Janet MacFadyen

Good morning, everyone.  It’ s hard to believe we’re already in the middle of what everyone now calls “the holiday season,” which seems to begin while people are still carving pumpkins for Hallowe’en.  I hope you had a good Thanksgiving with family and friends.

The lively, happy young poet you see here is Janet MacFadyen, who is already well along in a poetry career that includes prize nominations, residencies and editorial positions.

The author of two well-regarded poetry collections, Waiting to Be Born (Dos Madres Press, 2017), and A Newfoundland Journal (Killick Press, 2019) as well as two chapbooks, she is the managing editor of Slate Roof Press and lives in western Massachusetts, where she also works as a free-lance editor.  Her work has been nominated for the Forward and Pushcart prizes and has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including  The Atlanta Review and Poetry.  She has held a nine-month residency at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, residencies at Cill Rialaig in Ireland, and the Fowler and C-Scape dune shacks in Provincetown.

I have to say that the energy and enthusiasm she shows in the photo above have paid off in her achievements thus far.  So here below, with pleasure, are three poems by Janet MacFadyen.

Dear Poetry-loving Friends (and those who would like to be):

This is just to tell you that I will be reading in the Collected Poets Series at Mocha Maya’s Coffee Shop, 47 Bridge Street, Shelburne Falls, MA, on Thursday, December 7. It begins at 7:oo p.m.

If you can get there, I would love to see you and say hello. Books will be available
for signing and purchase – the new one, Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry, an anthology of poetry from many parts of the world, including quite a few from Massachusetts, as well as the previous one, Reminder, with only my own poems. I should also mention that food is there as well, and it’s very good.

Looking forward – and let’s hope the weather is with us,

–Irene Willis
Poetry Editor

                             Joan Cusack Handler

Good morning, everyone.  It’s hard to believe daylight savings time is about to end here in the Northeastern U.S., where the trees are splendidly scarlet and gold and poetry almost can’t compete.

Our poet today has a name that is already familiar to many of you who have purchased and read the lovely books produced under one of the imprints of CavanKerry Press since its founding in 2000 by Joan Cusack Handler and Florenz Eisman.

Joan herself is a poet and memoirist whose poems have been widely published in  literary journals, including several in Psychoanalytic Perspective, and have received The Sampler Award from Boston Review and five Pushcart nominations. She has four published collections: Confessions of Joan the Tall, a prose memoir, and three poetry collections: GlOrious, The Red Canoe: Love in Its Making and, most recently, Orphans, a verse memoir that presents three stories spoken in three voices (her mother’s, father’s and her own) in three different forms.

Informing all of her work, undoubtedly, are insights derived from the fact that she is a psychologist in clinical practice.

I’m happy that she has shared with us the three poems below, all from her newest book, Orphans.

                            –Irene Wills
                               Poetry Editor

Therapy Room

Welcome back to our poetry pages, everyone.  Happy Labor Day, if such is still possible in the world we’re facing right now.  Nevertheless, we carry on.  The hard work of labor unions over the years needs to be honored and rights maintained. It’s also back- to-school time for all the students and teachers among our readers, as well as a time of celebration and reflection.

To Our Readers:  I will be on vacation during July and August and want to wish you a happy summer. Poetry Monday  will be back in September.

                                  –Irene Willis
                                    Poetry Editor

E.J. Brunoski

Good morning, poetry readers! As you in the Northeastern U.S. have observed, it may actually be spring here at last. In fact, given this week’s forecast, we may even have some days that feel like summer. Leaves are back on the trees, which so far have managed to ignore climate change, and some flowers are open now, seeming happy and innocent of world affairs, as I am trying to be, focused on poetry today.

Terry Lucas

I’m happy to present another award-winning poet to you today. Terry Lucas is the author of two full-length poetry collections, both of which came out in 2016: In This Room from CW Books in January and Dharma Rain, from Saint Julian Press in October. He has also published two award-winning chapbooks: Altar Call, selected by the 2013 San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival for the anthology, Diesel, and If They Have Ears to Hear, winner of the 2012 Copperdome Chapbook contest and published by Southeast Missouri State University Press in 2013. Among his many other writing awards were the 2014 Crab Orchard Review Feature Award in Poetry, the fifth annual Littoral Press Poetry Prize, and six Pushcart Prize nominations.

James Cummins

Is it spring yet? Hard to know, since here in the Northeastern U.S. as I wrote this, we were in a storm that just got upgraded to “blizzard” status, and I could hardly see out of my Berkshire windows. But here we are, anyway, thinking about what makes us happy – poetry.