Happy Birthday Storytellers

 By Sharon Waller Knutson 

 

 

 

 Wilda Morris, Joan Leotta and Laurie Kuntz 

 

By Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

Storyteller Poetry Review turns two years old March 18. I’m sharing poems I wrote about storytellers from my book, He Puts on a Poker Face (Cyberwit 2024.)

Sister Poets

Our voices carry
from the seaside, desert,
mountains and jungle
as we write stories
short and strong
as our names:

Jayne, Joan, Fran,
Sarah, Donna, Tina,
Judy, Lori, Rose, Terri
Holly, Kelly, Peggy,
Betsy, Karen and Robbi.

Melodies musical
as Marianne, Marilyn,
Margaret, Mary, Martha,
Ellen, Elaine, Tamara,
Jacqueline, Joanne,
Cynthia and Barbara.

Alliteration as lilting
as Laurie, Lauren, Laura,
Lynn, Lorraine and Luane.
Andrea, Arlene and Angela.

Language unique as Abha,
Alarie, Kavita, Wilda,
Rachael, Shaun,
Shelly and Shoshauna.

 

 

Neil Creighton, Jim Lewis and Joe Cottonwood

 

 Brother Poets

We sister poets harmonize
with our male counterparts
with names my parents
may have chosen.
had they gifted me
with brothers smart,
funny and talented

as Alan, Ethan, Joe,
Jim, John, Gary
Martin, Mike, Neil.
Paul and Steven.

When I was a child,
I dreamed of growing
up in Australia cuddling
kangaroos and koala bears
with a brother who reads
me poetry in an Ausie accent.

When Neil reads poetry
as kangaroos hop
outside his window
I swoon like a groupie
at an Elvis concert.

 

 Laurie Byro in Venice

She’s a Rambler

 

for Laurie

Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.  JRR Tolkien

Sentences tumble
over her tongue
as she talks,
writes poetry
and travels
all over Europe.

She sends me
postcards
from Venice
puckering up
to a performer
saying, I had
to slap him.
He was fresh
but fun.

From Antigua,
with her hubby,
knee deep in water
holding stingrays
like colorful fans

From Honduras,
cuddling Charley,
the female sloth
who wraps
her arms around her
neck like a baby.
.
From the Blue Lagoon,
a dolphin kissing her
cheek like a child
as she swims with hubby.

We travel for the kids,
she says. Me and Mike
since we don’t have any.
Our cats are our children
We hire a sitter
while we’re gone.

Even at sixty-six she’s
still booking two trips
a year. She feels
the urgency to do it now
before the MS worsens
or the cancer comes back.

 

Indian storytellers Abha Das Sarma and Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

 

 Happy Birthday, Sharon, She Sings

 For Abha

in a soprano songbird voice
from San Francisco on her son’s
cellphone as her granddaughters
chirp like canaries in the background.
I tell her I saw her at the zoom
poetry reading sitting on a chair
wearing her white hair
like a crown as her granddaughters,
dark-eyed, brown skinned like her,
run in and out of view, leaning
on her lap and holding onto her arm
knowing she will fly back to India
out of touch and sight soon.
She says she saw me coughing
and drinking a beverage.
I hope it was hot and soothed
your throat, she says. Before she
hangs up she promises she
will call me on my next birthday
when she is back in San Francisco,
and I say, I’d love that, both of us
clinging to the hope that will happen.

 

 Shoshauna Shy

 

In her Sixties, The Poet Shares Secrets in a Tell-All Book

For Shoshauna

She confesses
to sending
Valentines

and holding
clients on laps
as they talk.

Getting hurt,
heartbroken
and dumped.

You fall in love
with them
and they kick the bucket.

And she may
be the last
to know.

Bumping into
their loved ones
at the store.

It’s all part
of her job
as a cat sitter.

I stare at the fat
feral cat curled
up in our sun porch

and am grateful
for the glass
that separates us.

 

 

  Rose Mary Boehm

 

 Pushing Eighty-Six from Peru

For Rose Mary

 
The poet peers at the screen
through round rimmed glasses
and white spider web strands
on her forehead and recites
her poem, Sunsets on Mars
Are Blue, sharing the screen
with the poem because I can.
Her mischievous smile
sparking a ripple of laughter
as the camera zooms.
She says she is not afraid
of death since flatlining
during surgery for a brain
tumor.  Still, she agrees
to installation of a pacemaker
in her heart. Now I won’t
die peacefully in my sleep
or drop dead  unless a flower
pot falls on my head, she says.
Meanwhile she take life
one poem at a time.

 

 

 Catfish (Steven) McDaris

Catfish Messages me on Facebook

I spent 4 days at the Milwaukee VA Hospital.
Not Covid, nor the flu, nor SRV, some weird virus.
At least I'm home, crawling around.
Happy Holidaze. Adios Cat

The last message I got from the Beatnik
poet was in the summer when I told
him I was so booked up I couldn’t
publish his poems for a year:

You’re 81 and I just turned 70.
My mom died at 61 and my father at 71
and my younger sisters are dead.
Hope we both are alive next July.

I tell him: I’m sure we will be.  Now
I am not so sure. I bump him up
telling him that my dad died of a virus
at my age and I thought I was dying last night.

Thanks Shar, he writes.
I hope to be above ground
and not corpse dust. by then.
Hang tough. Word Lady. Adios Cat

I have a feeling there’s more
to the story. Got tests back
today, he writes: Heart attack.
I reply: Soldier On and he does.


To read more about Sharon:

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/03/meet-editor-sharon-waller-knutson.html