In memory of Peg Johnston

With the recent death of Peg Johnston, Broome County (NY) has lost one of its anchors of the arts. She was well known for her involvement with the Cooperative Gallery in Binghamton and the Department of Public Art, which created many of the murals in our area.

In Peg’s memory, I’m posting the poem I wrote as a representative of the Binghamton Poetry Project for the Broome County Arts Council‘s Heart of the Arts Award dinner in 2016, when Peg was honored with that award along with Emily Jablon. (A video of my reading the poem is here.)

Thanks to the Department of Public Art
~~ by Joanne Corey

 for Emily Jablon, Peg Johnston, and all whose hearts are in the arts

Stencils and murals
on descending levels
of the Water Street parking ramp
time-travel through that historic corner –
Link Blue Box flight simulators
evolve from pipe organs –
punching in on Bundy
time recording machines
in the days before IBM
and the move to Endicott –
on street level
“Welcome to the birthplace
of virtual reality”

We walk back
walk through
move forward
cover
recover
remember
build
rebuild
renovate
together

Walking along the Chenango
more murals –
diverse faces
in shades of gray
with colorful songbird
overlay –
hot air balloons
float over green hills –
BINGHAMTON
in bold letters
filled with landmarks
proclaiming their location

We draw
paint
photograph
digitize
share
write
read
view
review
create
recreate
together

Across Court Street
a riot of mosaics
flowing around curves
moving through the spectrum
patterns
shapes
florals
the clear message
“BE  INSPIRED,
BE BINGHAMTON”

Broken shards of glass and lives
re-order
re-assemble
tessellate
shine in the sun
glisten in the rain
reflect
renew
touch
together

We sing
play
listen
dance
act
react
interact
applaud
together

We live
breathe
eat
drink
laugh
sigh
smile
artfully
thoughtfully
cooperatively
with heart

I was honored that, after the dinner, Peg had asked for a copy of my poem, which I gladly gave. I hope that, over these last few years, she looked at it occasionally and that it made her smile.

May she rest in peace and may her contributions to the arts be remembered for decades to come.

One-Liner Wednesday: 3rd Wednesday

I was excited to receive 3rd Wednesday‘s Spring 2023 issue in the mail this week, because it includes this poem of mine and I have very few of my poems in print, at least until my chapbook Hearts is available from Kelsay Books later this year.

This shameless self-promotion is brought to you using the vehicle of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/03/29/one-liner-wednesday-glad-i-didnt-owe-anything/

Poem on Silver Birch Press

I’m pleased to share that my poem Kaʻūpūlehu has been included as part of the ONE GOOD MEMORY series from Silver Birch Press. Many thanks to Melanie and the team at Silver Birch Press for including my poem in this series.

I especially appreciate that Silver Birch Press includes an author’s note with each piece. It gave me the opportunity to spread the word about the Kaʻūpūlehu dryland forest of Hawai’i.

This poem began as a response to a Binghamton Poetry Project prompt in spring of this year. You can read a bit about the writing of this poem in my blog post here.

As Silver Birch’s call for submissions states, “The past few years have been the most difficult that most of us have lived through. It’s a challenge on many days to stay positive. At times like this, it’s heartening to remember good experiences. Sharing each other’s good memories can help us remain hopeful during these challenging times.”

I’m honored to have this poem featured among dozens upon dozens of other good memories as part of this series. I invite you to explore these uplifting poems and to reflect on your own good memories. We can all use an extra measure of hope in our day.

As always, comments are welcome – here on Top of JC’s Mind, at Silver Birch Press, on Facebook, twitter, ello, and Post. Your choice!

New poem at Third Wednesday!

I’m excited to share that my poem “April 19, 2022 – Vestal, New York” has just been published by Third Wednesday Magazine on their website and will be included in their quarterly print edition this spring!

This poem began as a Binghamton Poetry Project prompt on that date from workshop leader Suzanne Richardson. We were studying the use of a central image or metaphor. We were meeting via Zoom as I sat at my desk in the midst of a late snowstorm, so snow/storms became the central image.

One thing about writing from prompts in a workshop is that there isn’t a lot of time for planning, so I tend to go with the first thing that presents itself. Fortunately, I had experience with snowstorms, so my mind had somewhere to turn.

