2 poems by Net Poet Society poet Dede Fox

After the unexpected publication of her poem "Here and Now" in the 2006 Lone Star College literary journal, Dede Fox decided she enjoyed having an audience.  She signed up for an InPrint poetry workshop, bonded with her fellow writers, and became a working poet.   Her "Chapultepec Park" won AIPF’s 2008 Christina Sergeyevna Award, and she was twice a juried poet at Houston Poetry Festival.  .  Dede’s poetry appears in the Texas Poetry Calendar, di-verse-city, Sol Magazine, The Enigmatist, The Poetry Revolt, and Swirl.  TCU Press published her children’s novel and Highlights Magazine several of her non-fiction articles. Librarian at Collins Intermediate in the Woodlands, Dede has taught with Houston’s Writers in the Schools program and is on the board of the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council. 

Bewitched

            No evil fairy heaped curses upon

this charmed child with hair like swirled

honey, chocolate brown eyes, creamy

skin sweet with kisses.  Laughter bubbled

from her, sweet grandchild, long awaited.

         

           Grandmother, overjoyed, wove

dresses from the finest flax, combed

wool for the softest blankets, knit

tiny sweaters until her fingers bled.

Gnarled walking cane in hand, she hobbled

long miles, presented her gifts to the royal family.

          Ladies-in-Waiting recoiled at the pungent

odor of the salve spread on Grandmother’s aching

limbs, covered their noses with lace handkerchiefs

while children hid behind their skirts, pointed and

jeered at Grandmother’s simple clothes and manners.

Blushing, her princess daughter turned away,

distracted the court with the antics of her baby.   

          Grandmother limped home. Soon twisted

vines tightened over her cottage, so far from the palace.

The old woman no longer threw open shutters, lost

hope of seeing her daughter or granddaughter travel

down the slow path in her dark woods.

          The curse was on her, Grandmother gifted

with a precious child she could neither see nor hear

nor smell nor hold close.

          Anger fueled Grandmother’s stone oven,

with a fire so intense that it baked her into a wrinkled

old crone who hacked away entanglements.

          She covered her cottage with sweets--

honey swirls, chocolate kisses, creamy caramels--

waited to lure small strangers inside, ones so delicious

that she could keep them caged, fatten them,

                                                    and eat them up. 

~Dede Fox 

5546,

I have worn your street number

like a hated tattoo--

removal will be painful.

Inspectors say your cast iron pipes decayed

under a slab riddled with fault lines,

like our grieving family.

Nine months to repair,

nine months to say

good-bye.

Notes flutter from every open drawer;

reminders of things lost and found,

found and lost.

What treasure lies beneath layers of labels

peeled from the phone? A number

to reconnect a mother’s scattered thoughts?

At the bottom of a painted wooden bowl.

lie memories of a father’s fingers cracking

pecans with a nutcracker, silver as tears.

In bedrooms

no sock left unknotted,

no pocket unchecked.

Many spill hidden riches:

an old letter, a tarnished spoon,

watches repaired by Grandpa’s steady hands.

Bright patches inside faded wallpaper

trace spaces once filled with grandchildren’s art;

stair-stepped little ones once pointed with pride.

Will buyers know there are mismatched door keys

four, the number of children raised here,

each unique?

5546, a street number,

echoing heartbeats,

enduring tattoo.

 

~Dede Fox

Other poems by Dede Fox:

Glow
Spring Cleaning

Video poems by Dede Fox:
Bewitched

Rothko revelations: poems by Kathryn Lane



Rothko Chapel, Houston, TX

This past April 4, the Friendswood Public Library hosted a poetry reading by a group of poets known as Net Poets Society. Their newest member, a fine poet by the name of Kathryn Lane, read a poem inspired by the work of artist Mark Rothko. I was reminded how much I admire this artist’s work and later asked Kathryn if she would share these Rothko inspired poems with our from the reference desk readers. Those of us who live in the Houston area are privileged to be close to The Menil Collection, Rothko Chapel, and Cy Twombly Gallery off of Sul Ross Street.  I have visited these collections many times and have never left without feeling inspired by the experience.

This entry is timely given the fact that the Menil is celebrating Rothko Chapel’s fortieth anniversary with “an installation of rarely exhibited canvases by Mark Rothko, closely related to those the artist completed for the chapel.” 

Below we find two poetic expressions of the work of Mark Rothko by poet Kathryn Lane.

Kathryn Lane began writing fiction in 2009 after leaving an international finance position in Latin America and the Caribbean with Johnson & Johnson.  Her short stories have been published in Swirl and The Texas A&M Border Fiction Anthology.  While attending a writing workshop at Texas A&M in November of 2011, Kathryn attended a poetry reading and fell in love with the intimacy of poems and began experimenting with poetry.  Since then, her poems have appeared in Homeless Diamonds, a London-based poetry journal, Primitive Archer, Swirl and The Poetry at Round Top Anthology.  A native Spanish speaker, Kathryn has performed poetry in both English and Spanish.

Kathryn is a board member of the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council. 

Brushstrokes 

Subdued light bathes the gallery

where paintings hang

in a mysterious, almost spiritual, quality.

Brushstrokes talk in hushed tones

over rabbit skin glue,

revealing shadows of vagueness

apparent in the under painting,

tails of pigment fanning out into fuzzy edges

like a million nerve endings dancing

on the reds, maroons and crimsons.

