Deborah Doolittle | V E R S E and I M A G E

Posts Tagged ‘Deborah Doolittle’

Brillig – Jones, Darcy, Robson, Weiss

Posted in Imagery, tagged Brillig, Deborah Doolittle, Ed Robson, imagery, Jennifer Weiss, nature photography, NC Poets, Patricia Darcy, Paul Jones, poetry, Southern writing on October 9, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ 4 poems from Brillig summer/fall 2026 ]

Peas are Wild Things

In their tangle, the disrepair of the world seems new.

I sleep, only in fits; they grow all night without sound.

They make a mesh for themselves and my children

find in the green tent trellis a place of refuge,

shade as soft as wood duck down where they lay down,

where crows, those sailing shadows, come closer.

These peas are wild things. yet, they build a civilization

without acknowledging the grief ahead of them:

the dry rattle at summer’s end, the killing encasement

by the first hard frost. At this moment, their shelter

is a place of grace, of freedom, of mysteries.

Paul Jones

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New Trail

Two days after my divorce is final I see a vision. Pepsodent

smile, red hair, overgrown beard, strong legs, ragged sorts,

scuffed leather boots. We’re trailwork volunteers. He’s worn

that insurmountable barrier ten years; doesn’t own a razor.

I can’t imagine a kiss.

“Mom! You don’t do beards.”

“I do now.”

Patricia Darcy

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En Passant

Sodden he trudged through the downpour.

Whether heedless or hopeless, who knew?

In no hurry, his head down and dripping,

one more shower within the deluge.

A girl in a green sedan passed him,

slowing down not to spray, turned aside,

“Would you like an umbrella?” she called to him.

“I’ve an extra” “Why, thank you,” he said.

As the girl raised her window, the walker

opened her tiny shelter and waved.

She resumed her slow drive through the thunder,

and wondered what difference it made

to reach out to a stranger in passing,

for her kindness left him no less wet.

Yet he stood a bit straighter beneath it

and began to take care where he stepped.

Ed Robson

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Flashback

Does he recall their courtship?

His ardent bow. Her frenzied curtsies.

How she squeezed through metal mesh,

tore luminescent wing, to dance for him.

The green ballerina shimmered and twirled.

He demanded a tango, chased, caught her.

A singeing kiss. A fiery flutter. A crackle.

Beholding cinders at dawn, does the candle

remember the moth?

Jennifer Weiss

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I am standing at a long table heaped and strewn with books. A rank of glass doors on two sides of the room pours Sandhills light across the table, while darkness from old paneled and patterned walls pushes back, antique shadows in opposition. It is a room that has hosted Southern literary luminaries for dinners around that table, followed no doubt by fantastical conversations long into the night, but this morning’s luminaries are the books. Poetry books. New poetry books. Authors of those books hanging in the wings to see who will be attracted to these shining colorful seductive books, books, books. I pick one up.

This book is smaller than most. Square. Slim. Hand crafted and oddly folded such that it opens itself into an organic creature in my hands. I read a poem. I exclaim, “Oh frabjous day!” A laugh behind my shoulder. I turn to find Deborah Doolittle, she whose book I am holding. She who has selected the poems in the book, curated and arranged, applied them to the pages that her own hands have also decorated, folded, sewn. Brilliant and big. I look forward to every new issue, and when I discover the envelope in my mailbox I know it will be another frabjous day.

❀

Paul Jones has been inducted in to the NCSU Computer Science Hall of Fame.

Patricia Darcy is partial to orange cats, crocheted cowls, and the Oxford comma.

Ed Robson celebrated his 73rd birthday by paragliding in Guatemala.

Jennifer Weiss is passionate about childhood literacy and reading to children out loud.

Also featured in the summer/fall 2026 edition of Brillig are J.T. Bryson, Peggy Heitmann, and Mary Spadoni.

❀

Also at Verse and Image by Paul Jones;

https://griffinpoetry.com/2026/06/26/cloud-and-moon-brillig/

https://griffinpoetry.com/2026/04/10/poetry-and-earth-love-and/

https://griffinpoetry.com/2024/04/15/earth-day-prelude-one/

https://griffinpoetry.com/2023/12/01/cusp/

https://griffinpoetry.com/2023/06/23/one-by-one/

https://griffinpoetry.com/2022/01/21/cycles-circles-close/

Also at Verse and Image by Jennifer Weiss:

https://griffinpoetry.com/2025/05/23/2025-sam-ragan-awards-day/

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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:

. . . . . every Friday I present one or more poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;

. . . . . some Saturdays I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.

