban home
i don’t like hot weather
sweat panting and stickiness
should only be for sex
but if the retiring sun hadn’t drawn me out
for the night i would have missed the buzzing of life
and random thoughts of HST soul madness and did JD really
shoot his ashes out of a canon
crazy kids at times trapped by the freedom of the mind
i’m working on an espresso now looking around
twirling my ankle like a cat’s tail
am i happy today i must be
today i’m not running
as much
My oak skin believes
it is spring, electric rhythm
pushes out long
yellow catkins
and small female flowers,
purple hairstreak
butterfly caterpillar food
A false spring in dendrites
in my wintered head.
My leaf-burst happens
next mid-May
not this end of December.
Watch my hawthorn buds blink,
new fresh green leaves cum creamy white flowers, Queen bumblebees pierce
nectar and pollen from my Spring flowers,
frogspawn wobble in my ponds, ditches.
Bluebells confetti my woodland
hear Chiffchaffs arrival ‘chiff chaff’
tops of my trees and Cuckoos, swallows,
house martins and swifts feathered return.
Small pair of step ladders
roped together
pink bucket
childs yellow chair
stood outside terrace
window await instruction
washing strung out
between red brick
terrace walls
and wooden fence lats
signs of spring
street bottom cold mist
like over grainy movie
photographic fault
greys out background
like floating
detached house
stands to one side
observes
with a disinterested point of view
not like our terrace
where neighbours hear through walls
or in entryway
our oven fan
flaps through boisterous
kids play football,
humpbreathed lovers at night
a gunning motorbike
beneath billows of surf clouds
walk against tide
in dappled sunlight
over tarmac sea floor
pass ash maple fronds
where marine call centre
talks bubbles
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
in cold, grief snow bound encapsulated
crushed fallen swept foliage separated
branches heaving moaning sighing
I , like the brave trunk stiff,contemplated
December’s last days, ending or drifting
to new beginnings, dreary evenings
what is to be celebrated, one is thinking
it is a time of gathering and blessing…
bloodshed blasts, death blows through
North East North West North South North
does not stop- by benumbing weather
death knows not barbed wire or border
why celebrate the coming of Peace when
peace is not belief,when strafe and strife
is here there and everywhere, then, do
do we really love or care for human life “?
Celebrate with joy in white and red
white is a shroud and blood is red
spirits rise, bodies lie, darkened sky
players play with arms’ held high-
I seek Peace and Holy Peace will come!
we pray and decorate honor and wait’
‘O People do not stop to Celebrate’ the
Gift of Life, let the Bells Ring, anticipate
bury the hate for black or white
world is a rainbow ‘ day or night
think stop think no one is winning’
Hark, I feel, Someone Blessed is Coming’
Know now the reason the time, not, is late’
Time to Be Happy Time to Celebrate , Celebrate
“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar
Thoughts on January 6
A Quadrille
My summer island beckons me
When the sun hides behind
Winter clouds. Her waves, trapped
In whispering shallows, softly request
My return. Her rocky shoreline
Curved in a waiting embrace.
Her salty scent of carefree
Days warming the frigid air.
Only 6 more months.
To purchase this little gem of a volume, Through My Father’s Eyes (review, interview, and a sampling of poems HERE), contact Sheila directly at she1jac@yahoo.com
SUN AND RAIN
La Croix-Valmer, Côte d’Azur.
By day we burn into our own
shadows. Crash-landed
on white sand, scoured
by salt, we rust and wither,
Once we were flesh,
now we are part terra cotta,
part dead leaves, all oven
dust. That birthright
certainty, cool water
falling, belongs to legend
lodged in rumour. Rising,
rising, the sun yells
in a blue room and
we drown inside
each other’s steam.
By night we slip
between cool covers
and we dream in green.
:::
Fernworthy Reservoir, Dartmoor.
Inside the gold-green heart
of rain we move like figures
in each other’s memory.
Directionless, we’ve lost
the certainty of standing water,
under a moiling sky, splayed
face down across the moor.
Now mighty blades of rain
have chopped the logic
of the hills into broken
language and we can’t read
the meaning of this world
without horizons. Taproot boots
are sucked between tussocks
and we stand, motionless,
mouths open, doomed beneath
our packs, bog men dissolving
back to salt and sinew.
