In Search of the Sun

I have found that I am drawn to the mystery of the sun in my photos, as if behind the lens of my camera I can do what my mother always told me not to do, look directly in the sun. Perhaps it is not the sun, but the way sun changes the light within the frames, reveals hidden images, plummeting other images into shadow. I am fascinated by the light. As if it is a genie that comes and goes. I have not yet figured out completely how to adjust my camera to get the best images or what type of filters to use, though I think I am going to order a set of filters to play around. I have the Shingles and they truly suck, but hope by the weekend I will be getting some sort of relief. This week I am picking the photos to enter in the City of Richardson Contest, later this week I will post the top contenders. The Texas Photography School will be holding its classes in Dallas this year, it is a week long extensive class with professionals there are 35 classes to pick from, I am thinking about going, the course is expensive 570.00 dollars and I have to take a week off of work, I am trying to figure out if I can afford the tuition and more important the time off. I am also trying to figure out what level of class to take, likely I will take a beginner level class. Except for the Shingles, I am mostly groovy.

Photos from Ronald McDonald House

On December 13th my sister and I and a group of her friends and our daughters prepared food for the families at the Ronald McDonald House. The Dallas Ronald McDonald House just built a new home now able to serve 90 families; the original home was able to serve 30 families. The home is beautiful and I was filled with such gratitude to all who donated to make it possible. My own emotions are always a bit of a jumble pie when I go to Ronald Mcdonald or Childrens Hospital; this time it was different as it was a different place than where Justin stayed, and it made easier to be there, but it also made me sad, as if I lost a connection. These photos of the playground, and my neice Raegan's toes on her brothers stone, I am going to move her toes over to my permanent side bar. I am looking forward to the New Year. I started a new blog over at Wordpress, a different kind of blog for me if you want to check it out the url is http://www.jumbopetite.wordpress.com/ The new blog is a bit of experiment for me and I am still feeling out if and where I am going with it. Keeping up two blogs will be a bit difficult for me, so I will likely eeny-meeny-moe them alternating days between them. I am still not revising or submitting, but I am writing again, and it feels good to be back in connection with the words. I also joined a GoodReads poetry book challenge, to read 20 new poetry books in a year. I am still working on my list, but hope to have at least the first 10 identified by this weekend. I recieved Christine-Klocek Lim's New Chapbook How to Photograph the Heart, available from The Lives You Touch Publications and it is beautiful, it is the first book on my list of books to read. I also had the pleasure of reading her essay on her blog November Sky about whether poetry is dead, I encourage you to check it out.

Happy New Year

Writing Under the Influence w/Chinese Democracy Accompaniment

I imagine the barrel. Oak. Nestled, cupping the liquid that is now tantalizing with the aroma of smoke, the amber color as it swirls in my glass, its wide rim indulgence as I breathe in deeply. The glass weighted and reassuring in my hand, like my favored coffee cup, an extension of the quietude in which I enjoy consumption; a luxury I have afforded myself on this cusp, the birth of a new year. I have always loved beginnings best, the sense of wonder and awe in discovery. I long to savor these few quiet moments in which I have stoked the fire of introspection, and like tea leaves shook out to be read, I approach this new year with both hope and trepidation, aware that possibility is both light and dark. Still I hunger for the newness of the year, await the pronouncement of the soothsayer. I let the music play. I am gone lost in the strings, words linger and music moves in and out of my consciousness. Sometimes when I turn the sensors off, I see the color of music. Close my eyes to experience its hue, its translucent richness of brazen gold, red mahogany and along the rift of guitar a glint of obsidian. I become a note as I blend with the sound of his voice, and I allow the words to separate from the music and the poetry to linger in my ears and I sense refinement and a beautiful maturity. I return to the image of the barrel, its metal-strapped belly, how with time it tempers the whisky, and I smile. The only sounds, music and the tinkling of ice as I float the glass to my lips.