If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:

https://griffinpoetry.com/about/

If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.

If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to

COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM

Thanks again for joining the conversation.

– Bill

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Kakalak – Gilchrist, Doolittle

Posted in Imagery, tagged Deborah Doolittle, Kakalak, nature photography, NC Poets, Paige Gilchrist, poetry, Southern writing on January 2, 2026| 4 Comments »

[2 poems from Kakalak 2025]

My 78-Year-Old Father Learns to Play Old Maid

Everything in the photograph is Christmas red. My father’s

flannel shirt. The rims of the cordial glasses, unpacked

once a year. My four-year-old’s fingernails. The light

from the last of the tapers, reflected on their skin. She’s leaning in,

hand forming a small swan’s beak – reaching to pick from the wide fan

of cards in his hand. Once, fathers like mine left early for tall buildings.

Home late. Whiskey and water and a few minutes to encircle us – clean

pajamas, wet hair – in cigarette smoke on their laps. So little time,

those fathers, even the good ones like mine. The bicycle-lesson fathers.

The Field Day fathers. Little time for tiny games of patience. For slowly

matching silly pictures into pairs, heads close. Is that what it is

about my father’s black glasses that catches me here?

Their stern perch halfway down his nose, as if reading stock report

after news article, year after year. But this night, narrowed to a child’s

game. As if nothing else matters. As if the whole world hinges

on which card this little girl will choose.

Paige Gilchrist

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Sleeping with the Window Open in an Old House

Funny how the screen keeps the dark

back along with the mosquitos.

The curtain sheers resemble ghosts

trying to climb out of their night

gowns. It helps that no one died in

this room. Because of all those stairs

it took to get up here. They slept

below, where my great aunt sleeps now,

climbing into her nineties. Sounds

slip through the mesh like gasps for breath.

The clock ticking on the bedside

table. Who could sleep in this heat?

Apparently, I do. Morning

slashes through the cool pools of air

puddled around my feet. My dreams

interrupted by one hundred

songs from one hundred song birds. Songs

of oranges and lemons. Songs

of coffee in the kitchen. Songs

from the garden in the yard. Songs

from my childhood, only deeper,

more tender. Blossoming together.

Deborah Doolittle

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Each of these poems captures a moment and holds it up to savor, lyrical, soft and clear as candlelight or morning sun. Each tells an expansive story as well, stretching across generations to bring the years and the people close, to cherish, to illuminate. I discover myself playing Fruits with my granddaughter. I feel this morning’s hubbub of family visitors giving way to a quiet second with Linda beside me.

From the swirl of confusion that threatens chaos – becoming father to my own father, father again to my grown son moved back home, grandfather to three approaching thresholds of uncertainty – from all that movement and clamor these two poems bring me to a center of stillness. They invite contemplation. They are songs sung in the clearest tenor, and in their melodies I can pause and begin to hear my own song, and hope to understand.

❀

Paige Gilchrist (Asheville, NC) writes poetry, teaches yoga, and has been published widely, including Amethyst Review, ONE ART, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Heimat Review, Rattle, and Juniper.

Deborah Doolittle (Jacksonville, NC) has lived in many old houses. She is author of Floribunda, No Crazy Notions, That Echo, and Bogbound, and edits BRILLIG: a micro lit mag.

Additional poems by Deborah Doolittle at Verse and Image:

2020-03.

Sample BRILLIG at Verse and Image:

.2025-07

These poems (and author bios) are from the newest Kakalak anthology of poetry and art, published annually. Voices new and established. Songs of longing, songs of celebration. Purchase Kakalak HERE and consider submitting your own work in 2026.

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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:

. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;

. . . . . every Saturday I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.

If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:

https://griffinpoetry.com/about/

If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.

If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to

COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM

Thanks again for joining the conversation.

– Bill

. .

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Enter the Circle

Posted in Imagery, tagged Bill Griffin, Brillig, Deborah Doolittle, imagery, nature photography, NC Poets, poetry, Southern writing on July 4, 2025| 5 Comments »

[poems from BRILLIG: a micro lit mag]

Ghazal for sunrise

Wrens are first out of bed at sunrise. Their sharp warbled song suits the sky’s deep red at sunrise.