After all these years, the old

yet energetic blocks of color palpate

the artist’s energy: his ecstasies, his tragedies,

his doom, like a shadow of the man falling

upon a red canvas, foretelling the future.

Black Paintings

The paintings were black with a hint of brown, perhaps;

they hung on walls—brooding;

the rectangles hovering tensely next to each other

like unhappy lovers.

The silence suddenly seemed profound;

the room acquired a dimension beyond the mundane—

like the artist would have liked—

space widened, diffused light became three dimensional

and the paintings reflected movement and modulation of color.

I sat there feeling the luminosity of silence

observing dim light infuse breath and life

into the black paint until the silence inside of me

became too much to bear.

~ Kathryn Lane                   

More poems by Kathryn Lane:

From the Rickshaw

Rangoli

Taj



Mark your calendar for these FPL events

Wednesday, May 30th at 7pm 

Sole-Surviving Airmen, Dan Illerich, will tell his story from Judith Heimann's book The Airmen and the Headhunters: a true story of lost soldiers, heroic tribesman and the unlikeliest rescue of WWII. Dan was also featured in the PBS Documentary The Airmen and the Headhunters. Dan Illerich lives in Friendswood, Texas with his wife Mary. He is the last surviving Airmen in The Airmen and the Headhunters story. He provides the only firsthand testimony of the American Airmens’ experiences with the Dayak tribes in Borneo. Of the ten men in the B-24 bomber crew shot down by the Japanese in November 1944, seven survived the parachute from the plane. Dan tells their story.

Wednesday, June 13th at 7pm

Pele of Polynesia Dance Group: In celebration of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, Pele of Polynesia Dance Group will feature traditional dances from Tahiti, Samoa, New Zealand, Fiji, and Hawai'i.

Having grown up in the beautiful South Pacific Island of Samoa, group founder Bernadette (Pele) learned from an early age traditional Samoan dance, called "Siva", as well as dances from other South Pacific islands like Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, the Philippines, and of course, Hawai'i. She shared her polynesian culture and dance while at college in Idaho, and later expanded her knowledge of pacific culture and dance through her involvement in the polynesian community of Phoenix, Arizona. Then, in 2005, Pele arrived in Houston, Texas. She wanted to share her culture with this great city, so with a little hard work and the help of a few friends, Pele of Polynesia was born!

Wednesday, August 8th at 7pm 

Music Performance by North Harris Co. Dulcimer Society.  Come enjoy a fine evening of unplugged entertainment at the Friendswood Public Library!

Adamarie Fuller, winner of ekphrastic poetry competition, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

 

Adamarie Fuller’s poems have appeared in several publications including Texas Poetry Calendar (Honorable Mention, 2009), The Weight of Addition, The Austin International Poetry Festival Anthology (Honorable Mention, 2011), A Summers Poems, The Houston Poetry Fest Anthology, Sol Magazine, The Poetry Revolt and Poetry at Round Top.  Outside the poetry world, Adamarie is a CPA for a multinational firm, mother and grandmother.

Adamarie Fuller was one of the winners of the inaugural ekphrastic poetry competition (Ekphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art) for Artlines/Public Poetry in Houston headed by Fran Sanders and co-sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston (MFAH).  It was judged by the current Texas Poet Laureate, Jan Seale, as well as two former Laureates, Dave Parsons and Paul Ruffin, together with well know Texas poets, Carmen Tafolla, and Van G. Garrett.  The reading by all nine contest winners (one for each artwork) was held in Brown Auditorium at the MFAH. Each poem was recorded and is available to listen on the cell phone tour for visitors of the MFAH.  The reading in Brown Auditorium was video- taped for educational classes to use in the Kinder Education Center.   

Adamarie Fuller was selected for her poem Allegory of Eurozone – 2011, a poetic description of Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s Allegory of Europe, 1722, oil on canvas, found at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Allegory of Europe, 1722, oil on canvas, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston,.1987.2. Museum of Fine Arts Houston

Allegory of Eurozone - 2011

In response to Allegory of Europe by Jean-Baptiste Oudry (Museum of Fine Arts Houston)

Jean, may I call you Jean? Your painting is quite witty,

but I must say more prophetic than you knew.

Greece still stands, a mere pebble from the old quarry,

looking askance of its neighbors, pretending all is well;

Athena should weep marble tears.

And Italy - how clever of you to dress him with a belt

yet no pants (we’ve all seen the videos).  While Rome’s

bond brokers begin to melt, he scampers off to another tune.

The UK lies there, a deflated bag of wind.  Bankers with manners

but no morals, know they have nothing to add, and so

lounge, limp and gasping. 

Even Spain, that gilt land of summer sunshine

for winter tourists, has bet its favorite flamenco guitar

for a last chance at a good hand.

The bright blue and red bird, your happy France, looks over all,

pondering its situation - stay to feed on gleanings of others,

or fly away to its well-appointed nest in the high tree.

All the while, Germany’s Alpine flute, silent as a snake,

lies in wait to strike; the Euro transmogrified from antidote,

into venom - ready to be served to all.

Oh Jean, droll and clever as you might have been,

the prophecy of your painting is painful to view.

Adamarie Fuller

Adamarie Fuller is also a member of Net Poets Society and has been a featured reader at Friendswood Public Library Poetry Series readings.  We look forward to having Adamarie Fuller back to read.  Also look for more poetry from Adamarie Fuller here at from the reference desk.

Other Poems by Adamarie Fuller:

 

Farm Life

Change of Life