by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The new calves are growing stiff from the wetness of birth, and old men come running across the fields asking, who killed our apple-blossom time? I say to them, surely dead leaves can’t grow in your pockets now.
The New Calves
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
New Cover for my new book of poetry was just finalized!
Meditations on the Ceremonies of Beginnings is a book of poetry developed over decades as I played my small role in the tribal colleges and universities and world indigenous nation’s higher education consortium movements. Tribal College Press has announced it will be released in late November. The cover design just came in! The drawing is by Ethel Mortenson Davis.
You’ll have to enlarge to cover to read the writing, but I am especially excited about what Carrie Billy, one of the great leaders of the tribal college and university movement, and Kimberly Blaeser, on the most important Native American poets in the United States, say about the book.
Filed under poems, Poetry, Thomas Davis
Enough
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
This last, fading light is enough to carry us across the field, across the world, enough to lift us from ourselves, our mitered lives in this small changeling of a disappearing evening.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Places We Recognize
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
When we are desperate and can’t recognize the world, we climb into words, grasp letters, covet paragraphs to find smallness. When we are desperate we go to this small garden to gather ourselves in the act of cleaning away dying plants — to repeat our worth — in places we recognize, like the wounded fox that crawls into the small culvert.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
The Reaching
a pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
Four Windows Press Publishes Door County Poets Collective Anthology
The Door County Poets Collective has released its newest book, Halfway to the North Pole! A unique poetry anthology, it’s available at Sturgeon Bay’s bookstores and through either Write On Door County or fourwindowspress1.com. It is published by Four Windows Press, the small publishing company Ethel and I own.
There are a lot of Door County’s most important poets represented in the book as well as other poets that have been loyal visitors over the years. Estella Lauter, the instigator of the Collective, in her “Preface” describes the theme of the anthology: “We hope these poems, while providing some anchors in parts of the County you know, will introduce you to places, people, and issues you haven’t noticed and might want to know better on your own: places like Mud Lake, Three Springs, Bjorklunden, Mojo Rosa’s; people like Increase Claflin or Norbert Blei; efforts to bring back the Monarch Butterflies, preserve the night sky, cut or treat infected ash trees, keep the Boreal forest. Door County is not only a beautiful place where culture and nature support each other; it is also a complex community of people and other creatures who come together to care for the land and water that sustain our lives in all seasons. Halfway between the hottest and coldest places on earth, we like to think we have the best of both.”
New Logo for a new website
Ethel and I have put up a new website for the small publishing effort, Four Windows Press, we keep developing. Our granddaughter, Phoebe Wood, has come up with a logo for the website, which is located at http://www.fourwindowspress1.com. Ethel likes the logo as a work of art!
Filed under Uncategorized
One More Time
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
A baby wren came to sit in the burning bush to show me she has grown into a strong bird. With graceful gratitude she came to show me light in my dark world — just as a matched pair of horses pulled John Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, so he can be a light in our black world just one more time.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
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a pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