Down the hill a deer slips out of mist. Then her fawn, ready to be fed, at sunrise.

Then a fieldmouse, light as a wisp, climbs a spent coneflower with most careful tread – at sunrise

The night’s winds are done. Above, only a last fading star, and a few clouds sill ragged at sunrise . . .

I join this pause to which all things have led (at sunrise), I close my eyes on what he last said, at sunrise.

Matt Snyder

from BRILLIG: a micro lit mag, Winter/Spring 2025

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Gravity is an illusion, a charade played out behind the scenes by matter as it warps spacetime. The illusion is complete within my deep never-spoken sense that somehow the universe ponderously orbits me. Where is my wider view? Long lens and tight focus blur everything except the center where for one moment light falls.

Thoreau sits beside the pond for hours so long and so still that the otters have come to consider him simply a natural element within the universe they inhabit. They pursue their plashy play all about him unperturbed. When the otters finally leave for elsewhere, Thoreau walks to town to buy a pair of socks.

Oh Mr. Lennon, my beloved, my idol, is life really what happens while you’re making other plans? Or is life the plans the universe has made for you whether you subscribed to them or not? Evidently the universe is not a bus you can hop off at the penultimate stop before you reach the bad side of town.

I’m trying to figure this out. The mockingbird doesn’t shut up when my neighbor fires up his Terrafirminator and attacks the clover. Just sings louder, it seems. And me? An hour walking in the woods, sweat and deep cleansing breaths, but driving home I hear again that last snarling conversation and begin another rehearsal of its next installment in my head. I thought I might have hopped off that bus, but no.

The titmouse perches above the peanuts I’ve laid out and squeaks and scolds with his head thrown back, ten iterations. Then he swoops down and pecks the hell out of them. What was he saying up there? “These are mine, bug off!” – or – “Hey world, good eats here!” What am I saying to the universe? Scratch that – what am I saying to myself?

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Vim

Your clay pots are stacked into towers.

Stakes propped in the garden shed corner.

Out-of-use stuff claims off-season place:

a montage of tools ready to oblige.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Regret

drops by every day, helps leisure select midwinter

pastimes. Our most-recent waltz only a twitch

in the calf on gray afternoons. So much

overlooked when we busy ourselves.

I rake leaves wedged into fences. Sharpen tools

in case we plant again. Zest fallen out of favor,

the Almanac forecasts weather cycles, but desire

for a new garden is shelved.

++++++++++++++++++++++++ Verve fastened

behind the shed door, our pursuits dwindle.

Intuition must carry us through seasonal tedium,

and each loss it festers. You stare at me and ask,

+++++++ Tell me again where do seasons go?

Sam Barbee

from BRILLIG: a micro lit mag, Winter/Spring 2025

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When Deborah Doolittle first placed in my hands a copy of her hand-made lit mag BRILLIG, all I could say was, “O Frabjous Day!” The slim booklet is delicate yet solid with surprising heft; it is simple in its turning pages yet subtle and complex with its interlockings and interweavings, concealing treasures, revealing them. But glue and ink and color are not enough to create treasure. The words, the lines, the flow, the side-steps and juxtapositions – these poems by ten authors link arms and pull me into their circle.

If you were to step into my office and attempt to calculate the mass of processed printed-upon cellulose that surrounds you, you would intuit that I have a thing for words on paper. Oh yes, most every day I read from my bright paper-white monitor the poems the internet offers up to me, but if you were to step onto my back porch today when it’s 85 degrees and 85 percent humidity and discover me there with a book nonetheless, you would intuit that real creative thought requires an adequate escape velocity from computer gravity. And if a print journal’s appeal is an order of magnitude greater than poems online, then art and quirky originality, BRILLIG, is an order greater yet.

I unfold the pages, read backwards and forwards, turn and return. These poems surround me as if I am an element of the universe they inhabit. While they pursue their plashy play, I will abide in their circle. I have all the socks I need.

❦

Deborah Doolittle contrives and creates BRILLIG: a micro lit mag with the help of artist friends and submissions of poetry. Each issue is published in a limited edition, but she no doubt has one she would like to send you and will make an extra copy if you subscribe.