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Posts Tagged ‘Redhawk Publications’

Communion – Grey Brown

Posted in family, Imagery, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2026| Leave a Comment »

insect
 . 
[ 3 poems by Grey Brown ]
 . 
Costume
 . 
I am five, maybe six,
and my mother
is taking pictures of me
in my costume.
I stand statue still
before the hearth,
sneakers on,
plastic pumpkin in hand,
ready.
 . 
I have chosen a princess dress
and a witch hat.
I like the way I look in purple
and pink, but I need the hat.
 . 
My teenage brother walks by
and announces that
I cannot be both
a princess and a witch.
Because of the hat
I am bold and remind him
that he is too old for Halloween
and that no matter what I am,
witch, princess or sister,
he will not be getting candy.
 . 
My mother does not say a word
but cocks an eyebrow
the way she does
when she is reading a good book.
Then, as a princess,
I bow.
 . 
Grey Brown
from Communion, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press. Hickory, NC; © 2026
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
On Belief
 . 
My daughter learns of constellations,
the unfinished dot-to-dot
of Andromeda and Cassiopeia,
 . 
the poor mother and baby bears
headless, missing paws.
She dreams of planets
 . 
and their rings,
adoring moons
that spin and sing.
 . 
Stargazing, we find our way
to a dark, empty field
to view the comet.
 . 
My daughter imagines
bold strokes, a ball of light
with a vivid, streaming tail,
 . 
cartoon crisp and lively colored.
But she finds only
a blurred hairball of dust and ice.
 . 
more chaos than divine creation,
at best, the whorled thumbprint
of some god, preoccupied.
 . 
Grey Brown
from Communion, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press. Hickory, NC; © 2026
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
I Hate October
 . 
I just seem to lose family and friends
as the light angles down—
my grandmother to colon cancer,
the neighbor’s daughter
who just overdosed,
my dearest friend tucked in a shawl,
the book falling from his hand.
They all seem to let go,
as daylight wanes
and a cool hand disturbs the earth.
 . 
I talk more to my mother
at this time of year,
but she is of little help,
so bad at living herself,
her drinking and smoking.
 . 
She passed in the fall
of her fifty-ninth year.
She was an ardent fan
of witches and ghosts,
pumpkins and gourds.
I still decorate for her
trying to do my best
with the darkness.
 . 
Grey Brown
from Communion, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press. Hickory, NC; © 2026
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Last week I caught a portion of an interview with an avant garde artist describing his latest installation. The interviewer asked what message the artist intended his art to convey. The artist replied, “A bad poem descends into meaning.” Well, that is certainly one statement that has opted not to descend into meaning. What is a good poem, then? Incomprehensible?
 . 
Maybe a good poem does hold meaning, but close, cupped in its hands. The reader, craning for a glimpse, is encouraged to open his or her own hands and discover what meaning may be found within. The good poem is not a meal cut into bits for a toothless child; it is an enticement for the complex palate. And reading a poem is no dry exercise in wheedling out the poet’s intent; it is savoring, experiencing. The poem doesn’t descend into meaning. The reader does.
 . 
Grey Brown’s poems in Communion, taken one by one, do not descend – they hover. Each one flashes into existence, the sudden arrival of a hummingbird. It pauses in flight and for a moment we can count every exquisite feather of its crimson gorget, but its wings are still whirring too fast to see. And then the next poem arrives. Line by line, page by page, the reader begins to perceive what is cupped in the poet’s hands. A sacrament that promises grace and life? A keen blade to mingle the blood of both reader and writer alike?
 . 
The book’s introduction defines communion as the sharing or exchange of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level. These poems are precisely such a serial exchange, linked in sequence of unfolding awareness, joined together not only by the progression of years and generations but also by the uncertainty, disappointment, and revelation that are inherent in one’s personal search for meaning. With the turn of each page, I find myself reflecting on my own fears and failures. Is there any hope for salvation? The poet grants a glimpse: none of us ever really survive, / but we get by.
 . 
❀
 . 
Grey Brown (Chapel Hill, NC) is the founder of the Literary Arts Program of the Health Arts Network at Duke and served as director for 25 years. Communion is her second full length poetry collection and is available from Redhawk Publications.
 . 
Additional poetry by Grey Brown at Verse and Image:
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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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;
. . . . . 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:
 . 
 . 
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
 . 
Doughton Park Tree, 2022-05-17B
 . 
 . 

