Latest Huffington Post piece, this one about me and Ming-hua and my Learning Chinese.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tricia-mccallum/learning-chinese_b_7874896.html
Latest Huffington Post piece, this one about me and Ming-hua and my Learning Chinese.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tricia-mccallum/learning-chinese_b_7874896.html
I love how Margaret Atwood manages to let go here – utterly – and yet still retain perfect control. It’s what she does best, I think. She gives the reader a breathless exhilarating free fall in her poems and all the while we know we are in expert hands.
A sad child
You’re sad because you’re sad.
It’s psychic. It’s the age. It’s chemical.
Go see a shrink or take a pill,
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.
Well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
Count your blessings. Better than that,
buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.
Forget what?
Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that was done to you
the day of the lawn party
when you came inside flushed with the sun,
your mouth sulky with sugar,
in your new dress with the ribbon
and the ice-cream smear,
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.
My darling, when it comes
right down to it
and the light fails and the fog rolls in
and you’re trapped in your overturned body
under a blanket or burning car,
and the red flame is seeping out of you
and igniting the tarmac beside your head
or else the floor, or else the pillow,
none of us is;
or else we all are.
A new piece of mine about the shortcomings of Google, just up on Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tricia-mccallum/google-the-verb_b_7673512.html
A lovely letter I received from a Colombian child about her work and mine. A friend teaches her here – she is new to Canada – and used my books as poem studies. Best news ever to learn I may have inspired a child to write her own poems.
This is my latest piece on Huff Post, one particularly close to my heart, about the plight of growing numbers of refugees heading out to sea on crowded battered boats, seeking a haven from the destitution of their homelands.
There are no easy answers here. I ask that you read and share. Thanks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tricia-mccallum/hell-island_b_7301160.html
Here is my latest piece on Huff Post, called My Very Own Miracle: One very close to the bone for me.
If my story alerts even one person so they avoid what I went through, it will be enough.
I encourage you to comment at the top of the story and share it/tweet it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tricia-mccallum/my-very-owm-miracle_b_7051202.html
Here’s an Easter poem.
It’s never been my favourite holiday. All that forced gaiety (I speak of Catholics) about the “rising,” and the massive baskets of gargantuan, alien-like palm leaves lining the church vestibule.
Those unsettling paintings of a bearded man bathed in light emerging, floating, eerily, from some cave-like structure. I was supposed to find comfort in the images but frankly I found them foreboding.
And three masses for us to sing through as the student choir, from the airless darkened loft above.
I know. I should cheer up. But all these memories resurface, unbidden, (I won’t say resurrected) each year at Eastertime.
The chocolate made up for a lot though.
Easter Morning Once.
A new dress, even if it had been my sister’s.
Fresh perms and white cotton gloves.
My boring knee socks and yearning to wear stockings like my older sisters.
My wee brother at my side in his clip on bowtie and tartan vest
And little pressed trousers.
We four positioned, solemnly, on the stone church steps before Mass
In the harsh sunlight of the still chilly April morning
For the obligatory snapshot,
Our secret smiles as we huddled together,
Counting the days until summer, warmth
And freedom.
A recent interview I did for the Demeter Press Blog, linked here, about the meaning and power of poetry in my life. It was a very intriguing exercise as it made me think – long and hard – about things I really hadn’t.
http://demeterpress.org/celebrating-poetry-month-an-interview-with-tricia-mccallum/
I am thrilled that my poem Enough is the featured piece on the website Every Day Poems today.
I’m honored to be in such wonderful company; these are extraordinary writers.
I invite you to come and read my work – and theirs.
http://www.everywritersresource.com/poemeveryday/enough-tricia-mccallum/
The Music of Leaving
An evening of poetry with Tricia McCallum
Thursday March 5th at 7 pm.
Please join us to welcome back Tricia
and spend time listening
to a selection of her work new and old.
Always be a poet. Even in prose.
— Charles Baudelaire.
In essence I am a storyteller who writes poems. Put simply, I write the poems I want to read.[…]
Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Mother
and Father Remembered.
reviews: 2
ratings: 4 (avg rating 5.00)
A sequence of my poems has been published in a hardcover book entitled The Music of Leaving Poems by Tricia McCallum
More info…
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Thanks for sharing