Mary Dezember
Scotland Trek: I Hiked Scotland Coastal Lands

I Hiked Scotland Coastal Lands

By Mary Dezember

I hiked beaches of sand, beaches of rock, and beaches edged by cliffs and dunes.

I hiked some of the cliffs and dunes.

I hiked forests that stretched seemingly forever, from the edge of the coast to acres inland.

I hiked yellow gorse-lined cliffs upward and upward with the bluest ocean to the left and freshly plowed rich brown farmland to the right.

I hiked away from enchanting villages, one with the church steeple barely visible as the fog rolling in the from ocean, perpendicular, covered the town facades in a romantic and mysterious mist.

I hiked past desolate WWII pillbox bunkers and piles of rocks, the ocean crashing to the left, thinking of my dad and the many other selfless, brave soldiers. Here, as with most of the hike, I saw no one. On this timeless stretch — and except for some birds — I was the only living soul.

Scotland Trek: I Hiked Scotland Coastal Lands
Mary Dezember
Five Poetry Books That Will Whisk You Away!

By Mary Dezember

For lovely, introspective moments that will whisk you away from the ordinary of the day, here are five poetry books I highly recommend:

Five Poetry Books That Will Whisk You Away!
Mary Dezember
There is Another — Nineteenth-Century American ...

By Mary Dezember, Ph.D.

Hidden in Plain Sight, Emerging Into the Light

Five years before Emily Dickinson’s poetry made its appearance in an 1890 Higginson-prefaced volume from a Bostonian publishing house [Roberts], New York publisher Cassell and Company released a book of poetry by twenty-six-year-old Helen Gray Cone [1859-1934] that received critical acclaim [Oberon and Puck, 1885]. In 1886, William Morton Payne of The Dial described the book as “a more ambitious kind . . . unusually full of promise.” [1]

Cone’s debut book of 1885 is a compilation of sixty-six highly lyrical, formal verse poems, many of which respond intertextually to works by authors, visual artists, and composers, such as Shakespeare, Dante, Boccaccio, Bastien-Lepage, and Bach, and often with a metaphysical poetic flair. Human condition themes explore ideology-and-effect, such as in the poems “The Conservative,” “The Liberal,” and “The Inheritance.” Her poems advocate women’s authority over their lives. Her sonnet “The Resolve” is in this collection.

Upon publication by Houghton Mifflin in 1891 of Cone’s second book, The Ride to the Lady and Other Poems, The Critic wrote, “The outlook for the future of poetry in this country grows distinctively brighter…”. [2]

In 1892, Payne [in The Dial] wrote that Cone had accomplished “advance in precision and in dramatic force.” [3] I delineate Cone’s oeuvre into three time periods, the Second Period being her Professional Poet Years of June 1876 to 1891, of which only these two of Cone’s poetry books — her nineteenth-century poetry— reside.

My intent is to bring Helen Gray Cone’s nineteenth-century poetry — and the poet herself — out of the shadows and into the view of Cone as a metrical pre-modernist, intertextual, female-empowerment poet of metaphysical finesse.

Poems that establish Helen Gray Cone’s identity as a poet are found in her nineteenth-century poetry, the striking poems that have been overlooked with virtually no inclusion in twentieth-century century and contemporary anthologies.

These are the poems of her first two books — Oberon and Puck (1885) and The Ride to the Lady and Other Poems (1891).

There is Another — Nineteenth-Century American Poet with "Dramatic Force": Helen Gray Cone
Mary Dezember
Celebrate with Wild Conviction!

By Mary Dezember
Author of stories and poetry as portals to possibilities.

Happy 1st Birthday to Wild Conviction!

Read here to find out how to enter birthday celebration contests and attend birthday celebration events!

Wild Conviction was published at the end of July 2023.

It has been an exciting first year for me and for Twilight, Spirit and friends — and a successful year for a debut novel!

I am grateful to all of you who have been and continue to be on this great wild conviction adventure with us!

I hope you can participate in one or more of our First Birthday Celebration Contests and Events!

See below for the Events and Contests with Prizes for which you must be a subscriber to my newsletter to win or attend. If you are not yet, you can Sign Up at the bottom of this page.

Celebrate with Wild Conviction!
Mary Dezember
What We Do Not See Is Angel Song

By Mary Dezember

What we do not see
Are the vibrations fine-tuned
We call 
Kindness, 
The quick incanting.

If we listen closely
We might say,

This is angel song —

What We Do Not See Is Angel Song

Social Closeness and Hakim Bellamy’s We Are Neighbors

Social Closeness and Hakim Bellamy’s We Are Neighbors

Before bears in windows, before “street dance parties” in separate front yards, before communal singing from balconies, before all the creative ways that social distancing is bringing us socially closer, there was We Are Neighbors.

Published in early 2019, We are Neighbors: Albuquerque, NM speaks presciently to our current pandemic “moment” about the importance of connection and being neighbors in a world of personal isolation. We are Neighbors takes us into the wonder of wondering – in a caring way – about our neighbors.

In this collection – compelling prose poems and flash fiction by Hakim Bellamy with evocative photographs by Justin Thor Simenson of Albuquerque neighborhood scenes – the photographs show many trucks and cars, also corners and cacti and hydrants and shoes and porches and trees and shrubs (victim to “Manscaping”) and, of course, homes, homes, homes…but no people. Our neighbors are absent from our neighborhoods.

Canvas of Life, Look Closely

Canvas of Life, Look Closely

Even thought ALS robbed him of doing almost anything, Steve chose to love, to stay positive, and to create art.

Mostly confined in his bed or wheelchair, he and his wife Hope figured out how he could create and, by selling his paintings, help provide for them, as Hope left her career to care for him full time.

This poem was first published in my book Still Howling, in 2016.

The painting, Hope, by Steve Dezember II, is the art on the book cover and is at the bottom of this post

Canvas of Life, Look Closely

The Divine Studio

The Divine Studio

(“The Divine Studio” from Hafiz – see Why I Write)

The divine studio is the mind. And the heart. And the soul. This is where art happens – for the artist and for those the artist engages.

In writing, art happening and audience engagement is through the magic of words.

I am nearly always in my studio – writing in my head and from my heart and my soul – and when I can, at my computer.

Getting others into my studio to see my art takes, first, crafted style and story that reaches out and pulls the reader in – whisking the reader on a trip to new places, to meet new people, to make new friends.