Dick’s collection Ancient Lights is available through Amazon HERE.
AMBIGUOUS SPRING
The colours were returning: pathfinder celandine,
yellow as rich as butter freshly-churned,
pale infantry of hellebore and crocus,
racy flights of blackthorn, early bees.
A pelt of snow has caped the distant hills;
milk-white ice conceals. Now wind shrives skin,
uncorks a furl of rooks to larrick
in the heady draughts while buzzards
rise, their plangent calls ringing through the air
above the trees, at ease in their hunting spirals
or jousting, perhaps, in early season foreplay.
How will they fare tomorrow
when gales will drum and thump
and a waterfall sweeps downwards from the sky?
I will sow seeds, drink tea, wait until the storms
have clawed their way beyond,
judge the wisest moment to emerge,
to steep my hands in earth’s true wealth,
when sun and water have balanced
what the winds have weathered,
to sample,grit under finger nails, palms
dark-stained or smeared blue with clay,
to fondle the webbèd texture,
test, grain by grain, its tilth, sniff aromas
of leaf and loam, praise the work of worm
and microbe, frost and air, declare,
to no one in particular, that the land is ready.
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
Blossoms and promise
Spring begins
Hopeful heart, who would now spoil a day
Winter is dead.
Sure, you can snuggle up *with*
a cup of tea and read
*I ain’t a bad guy*
What is it like?
Gone the Winter Gods for Those of Spring, a poem make an escape….yeah
I ain’t this year and I ain’t your fault.
Blossoms and promise
Spring begins ….
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet
* Five by Jamie Dedes, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)(July 2019) * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review (July 2019) Upcoming in digital publications:
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, HerStry, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a virtual literary community and publisher of The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor. Among others, I’ve been featured on The MethoBlog, on the Plumb Tree’s Wednesday Poet’s Corner, and several times as Second Light Live featured poet.
Email me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, reprint rights, or comissions.
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or, have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” Friedrich Nietzsche, The Joyful Wisdom
When I posted the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Elusive Soul, July 10, I wasn’t sure anyone would want to come out to talk about death and reincarnation. But lo! Here we are. We have a poetry feast, sometimes surprized by humor and quirkiness, but mostly fed by experience, observation, intuition, and the sacred. Prepare for a few laughs, a lot to think about, and maybe inspiration for a poem of your own.
Today’s feast is brought to us courtesy of mm brazfield, Gary W. Bowers, Paul Brookes, Anjum Wasim Dar, Irma Do, Deb y Felio, Irene Emanuel, Sheila Jacob, Elena Lacy, Bozhidar Pangelov, Sonja Benskin Mesher, and Pali Raj. New to our poetry family this week and warmly welcome: Bhaha d’Auroville and Melting Neurons. I didn’t have a bio from Bhaha, so I pieced one together and hope, Bhaha, that it works for you. Since Bhaga’s bio tangentially introduces Sri Aurobindo, I’ve included a photo and a poem by him, theme related.
Enjoy! and do join us for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. It is open to beginning, emerging, and pro poets. Don’t be shy. Join us tomorrow for a prompt that I hope you’ll like though it won’t be as stimulating as this one. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to swap it out for something more challenging. It’s late as I put a wrap on this post and tomorrow is a big day for me. You’d be surprized how busy a homebound writer can be.
Tempting Topic
For once I thought ‘It’s Wednesday,
Let’s see what today’s prompting is…’
And couldn’t believe what it was!
What to write, if I don’t believe
In reincarnation, but live
With it since I was a newborn?
And how can I write about it
‘Just from my imagination’,
When memories are flooding me
From so many places and times
Which I have known and have known me?
Oh, I do feel universal,
Old soul with yet another face
On top of another body
Whose cells still hunger for the food
They used to live by long ago
And still act upon the old vows
That I pronounced, meaning well,
In so many monasteries
Of so many dire religions
All over the entire planet,
Imprisoning myself in them!