I workshopped the poem with the Grapevine Poets and did revisions before sending it out. I’m grateful that it has found a home with Third Wednesday!
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/09/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-9th-2023/

Small Constellation

So, I had a post all prepared for Just Jot It January for today until I went to Linda’s blog to get the link to add to my draft and saw that Willow had chosen “constellation” as today’s prompt.

Given that I had planned to do a shameless promo later this week that involves that word, I will postpone my planned post and do that now.

It was my honor to be featured with an interview in the new issue of Portrait of New England. My currently unpublished poetry collection Small Constellation is mentioned a number of times in the interview. This is my first ever featured interview and I’m still super excited about it! Many thanks to editor Matthew Johnson for making it possible!

Earlier in the issue, there is my poem “State Line” which is part of the collection. The title Small Constellation comes from another poem in the collection “Monroe Bridge Mail” which you can read here in Wilderness House Literary Review.

It probably seems strange to be talking so much about a book that isn’t published but, maybe if I do, the stars will align, I’ll get it into the hands of the right publisher, and it will be!
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/02/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-2nd-2023/

Binghamton Poetry Project anthology – Fall 2022

I’m pleased to share the Fall 2022 online anthology of the Binghamton Poetry Project, which includes four of my poems, some of which need more explanation than others!

“Ode to Pentel P207” was written from a prompt during a summer workshop on response poetry with Samia Ahmed. Not surprisingly, we were studying odes that week. As it happened, odes were also a topic of a workshop on Romanticism with Samantha Flatt this fall, so this poem represents both of those sessions.

I do have a special relationship with my Pentel mechanical pencils! I started using them extensively when I was in college. They fit my hand well and are great for fine work, such as writing music manuscripts by hand, which we had to do before music editing software became readily available. I’ve continued to use them and they are my go-to writing implement when I draft poems and when I workshop them.

I hadn’t thought it was weird to have a favorite pencil until I was workshopping this poem, first published by Wilderness House Literary Review:

In my purse

cheap pens I won’t miss if they’re lost
my wallet, heavy with too many coins
ibuprofen for headaches
a pack of tissues
hair ties for windy days
a dog-eared calendar
my license to drive
a crumpled shopping list
emergency cough drops
a pyx
my favorite mechanical pencil, extra lead
credit cards – insurance cards – loyalty cards
a laminated prayer card from my mother’s funeral

Several people commented that the line that let them know something was up was the line about the mechanical pencil, which to me was just a normal thing to carry in a purse. Perhaps, though, it is a bit strange to make a pencil the subject of an ode, although we did study some odes that had been written about everyday objects.

“Beauty can be…” was written in response to Samantha Flatt’s workshop on Romanticism and Beauty with a prompt to describe my relationship with beauty. I was trying to capture the sentiment that I find beauty in many, seemingly contradictory circumstances.

“Hoosic” was written in response to the second week of Suzanne Richardson’s workshop on prose poems. Those three weeks were my first time to attend an in-person Binghamton Poetry Project workshop series since we went virtual in spring 2020 due to the pandemic. The prompt was to include in our prose poem an illogical or associative leap or a surreal moment or a mix of fact and fantasy. As often happens when presented with a prompt and the need to write quickly, I turned to a familiar topic, here, the Hoosic River, about which I have written several poems as part of my full-length manuscript centered on the North Adams, Massachusetts area. I will leave it to the reader to decide if my personification of the river fulfills the prompt.

The reason that there is a fourth poem listed is because “He Pines” was written at a special summer event, Much Ado in the Garden, a Shakespearean-themed festival. I participated in a Binghamton Poetry Project reading and mini-workshop, resulting in this very atypical poem. In keeping with the prompts, it includes some no longer used (and somewhat insulting) words. It also has the line count and rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet, although not the iambic pentameter. I am notoriously bad at writing in Western received forms, so that I managed anything even sonnet-like is an achievement. This is a disclaimer, though, that I agreed to include it in the anthology only as an example of playing with language for this special event, not because it is actually a good poem!

This fall also marked the return to an in-person Binghamton Poetry Project public reading, although I had a conflict and couldn’t attend. Perhaps in the spring, I will be able to participate, if the tripledemic has alleviated by then.

Please feel free to read the whole Fall 2022 anthology. You can also view past anthologies and browse the site for other features. Enjoy!

