Greenville's getting a new bookstore! "As the Page Turns" will
open June 2nd in University Square,5000 Old Buncombe Road (between
Cherrydale Shopping Center and Furman University).My friend Lisa Nichols is the
proud proprietor; she's both an avid reader and a creative genius, so be prepared to be dazzled! Details about her "Midsummer
Night's Dream" event will be posted right here next month!
This year's Poetry Parade was AMAZING. Thanks to all the
wonderful poets who allowed me to share their work, to
Lisa Zerkle and
Kay Day for helping spread the word, and to
all those who shared in the fun by reading and commenting! If you'd like to go
ahead and sign up now so you won't miss any of next year's Parade, send me an
e-mail with the word "poems" in the subject line!
Hopefully, some of you Parade "spectators" will come join the fun when I read with
Dana Wildsmith at
Park Road Books
in Charlotte, NC, on May 23rd at 7 PM. We'll be reading some poems you haven't
heard; I promise you will not be bored!
I'm blogging
about family fun these days. Check
out my recommendation for a great board game for all ages!
A
huge thanks to Treva Hamlin and the folks at Fort Mill Middle School for the
warm welcome during my recent school visit. Between the enthusiastic and very
well-behaved students, the homemade lunch, and the Girls' Poetry Club (snap!
snap!), I felt like a Comma Goddess, for sure!
And
speaking of goddesses, this
month's Wonderful Word is:
nimbus!
Something old, something new!
I just returned
from my first visit to the Jamestown Book Festival in Jamestown, North Carolina,
near Greensboro. The festival is still in the fledgling
stages--this was only Year #3--but they're doing all the right things.
Organizer Julia Ebel, a
local author whose many books and poems celebrate nature and
mountain heritage, works in tandem with the public library in this
small, rural community, and the result is a mix of literacy and
history and charm and warmth that has me counting the days till my
next visit.
The
Jamestown
Library occupies what used to be Jamestown Public School, built in
1915 and, reportedly, the first accredited high school in North
Carolina. It's a marvelous, Greek-columned, brick building perched nobly
on a hill overlooking Main Street. Destined for demolition, the
edifice was saved in 1980 when a group
of concerned citizens banded together and, in
1988, this glorious repository of almost a century's worth of
school-day memories metamorphosed into a public library with more
ambiance than you can possibly imagine. Walking up and down its
solid wood staircases, in and out of its sunny sundry rooms, I was
reminded of my own elementary school--almost identical in structure
and design--and mourned its callous demise. Why did no one step
forward to claim that precious memory for a new purpose in
life?
We are so easily
blinded by the glitz of "new and improved" that we often forget the
comfort of "tried and true." Sadly, because the Jamestown Library
refuses to upgrade their venerable digs to accommodate stringent
(think cold and impersonal!) Federal codes, and because they accept
donated books with pleasure instead of disdain, it gets not one
nickel of government funding. Yes, the Jamestown Library is
supported solely by private donations. How's that for a show
of loyalty and civic spirit? As I watched the festival get underway,
with proud children reading original
poems as prouder parents listened, in an auditorium that has
nurtured five generations of that community's residents, I found
myself hoping the Jamestown Book Festival doesn't grow too
big. Because it's right where it belongs: in the heart of a place
where things don't have to be new to be priceless.
Happy May,
Jayne
Welcome
to my website! Whether you're here by intention or accident, I invite
you to spend a few minutes looking around. Some elements of the site
are permanent; others are changed and updated on a regular basis. Feel
free to e-mail comments or suggestions. PLEASE NOTE: I'm happy for you
to share my work with others, but please contact me for permission--and
so I can acknowledge your publication--before including any of my poems
in a personal website, church newsletter, etc. Thank you!