Or other vows claiming Freedom
Without knowing quite what it was…
Yet in this life it all came back
As a whole harvest of lifetimes
Leading to this one’s turning-point
In the true Light at last of Love
For myself and for all ‘others’:
Unconditional Love at last,
Healing all with its strong Delight…
Shall I try to express all that?
It is such a tempting topic…
My very first memory?
Deep sadness.
Deep sadness within me at knowing, and telling myself:
“Here I am again,
having to pretend being a separate person again,
instead of a blissful part of the loving Whole… ”
Sadness like a huge sigh in my being,
in the Soul that I was
since ever
for ever.
The feeling of going at it once again,
out of a sense,
not of obligation,
but of accepted duty.
Like shouldering up again a burden
that has to be carried
to its destination,
whatever time it may take.
This was when I was supposed to be a tiny baby
just newborn,
arriving back into this difficult physical world
of planet Earth.
BHAGA d’AUROVILLE lives in Auroville, a conscious community in Puducherry in South India. Auroville is also, I believe, a United Nations supported site for sustainable agriculture and global human uniity. This self-contained diversely-populated community is dedicated to the vision of Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), an Indian poet, yogi, guru, and philosopher. Sri Aurobindo was a nationalist who joined the Indian movement for independence from British colonization. He was also a spritual reformer who held a vision of human progress through spiritual evolution. Some Americans may remember that Woodrow Wilson’s daughter Magaret was a follower. In the spirit of her community, Bhaga’s blog is Lab of Evolution, For Research on Conscious Evolution. She writes,”Conscious Evolution is for you and me. It is for the whole planet. It is the Next Step which is simply the logical, to be expected continuation of all that Evolution has already made happen upon this little Earth over the eons past. The difference is that now the human species is there, and we human beings can consciously participate in our own gradual transformation into a more evolved species. Any progress in that direction, by any of us, will help accelerate the overall progress for the whole Earth and all its inhabitants. It is happening. Will you help?’
Sri Aurobindo / public domain photo
Life and Death
Life, death, – death, life; the words have led for ages
Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed
Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages
Are opened, liberating truths undreamed.
Life only is, or death is life disguised, –
Life a short death until by Life we are surprised.
– Sri Aurobindo
The Endless
I’d ravage The Endless back into a savagely peaceful state,
where the darkness ceased against the ripping of sunlight
and flesh was made to stagger under new form and structure.
I’d break down amidst the ferocity of nerves completely aflame,
blazing mysterious life back in a rictus of fresh birthed anguish
that would howl up and out a throat misshapen to memory.
I’d rest my pained eyes on reflective surface and cast out,
cast out into the recesses of my mind to search for recognition,
failing and withering beneath the harsh gasp of true newness.
So I would be reborn, brought about by misguided hope,
faithfully preserved in the belief that housed in a new sanctuary
madness and sanity would restore to a natural balance
leaving me aware of a change, but aching with the loss.
MELTING NEURONS resides in Wenatchee, WA where he lives with his wife, dog and stuffed owl. They hail from Bend, OR originally, except the dog, who’s a Texan death row survivor. He has lived in more than 75 cities across the country at various points including Boston and New Bedford, MA. His writing centers around a lifetime filled with adventures in schizoaffective bipolar, addiction, and the dichotomy of being everything from a corporate executive to homeless on the streets for years. He is a member of the Sudden Denouement Literary Collective and enrolled in Wenatchee Valley College studying English and Creative Non-Fiction. His blog is HERE.
plished
as a young dad he formed the
habit of when leaving the house
of telling his young wife and tod
dler with mock-solemn drama:
“i am going on a mission…
from which…
i may never return.”
he did that 218 times.
there was a thirty-five year
gap
between #217 and #218,
which was on his deathbed,
staring lovingly
into his daughter’s
tear-swimming eyes.
she laughed a little, then hiccup-
sobbed. but he ska-sneezed
her hand
and said “mission accom–”
and died.
in this life
i suddenly remembered.
and so i say
“plished.”
As some of you know, Gary is multi-talented, combing visual art with poetry or prose narrative. He is also a potter. A sample of his work is pictured here. Gary’s pottery is available for purchase. Further details HERE. Note the business card. We appreciate Gary’s wry humor.
