Personal growth and discovery
By Barry Vitcov
It’s a month into spring and local theater is fully alive along with the surrounding forests. They are older and active with fresh new growth. Poets Pepper Trail and Bruce McConnell approach age and renewal from different perspectives, different settings, and all the ambiguity offered by both.
Do you have an original theater-related poem? If so, you are invited to submit to the Poetry Corner and help celebrate the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 90th Season and all the other Southern Oregon theaters that enrich our lives with a variety of dramatic, comedic … sometimes musical and sometimes not … productions. See below for how to submit.
Theater Town
By Pepper Trail
The players, on stage
they step young, on air.
Afterward, I see them,
some old as me, walking
away slow down the rain-
dark streets, bent heads
heavy with waiting song.
Pepper Trail is an Ashland writer and naturalist. His poems have appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Catamaran, Ascent and other publications, and his essays appear regularly in the Writers on the Range syndicated series. His collection, Cascade-Siskiyou: Poems, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry, and his poems have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. He is a long-time board member of PLAYA, the arts and sciences residency program in Summer Lake, and serves as a science advisor to conservation efforts throughout Oregon.
Old Growth Forest
By Bruce McConnell
In the west grow rare beauties, precious
In abiding life—the immutable
Thriving amid thrust up brashness.
Life calls to life—in the osprey’s flight
Upriver, in the firs’ green moss
Deep in the shaded woods, in the glinting
Owl’s eyes, in the hearth
Of old friendships rekindled.
On the hills, in castles modest
Built by careful hands, live the men,
Seasoned with grace and humor, the women,
Ripening in beauty and wisdom,
The lusts and dreams of youth
Beckoning, finding fullness.
In this return, waves break over me,
Unexpected, streaming, memory—
Madrone’s bright cinnamon perfume, the tang
Of marionberries, the jay’s flap,
The junco’s flitting trill. I am light.
An old wing of the house has opened up.
Light streams in the fresh air. We shake out
Fond linens and lay the table.
Familiar loves and new sprouts, a fertile tangle,
Bear sweet community, forest and heart.
Bruce McConnell is an agile shapeshifter, having flourished as a poet, roofer, artist-blacksmith,
mechanical engineer, tenor, business consultant, national security official, non-profit executive,
and peacemaker. A collection of his poems, Living from Here, was published in 2018 by Anvil
Press (US). His debut novel, Crows Calling: An Inspiring Journey into Our Better Natures, comes out in September. He’s delighted to have recently moved to Ashland from the East Bay.
Poetry Submissions Welcomed!
You are invited to submit original work to the Poetry Corner. There are only two restrictions: First, poems need to show a connection to Ashland and/or Southern Oregon. Your interpretation of that connection is fairly loose! Second, poems need to be aligned to the left margin. The publishing platform used by Ashland.news has issues with the creative use of space! There are no length restrictions but try to keep your poems to no more than 30 lines. Be sure to include the title of your poem, your name as you would like it to appear, the city or town in which you reside, and, if you wish, your preferred pronouns.
To submit poems, send to Barry Vitcov at [email protected].
