Tag: poems

I enjoy watching the award shows for cinema—the European Film Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Oscars. Because Emilia Perez won Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screen Writer, and Best Editing late in 2024 at the European Film Awards, I streamed the film to watch it. It is a powerful story. This week, it was also awarded Golden Globes for Best Musical or Comedy and Best Non-English Language Film, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Song. 

When Jon M. Chu accepted the award for Cinematic and Box Office Success at the Golden Globes for his film, Wicked, he made an inspirational comment that caught my ear, he said, “a radical act of optimism.” For the rest of 2025, I will keep this statement in my awareness and attempt to be a writer who engages in radical acts of optimism.

What will I be optimistic about? My writing, my life, and the world around me. I noticed recently that I tell myself, “I have to write.” I realized that it sounds like a command, so I will change this statement to “I love to write and I will reserve time to do so.” My life has been quite different over the last two years because of the death of loved ones. This year, I will be more appreciative of all my living loved ones and let them know that I think about them and love them. Given the shift in politics in the world around me, I have wondered what is wrong with average citizens who make terrible choices in elections. This year, I will focus on clarifying traditional democratic values when I can do so.

My Writing Goals for 2025

1.  Continue to develop my poetry and connections with other poets: Attend Bardic Trails, Cannon Mine Poetry, the Colorado Poetry Center events, and the Naropa events. I will also lead the BWA Poetry Circle and write one poem each week.

2.  Finish my first novel and query agents( IW): Reorganize to clarify the plot and the storyline for each character, write necessary chapters, and edit existing chapters to fit the reorganization.

3.  Finish my second novel, (G): Reorganize to clarify the plot and the storyline for each character, write necessary chapters, and edit existing chapters to fit the reorganization.

4.  Continue to work on my third novel, (PW): Reorganize to clarify the plot and the storyline for each character, write necessary chapters, and edit existing chapters to fit the reorganization.

5.  Continue to develop a network of kindred spirits in the world of writing and publishing:

a.  Boulder Writers Alliance: Attend Writers Who Read, the BWA Happy Hour, at least one silent writing session each month, and organize and lead the BWA Poetry Circle: I attended our first meeting of Gary Alan McBride’s Writers Who Read 2025 which provided a detailed analysis of Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!

b.  Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers: Pay dues and follow the newsletter.

c. Women Writing the West: Attend the online conference and continue to work with our critique group each month.

6. Document my writing progress through my blog and post it on the seventh day of each month, one blog per month in 2025:

Today is January 7, 2025. I am posting my first blog for this year. Despite my concerns about national politics, I am feeling positive and hopeful for 2025—I like the number! I am more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been. I enjoy my friends and colleagues. I appreciate the wonderful individuals that I have met and worked with this past year and look forward to deepening these relationships. I enjoy the service activities that I accomplish. My knowledge of the local and state-wide poetry world has broadened considerably. The Zoom workshop I lead through the Boulder Writers Alliance Poetry Circle offers the opportunity to meet and collaborate with amazing poets. The other organizations I belong to offer friendship and remarkable connections.

A Line from an Inspirational Poem

When I was a high school senior, I represented my school at the State Speech Meet. The poem that I recited from memory was Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay—a serious poem for a seventeen-year-old. Here are a few lines from this long poem:

From Renascence (1917)

“…I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself…”

May you, my reader, sing happy tunes to yourself throughout the coming year!

Bonnie Garmus, the author of Lessons in Chemistry, and an enthusiastic supporter of libraries was the featured speaker at the local Boulder Public Library Gala in September. With attendance at close to 400 supporters, our Boulder Writers Alliance group was fortunate to have good seats close to the dais. Maeve Conran from KGNU conducted an insightful interview with Bonnie. The interview will be broadcast on October 24, 2024, at 9 AM, on KGNU Community Radio 88.5 FM on Radio Book Club, a collaboration between KGNU and the Boulder Bookstore.

The next morning, I joined a small group from the Library Foundation and their supporters to meet with Bonnie for breakfast at a local venue. Bonnie spoke about how important both the school librarians and the local public librarians in her town were to her as a child. Her interest in reading and writing blossomed under the guidance of attentive librarians who gave her interesting tasks to do. Thus, she has chosen to be an active supporter of libraries as an adult. Throughout her career, Bonnie worked as a copywriter. Honing her skills for editing and accuracy proved invaluable to her work as a novelist. She added that her experience in marketing was beneficial when she began to collaborate with her publisher. She also emphasized that she goes through many drafts before publishing—up to fifty! I am looking forward to her next publication.

My Writing Goals for 2024

Continue to develop my poetry and connections with other poets:

This past month, the Jaipur Literary Festival Colorado was held at the local public library. I attended several sessions with visiting and local poets, including Rohan Chhetri, Jovan Mays, Reiland Rabaka, and Anne Waldman.

I also participated in a workshop at Naropa University led by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer who was San Miguel County’s Poet Laureate from 2007-2011 and the Western Slope Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. Moudi Sbeity, a poet who is a writing instructor at Naropa University, joined Rosemerry for the session. The following evening, they both read their work at the Colorado Poetry Center’s reading at the Boulder Bookstore. I found both the workshop and the reading to be exceptionally warm, personal, and instructive.

I also attended Bardic Trails, a program on the Western Slope, on Zoom. This month it featured Eirene Hamilton, a poet who writes in both Diné Bizaad and English. Eirene’s integration of nature, humor, and her people’s culture into her poetry was delightful.

Additionally, I invited David Jilk to present for the Boulder Writers Alliance Poetry Circle in September. He discussed and read from his newest publication. Dave is the author of Epoch: A Poetic Psy-Phi Saga, two collections of lyric poetry, co-author of The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors, and lead or co-author of several academic papers on cognitive neuroscience and on existential concerns related to artificial intelligence.

Finish my first novel and query agents:

I drafted new pages for my critique group.

Continue to work on my second novel:

I did not work on this book this month.

Continue to work on my third novel:

Our new BWA literary critique group met to work together. Three of us were present on Zoom and we all expressed our appreciation for each other’s work. We also made comments and made helpful suggestions.

Continue to develop a network of kindred spirits in the world of writing and publishing:

Boulder Writers Alliance: I attended the BWA Happy Hour in September and our Writers Who Read session led by Gary Allen McBride this week in which we had a lively discussion of Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake.

Denver Woman’s Press Club: I read the newsletter and decided which sessions I could attend this fall.

Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers:  I read the newsletter and followed the RMFW Colorado Gold Conference on Facebook.

Women Writing the West: I am looking forward to the annual conference which takes place this month. I sent in my pages for the critique group being held at the conference.

Document my writing progress through my blog and post it on the seventh day of each month, one blog per month in 2024:

Today is October 7, 2024. I am posting my tenth blog of 2024. September was beautiful and mostly warm. Because of our exceptionally warm autumn, my flower garden is still in full bloom today, adding color and richness to my days.

Writers who were born in October that I particularly enjoy:

Jill Kerr Conway, e. e. cummings, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing, Katherine Mansfield, François Mauriac, Terry McMillan, Arthur Miller, Ivan Turgenev, and Oscar Wilde

Poets that I admire who were born in October:

John Keats, Sylvia Plath, Arthur Rimbaud, Wallace Stevens, and Dylan Thomas