RSVP
hi
Rabbi
i’m that girl
this Eden is
very beautiful
i’ve crawled on my belly
since the time of the Pharaohs
and i’m feeling deeply tired
today i make the case that gifting
me free will does not compare to heaven
when i close my eyes the cries of Mary
still echo in my ears while Martha’s
brother slumbers wrapped in linens
and the taste of chocolate
melting joy on my tongue
careless angels send
Your blessed signs
however
i am
done
Gone to ground
he sharply sees far below the hole
he crouches in,
his fellows hop and thump,
gust in his wings as he dives,
break of bone and fur,
bloodseep
of his daughters limp body
as he takes her to his perch
to feed hungry beaks.
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
I believe I am an eight pointed star incarnate
I once orbited the central celestial dark space
where I was a reflector of pure light and peace
and was circling on duty on an invisible plate
many light years ago a new planet was born
and a twinkling dome was set as a guide, I
was transferred to move and shine, to pray
and light the way for those who would seek
for many more light years I remained suspended
and guided many lost sea and desert travelers
til some enemies down below started shooting
and one day I broke and lost my invisible footing
I am quite sure that I am in my third life now
from a star and a guide and in pure light, I
am in a different form called female, and in
a meteor shower mixup,got the spirit of a male.
and now my name though means a star
but am still in a state of confused war
many a times in lists and divisions I find
that my seat or chair is in the boys bar
the worst is when the organizers look me
up and down and refuse to believe that I
am a she and not a he’ as they had thought
shake their heads and reluctantly let me pass
so who is to blame if incarnation takes place
not according to what one wished or desired
or wished to be a prince or a princess royal-
when reality strikes you find, Oh, the change misfired
“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar
Nirvana Knows
a Pantoum
Redo my life please
I paid good money for that paper on the wall
It glares at me with disapproving rage
As I struggle with my final breath
I paid good money for that paper on the wall
A professional path to fame and fortune
As I struggle with my final breath
I think, “Regrets.”
A professional path to fame and fortune
Bartered for super tight hugs and sticky kisses
I think, “Regrets?
No, I am dying happy.”
We tried to barter super tight hugs and sticky kisses
But the cancer still clutched my breasts
Now, I am dying happy
Nirvana knows I made the right exchange
The cancer that clutched my breasts
Glares at me with disapproving rage
Nirvana knows I made the right exchange
Redo my life? No, thank you!
Once I was a worshipped cat,
I’m absolutely sure of that.
Whisker greys adorn my face,
which are the basis for my case.
At ease with every cat I meet,
without a cat, I’m not complete.
We greet and speak by sight and touch
and though that really isn’t much,
I swear the cats know who I was
when formally, I was their boss.
So when a cat is scared and hisses,
I shower him with gentle kisses,
until the present is the past
and he knows who I am at last.
in the fifties there was war
and hatred of those people
in the sixties there was war
and the hatred of those people
in then eighties, nineties, the same
then a new century came
no different now
war and hate
why would anyone
want to reincarnate
to be the hater or the hated
you lose either way
I’ll just stick
with Groundhog Day
Let a roan mare house my soul.
Let her coat be blue.
Let her name be Ocean.
Let her spine be strong.
Let her mane flow unplaited.
Let her ears twitch at the growl of thunder.
Let her face be winsome and her eyes gentle.
Let her tail swish to the hush of the tide.
Let her be free from bridle, saddle and bit.
Let her run in the company of other horses.
Let her chase the wind across green fields.
Let her travel country lanes and city streets
and mountain paths dusted with pine cones.
Let her follow the river and reach the valley.
Let her drink from clear streams.
Let her graze under the stars.
Let her gallop across sand and shingle
and the sea’s frothing hem.
Let her whinnying breath scatter the clouds.
Let her dance on the beach at sundown
and trace the moon’s halo with silver-tipped hooves.
Waking up after centuries of silence
Old memories still linger, but their meanings are elusive.
My Self, woven deliriously at the intersection of the old world neuroses,
Is trying to reach out for mirrors
Searching for familiar worries and joys
Suspended and in need of direction.
And, all of a sudden, that need for change feels familiar.