Pulling Off Route 79 on a Summer Day by Sharon Ball (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Happy to share another poem from the Silver Birch Press ONE GOOD MEMORY series! Enjoy “Pulling Off Route 79 on a Summer Day” by fellow Grapevine Poet Sharon Ball! Bonus: a cool photo of Sharon and Miss Kitty.

Silver Birch Press

Pulling Off Route 79 on a Summer Day
by Sharon Ball

1.
Watching the white butterfly stop and sit
on a leafy green sunspot, then lift again
flickering on bright air,
propelled up, down, sideways across the road,
flying toward my open window.
Will it flap in or pass on through the trees to the river?

2.
White butterfly floats
Aspens quake against blue sky
Sun-dappled woods keep secrets.

3.
Through the trees, the river moves fast with yesterday’s rain.
I barely hear the water over the whoosh and hum
of coming cars and going trucks.
In between, leaves whisper of gifts as
the white butterfly melts into quiet woods.

Photo by Saturday Sun on Unsplash. 

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem is the unexpected result of a solo drive through the countryside. At some point, I pulled off the road, rolled down all my car windows, and paid attention to…

View original post 150 more words

Cleaning Miller Pond by Merrill Oliver Douglas (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

A poem from my poet-friend Merrill Oliver Douglas is up on Silver Birch Press as part of their ONE GOOD MEMORY series. Enjoy!

Silver Birch Press

Cleaning Miller Pond
by Merrill Oliver Douglas

Puzzle: how to nudge this boat
among trailing vines and branches,
squeeze through the one bare space,
poke the reeds with the paddle
and pluck out the Coke can?

Then figure the best wrist action
for flipping a taco wrapper
from beneath the snarl of algae
that streams off the paddle
like hair from a corpse.

The bag between my knees
grows lumpy with Styrofoam
bait buckets, beer cans, a slack-faced
soccer ball, glass and plastic
bottles sloshing grainy water.

Puzzle: why is the world so filled
with slobs? And why,
on a mild spring morning
in downtown Elmira,
does all this garbage
beckon like carnival prizes?

Originally published in Eunoia Review (January 27, 2016).

Photo by Gorlov.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote this poem after helping to pick trash out of three ponds in Elmira, New York, during a volunteer cleanup…

View original post 96 more words

SoCS: ring

I’ve been out all day at the bicentennial of my hometown so this will be a short SoCS post.

When I saw that Linda’s prompt was ring, what came to mind was the poem I wrote about taking off my father’s wedding ring after he died. The first anniversary of his death was Wednesday. The poem was published this spring by Wilderness House Literary Review here.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/09/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-17-2022/

BPP Spring 2022 Anthology

I’m pleased to share the Binghamton Poetry Project Spring 2022 Anthology. The Binghamton Poetry Project is a grant-supported outreach program in which graduate students in poetry and creative writing from Binghamton University offer free community workshops, offering children, youth, and adults the chance to learn more about and write poetry. BPP moved online during the pandemic, although we are hopeful that an in-person workshop will be possible again this summer.

This spring, I attended two workshops. My poem “Aubade with Birds” was written in response to a prompt in Suzanne Richardson’s workshop, Fresh Images and Form. This was my first attempt at writing an aubade, which the Poetry Foundation defines as “a love poem or song welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn.” I seldom write love poems and this one is definitely more on the lament side.

The other two poems were written during Shannon Hearn’s FIELDING TENDER: Nature Writing for the Apocalypse. “Kaʻūpūlehu” is based on a visit to the dryland forest preserve by that name on the Big Island of Hawai’i where daughter T interned during a semester spent in the Islands while she was a student at Cornell University. B and I were not able to visit during that semester but made a trip there several years later with her. Kaʻūpūlehu is an amazing place; you can see some videos and photos and learn more about it here.

The haiku in the anthology is one of five I wrote during a fun session with Shannon in which we wrote haiku in response to an image and a randomly generated word. (There is a note with the information on the word and image included on the page with the poem.) There was quite a bit of laughter that evening as some of the images and words led to pretty fantastical literary leaps, but I thought this particular haiku managed to make sense apart from its origin in the exercise.

Thank you for visiting the Binghamton Poetry Project anthology. Please check out the other poets while you are there. Some of the past anthologies are also available through the drop-down menu.