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Why Sing – Scott Owens

Posted in poetry, tagged , , , , , , , on March 27, 2026| 2 Comments »

 .
 . 
[ with 3 poems by Scott Owens ]
 . 
Now and Then
 . 
The mountains came down to Hickory today.
It happens now and then.
Clouds low, mist hanging between the trees,
a coolness that makes everything feel
less urgent, more contemplative.
I saw a boy on a hillside, sitting,
back leaning against a tree,
not minding the fine mist
against his skin at all.
I imagine he was writing.
I imagine it was a poem
about the mountains coming down to Hickory.
I imagine he was me.
It happens now and then.
 . 
Scott Owens
from The Song Is Why We Sing, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press; Hickory NC © 2026
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❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Existential Knot
 . 
I picked up a knot from the ground today,
not an important knot,
not of significant size,
not of any significance really,
at least not initially,
but then I realized if not for the knot
I likely would not have noticed it at all.
In fact, the knot would have just been
 . 
a string, not of any special size,
not of any noticeable color,
not anything special about it at all,
but the fact that it was tied into a knot
made it not exactly like every other
unknotted expanse I’d seen.
Of course, I thought about unknotting the knot
but ultimately decided not to,
as the knottiness was exactly what made it
exactly what it was and continues to be,
 . 
a knot not like any other,
insured by its knottiness
not be left unnoticed.
 . 
Scott Owens
from The Song Is Why We Sing, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press; Hickory NC © 2026
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀     ❀     ❀
 . 
Ten. You, after all,
are half the poet, and in all
likelihood, the better half.
from 13 Ways of Reading a Poem
 . 
Reading a poem is like turning over a mossy log. As you approach, you appreciate the appealing form of the log without even thinking about it. Its green cushion, so inviting, perhaps a scent of fresh pungent life. But when you turn the log over, who knows? I am personally a fan of grubs and larvae, flabbergasted ants grabbing their white nits and sprinting in all directions, an oozy slug or two. Double bonus if there’s a salamander.
 . 
But beneath some logs there’s just not much. A few bark fibers lingering in their immediate pre-humus status. A tired worm casting. Dirt. If that’s all there is beneath the mossy log of the poem, I’m done. Maybe I’ll go turn over that rock over yonder instead. I, the reader, need something to discover when I get down on hands and knees and shift the poem. I have to do the work of coming closer, of noticing, and the poem has to do its work of sharing.
 . 
Scott Owens’s newest collection of poems, The Song Is Why We Sing, is about poetry. Writing poetry, to be certain, but even more this book is about reading poetry. And maybe most of all so many of these poems are about the partnership, let’s even call it companionship, between writer and reader. The lines and stanzas break down the fourth wall. I as reader become part of the process, part of the poem. Perhaps in reading no other book of verse have I been so intimately invited into the mind and life of the writer. Scott’s offer is sincere – here I can be half the poet.
 . 
Scott’s poems are existential knots that freely allow themselves to be untied. They offer up their essence like a flower offers nectar, hidden but discernable, just follow your nose, and always keeping the promise of a sweet droplet on the tongue. I first encountered the term “quiddity” in a philosophy book but I know I first read the word “dailyness” in a poem, and so are these poems, filled with essence and substance. Here is the world with its warts and its wonderfulness. Scott takes seriously his poet’s calling of showing you what you already know in a way you’ve never seen. That mossy log, what lies beneath? I am dying to turn it over. And throughout these pages I know I will find what this poet is determined to show me, because as he says, You have to care / enough about the world / and all who live in it / to take the time / to not just find the words / but also get them right.
 . 
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❀    ❀    ❀     ❀     ❀
 . 
Chores
 . 
fr. Latin, chorus, those who do the work, who carry the play forward
(titles from Poetry in Plain Sight selections July 2025)
 . 
I rise from my knees, not from prayer,
not from planting autumn blooming crocuses,
but from fixing a table bending beneath
the weight of too many ovens. Still,
any rising is a good thing.
In the heat of early July in the South
I head out to make my monthly delivery
of poems. One called “Tomato Sandwich,”
transforming the taste of summer to art,
for the front window of my coffee shop.
One called “Hum,” for the community theater,
about a boy remembering the sound
of his father blowing on his face to cool him
off in a Louisiana Church on Sundays.
Another called “Wild Women,” for the wine shop,
about girls who were told they couldn’t be cowboys,
who hitched up their chaps and spat on the ground.
And one for the library, called “Song
to a Little Tree under the Eve of Terminal 2
at Raleigh Durham International Airport,”
just about a tree in an unlikely place
refusing not to grow.
 . 
Scott Owens
from The Song Is Why We Sing, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press; Hickory NC © 2026
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Scott Owens teaches at Lenoir Rhyne University, coordinates the Poetry Hickory program, and promotes poets and poetry year round at his coffee shop and gallery, Taste Full Beans. The Song Is Why We Sing is Scott’s twenty-sixth volume of poetry. Among his many honors and awards are two nominations for the National Book Critics Circle Award and appointment as Hickory, NC, Poet Laureate. Scott’s most recent books are available from Redhawk Publications.
 . 
Sample additional poetry by Scott Owens at Verse and Image:
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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Perhaps you’d like to turn over a mossy log (metaphorically speaking)? Walk along Elkin Creek and discover Foamflower in bloom (for real beginning early April)? Watch a Blue Head Chub build its spawning nest in the creek? Breathe deep? Join me and other curious comrades on one of this spring’s naturalist walks, a program of Elkin Valley Trails Association. Upcoming dates are March 28, April 11, April 25. Details and registration (free!) here:
 . 
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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:
 . 
 .  . 
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
 . 
2016-10-17b Doughton Park Tree
 . 

