Book Signing!

Greetings poetry lovers!

I will be signing copies of The World: Poetic Connections today, March 18th, in Sumter, South Carolina, at Waldenbooks in Sumter Mall. Tomorrow, I will be signing at Happy Bookseller in Columbia, South Carolina, along with Kendall Bell, the author of From The Heart and From The Heart 2.

As a new poet, I realize that many readers out there have just put poetry down and refused to read it. People tell me that they are just not interested in remote and obscure references that take forever to decipher, and for that reason, poetry is just not an enjoyable read for the average reader.

I beg to differ! There is a new trend brewing, folks. Rhyming poetry is making a comeback, and simpler, more accessible poetry, while never really dead, was only sleeping!

Come see me today, but if you can't, take a look at the poems in my last post. The book is available at all online booksellers, or through my website, http://www.janetcarrhull.com.

RHYME IS SUBLIME!

GRAVITY

Here are a few selections from my book, Gravity, which will be released by Coastal Villages Press in Spring, 2006:



MY SISTER



My sister, oh, my sister,
where did you go?
Your garden that bore fruit
with weeding and blister
is now needing water
and spring’s new suit.
The friend’s balm of aloe
won’t salve the shoot
of seeds that won’t grow.

Spreading deeply trenched
‘side the soil forever brown,
I am left to gather
seeds left unquenched.
I’m the crying left daughter,
trying in ceaseless blather
to calm the gossiped town;
they’d all, if they’d rather,
send you straight on down.




PLEASURE


You tell me to ignore the nights
of our sweet soft fog,
whispered touch of skin on skin
that faintly pressed upon my mind
templates of everlasting nexus.

Wistful tenets of done love
blandish my eyes to see
the sweet soft fog in my dreams
that blankets me in night’s purlieu.
Daylight damns my pleasure.



SCHOOL DAY


I pull a squirmy boy
into an unforgiving jacket
on a quiet winter morning
that is dark as my heart;

his belly full of oatmeal
and heart full of wonder,
I nudge him off to school
to smile upon his day.

He doesn’t know that I am
being dragged into a vortex,
a cubicle to sit in
while he learns how to count.

The world pulls me into
an unforgiving morning,
my eyelashes wet,
he kisses ‘bye and says, “Love!”

He will count forever.

The World: Poetic Connections

Here are a few selections from my book, The World: Poetic Connections (Coastal Villages Press/July, 2004):

FOSSIL HUNTER

Lost like a forgotton fossil buried in the earth
Bossed around adulthood, all the way from birth
I hike the quilted mountain, containing all my bone
And strike a look to distance, struck that I'm alone

As I push away the rocks that strew my tearless way
I still believe that high upon the mountain lies my day
My day to wake, my history unleashed from my mind
I'd stay inside the valley if amnesia left me blind

But though I thought I had forgot the flesh and bone I was
I now seek absolution from the past's winged out buzz
That made my skin become too thin and caused my will to shrink
That bade goodbye to life's perfume that made me smell and think

I reach the summit like a spaceman fresh to plant a flag
I find the smiling bones in camouflage of the crag
I look below and bid the valley of the past goodbye
And look straight up and tally clarities of my new sky



KEY WEST VACATION

Server snaps his tray holder open
and sits his heavy load down.
We're hapy and starving - who got the flounder?
I gaze at marina sundown.

Hundreds of boat lights shine tiny sunsets
and line the floated tie;
I glance in awe at son's lit face
and plan how not to die.



BLUSH

Do I recall that
Dreams I witnessed
Gleamed this color?

Or it the charmed
Flush of conscious
Thought, waken to see

Pink! All about
In sunrise, on lips
of old and young

The fake kind
Glowing upon the cheek
Bright up the eyes!

I rather the real
Of the palest skin
Grown hot and quick

The colored blush
Diluted blood
And deep draw of air

Once the mirror tells
You have thought
A shocking thought


The World: Poetic Connections is available at all online booksellers, and through my website, http://www.janetcarrhull.com