Poetry Reading
Thursday, February 21, 12 noon
Briarcliff Baptist Church
3039 Briarcliff Road
Atlanta, GA 30329
This program is offered by Life Enrichment Services Senior Center.
LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love explores both the natural landscape and the landscape of human relationship in the four parts of the country where the poet's family is scattered: California, New York, North Carolina and Georgia.
About LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love:
*** "The poems in LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love take me places that I do not expect to go -- they are surprising, and take me on journeys large and small. I feel compelled to read them over and over again as layers continue to reveal themselves to me. I gave this book to 20 of my friends and family for Christmas!"
-- Cybill Shepherd, Actress, Author of Cybill Disobedience
*** "These poems paint not only the skin, but the muscle and bones of the world and of a life. To read them is to feel through your feet the hidden rugged forces from which emerges the apparent, and to see the forces of movement in that which we mistake for eternal.
-- Thomas Bell, Program Director, Decatur Book Festival
*** "There is absolutely no pretense about [Runyon’s] art… She reads aloud with humor, wit and grace as she moves about a self-styled stage freely, confidently… Runyon is an artistic force to be reckoned with, a woman of substance."
-- Atlanta Journal-Constitution
LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love now available - ordering info below.
ALSO AVAILABLE! Runyon's first book of poetry, Reborn (see below for info about Reborn). Scroll down for sample poems from both books.
To order: Mail check for $17 per book (includes shipping & handling), payable to Louise Runyon, to P.O. Box 33601, Decatur, GA 30033-0601. Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. Great Gifts!
To receive e-mails about upcoming performances: LouiseRunyon@aol.com, with "Art List" in subject line.
About Reborn:
*** "Louise Runyon proves that her body is not the only thing that is lithe and graceful. Her poetry ebbs and flows and takes the reader on an emotional journey from her days as a steel mill worker, a dancer, a mother and beyond. Her words capture a life in motion and a life that continues to evolve. Reborn is a splendid tango of words and thoughts, urging everyone to join the dance."
-- Collin Kelley, Author of Better To Travel
*** "[Runyon] has a special skill of using words and songs as rhythmical underpinnings to her skillfully modulated movements…intensely personal and intensely portrayed."
-- Atlanta Journal-Constitution
*** "Runyon reads as if words were dance movements flowing from her open heart." -- Art Papers
Sample poem from LANDSCAPE / Fear & Love:
The Geology of New York
The geology of New York
I never noticed as a child, except in my bones,
except I knew I didn’t like to climb as my friends did,
across the street from our apartment building,
the big gray rocks of Fort Washington
where the Battle of Harlem Heights was fought
in the revolutionary war
I noticed the cobblestones, of course, of 122nd Street,
those big gray blocks of native rock, long since paved,
hardly ever saw the Hudson, just blocks away,
never knew the Hudson River Valley.
Never climbed on the gray crags of the Palisades
across the Hudson, just heard of them,
thought of them only as
Palisades Amusement Park
The grand architecture of Manhattan,
reflecting the sheer fact of available building material,
the geology of New York,
the big gray rocks everywhere
in all the parks
But now, though still I hardly know it, except in my bones,
the gneiss and the schist of the rocks in the parks
the foundations of the great buildings
the heavy curbstones, the Palisades and rock walls
the great breadth of the Hudson
impress themselves upon me
I know so little of it, but get a sense, a glimmer,
of the beauty and the grandeur of the natural world of it,
so covered over by Times Square lights,
smoke-ring-blowing billboards, cars
jutting out of buildings,
while underneath –
so far from the land I really know
(its beauty always pointed out) –
so far from the blue mountains of North Carolina –
those gentle mountains of my ancestral home,
sleeping giants covered with green army blankets,
great gentle beasts you could nestle down in,
or whom you could straddle and ride –
so far from those blue mountains,
underneath "New York"
is a wild and rugged island, a majestic river valley
made from solid bedrock, gray gigantic rock,
the river cutting through it
in its rush to the sea
Sample Poem from Reborn:
The Wistfulness of Fall
The Joe-Pye weed
is a-comin’ up
along with the goldenrod,
neither yet their huge,
unruly selves,
but both still just yet small
and sedate
The Joe-Pye weed,
the goldenrod,
the blood-red lobelia, too,
a brilliant scarlet plume,
just startin’ out, all three:
mauve,
gold,
and surely
the reddest red
you ever did see
It’ll be fall soon,
boy’ll be gone.
Somethin’s happened to the pond,
it’s ‘bout gone,
though we’ve had
rain
Golden-green grass covers half,
another quarter is mud,
the last quarter
is muddy water
But birds abound in it,
a half-grown, snowy,
great white egret takes off,
spreads its elegant white wings
in flight,
flies back, and flies
way up into a high tree,
arching
its elegant
thin long white neck
A half-grown, great blue
heron takes off as well,
ungainly, kinda,
like it don’t quite know yet
how to fly
I saw it as a baby, earlier
this summer
The now-small pond
is full yet still,
with a solid dozen of teal male ducks
and brown females,
too far away for telling,
but half-grown ducklings,
prob’ly,
all splashing about, paddling and chirping,
in the mud
Storm‘ll be comin’ on soon
There’s white clouds on white,
gray clouds on gray,
there’s white ones on gray ones,
and gray ones on white
There’s blue, though, yet and still –
blue, on the other side of the pond,
blue as blue –
and above the golden-green grasses,
with the whites and the grays on the other side,
and the teals and the mallards,
it looks like a landscape portrait paintin’,
just as glorious as you could see
The mimosa
is no longer pink,
it’s long, ridged green pods
are just a-hangin’
I best be gettin’ on now,
that almost-grown
boy’s goin’ off on a weekend trip,
‘fore he goes off in the fall