An Insatiable Desire for Deja'Vu by Bebe Cook available from Flutter Press

Miss Piggy




This is my favorite Christmas present, a gift from my husband, I am calling her Miss Piggy. I can not see her without grinning from ear to ear, without a little smile bubbling up inside of me. She rocks, and my husband rocks for buying her me. We had been grocery shopping at Target (which is not a real grocery store)and we rounded the corner and she was there, I just started smiling, and I told my husband I wanted one for Christmas, and he made that husband sound (the one that generally precedes the husband look). Based on the sound and the look, I figured I would not be getting the Piggy, and I remember telling myself I would come back after Christmas and buy her if she was on-sale. I opened all of my presents and she was in the last box. I saw her; started smiling and well I am still smiling. I am using her to save for a very cool Snoopy for my Michael.

A White Christmas

Christmas Poem 2008

I scan the sky for the Great Bear;
whose tail forms a pouring vessel.

Visible to those who choose
to dwell under northern skies.

Eyes finger its outer rim; search
for Polaris; seek confirmation of identity.

I long to partake of the constancy
of this star like ancient mariners

who navigated the seas from
its unflappable position. I know

that cartographers drew lines from its axis;
scrawled directional symbols on rolled

parchment and divided this world
into quadrants. Yet, under darkness's

blanket on this hallowed eve ,
I think only of the babe

eyes wide in the manger,
gazing upon this same

this bright star;
and am comforted.

I have been backing up my photos and my words, as in all things in my entropic way they are on the electronic equivalent of jots, post-it-notes, written in margins, slips of paper, a bit of aside from the normal business of my day to day life. My PC is sick, very sick, and while I mourn its passing, it might be the kick in the ass I need to create a systematic back-up and to finally move myself from straddling the line between PC/Mac. I love my Mac, but I also love the ability to take the best of both worlds and often find myself dividing my creative pursuits into PC and Mac. I am also lazy in learning all of the options of my Mac software and in a pinch find myself using whatever platform is easiest for me, of taking the path of less resistance. The path of less resistance at times a strength and a character flaw of mine. I love life and loathe conflict, thankfully I have an agreeable personality and find something positive in all things, I save up my energies for those real conflicts, the ones that are important. I had a fantastic week, received good news on two young men that are important to me, my nephew Shane and my godson, Jacob. My nephew Shane passed his GED and now has 6 hours of college credit to his name. He qualified for free tuition at a Community college in Missouri. Shane has had his share of troubles and this news made me smile from ear to ear, and I had to go all proud Aunt Bebe on him and tell all of my closest friends. My godson Jacob is going back to school to finish his high school diploma, and has identified a couple of colleges to begin in the summer. He is a poet and writes the most incredible poems for a 18 year old boy ( here's the proud Aunt Bebe alarm going off again) and he has just seemed lost, as if he was looking for Neverland. I am so proud and excited for him. So I am done going all Aunt Bebe on everyone, today we are going to the Ronald McDonald house to cook for the families, Rachael is going to do crafts with the kids, and read them a Christmas story, maybe decorate a tree with them, she is still working out the details. I made Christmas cookies. I am excited about seeing Jussie's brick, I am going to ask my sister Michelle if she will let me take her toe picture on the brick for my side bar, I will only need Allie's toes to have all four of my sisters. Once again I prattled on.

These photos are some that were lost (meaning I had forgot I had taken them). I have lost poems and drawings too. Though I can keep up with my family and friends. I was looking for a picture I had taken of my sister's hunting ( English Setter not hound) dog Jake, as he has since passed and I wanted to make a portrait to give her husband for Christmas. I was beginning to think I had lost my mind, as I knew I had taken a series of photos last February of Jake when he and I watched the sun come up on her back porch. Jake liked me, he almost always slept on the couch with me when I visited. We spent many mornings sitting on the back porch just tongue and tail wagging. It took me 3 days to find the photos, and when I did I also uncovered a series of photos from New Mexico taken about the same time.

