A literary column

It being the New Year, I thought I’d go with what is traditional, a review of the year.

So let’s look at the panorama of the amazing poets and writers that were featured here in our very own Rocky Point Times.

Starting with January 2014 we read: In The Quiet Night
By Li Bai (701-761), the eighth century Chinese poet whose words ring as relevant now as then.

Next for February: Flamingo Watching by Kay Ryan our sixteenth US Poet laureate from The Best Of It. Oh go on, read more of it.

Then in March Censorship’s Enemy, The Journey, I Am Not Outrageous, by Nancy Boutilier…to quote our Bob Dylan: “A complete unknown…” but three easy pieces.

April we heard from: Billy Collins, Constellations, read more of him, seriously.

May was: William Carlos Williams, and his poem Red Wheelbarrow, a most unique multicultural poet and one of the fathers of experimental modern poetry.

By June, ready to expire from the heat we got a fresh breeze with Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, a June married couple and their dueling poems: Red and Untitled.

By July we honored Maya Angelou, as she passed from this earth to her next venture with Phenomenal Woman…a very hard pick from such outpouring of work.

August brought us the Midwestern poet Michael Walsh and his poem from Dirt Riddles, Weekly Horoscope, a man who knows and brings us to long hot summers.

In September I brought the delightful complexity of Mouth To Mouth, anthology of Latino women so we might make it through the final heat. Elva Macías did the job.

For October I returned to that same complexity for a more thorough examination with the work of Mónica Mansour…it was just too rich for one month to sustain.

Arrives November and cooling, yet another anthology A Book Of Luminous Things featuring Linda Gregg, her poem Adult, easily could be about Rocky Point.

Now we end in December with Joy Alesdatter, my dear friend and fellow poet and her piece; Keep Your Heart Open…what a fabulous ride we had and met some fine new friends, yes!

Starting off the New Year I bring you Mary Oliver’s newly published book of poems;
Blue Horses with her signature humor in:

What I Can Do
The television has two instruments that control it.
I get confused.
The washer asks me, do you want regular or delicate?
Honestly, I just want clean.
Everything is like that
I won’t even mention cell phones.
I can turn on the light of the lamp beside my chair
where a book is waiting, but that’s about it.
Oh yes, and I can strike a match and make fire.

There you have our year in review folks…please join us and share your creativity at:

m.diane.writeon@gmail.com, our monthly on-line writers group welcomes you.