Tag Archives: Reblog

“Glass Enmass” for Today’s Throwback

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Glass En Masse

It’s sometimes seen as goblets stored upon a shelf
where you can either look right through or stare back at yourself.
In a glass of tea leaves, your future may be spoken,
but its message like its holder may slash us when it’s broken.
It is a perfect metaphor of all that we may be––
on one hand pure distraction, on the other help us see.
Whether it’s a looking glass or one you see right through,
The glass you stand in front of mostly tells us about you.

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Reblog from Juoy 9, 2016.

Night of the Dragon for “Let’s Hit Rewind”

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Dragon

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photo with permission from Lachlan Gowen on Unsplash

Night of the Dragon

Behold the dragon, how it flows
from its tail up to its nose.
Thirty feet and thirty arms
move the dragon’s sinuous charms—
its razor teeth, its threatening frown—
through the streets of Chinatown.
On its head, a golden crown.
Its many humps move up and down,
forming valleys, growing hills
while moving over rocks and rills.
Straightening out to cross the bridges
spanning between neighboring ridges.
Never flying through the air,
rising only up the stair.
So many mortals make one beast,
one night a year to roil and feast
on errant spirits wandering out
their vile sentiments to flout,
chancing their ends once more to free
those rotten souls they used to be.
One night of all we form the back
that otherwise the dragons lack.
We form their arms and form their feet,
arousing awe in all we meet.
And thus it happens, once a year,
we become that which most we fear.

Reblog from 2019

“Nocturn” for Rewind

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Nocturn

With half a life lived in the dark,
an owl’s hoot, an answering bark,
the moon across the water scattered,
ragged clouds, wispy and battered––

I float in night and solitude,
the night determining my mood.
I lie in darkness and I brood,
a momentary interlude.

When sunlight comes in fits and starts,
The day brings out my other parts.
They rise in me from dawn to noon,
dispelling powers of the moon.

Thus balanced between dark and light,
each half consumes its daily bite.
I welcome each within its time
Life varied, balanced and sublime.

This is a “Rewind” Blog from July 7 ten years ago.

“Beam” for RDP Saturday

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” Beaming”–The Boy in the Blue Feathered Mask

When I saw the prompt “Beam,” I immediately thought of this post from 2015, thinking of the face posted later in this post. Was the word “beam” used in the post? Indeed, it was, and so I’m posting it again, not because I’m lazy, even though that might be true, but because it is one of my favorite posts from those years when friends and I did the two-week long Camp Estrella for children in the town I live in, San Juan Cosala, Jalisco, Mexico. The girl featured in this post alongside the “beamer” is now not only married with children of her own, but she is my English student and friend.whose wedding I featured in a blog a while ago. Time flies, but thank goodness for both beams of memory and for these prompts which bring past wonderful memories back to our minds.
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 I’m choosing an alternate prompt today–to talk about my most unconventional love affair.  I’m fairly sure I’ve written about this prompt before, but this time I’m talking about another unconventional love affair–my love affair with Mexico. Hopefully you’ll know why after you read it.

The Boy in the Blue Feathered Mask

I was so busy issuing art supplies, that when the masks were set out to dry, I had no idea whose was whose.  Other Camp Estrella counselors were helping at each table and requests for paint colors were coming fast and furious.  Who knew so many boys would want to be grey foxes?  A lot of white and black got mixed. A lot of red and pink to make a deeper rose.

IMG_1973Then, feathers flew and concrete became polka-dotted with sequins in every shape from polka dots to half moons and leaping reindeer.  Day after day, layers added until it was impossible to tell roosters from foxes from bears from falcons from rabbits.
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But when I saw the remarkable turquoise feathered mask with the jeweled beak, I tried to imagine which of the graceful young girls had conceived of it.  When I collected it from the tarp set in the sun and sat it under cover with the others for the night, I knew I wanted to be sure to capture her picture tomorrow before my day became consumed with other tasks.

The next day, the members of the camp surrounded the tables and piano where we had set the masks away from the night rain and winds of the rainy season.  Some asked for more sequins, feathers, beads, paint, glue, glitter gel.  Others wanted their headbands attached and wore the masks, as is, all day long–swooping between the fruit trees of the open courtyard and over the open spaces where the dance routines were practiced. They sat during language lessons and singing practice with beaks and ears and wattles  and plumes.

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And then I saw the boy in the turquoise feathered mask!