Life is flooding my existence once again…
Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
In the sunny mantle
the souls fall asleep
They are returning to Earth
forever
(to calm the fast time)
And if ever
on the green hill
surrounded
from a clean river
someone woke you up
stretch your hands
with your palms up
and you will feel
streams of golden sparks –
the soul of the sun
wish I wish I were born too stunned.
my mom must have sensed my presence.
don’t look at me as though I have grown another head.
what if, I can feel your nerves bubbling up?
elusive soul, a poem make a stand ….yeah
I shake my head smiling.
I smile a small smile.
p.s. it’s difficult to me to show outward affection.
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)(July 2019) * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review (July 2019) Upcoming in digital publications:
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, HerStry, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a virtual literary community and publisher of The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor. Among others, I’ve been featured on The MethoBlog, on the Plumb Tree’s Wednesday Poet’s Corner, and several times as Second Light Live featured poet.
Email me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, reprint rights, or comissions.
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
” . . . Two months later you were hurried to the hospital and died within the week.
“I stuffed your letters in a drawer and found your fountain pen, the ink inside still wet.”
excerpt from Letters From Home in Though My Father’s Eyes
I am often hesitant to review and recommend self-published books. Sometimes it seems that however talented and well-intentioned the poet, their collection needed another eye, an editor. We all need one frankly. Having said that, I am pleased with Sheila Jacob’s book as I knew I would be. Sheila did invite feedback from an editor and other poets before finalizing this volume, which I have now read twice and with great pleasure. Such is our humanity and the power of poetry that we can touch hearts across 3,500 miles and the wide Atantic.
Sheila, whose father died when she was thirteen, and I couldn’t be closer in terms of time (I’m a bit older than she is), roots (working class), and parents born on the cusp of or not long after WW I. Our parents were the hard-worked people of the global Great Depression and WW II. They were people who who kept their pain private, lived in gray cities, walked hard streets to work in factories and knew how to squeeze a penny. These elements are one reason why Sheila’s poems spoke to me, but I also know that her poems – this collection – will speak to anyone who values fine poetry as well as their own roots and their own loves and who have had to come to terms with loss and grief. Who among us has not? This small volume is a victory over sorrow and confusion and it brings to life one father and his daughter in all their loveable complex humanity. Recommended. / J.D.
The Doctors said I was a goner. You know the rest,
duck, an Irish nurse slipped a Lourdes medal
under my pillow and hours later I woke up, found
I could breathe on my own and talk.
You used to love the story.
Ah, yes, I see, perhaps I did make a meal
of it, ignored how I felt living through
the Blitz and coming home on leave
to streets of rubble.
I was loaded with memories
you were too innocent
to share.
excerpt from War Record in Through My Father’s Eyes
The poems and excerpts from poems in Through My Father’s Eyes are published here today with Sheila’s permission.
INTERVIEW
JAMIE: Not to diminish the extraordinary quality of your work and how meaningful it will be to others who read it, but writing these poems must have been cathartic for you. Did you come away from the writing feeling healed?
SHEILA: Yes, I did feel healed. Putting words on paper and clarifying my thoughts helped me make sense of my dad’s death, my reaction to it and my overall relationship with him. It enabled me to continue the grieving process which didn’t really begin until I was an adult and had left home. My parents, aunts and uncles, were from the post-war stiff-upper-lip generation who refused to dwell on grief. After Dad’s funeral they carried on as before with very little show of outward emotion and I was encouraged to do the same. My mum had always been a reserved person; she retreated into herself and never spoke to me about Dad even in the most general terms. I was angry and bewildered at the time though now I understand that it was the only way she could cope.
I suspect there are poems waiting to be written about my mum’s experience: written, hopefully, with the generosity of spirit I didn’t have as a teenager and young adult. And I’m still writing “Dad” poems. The past never stays still.
I also found it necessary- and therapeutic – to explore my dad’s boyhood, which seems to have been a happy one despite financial deprivations, his love of football, and his time in the army during WW II. This gave me a fresh sense of belonging to and being rooted in my Birmingham past.
JAMIE: I seem to remember that you mentioned having stopped writing poetry for years and then started again. What triggered your reengagement with poetry?