This photos are raw, meaning I have not played with them at all. I took them from the car (I was not driving). I remember watching the movement of shadow, how the clouds consumed the landscape, hovered above the horizon as if they like me wanted only to caress the mountains. I find myself aware and comforted by my own insignificance, a sense of being only a thread in a complex tapestry. A tapestry so vast and perfect that hovers at the edges of my human perceptions. My animal senses just barely comprehends. At times it seems that the filters are lifted and for a blip, a microsecond, I am aware in a broader sense, and I am left breathless.

Postcards

A .



or B ?

The Woman:In a Box



Poems by Susan Culver

I am most fortunate in the poetry communities that I belong to, I think of them a bit as of homes and the other writers as part of my poetic family. I find them safe places where I can in the purest sense the explore craft, interchange ideas with other writers, where I garner inspiration, and often where I stretch my own self in poetic experimentation and most importantly build friendships. As in all things I do, I tend to participate in fits and spurts, mostly dependent on time, but also on my ability to focus, which the last year has been severely fractured. I routinely participate in daily poem challenges at Inside the Writers Studio, where over the last 3 years I have had the incredible pleasure of reading and writing with the most fantastic individuals and poets. Often I get the opportunity to witness the birth of a collected work, a concept of a manuscript in its infancy, and to follow it through its evolution. Sometimes there are poems written that as you read them you know they are important, you hear each individual poem speak, and you know that the set of them are simply brilliant. That the entirety of the collection is such that you know they need to be read, by many, by all. The Woman: In a Box by Susan Culver is such a collection. I was very fortunate to see the birth of this collection and I believe strongly in this work. Susan opted to make this full-length collection free and accessible to all, in her words

I had initially intended to publish this work in print format, as I have done with my previous collections. However, given the current world we find ourselves a part of, I felt that this collection was best shared in a free and accessible format.

It remains as living things remain: a work in progress.

You can read the gift of Susan's collection at

The Woman: In a Box

Today I am lunch-time blogging from the cafe on the 5th floor of my building, where they are piping in Dean Martin singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and where I am trying to find a quick minute to celebrate the life of someone who came after me and left before his time. Today is the 5th anniversary of the death of my nephew Jussie, but I am not sad today, I am full of joy for having been given the chance to have him in my life, for being his gooberish Aunt Bebe, with the brightly flowered pants. Yesterday the Ronald McDonald House of Dallas opened at new house, and in the path around the playground is this stone, my sister emailed me this photo this morning and I was filled with such a rush of love, a flood of Jussie's stories, I smiled. This week I have been in New Mexico at a Tribal Summit, and I found myself in conversation with a friend whose close friend is dying of cancer, and he seemed at a loss of what to say to his friend. I found myself remembering a conversation with Justin, a conversation where he told me the thing that he missed most when he was diagnosed with leukemia was the everyday interactions, the joking, the teasing, the football games, simply being treated as himself, and not the boy with the leukemia. How this admission from a 15 year old boy touched me and profoundly changed the way I reach out to others who are sick, no longer in shocked sadness but instead I strive to make a real human connection. Cancer sucks. It's not fair. It makes no sense what so ever. It simply is and no matter how hard we wish, sometimes it takes those we love and we grieve. We grieve always, and when we are damn lucky, we remember in love. I reached out to my friend and I said, what I learned from my nephew, was that what is most important is to just be there, treat your friend the way you always did and let him know that he counted. Jussie you are missed, you counted and today I wore a really obnoxious outfit, just for you.