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IMG_1959He didn’t seem to mind that his friends behind him were getting a large charge out of his mask.
He wore it almost constantly, once I’d fastened the strap to it.  And then one morning, he caught me by the arm and asked me to take his picture.  With his other hand, he caught the hand of a girl who walked by. She was one of the taller girls, rather shy, as you can see from this photo snapped the first day of camp:

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“Take our picture!” he asked politely, and although at first she pulled away, she didn’t resist much, and neither did I.

IMG_1984Brave young man.  He not only ooks pleased.  He is actually beaming! Brave young woman. Looks placid and mature.  In the flamenco dance lessons, she alone looks almost as poised as her instructor.  She is the niece of my housekeeper, and although I’d never met her, her aunt pressed me to see that she was included and it was a special request of mine that she be added to the camp roster. Now, in the 4th day of camp, I am so glad I did.

There’s a reason why feather boy looks so pleased. She is talented in everything she does, graceful and kind, and I’m told by the other counselors that the other girls look up to her.  Although innocent, and in spite of a few flirty looks from girls toward boys, this is the only case of pairing up (short as it was) between the 11 through 14-year-olds in the camp.

When I mentioned the picture later on, he seemed puzzled, and then when I reminded him, he beamed again. In the two days since then, I’ve seen other boys watching her closely in the dance or at her table as she carefully pens thank you cards to camp sponsors. But no one else got his picture taken with her, and I noticed her shyness melt away rather quickly afterwards.

So many pleasures in this camp. Watching child after child mature and blossom was the greatest one.  More stories if you want to hear them.  Telling them assures me they won’t be forgotten.

See other Camp Estrella stories HERE and HERE.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/unconventional-love/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/the-perfect-game/

The RDP Saturday prompt is:Beam.

Ten Years Ago Today: On Pants and Fences

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This is today’s look over the shoulder from Word Press: “Cracking open the content time capsule: Revisit your posts from this day, June 26.”

I chose a post I made on this date (June 26) in 2016:

Mending Wall and Mending Pants!!!

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I agree that “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, ” but fences, schmences.  Although the topic today is “Fences,” I think walls are close enough to fences–just a matter of material and “I have miles to go before I sleep” thanks to packing, purchasing, organizing  and copying things I need to take to the states on Wednesday, so taking the further risk of alluding to Robert Frost three times in three sentences, I am going to avail myself of a link to an old parody of “Mending Wall” (entitled “Mending Pants”) that I wrote 2.5 years ago before most of you had even heard of my blog.  I hope you enjoy it and approve the streeeeeetttttccchhhhh of the theme for today.  Guess you could call them stretch pants???

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Robert Frost seemed to have a thing about boundary markers.  “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” and “Mending Wall” are the most notable indicators of this.  Several years ago when I had only a few faithful followers, I wrote a parody on “Mending Wall” which I’d like to share with you again.  Judging from the likes, the faithful Angloswiss was my only present follower who read it and if some of you are like me, even if you read it two and a half years ago, you probably won’t remember it, so please indulge me and go here:
 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/09/17/mending-pants-with-apologies-to-robert-frost/
and I’ll get on with my packing, ordering, xeroxing and house ordering for my housesitter.  Only three days to go!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/fence/

 

“Enough,” for Blast from the Blog, June 25

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Enough

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Enough

At six o’clock, glib comments start to fill the air.
We’re hungry for frittata, but the table’s bare.
Darkness fills the kitchen, for mama’s gone on strike.
She’s gone off to the city. Alone, on papa’s bike.

It’s dicey whether she’ll return. She says she’s tired of cooking.
She’s in need of a vacation and so she made a booking
at a posh hotel that has its own cafe
where she will dine on coq au vin followed by crème brûlée.

For once, serving the rest of us will not be her fate.
Someone else will  wait on her and she’ll just sit and wait.
In the morning she will order service in her room
where she’ll not even make her bed or wield dust cloth or broom.

Her note says then she might come home, or she might just wait
and find a nice seaside resort where she can cogitate
for another day or two. She says we shouldn’t worry.
The pizza place delivers if we’re not in a hurry.

Her recipe book’s on the shelf. The stove is  under it.
Her apron’s in the closet and she’s sure that it will fit
each and every one of us while she is on vacation.
She says that fending for ourselves will be an education.

She says to wash the dishes even though it is a bore,
for if she sees a messy kitchen when she walks in the door,
she’s going to walk right out again until we prove we’ve learned
that things will be real different after Mama has returned!

