I’ve been exploring different kinds of poetry and came across this way of creating them by reading the California Writers Club literary journal, Vision & Verse, a Fusion of Poetry, Art and Photography, edited by Les Bernstein. (available on Amazon)

The following is my attempt to fashion a poem expressing my emotion and thought after viewing the photo that Bob, my husband took of q squirrel living off the plenty in our neighborhood.

Squirrel Fancy

Oh to be a squirrel

To run along the fence

 Top speed

Squirrel away nuts

In my hideaway secret sanctuary

Perch on the edge of a branch

Grasping that pinecone

Heavy with  pine nuts

The secreted seeds

Waiting to be trees

And to look that cute

Haunched on my back legs

Munching on a pine nut

As the world wipes by

Here is a further explanation from my google search:

Ekphrastic poetry is a form of poetry that describes, interprets, or responds to a work of visual art, either real or imagined. The term comes from the Greek word “ekphrasis,” meaning “a description”. It involves not just describing the artwork but also exploring the poet’s personal response, interpretations, and even creating narratives around it. 

Here’s a more detailed look:

• Core Definition:Ekphrastic poetry is essentially a verbal representation of a visual work of art. 
• Beyond Description:It’s not simply a description; it delves into the artwork’s meaning, symbolism, and the poet’s emotional or intellectual reaction to it. 
• Real or Imagined:The artwork can be a real piece that exists, a lost or destroyed work, or even an entirely imagined creation. 
• Examples:
  • John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a classic example, where the poet explores the scenes depicted on the urn. 

What Message is Being Sent by Elle Magazine’s November 2024 Cover Featuring Kylie Jenner?

In this influential fashion and lifestyle magazine, Kylie poses with a bared abdomen, wearing just a pulled-up tee and bikini bottoms. Some people see this as a powerful message about contemporary female empowerment, highlighting her ability to define herself boldly and unapologetically. By embracing body positivity in this way, she sends a message to other women that they too can be bold and secure. However, I take issue with this portrayal.

Questioning the Policy of Fashion Magazines

I question the policy of Elle and many other fashion/lifestyle magazines that require interviewees to bare various parts of their bodies along with the interviews discussing their lives, pursuits, and philosophy.

Kylie Jenner: A Successful Business Entrepreneur

Kylie touts herself as a successful business entrepreneur. She owns Kylie Cosmetics, Kylie Swim, a line of swimwear that includes sizes for all women, and Kylie baby, a skincare and hair product line for babies. Her net worth is estimated at about 700 million. In October 2020, Kylie was listed on Forbes List of 100 Richest Self-Made Women, and the only one in her 20’s on the list. Her net worth and businesses are impressive, and that is a worthwhile message to pass on to other young women. But why does she need to bare her breasts as she does on another page, wearing only a bra with her blue jeans open at the waist, exposing her lacy pink undies? And just so no one feels threatened by her, she appears in a pink striped nightgown, holding a large pink teddy bear. Pink, so much pink. Getting the idea?

The Impact on Young Women

I am not a prude, but why not present an article about Kylie Jenner with all her clothes on, especially since so many young women will look at her sculpted body and feel inadequate. She has come a long way from the time she suffered self-described postpartum blues after the birth of her first child, a process that added 60 pounds to her body. I commend her for her beauty and toned body, but more importantly for her achievements and resilience.

A Call for Change in Magazine Practices

Elle magazine is not alone in this practice. Just about every magazine I can think of replicates the same requirements. I’m just saying, for the sake of all the rest of us, can icons be more fully clothed?