Poems I've been Meaning to Write

Not sure if it is meaning or needing to write. I have failed miserably at my last several attempts to participate in a daily poem challenge (I need to ask Arlene to make a virtual me with a dunce cap). It seems either I run out of steam or I cannot keep up with commenting, or the words start to consume everything else and I lose the thread of my everyday life. I begin to miss my friends, my quiet time, and my photography time. Either way I have been experiencing the biggest poetic lull in nearly 3 years. I do however have several hundred poems that would benefit from the investment of time and craft, a couple of stalled writing projects, one draft chapbook, completed, commented on and simply needing me to revise, an outline for a full length manuscript, an outline for a book of short stories, nearly 50 pages of a draft novel and not to forget that damn partridge in a pear tree. I also have over 10,000 photos that I would like to explore. Honestly though I tend to only like about 20% of my poems and about 5% of my photos, but I don't quite have the courage to just delete the extraneous.

I have discovered of late I need to make lists to get anything done in a productive manner. The entire idea of lists is counter productive to my entropic way of dealing with all things, and honestly a bit of a long overdue comeuppance for me. I have relied my entire life on that organic computer, have never kept an appointment book, never had to make a list other than a mental note, and most of the time have never forgot anything or missed anything of real importance. I have an uncanny ability to sense time, an internal chronometer and a revolving calendar in my brain, a internal check box, that has not required any external prompts. I generally do write things down, but as a way of re-enforcing the mental, if I hear, see it, write it, it is mine. Then I throw the appointment card away, the jot sheet and manage a year later to show-up on time to have my teeth cleaned. I don't use a watch or an alarm clock. I can tell you what time is it--within 5 minutes. Day planners, calendars, etc are as foreign to me as driving on the left side of the road. Once I had to take one of those Covey classes, on effective time management (was a requirement of employment) and it damn near threw me over the edge. Colored pens, priority codes, and flipping pages, it was like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. I threw the planner away after about 30 days and drank an entire bottle of wine. That was the pre-mid-life me.

The mid-life me has been experiencing blips in my internal chronometer, has actually forget things, has began to keep lists. I have been fighting the signs of the time so to speak. I love being 46, have come into my own in my mid-life, accepted that beautiful sense of self that accompanies middle age, the sense of reconnecting with the child of your youth, the knowledge of what is most important, the full joy of living each day, that you gain. I have been that last holdout in believing that you also begin to lose a bit of short-term memory, as if your hard drive is near full, and you constantly have to clear cache. I fell hard, I had to buy a book--not a calendar, not a day planner, but simply a bound composition book, one that I can keep all of my jots in, one that when I have a time crunch, I make and prioritize my internal list to paper, so if I get distracted and unfocused (I have a bad case of middle-age ADD) that I can refer to. My best friend who is my safest of all houses, where I can go and be the big goober that I am, said to me when I complained/whined/pouted/cursed about this phenomena, simply said; it's about damn time, Brenda Sue.

See. Exactly. I started out writing a list, and here I am some 700 word later still prattling on ( noisy brain/ADD/middle aged rambling).