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Convolutions

Posted in ecology, family, poetry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2025| 6 Comments »

 . 
[with 3 poems by Beth Copeland]
 . 
Fog
 . 
Morning fog erases the mountain and trees.
No, not an erasure but unseen.
 . 
Not an erasure but unseen.
The mountain, the laurel still green.
 . 
Unlike the mountain and laurel still green,
the dearly departed lie beneath white sheets.
 . 
The deer depart beneath white sheets
of fog, stepping into a forgotten dream
 . 
of fog slipping into a forgotten dream
the ghost mountain dreams.
 . 
The ghost mountain dreams.
Crows fly to pines on mascara wings.
 . 
Crows fly to pines on mascara wings,
mourning. Fog erases the mountain, the trees.
 . 
Beth Copeland
from I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press, Hickory NC; © 2025
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
It’s a big web, here in the corner of our screened porch, but I’m not ready yet to broom it down. The spider is a jointed dried kernel in its center; when I blow, she doesn’t twitch. I don’t see an egg pouch or spiderlings. The strands are not an orb but a diffuse tangle, a chaos of delicate angles and tensions — a miniature of filaments revealed by the background microwave radiation that weave the structure of our entire universe. And what are they made of, those filaments? These I can see before me are nanometer reworkings of hemolymph from mosquitoes denied the opportunity to bite me. Most visible when dusted with pollen. A mess. But I and my broom are not ready yet to offend, to say farewell to the tribe of spiders.
 . 
Last week we visited Blue Whales with our grandson, turning eight. The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh is hosting this exhibit of the largest creatures that have ever lived on our planet – the mystery of their migrations, language, culture; the vital interconnections between their diet of krill, their massive enriching orange poop, and the entire deep ocean ecology. Linda and I stood in silence before the model of a blue whale brain and a model of our own. The whale’s is twice as large and twice as complex, convoluted with its twisting gyri and deep sulci. Surely such an abundance of neurons and synapses must create thoughts as complex as our own. Or more so. And yet blue whales struggle to survive as a species in a world degraded by human beings. I am thinking of that brain and I am not ready yet to say farewell to the tribe of whales.
 . 
Chapel Hill cartoonist Keith Knight draws a weekly panel titled (th)ink. Today’s is a portrait of and quotation by James Baldwin (1924-1987): “To be a Negro in this country & to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” Human being who is relatively conscious, choose your own rage focal point du jour – human beings caged like animals in a Florida concentration camp; children intentionally starved to advance a particular political agenda; boosting fossil fuels burned to appease a few billionaires; an ocean filled with plastic nanoparticles and deafening human vibrations where blue whales may soon be extinct? Some days I feel like I am not ready to go on living. Some days I am more than ready to say goodbye to the tribe of humans. In a few years I will depart as an inhabitant of planet Earth. Some years after that the last memory of my having been an inhabitant will finally depart as well. On that day, will any whales still remain to swim the depths? Will any love between humans remain, or any love for other creatures? I am not ready yet to answer.
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
October Valentine
 . 
A heart-shaped leaf spied in the weeds on my walk
down the hill to the mailbox. I didn’t see a redbud tree
 . 
on the roadside, so it must have lifted on the wind
and dropped – a gift! – near my feet. Is it a message
 . 
from someone I love – my sweet mother in a halo of light,
my father singing the names of trees in his strong baritone?
 . 
Or is it from someone I’ve never seen and may never meet?
 . 
As I hike up the hill, I tuck the leaf in my pocket, rubbing it
with my thumb – as if I could read it – skin to skin – by osmosis.
 . 
Halfway home, I stop to study it. Cerise with splotches of green,
dark spots, a wormhole bored like a bullet wound, a battered