 

 

Word Press’s “Blast from the Blog” asks that we reblog a post from a certain date from an earlier year. I published this poem on June 25, 2021–tomorrow’s date, as they publish the challenge a day before the prescribed date. The poem was supposed to include the five words seen below.

Prompts for today are six, glib, frittata, dicey and darkness.

The Truth of The Matter

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Bonfire of the Vanities–A Review of a Non-review for SOCS!

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       These are the nine “Vanity Press” books I’ve published in the past 17 years.

In response to the SOCS prompt of “Review,” I can’t help rerunning a blog I wrote 14 years ago, replicating a letter I received from an organization that shall go nameless that I had asked to review my book. Since I had just started blogging, it only received 3 views, but I think the message is as appropriate today as it was then. This is that blog entry:

Vanity Depressed

Today, I received the below email from a well-known organization that reviews children’s books:

Dear Judy Dykstra-Brown,

Thank you for your interest in XXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Unfortunately, we can’t review books from vanity presses like CreateSpace*. For more of our submission guidelines, please see our website here: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

XXXXXXXXXX
Editorial Assistant
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

*note from Judy: CreateSpace was a company within Amazon that aided self-publishing authors in formatting,, printing and distributing their books. It is now called KDP.

My feelings about being labeled a “vanity press” author will be best expressed by displaying here the letter I wrote back to the assistant who had written the letter:

Dear XXXXXXXX,

I thank you for your prompt reply to my inquiry.

Although I certainly understand your reasons for not wanting to consider privately published material, I would like to bring one matter to your attention.

I have been writing for over 50 years. I have written and published three books, published nearly 40 articles in print and online magazines, won a national first prize for my poetry, edited a poetry journal and now coordinate a popular poetry series. I am in the process of having five more children’s books illustrated and working on a novel and two poetry anthologies. In my early career, I taught literature and writing for ten years and edited a teenage poetry anthology.

I mention these facts to explain why I feel it is an insult to have my decision to publish my own work called a “vanity”. Certainly, I am aware of the term, just as I am aware of other racial and physically derogatory terms that were once considered the norm but which in an enlightened age have come to be recognized as insulting and prejudicial.

May I ask your group to consider not using the term “vanity press” as a blanket term for self-published material?

I thank you for your efforts to reward excellent work in the field of children’s literature.

Best Regards,
Judy Dykstra-Brown

I would be most interested in other bloggers’ thoughts about this matter. Is blogging, also, considered just another “vanity” means of expression? I know that a great deal of status is attached to being published by a recognized publishing company, but do all writers who choose another path deserve to have their efforts considered as mere vanity? Is that our main goal?  Is that what we deserve to be labelled as?  Is it too much to ask to be labelled as what in truth we are—self-published?

Frida Kahlo had two gallery exhibitions in her entire lifetime. One of her paintings just sold for 5 million dollars!!! Were her artistic endeavors, in her lifetime, mere vanities? What of Van Gogh? Or Emily Dickinson? Only a few of Franz Kafka’s works were published during his lifetime. Johann Sebastian Bach was widely known as an organist, but his fame as a composer occurred after his death. Henry David Thoreau could not find a publisher for many of his works.

Certainly, I am no Emily Dickinson or Henry David Thoreau, and those who go through the rigors and humiliations of trying to find an agent and publisher certainly deserve plaudits for possessing determination as well as talent. I admit that I have neither the inclination nor the energy to jump through the hoops necessary to find a “legitimate” publisher. I just want to write, and I will not accept the label of “vanity” being attached to my writing.

Yes, I am proud of my efforts in doing all of the work myself that a publisher and editor normally do. Yes, I am proud of the fact that I have continued to write for 50 years with very little monetary recompense. But I don’t think my need to be heard is prompted by vanity any more than the determination of professionally published authors is. We write because we need to write. It is a drive and what, in my case, gives meaning to my life. If that is vanity, then long live vanity! But please say it behind my back—not as an official representative of your guild or company or association or library or agency or board of merit.

Now I will climb down off my soapbox and get back to work on what I do for love, not vanity. If I’ve struck a chord, please add your voice to my protest by publishing your comments on my blog.

The SOCS prompt today is “Review.” The image was created with the aid of DeeVid AI.

Derrick J. Knight Reviews Prairie Moths

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I want to thank Derrick J. Knight for his wonderful review of my book, Prairie Moths.  You can see his review HERE on his blog. 

“Everyday People” Will Heal Your Heart

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Too much heartbreaking news lately. Go Here to hear and see this wonderful video that will heal your heart a bit.