1. Pollyanna Reads the Guinness Book of Records (holding your breath)

2. Pollyanna Challenges the Record for Largest Rubber-Band Ball

3. Pollyanna memorizes the Farmers Almanac

4. Senior Day 1981

5. What Breaks the Human Heart (Poems 7-9)

6. Why Snow White Insisted on a Pre-Nup Agreement

7. Cinderella E-Harmony Profile

8. Prince Charmings E-Harmony Profile

9. Resume

10. From the Secret Life of Bureaucrats

Baby has used car



Finally after nearly six months of looking at cars, our daughter has her first car. Everyone is excited. I think Mike and I because it is finally done, we have been dealing with the tightest used car market in years. When we set up our parameters for a used car, we thought it would be easy to find a safe and decent used car for 5000 dollars, but we were wrong. We found very quickly that used cars between 4-6 years old were almost nonexistent and when we could find one they were either horribly trashed or exorbitantly overpriced. What we found were a large number of recent model used cars 2006-2008 ($7500-12,000), and a large number of 1999-2002($3500-6000) models. The years we were targeting were 2003-2005 and those nice clean with moderate mileage(less than 100,000) were either wrecked, trashed, had questionable titles and when there was a clean decent one, either close to 7000.00 or sold before we could get out to look at it. Eventually we broadened on scope of cars to include 2001 and 2002 models. Even so it took us another two months to find one. The struggling economy is the reason why people with 2003-2005 cars are holding on to them, unsure of the job market, they are opting to hold on to good quality older cars (the same reason I am holding on to my 2003 Caravan), and because of the cash for clunker programs, many used cars did not make it the used car lots. This is 2002 Ford Focus (Rach's first choice was the Focus) with 69,000 miles, it met all of our criteria, except no side impact air bags and price ( walk out price including, ttl was 5916.00). Even without the side impact airbags it has a good safety rating, and Rach loves the car. The inside is pristine, the steering and brake tight and controlled, no odd smells and rattles (this criteria became more and more important as we test-drove cars these last six months), has never been wrecked, and has received all of its scheduled maintenance at a Ford dealership(got to love Carfax). It has a bit of the Ford problem with peeling clear coat along the hood. I wanted it to be perfect, Mike and Rach were both sold, and finally Mike said to me, if the only problem with this car is cosmetic, then we have no worries. We told Rach if she remained accident free for a year, we would spring for a new paint job.

It is Thanksgiving and I am making bird with all of the trimmings, Rach and Mike are likely going to Car all day, Kim and I will likely eat and talk and drink lots of coffee. I miss the noisey Thanksgiving of our early married years, when all of my family was still in Texas, and we would do the East Texas Tour, with Kim and Mike's folks and my Mom's with all of my sisters, how we end the night with a loud game of Dammit or Dominoes and the blender always had something frozen and alcoholic in it. I have one of those noisey love filled loud families and sometimes I just miss them like hell. I am thankful that my family is safe, sound and loved this day. Hope the same for you.

My Dream Job



Would be to be a professional environmental photographer, to record the effects of man on the environment and of the environment of man. I find beauty and a warning in the decay of what man has created, a bautiful assurance that the earth is constant, and life's resilience is stronger than the scratchings of man. A sense of continuity, a proof that this world endures; despite us or to spite us. You pick. As for the collective us, I read one time that man had been on earth only 17 seconds, based on age of the earth in billions of years (of course I could not google that exact timeline-so consider the 17 seconds suspect). That always struck me as telling, a sense that we are far more transitory than we would like to believe.

In Search of Image

I wanted to capture how the sun bled through the trees to form a star that danced in the edges of peripheral thoughts, beautiful decay. The assurance of the earth. Autumn glowed, fluoresced within my lens, and I felt bereft and comfort together, a stirring I can not explain, an assurance that only our nature is transitory, all other things are constant.

Have been on the road, playing catch up and enjoying a bit of solitude. This weekend is photography weekend, I am working on a couple of photography projects and trying to learn how to use my new photo software, a learning curve of sorts. I have selected one photo for the contest, I am going to enter 4 or 5, I am in the process of narrowing them down. For the first time I am going to enter a few portraits, generally I do not take many photos of people, we will see how I do with those. These photos taken while I was out this week, the last one an effect, I am playing with, not sure it is very professional, but I like the inversion of light and color, perhaps more of an experiment than anything. I am also working on a full length collection of poems, something I suspect will take me forever, and likely never get published, but something oddly I am feeling positive about. I need to start submitting again, and well its been since March since I sent out a sub, other than my chapbook ( yes I know how apathetic that is). I am enjoying the pursuit of image in word and photo, and enjoying the beauty in home and family. I wrote lately in a note to a friend I am not looking for a change of venue, and I realized at that moment how damn lucky I am. With God's grace, I am simply groovy. I hope the same for you.

