One Poem by Derrick Harrison Hurd

I Remember You
For Shannon

My parents were in love with her
and she more so with them
and even my brothers knew
that we had proved by living it
that a fairy tale can indeed come true

She is somewhere else now
Or rather I am not where she is
The magic of us
Taken largely for granted then
Came on an ordinary day
to an extraordinary end

It is not so bad to be on the other side of dreams
And fairy tales that came true
There is always good in something new
And, though there were perfect days, honest and pure
That no matter what can never again occur
But, make no mistake…I remember you

{Poem by Derrick Harrison Hurd}

A Prose Piece by Peter Lattu

Mary Oliver’s Poetry

I love Mary Oliver’s poetry. Her poems are deceptively simple and straightforward yet they often reveal profound truth about the human experience.

I have wondered how Mary Oliver writes. From her description of natural settings, like Blackwater woods and pond, she clearly takes early morning walks with her dogs. She sees deer, fox, herons, turtles, gannets, watersnakes, mushrooms, wild geese, egrets… and she writes about what she sees.

I imagined that Mary Oliver comes back from her early morning walks to settle down to write for a couple of hours. In her book A Poetry Handbook she confirms that she does just that: “One can rise early in the morning and have time to write (or, even, to take a walk and then write) before the world’s work schedule begins.”

Writing early is not all there is to her creative process. Her walks are crucial to her creative process, to her hearing her “inner ‘poetic’ voice”. In A Poetry Handbook, she describes her imaginative process at work on her walks:

For myself, walking works… I walk slowly and not to get anywhere in particular, but because the motion somehow helps the poem to begin. I end up, usually, standing still, writing something down in the small notebook I always have with me.

Walks work to make her poems. Her poems display that creative process at work through her descriptions of nature all around her.

Through A Poetry Handbook I have gained more insight into Mary Oliver and her imaginative processes. That book has deepened my appreciation of her life and work.

{Piece by Peter Lattu, December 31, 2007}

Three Poems by Cody Tucker

The Fire Speaks to Us All

Its boards crack and moan
The flames eat their way across
Everything washed in a thin orange haze
A single match started this wrong
I can never go back
I've burnt the last bridge home


Old Love

Your face lingers long after your gone
Burned in my eyes
Will this bittersweet taste ever leave
I walk the streets and hear your voice in the crowd
Dark and strange people surround me
They offer your replacement
And my soul with it
And i settle down to something sweet and sickly
Come join me for one last dance
The moonlight our only companion
The wound festers and aches
My eyes begin to blur
I hear a knock at the door
Despair joins me for a drink
I find a comfortable chair in my head
And take a seat
Come join me for one last dance in the moonlight
Sorrows the melody


The Human Weakness

Desire overwhelms common sense
Right and wrong are thrown out the window
The beast and the man become one
Out of him spews forth vulgar shapes of his life
The others see and join in the fray
Wanting to taste something other than the mundane
They grew old in a day
They lost their minds in a moment of pleasure
The drug became their god
And they couldn't remember their way home
The room was washed in a thick gray smoke
And in it they thought they saw their souls drift away
The pills resembled faces of old friends
And they laughed
They did not partake sparingly
Like a starving man they consumed
Mad cackles filled the night air
The rain that wouldn't cease began to pour
And they forgot who they were

{Three Poems by Cody Tucker}