"I Got Your Letter, and the Birds"
- Tamara Miles
- Mar 29
- 5 min read
Friends, if you need a smile, look to Emily Dickinson's welcome to March. "Come in/How glad I am," she says, and "... The maples never knew that you were coming." Of course, we're long past the welcome stage, as this month has already flown by, and I'm catching up with you at the end. March never stays long, does it?
Dickinson clearly experienced the same relief I feel when winter has passed, and the bulbs are rising again -- daffodils, a gladiolus already --- blossoms on the peach trees. Soon I'll be filling the greenhouse, too, with hope, and keeping church there. Maybe I'll start up my blog again.
Some of you have written me with kind words about my Society years and the taking of my leave. They were like bird song. Thank you.
Now we are quickly headed into National Poetry Month, The monthly Poetry Prompt contest for April will be a special one. Please enter and encourage others to enter. See the contest details at the end of this newsletter, along with a photo of the prize!
Here are some events to enjoy this month. You'll see a theme. :>)
April 3:
April 4:
April 5:
(Please see the Every Corner, Every County section of the newsletter for more information).
April 7:
April 18:
Several fine poets will gather to celebrate Poetry Month and host an open mic. Al Black and I are putting this together at the invitation of the Cherokee County Library. You may recall the wonderful reading from last year, which involved several of our members. The list of readers for this event will be updated on the website as we finalize it.
April 27: Join me and Glenis in Greenville!
Every Corner, Every County Reading Series
This is our last one, folks! I hope you can make it to Greenville to hear Kristine along with Brian Slusher (opening reader). We will not be Zooming this event, so I apologize to our regular Zoom audience. There will be good food and good company, and we will round up our first year efforts in four regions of the state with a bang (thanks, Amy, Glenis, and Ashley)! Thanks also to the Greenville Center for Creative Arts and SC Humanities, our faithful sponsors, and to everyone who cooperated with us to try to do something truly innovative with this program.
Kristine's workshop topic: Haiku and other Short-Form Poetry
By the way, Kristine's poetry along with that of Jennifer Bartell Boykin and others was featured in the Cottontown Art Crawl, raised up high as it should be. My 18th Pictures office is in Cottontown, so I get to walk past it every time I go around the corner for a coffee. Congratulations to everyone featured!
(Paintings and poetry on the old NOMA warehouse, March 8).
Let's have a reverse look back at March so far, starting with the arrival of my Coastlines Anthology! Fifty South Carolina poets (several from the Poetry Society) accompanied by Philip Wilkinson's stunning photography, and edited by our own Libby Bernardin and Daniel Cross Turner. I will be joining Elizabeth Robin and others for a reading on April 3 in Hilton Head, and there are other readings in the works for the whole of Poetry Month.
Please see our Members in the News section for more information on this collection and on the upcoming readings.
On March 7, I had the honor of hanging out with board member Chris Blackmon and filming some of his spontaneous spoken word readings. Here's one for your enjoyment. I asked him if he had a poem about work.
One of the most joyful parts of this job has been my individual encounters with poets far and wide across the state, and I'm especially lucky to have so many close to me in the Midlands.
On March 1, the Society hosted April Bandy-Taylor at the Greenville Center for the Arts, and it was another delightful upstate region event for Every Corner, Every County. Thank you to Ashley Crout, Amy Randall, and Glenis Redmond, who put everything together and hosted the event flawlessly as always.
The Poetry Prompt Contest is a monthly contest where we encourage you to submit a piece inspired by the new prompt found below. The winning poem or flash fiction is published in the following month's newsletter. We also offer the winner the opportunity to record a video of him or herself reading the poem to be posted to the Poetry Society's YouTube channel. There is no obligation to record the video, it is only there as an offer if the winner feels comfortable doing so.
February's winner, selected by special guest judge Oksana, is Paula Appling from Pickens County (although Oksana says she lingered long with each of the poems submitted, finding several unique and engaging.) Her comments:
"This poem's composition, with its visual and sound imagery (the circle, chant, sparks, and embers) along with the nature of the ceremony and its seeking of a return to compassion satisfies me completely."
Supplication
Animal bones under all, blanketed
with gorse and fallen branches.
Eldest sets the offering aflame,
youngers circle and chant.
Gorse burns hot,
sends sparks upward;
embers waken bones beneath.
Call Spirits.
Elders beseech
a return to order,
to compassion,
to the impossible.
Congratulations, Paula!
Okay, this month's contest is a special one because Danny Sciortino is giving away another guitar as a prize! Please submit your poems to everycornereverycounty@gmail.com, with a theme of letters, birds, or March. Win this gorgeous, fun guitar.
Members in the News
In honor of H.R. "Randy" Spencer's new book, Al Black and I and some fellow poets are presenting an abridged dramatic reading. Or is it a dramatic reading of the abridged version? You know what I mean, and I'm hosting it at my new foundling of a business, 18th Pictures, LLC, which I started with a filmmaker friend in NYC. Come out, we'll be on the porch unless it's raining, and we'll have something besides hard tack biscuits.
Let's just put this out all out there in praise of poets (and photographers, editors, readers, audiences) for April. Get yourself a copy of Coast Lines, and attend a reading somewhere if you can. I also want to thank Ann Humphries for inviting me to breakfast at Tiffany's (yes, really --- in Columbia) to help her scheme for even more places to share this book in print and voice.
And that will do it for me. See you in April. I've planted tomatoes, beets, radishes, carrots, a variety of bulbs and flower seeds, and a few herbs so far, and I'm hoping to see some hummingbirds this year. Send letters.
Joyfully,
Tamara