Shutta Crum

Here’s a cup of cheer coming your way—to all those who braved another several inches of snow, and -6 degree temperatures, to make it to the Writer’s Fest at the Farmington (MI) Comm. Library on Saturday, Jan. 17th—YAY! You made my day. I had a lot of fun and I, for one, was warmed by [...]

Here’s a shout-out of happiness for my dear friend, Hope Vestergaard, who just revised and expanded the perennial bestseller Capricorn Rhyming Dictionary.  (Originally published in 1938.) This edition, NOTHING RHYMES WITH ORANGE: Perfect words for Poets, Songwriters, and Rhymers, includes a phonetic spelling guide, a key to rhyming sounds that are spelled differently, fun sidebars, and [...]

*http://wordle.net                                               For Mom
S.

Lakeside
“Swallow, Dad.
You remember how.”
 
The warped dock hosts a shadow—a reflected dock.
Bold stripes of light and dark skew with the waves,
twisting and untwisting—a luminous link
of DNA from father to daughter.
 
Summers at the lake
he would take my hand and lead me
past rocks at the water’s edge.
 
Now, I take his hand praying
there is still the cell-deep memory of [...]

The Leaving Season
 
It is the leaving season—
 
So why shouldn’t the rains assail us,
borne as they are in gathering clouds
above our stubbled and forgotten fields?
 
Why shouldn’t crook-backed trees stagger
under the weight of tears pumped
through the delicate veins of leaves?
 
Why shouldn’t the river flood
disgorging bleached logs, clots of grass,
and the unrecognizable canker?
 
Why shouldn’t geese assemble and grumble
as they [...]