So Write a Poem

I spent the weekend addressing envelopes, I have already in my van 23 envelopes ready to mail, my wish is that all reach the right places. I have 6 books left of the original 35, and I ordered 25 more, so if anyone would like one send me an email at girlnixon@gmail.com and I will send you the particulars (10.00 via PayPal). I also spent time this weekend playing with photos, trying to find a series of photos that evoke an emotional response, tell a story without speaking a single word. I find it odd that all of my work both my writing and photography is so image driven, and how the more both crafts evolve they begin to blend making it hard to draw a line between photographer and writer. I have discovered a professional photo lab called Full Color here in Dallas, and I love how my work looks on their papers, I am finding myself a bit like a kid in a candy store, exploring new ways to manipulate image. This photo a tank battery at an old refinery, I like the sense of melancholy, of being suspended in time, of mystery associated with black and white photos, of late most of my photos have been in black and white, I have even been experimenting with film, though my film camera is not as sophisticated as my digital one, I am taking photos with both film and digital and then comparing them later.

My friend John ends his prompts with this line, So write a poem. So readers write a poem using the above photo, send it to me at girlnixon@gmail.com by midnight on November 25th and I will select one winner from all entries to receive a free copy of my chapbook An Insatiable Desire for Deja'Vu (Flutter Press 2009). With writers permission I will post the top 3 poems on my website.

ETC, ETC, ETC....



My chapbook An Insatiable Desire for Deja'Vu (Flutter Press 2009) came in this week and they look beautiful, was very cool actually holding one in my hands. If you would like a signed one for 10.00 ( including all shipping) send me a note at girlnixon@gmail.com, I still have a few available here. I walked around the house and showed my entire family , including the dog and cats where I mentioned them in the bio. All they wanted to know was if they could get Fancy Feast or Alpo on the side. I am still mailing out copies, I hope to have them all mailed by Monday, I had hoped to get them done by Friday, but this week has been hectic, Rachael has been sick again and Mike had dental surgery on Wednesday, and it seems still I am not 100% and am still sleeping more than I ever have, hopefully soon I can return to grown-up hours. I received an invitation to enter the photo contest I placed in last year, and have been trying to identify some photos to enter, last year I ended up printing out about 30 of my favorites, carried them around for a month soliciting (pestering) my friends opinions before I settled on the ones to submit. So far I have picked one, and perhaps have a couple more in mind. Keeping my fingers crossed to place. Results are released in February. I started a round of 30 at ITWS, lasted 10 days, and today am officially dropping out. I can not seem to be able to write and stay caught up with comments and I hate when I can not pull my own weight. So I suspect for a while longer I am back in poetic hibernation. In the meantime I will work on revisions and submissions, and revise a small chapbook manuscript I put together awhile back, one that is important to me. I began work on a project sparked by something my dear friend Chrissie said to me in passing, that is beginning to take on a life of its own, something I am calling pieces of eight, we will see how I do. Chrissie has a beautiful new chapbook How to Photograph the Heart out from The Lives You Touch Publications, available for pre-order now. Liz's Maximus Miracle Book Tour Stop 3, can be found on Women Rule Writer, I encourage everyone to check it out.

The Maximus Miracle Virtual Tour

Crosses the Atlantic
Purchase The Wrong Miracle Here! Royalties from the Sale of the Book Go to Sands - the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity.

The Art of Breathing welcomes Liz Gallagher and Arlene Ang to Dallas, Texas for the second stop of Liz's Whirlwind Virtual Book Tour for her first full-length collection, The Wrong Miracle ( Salt 2009). If you missed the first installment read it at Arlene Angs blog The Event Museum.

Brenda: Liz and Arlene, welcome to the Art of Breathing. How was your flight? Hope you like catfish, fried potatoes and strawberry shortcake. You're not allergic to cats are you Arlene? I have no idea why these crazy animals won't leave you alone, I promised them fish if they behaved.