 . 
heart, like yours, like mine, but maybe its scars make it more
beautiful than before. My friends, there’s still so much
 . 
love in this world even when you’re alone.
 . 
Beth Copeland
from I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press, Hickory NC; © 2025
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Is it strange for me to be toying with despair while reading a book of healing and love like Beth Copeland’s I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart? Actually, if you’re not toying with despair you are the strange one. Give grudging thanks, though. Thank the stars and the mysterious hemlocks and the dark fecund earth that in a world full of rage and despair there are poems like Beth Copeland’s. These poems know the feeling of being lost in endless night. These poems have been battered, they have fallen, they have doubted plenty of times whether there is any wholeness or healing available to them, but these poems stand up to testify, My friends, there’s still so much love in this world even when you’re alone.
 . 
Often I tell myself it is ridiculous to imagine that any sort of inner peace is possible. I have my share of personal regrets and ongoing grief, and even though I’m tempted to look around and envy those people who don’t, when I’m really honest I admit that no one escapes whipping. But peace can’t be a wall built around my sadness – walls keep more things in than out. Despair is inevitable. How foolish is it, then, and how strange, to spend a few hours with a book of words arranged in lines on paper and discover the tightness in my throat is easing? The mountain has rested in one place for 480 million; today its peak is less than a third of its height when it was first thrust up in the big crunch. Does it reflect on loss and diminishment, or does it find peace in the weight of its daily being? Am I inflamed and scarred by the revelations of Beth Copeland’s battles and pain, or am I grateful for her gratitude and strengthened by her strength?
 . 
The tribe of human beings seems determined to destroy itself. The tribe of human beings seems determined to link arms and hearts in love. Perhaps discovering a moment of beauty is not a cowardly attempt to escape dire reality – perhaps it is the only thing capable of healing us.
 . 
❦
 . 
Explore REDHAWK Publications, including Beth Copeland’s I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart and Shibori Blue: Thirty-Six Views of the Peak HERE.
 . 
Sample poems from Shibori Blue at Verse & Image HERE.
 . 
More information about the North Carolina Museum of Nature Sciences HERE.
Dive into the K Chronicles with Keith Knight HERE.
 . 
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❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
My Daughter Paints a Mountain
 . 
She wasn’t thinking as her brush swept
across canvas in wave-length strokes,
 . 
channeling a crest she’d never seen,
while I was still in the Sandhills
 . 
where there aren’t any hills, just fields
of cotton, soybeans, and cedar stumps
 . 
in swamp water, sleeping on an air mattress
in a small apartment with prints and paintings
propped against walls instead of hung,
newly separated, newly sober, living
 . 
between the husband and home I’d left
and a haven I hadn’t found yet.
 . 
*****
 . 
As I drove up a steep road to see a house
in the Blue Ridge, a large buck leapt
 . 
in front of the car to welcome me,
and I knew I’d found my new home.
 . 
I didn’t know the mountain seen at the top
of the hill was the mountain she’d painted
 . 
months before, and she didn’t know I’d move
to that house with a view of the mountain
 . 
she’d painted as if in a dream or fugue.
How could her mountain – purple, lavender,
 . 
pink, and forest green swirled to a peak
with white streak of snow against a blue sky –
 . 
mirror the one framed in my window?
Was it coincidence or synchronicity
 . 
that the mountain in her mind’s
eye was more map than metaphor?
 . 
It was a message from the universe:
You’re home. Open the door.
 . 
Beth Copeland
from I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press, Hickory NC; © 2025
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2020-11-22
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
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