After your visit here, go check in on more poetry with Katie at The Logonauts. She is hosting today.
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| High School graduation photo |
So I plunged on in and wrote a couple of really awful things that day. Then at the end of the evening this one started to come together. I had it mostly finished, but needed to get my Bio, writing description and pictures together. On the deadline day, Jan. 31, I put the final edits and revisions to the poem, and sent it all off.
So it is here, an Etheree, "Rude Awakenings" at Silver Birch Press, a poem about ME, at 17. I'd love it if you could comment on it here or there or both, if you don't have anything better to do with your time. How was your "Year 17"?
Teen years were not always easy ones back in the 1960's, but we survived - and I'm kind of happy I didn't have to do them in the 2010's.
And now a happy haiku in the midst of our snowstorm. I'm watching the slowly settling flakes mount up on pine and spruce branches, and then the wild wind comes along and swirls them off in, I would say small tornadoes, but they are pretty big ones today!
And suddenly there's a foot of fresh snow...time to shovel off the car.
Snow Squall
Serenely drifting
Nestling in spruce boughs, still till
Whistling whiteout whoosh!
by Donna JT Smith
Congratulations, Donna! I love the pic of 17 year old you... and that snow! Wowza! I am off to read your poem. Thank you. xo
ReplyDeleteOh wow, you really captured the in-between-ness of 17, Donna! And I love how your new author pic mirrors your 17 year old one. It's interesting to me to read about your fear... I was fearful of doing the WRONG thing. I didn't want to make any mistakes. As if! OF course now I have a deep fondness for those mistakes and want to tell that 17 year old, whatever you do, it will be exactly the right thing. xo
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, I had those same fears of doing the WRONG thing, too. I was a good follower of directions and great at school rules. I found my voice after graduation. And, yes, mistakes and all, we found our way!
DeleteCongratulations on your poem publication. Enjoy all that snow.
ReplyDeleteHad a break today, but there is more on the way for Sat., Sun. and Mon. - three days straight! We had 14+ inches in this storm with lots of wind and temps in the low teens. Looking forward to grandkids coming up north to play in it next week!
DeleteOh, 17! Certainly not my favorite year. I prefer 18 - that's when I met my husband! 😉
ReplyDeleteWow! Really? Young love! Pretty amazing.
DeleteCongratulations, Donna! Like many 17 year olds, I thought I knew it all. Hah! I love your image of snow "nesting in spruce boughs." Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI was one who felt I never knew enough to be an expert, so kept my mouth shut and watched and listened and read. I couldn't understand how those around me could be so sure of everything and speak like experts! I walked a different path than most 17 year olds.
DeleteCongratulations, Donna. I left a comment for you at Silver Birch Press. I was off to college at 17, had to find a new way to live then. You have snow; we have seventies. Such a time of weather for both of us this week!
ReplyDeleteBlizzard is on its way!
DeleteThanks for commenting over there, Linda!
Congrats on the publication, and enjoy the snow. Looks like we will have another winterless winter (just endless grey) in Ohio.
ReplyDeleteWe seem to be taking care of the snow this year....like two years ago. Last winter we had a mild one, so we wee due again. It's always back and forth here. Never know what the winter will be like on the coast. You can do it next year!
DeleteAt the time, my adolescent years in the sixties seemed brutal at times, but looking back it wasn't too bad at all. I survived.
ReplyDeleteI kind of miss seeing snow, but don't miss getting out in it and dealing with the mess of the melt.
Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out