SHEILA: This began in 2013 during an episode of depression. I consulted a clinical psychologist, a most remarkable man with whom I am still in touch. He’d encountered the work of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath in his professional capacity. When he discovered I used to read and write poetry, he strongly encouraged me to start again.
I remember how I‘d been seeing him for a few weeks and he suddenly said “Write a poem on the sessions so far.”
I cobbled something together for our next appointment and also dusted off my poetry library, mostly collections by Gillian Clarke, R.S.Thomas and T.S. Eliot. I continued writing, for his eyes only at first. This gradually expanded. I read a lot about poetry as therapy and wrote a small piece about my own experience for Rachel Kelly’s Blog. Rachel is the author of Black Rainbow, an account of her long struggle against depression and the positive part reading poetry played in her recovery.
I found a website called Creative Writing Ink and took a beginner’s poetry course with a perceptive and experienced tutor, an Irish poet, Eileen Casey. Her feedback was invaluable. I began subscribing to various poetry magazines and, eventually, submitting.
JAMIE:In what ways has involvement with online poetry groups been productive for you?
SHEILA: They’ve helped greatly with the quality of my poems. I tend not to write one word when ten will do. I’ve learned/am learning to be more economical and precise with my use of words. My poems are still on the long side but I write in a narrative style that I think lends itself to the longer poem. I’m not a great lover of form but I’ve written sestinas, non-rhyming sonnets, tankas, cinquains and, of course, haiku which really concentrate the mind. I pay more attention to line breaks, line lengths and stanza lengths. I never used to edit my poems let alone re-edit them. Now, I often leave troublesome ones to cook for months before I return to them.
It’s been enriching to discover the work of a wide variety of poets, living and deceased, and to explore different subject matter. I’ve done courses in ekphrastic poetry, poems of trauma, poems of protest, and poems of place. The most recent course I did was with Jonathan Edwards’ for The Poetry School where he asked us to “step into someone else’s shoes” and write from the point of view of an animal, a building, and an inanimate object, amongst others. I found this very enjoyable and liberating.
The second benefit of poetry groups is the undoubtedly the fellowship. I’ve received valuable, constructive feedback, I’ve met poets from all over the globe, read styles of poetry I wouldn’t otherwise have engaged with and formed lasting, supportive friendships.
JAMIE: You chose to self-publish, which is something a lot of readers are contemplating. Why did you do so and what was the experience like?
SHEILA: I would have preferred to publish my chapbook with an established poetry press but the ones I submitted to didn’t like my work well enough to take it on. I have no hard feelings about this. Maybe I should have tried more publishers and waited longer for submission openings but I’m almost sixty nine and didn’t feel that time was on my side.
There was also an emotional element involved. I wanted closure from this particular set of poems by sending them out into the world sooner rather than later. I’d worked hard on them over the years and felt there was a niche for them somewhere in the poetry world.
I did a mentoring course with Wendy Pratt, a lovely lady and a very fine poet. I sent her a proposed collection to critique and she immediately suggested that I should focus solely on the poems about my Dad. Her encouragement gave me the confidence to self-publish. I also had a lot of support from a Facebook friend Jenni and a local poet friend David Subacchi who has self-published quite a few books and encouraged me to “just do it” without worrying that they weren’t “proper” poems or that it wasn’t a “proper” book.
Once I felt that the poems were as good as I could make them the actual publishing was very straightforward. I contacted a reputable local publisher, David Bentley, whose ideas on layout were useful. He suggested using a thicker, creamy paper to correspond with the memoir theme of the poems.
This wasn’t a cheap process but I had money saved for it and wanted to be in control of the proceedings on the ground rather than through a computer. If I self-publish again I may well take a different approach.
To purchase this little gem of a volume, contact Sheila directly at she1jac@yahoo.com
POEMS
The Power of Flight
After you died
the echo of your cough
roamed the house.
When a dark shape
filled your bedroom’s
open window
I ran to tell Mum,
who ran next door,
both of us unnerved
by the bird’s frantic
tumble of feathers
and whirr of wings.
It’s just a young one
our neighbour laughed
and calmed it with a lift
of her hands,
steered it towards
the power of flight,
the possibility of song.
