MY LATEST PUBLICATIONS:

I was a finalist in The Women Artists Ekphrastic Contest held by THE EKPHRASTIC REVIEW. My poem was inspired by Rosa Bonheur’s painting titled “Changing Pastures,” 1863.  

Changing Pastures, Rosa Bonheur, 1863 

Cool early summer afternoon on the channel, brisk wind not ideal for keeping a flock of thirty calm in a rocking boat. Between bleats of packed lambs and cries of kittiwakes nesting on chalky cliffs, my ears throb. The stink of sour ale wafts from the rowing mate, mixed with the gamy musk of hot, wet wool coats, queasies my stomach. 

I take shallow breaths, concentrate on sun silvering blue-green water in the distance, not the sharp peaks of dizzying waves alongside us. Iridescent moss mantles the valleys. I imagine the crimson clover, ox-eye daisy, and buttercup I saw when last visiting with my love, Elise. 

The sun soothes my arms, back, neck, matches the warmth of the ewe’s rhythmic heave against my shins. 

My arms ease into the cadence of tandem oaring. The white-haired sheepherder at the bow launches into a rousing sea shanty about a drunken sailor. My oarsman groans. When I inhale to join the song, I taste the water’s whiff—elemental, briny-sweet, wild.

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The following four poems were published in WRITING IN A WOMAN’S VOICE:  The Call by Remedios Varo, 1961, Fledgling, Frida Kahlo, Self Portrait with Necklace of Thorns and Hummingbird, 1940, & Georgia O'Keeffe's It Was Red and Pink, 1959. The poems inspired by artwork have a link below that will show you that particular work of art. 

My flash fiction was a finalist in the 2021 Hemingway Shorts Contest, held annually by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park. It was published in the literary journal, Hemingway Shorts Volume 6.