POETSWEDNESDAY & More

John McDermott

 

John McDermott has lived in New Jersey for most of his sixty one years, with
breaks of two years teaching English in China and two years in Japan, plus shorter
trips to Asia to teach and visit. He is an associate professor of English as a
Second Language at Union County College and former poetry editor of US1 Worksheets. He has  twice been invited to perform his work at the
Dodge Poetry Festival and has served as a Dodge Poet, working with teachers and
students for many years. His poems have appeared in magazines including Paterson Literary Review, Lips, and Frogpond, as well as Mainichi
Daily. His first full length book of his poetry, The Long Way Home was published in 2005 and the CD version
published in 2010.

Lois Marie Harrod

Lois Marie Harrod’s  13^th
and 14^th poetry collections were published this year, Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis
by Cherry Grove and How Marlene Mae Longs
for Truth. The Only Is won the
2012 Tennessee Chapbook Contest (Poems
& Plays), and Brief Term, a
collection of poems about teachers and teaching was published by Black Buzzard
Press, 2011. Cosmogony won the 2010
Hazel Lipa Chapbook (Iowa State).  She is
widely published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. She teaches Creative Writing at
The College of New Jersey.

 

Lois Marie Harrod & John McDermott at Barron Arts Center, Wed., 9/11/13

PoetsWednesday

582 Rahway Ave., Woodbridge, NJ,
732-634-0413

 

 

Wednesday

September 11, 2013, 8PM

Featuring

Lois Marie Harrod

&

John McDermott

 

***********************************************

Open Mic to
Follow

------

Workshop at 7:00PM

with

Lois Marie Harod

*************************************************

Free

Refreshments
Supplied by Wegmans

Donations Are
Greatly Appreciated

Thanks to Cynthia
Knight, BAC Director, Brandon Powell, staff, and

The Woodbridge
Cultural Arts Commission with the

support of Mayor
John McCormac

 

PoetsWednesday
Site: http://wednesdaypoet.typepad.com/

 

Directions: http://www.twp.woodbridge.nj.us/Departments/BarronArtsCenter/BarronArtsCenterDirections/tabid/754/Default.aspx

Contact: Deborah
LaVeglia, Poetry Director, at [email protected]

Featuring on
Wednesday, October 9, 2013: Dave Roskos & Jennifer Dunford

And there are nights by John McDermott

And there are nights

 

when white clouds pattern the dark sky

and make you believe in spring

sweeter

more flower filled

more filled with hope

than any spring has ever been

will ever  be.

 

There are nights when the sky seems so deep

so wide and full and purple blue

and white and sweetly warm

and stars set so far back they never move

that you believe there must be room

for a heaven big enough to hold

all we love and miss and love and miss

in that deep blue purple

painted with white

and stars set so far back.

 

There are nights like this.

Maybe tonight.

Maybe for you.

Tonight.

 

Set down this book

and walk

and walk

and hope that you

see a night like this.

 

     --John McDermott

How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth

How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth

Somedays she wanted to be as honest about herself

as Frida Kahlo. Let those caterpillar eyebrows

flirt with each other until they smooched in the middle of
her nose,

She would wear that mustache like gossamer, sweat

with those tacky beads on the dark hairs of her lip.

This is the way I look, she could preen, and tickle

the two cockatiels on her shoulder who would pin up

her brazen portrait on the wall while the two green
budgies

on her belly would look this way and that. Me and my
parrots,

she could croon, me and my parrots and my cigarette and my
ring.

Lois Marie
Harrod