Liz: Brenda, thank you so much for having me here on The Art of Breathing. I am so looking forward to chatting and feasting with you (I am thinking of your strawberry shortcake! Yum!). Hope you like the fish Arlene smuggled over on the plane for us, she is a true dare-devil...even the sniffer dogs could not sniff out this fish...it's gotta be delish. And wow! I adore your leopard print jogging suit. Arlene's dressmaker is fantastic, isn't she?

Brenda: This jogging suit is comfy; I wear it everywhere. As I read your book I was struck by several things, first by how your poems embrace the breadth of the human experience, poems that touched on love, grief, war and yet I found as I read through the poems a resilence of spirit and I wondered how growing up in your native Ireland in the late 70's and early 80's contributes to the pragmatic optimism of your work?

Liz: What a great question, Brenda! Love the term 'pragmatic optimism', and delighted that you think it exists in my work. Yes, I think I am probably an optimist, and pragmatic too, hopefully. This may all come from the fact that I was brought up in a Northern border county (Donegal - meaning a county that borders on what is known politically as Northern Ireland and which the U.K. claim), Donegal has always been on the edge of things ….tourists have just started visiting there over the past decade but before that we were quite isolated from the rest of Ireland as with the problems/'troubles' in Northern Ireland people did not want to cross the North to get to Donegal. In the 70s and early 80's especially there was always the shadow of war hanging over the county. It was when I first left Donegal to study in Dublin that I realised that soldiers with guns coming on to buses to do searches was not normal neither was the over-familiarity with the word 'sniper' …Another factor that may have kept, and still may keep, Donegal on the edge is that, as far as I know, it is the only county in Ireland without a train system running through it meaning that it is doubly difficult to get to, which has both advantages and disadvantages. Consequently, we in Donegal have been left to our own devices a lot of the time and therefore have had to be resilient! And from resilience comes optimism. Also, I am from a working class background, I was brought up on a farm and as children we helped my parents on the farm. It was hard work but I think it made me not feel afraid of hard work and believe that we can get what we want through hard-work and optimism. I also cherish humour in all that I do/attempt and that comes from my parents and their attitude to life...which was literally 'let's just get on with it' while trying to see the humorous side of things too. I imagine there could be different aspects of all of the above that have leaked into my work.

Brenda: Your poetry is a beautiful marriage of thought, image and sound, I love to read your poems aloud and savor the musicality of your words. How conscious are you of sound as you write?

Liz: Thanks, Brenda. Consciously, I really don't consider sound as such, but in my head I can hear the words as I write them, I don't actually read my work aloud to myself as I'm drafting but subconsciously the music seems to be there in my head. I trust my instincts on what fits together as I try to make the lines balance. I loved singing as a child so maybe that is connected to it. I also think that having gone to an all-Irish primary school made me very aware of language as from 4 years old, all my learning was done in a second language as I started school not knowing any Irish at all. Irish is a very beautiful and musical language and it has affected my relationship with the English language. And not to mention that now most of my daily life takes place in the Spanish language which is a very flamboyant. emotive and musical language...

Brenda: I read your book several times and each time I found myself thinking of grief, of lost loved ones, but not in a sad way, in a way that honored those that came and left before, you weave a song of living, from begining to end, as if you embrace humanity in your arms without censor-an acceptance of life, love, joy, wonderment, awe, grief, death, war and the human need to question. It is this questioning, this wonderment and joy and innate curosity that had me page turning from begining to end, and my final question is this, What questions would you like your readers to ask themselves as they read your book, what conversation with self would you want your book to prompt in a reader?