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I loved being in the world described by the author. The tale, told through the eyes of Iti, a young woman biologist, evokes an aura of fable, or classic fairy tale as it unwinds the telling of three mysteries: a possible love connection for Iti with Duncan, the local police chief, a perplexing ailment plaguing Aggie, Iti’s twin sister, and an actual murder of a community member. Moreover, throughout the story, a theme reverberates: will Iti’s team be successful introducing wolves back into the highlands of Scotland, and if not, why? I loved that the author is not preachy as she unveils some truths about the world’s reluctance to embrace and preserve the wildness of nature, specifically represented by the wolves and the attempt by humans to extinguish their species. The book explores this violence making the reader yearn for a return to a more natural balance between prey and predator. We learn, for instance, that absent the wolves as predator, the deer have so denuded the forests that no new saplings will grow, resulting in fewer trees, upon which we humans rely for oxygen. Parallel to the violence involving animals, the reader learns about the violence inflicted by men against their wives and the repercussions that has upon the victims who are unable to recover from the trauma.
The characters come alive in the book, to the point where I felt I was communicating with friends as I read it. The mysteries resolve themselves in a surprising but satisfying manner. It is a book I will remember. I loved the feel of it–a soft touch to difficult topics.




View all my reviews

The Killing Hills by Chris Offutt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Book review, The Killing Hills, by Chris Offutt, Grove Press, 2021, 219 pages

In this short novel, the author takes the reader on a journey to the eastern hills of Kentucky where a woman has been murdered, and an unlikely brother-sister team are positioned to solve it. Mick, now AWOL from the criminal investigation department (CID) of the army stationed in Germany, has been called upon by his sister, Linda, now Sheriff of the small, insular Appalachian community, to assist in the investigation. Having served in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, Mick notes the similarity in the use of violence between the clans living in the hollers of Kentucky and those groups in Afghanistan. On a personal level Mick must also solve the mystery of who fathered the baby his now pregnant wife carries. Mick and Peggy knew each other as children, married at 19 and have spent the better part of their 12 year old marriage apart.
The author uses an array of creative language to both describe the environment in which the story takes place and the dialogue of the characters. Examples are:
“Mick left his sister’s house and headed east. The sun lay above the hillside as if resting, tinging the western treetops with flame…He made a sharp curve to a ridge that ended at a house surrounded by heavy woods. There was more sun here and he a briefly pitied people who lived in the hollers where it was already night.
He waited in the truck and watched for dogs. People unaccustomed to visitors in an unknown vehicle were capable of greeting a strangers with a weapon.”
And the dialogue conveys the uniqueness of the people:
“Your son is more or less why I’m here.
Which one?
Uh, well, Mick hesitated, your second boy, I reckon.
Oh, she said. Fuckin’ Barney. He ain’t here right now.
You call him that too?
We’re a nickname family. You know Shifty’s not my real name, either. It’s Camille Littleton, then I got married and my husband started in calling me Shifty because the only clothes I had were shifts my mother made. Now we got Cricket, Jimbo, Junebug, Sheetrock, Doodle and Rickets.”
Rickets. Ain’t that a disease?
Yeah, but he ain’t never had it. Just born bow-legged.”

I enjoyed reading this artfully crafted novel. The story is tightly woven and I read it in two sittings. The characters came alive. The setting exposed me to an area of the country I had only some scant familiarity with when I visited my sister, Jo-Ann, when she worked as a geologist for a coal company in West Virginia, and had just experienced one of their yearly floods in the holler in which she resided with her family. It is my understanding that this is the first mystery/thriller set in the eastern hills of Kentucky. I recommend it withs 4 stars.



View all my reviews

Learning a great deal about syntax and flow to create an art piece–a written one, using words, naturally. I seem to spend time, wasting time on Trump and his lies, disgusting example of human species that he is, along with reacting to the deeds of him and his cronies, the uglies of the Republican Party. Free yourself from this living hell and write your stories, creative soul that you are, perceiving good things where they are. Do not let them rent space in your brain. This too will pass, this time of unbridled immorality, politicos chasing money and power using out-in-the-open dastardly schemes to thwart citizen’s voting, removing drop-off poling boxes in Texas, hundreds of them, curtailing postal services, to name just to of their schemes.