.
A Boy Called Anthony
Anthony would serve at Mass, ring the consecration bell.
Anthony would play 5-a-side football, win gold trophies.
Anthony would pass his 11-plus, go to St. Philip’s School.
When the midwife cried “It’s a girl” Dad searched
for new names, called me after his favourite sister, he sang
pat-a-cake and bake it in the oven for Sheila and me.
I couldn’t be an altar boy but knew the Latin responses,
couldn’t play football but watched with Dad at Villa Park,
passed my 11-plus, went to St. Paul’s where the nuns taught.
When end-of-term results grew worse, Dad grew angry.
I scowled, sulked- I’d tried my best, just didn’t like Maths.
You should have been a boy called Anthony, Dad snapped.
Anthony would have excelled in Maths, Physics and Science.
Anthony wouldn’t have answered back, chewed his nails,
muttered bloody hell, been sent to his room in disgrace.
Anthony, I realised then, would never fail or win, Anthony
couldn’t drink dandelion-and-burdock through a straw,
Anthony couldn’t laugh, skip, scrage his knee and bleed.
Anthony would never run to Dad, blurt out I’m very sorry,
I promise not to be rude again. He couldn’t hug Dad, weep
against Dad’s shoulder, smell the Brylcreem in Dad’s hair.
Don’t forget it’s nearly Father’s Day
As if I could forget how it fell
two days after they lowered
his coffin into the earth
though fifty-odd years ago
I was spared online adverts
for Ben Sherman socks
and flagons of Dior Savauge.
As I’d have offered such gifts
to a man whose socks
were hand-knitted, darned
at the heel with love;
whose favourite cologne
was pure Welsh water
splashed from the cold tap.
As if I wouldn’t make each day
a day to remember had he lived
He’d be a frail centenarian
I’d cosset with chunky scarves
and camphor oil; open the old
draughts board knowing
he’d outplay me every time.
– Sheila Jacob
SHEILA JACOB was born and raised in Birmingham, England and lives with her husband in Wrexham, on the Welsh border. Her poetry has been published in several U.K. magazines and webzines. She recently self-published her short collection of poems that form a memoir to her father who died in 1965. Sheila finds her 1950s childhood and family background a source of inspiration for many of her poems. You can connect with Sheila by email: she1jac@yahoo.com
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet * Remembering Mom, HerStry
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)(July 2019) Upcoming in digital publications: * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review (July 2019)
* The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice (August 2019)
A busy though bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Levure littéraire, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, Connotation Press,The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, Woven Tale Press, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a virtual literary community and publisher of The BeZine of which I am the founding and managing editor. I’ve been featured on The MethoBlog, on the Plumb Tree’s Wednesday Poet’s Corner, and several times as Second Light Live featured poet.
Email me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, reprint rights, or comissions.
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
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A professor by profession and a poet by passion, Dr. Ranjana Sharan Sinha has received many awards for her contribution to literature. Accolade from the former President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam for her poem Mother Nature. She is an eminent poet, author, and a critic. Her poems, short stories and research papers have been widely published in highly acclaimed dailies, magazines, e-zines, journals and archives at national and international levels. Authored and Published 07 books in different genres and 50 research papers covering different themes. Poems published in more than 15 prestigious international anthologies and archives. Research Supervisor, RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur (India).
MELTING NEURONS resides in Wenatchee, WA where he lives with his wife, dog and stuffed owl. They hail from Bend, OR originally, except the dog, who’s a Texan death row survivor. He has lived in more than 75 cities across the country at various points including B
As some of you know, Gary is multi-talented, combing visual art with poetry or prose narrative. He is also a potter. A sample of his work is pictured here. Gary’s pottery is available for purchase. Further details 
SHEILA JACOB was born and raised in Birmingham, England and lives with her husband in Wrexham, on the Welsh border. Her poetry has been published in several U.K. magazines and webzines. She recently self-published her short collection of poems that form a memoir to her father who died in 1965. Sheila finds her 1950s childhood and family background a source of inspiration for many of her poems. You can connect with Sheila by email: she1jac@yahoo.com
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 