Liz: Thanks for the feedback on how you read the book, Brenda, it delights me that you got so much out of it. And gosh! Yes! What an interesting question! Well, I suppose like most poets or writers in general, I would really hope that those reading the book would find a connection to their own lives in there that would make them want to keep on reading. I'd also love for them to be find an element of surprise there, maybe not the full-blown surprise and excitement that I myself found on writing most of these poems, but a hint of that surprise and excitement. I know that when I read a book of poetry, I want to be shown something that I may not have consciously known of or felt before and that on reading a particular poem or book of poems, I get this 'clicking together' feel...which makes me want to re-read the work to experience it again or to dig deeper to see what else is there. C.S. Lewis said we read to know we are not alone and Seamus Heaney said 'I rhyme to see myself, to set the darkness echoing'. To me, this is the perfect relationship of reader-writer. Thanks so much for your hospitality, Brenda, loved the delicious meal...it was a total pleasure being here. Oh and just to round things off, can I tempt you with a glass of Baileys? : )

Brenda: Your welcome and thank you so much coming and sharing your thoughts and words with us, and for Arlene for bringing the fish and entertaining my cat meneagrie while we talked. Yes, I would love another Baileys. I just wanted to let my readers know that they can purchase your wonderful book from Salt Publishing, and through November 11 you can buy The Wrong Miracle at 40% off. All proceeds for the Wrong Miracle go to SANDs, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity. Where to next Liz?

Liz: Next week, on the 12^th of November, I'll be back in my homestead in Ireland at Nuala's Woman Rule Writer Blog ….can't wait to make it there to Nuala's and maybe have some time to browse the Galway city Saturday market afterwards.

It's Here !!




Yesterday my chapbook was officially published by Flutter Press!! The editor Sandy sent me a link yesterday around lunch, and I was pinging off the walls at work, nothing could put me in a bad mood! I am sure my co-workers used to my dry sense of humor were scratching their heads at the smile that was splitting open my face. It feels good. You can order the book through Flutter's Storefront or if you would like a signed copy send me an email at girlnixon@gmail.com and I will do my best to get you a signed one. I ordered 35, and of those I have about 15 that are not committed. I am showering my friends and family with volumes, not sure they want one, but it might be the only book I ever have published. I am also saving one for Rachael's children, in the case I am not here when she has her own babies, so they know what a goober their Granny Bebe was. I am groovy, feeling blessed and happy. Thank-you Lord.

Through the Clouds








I have had my heads in the clouds, at least photoetically (is that a word?). I took most of these pictures from the plane on my way home from Lake Charles, the other one on the road to Seward from my Dad's truck. I am not sure what it is that draws me to the clouds, perhaps a sense of voyeurism, the ability to see the world from a birds view, perhaps a sense of being closer to my human perception of God, or simply a sense of wonder and awe, I find myself lost in the aerial landscape, the way the world above folds and turns, the way it mimics the ground below, a sense of being part of a alternate world, I am not sure. If you look close you will see spots near the top of the cloud pictures (not the airplane dirty window spots) but discoloration that remains on all of the photos.

I was sweating bullets when I started to download the photos that somehow I had damaged the optics of my Nikon. Yesterday I took my camera to Wolfe and they were able to clean my camera with a controlled puff of air, seems somehow I had managed to get detritus on the internal mirror, now it works perfectly. I was worried I would have to send my camera back to Nikon for a 4-8 week cleaning and I would be without my camera during the holidays. I will have to do this as part of routine maintenance and care, but at least I can wait until after the holidays.

The thought of not having my camera for a couple of months makes me crazy, I know now why most professional photographers have multiple camera bodies. When its time, I have my heart set on a Nikon D90, but for now I will use my Olympus Stylus point and shoot as my back up camera. The danger of going to the camera shoppe is that you find all sort of things that you want. I have added two new "must haves" to my list, a set of lens adapters, filters, magnifiers, fish eyes, macros,polarizing, and camera tubes these are generic--but might extend the use of my existing lenses and a camera/laptop backpack. I found a professional lab for camera proofs and recieved my first order from them on metallic paper, a set of thank-you cards that I designed for my book. They look damn cool beans, I am going to make a few calendars next month, one for my family, one of hazardous waste sites, and one of black and white stills, and perhaps one of flowers/wildflowers. We will see, and yes Sherri expect a calendar for Christmas.