Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (December 10, 2023)

We are two Sundays into December, and I think finally on a streak of poetry without dropping a Sunday. Thanks for joining me again for good poems by other people.

 

Poems:

• The Blackboard by W.S. Merwin (from his book Garden Time)
• This Compost by Walt Whitman (from Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, edited by James E. Miller, Jr.)

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🠊 More Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Catch the live show Sunday mornings at some time-ish: https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle 

Book Your Stocking 2023 with Peter McClean

Welcome to December and this year's version of Book Your Stocking, a holiday series in which avid readers recommend books for your stocking. This year, readers will be sharing children's books they remember reading as children. Perhaps you'll stumble upon readers who read the same books as you, or will start remembering books that were important to your own childhood. And if one of those books should find its way into a stocking near you, then all the better.

Please welcome our first contributor, Peter McClean from Dublin, Ireland:

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Shipwrecked in Hospital 

by Peter McClean 

Published in 1857, 100 years before I was born The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne is a tale of survival on a desert island; it contains things that would not be regarded well today, but those things left a lasting impression on my mind. What I remember is the sense of adventure and excitement. Three boys are shipwrecked and are the sole survivors of the sinking. They must fend for themselves and learn how to survive on a Pacific island that is totally alien to their experiences to date.

 

I read The Coral Island fifty-five years ago, as an eleven year old boy confined to a hospital bed for several days. My memory of the detail in the story might, understandably, be a bit sketchy at this time distance, but I have strong memories of having been engrossed in the book and having found it exciting and interesting. The boys in the story were determined to survive and their adventures kept my mind occupied as I recovered from my surgery.

On the day I was admitted to hospital for a scheduled surgery, my older brother was an emergency admission suffering from appendicitis. He was put into the fifth bed on my right. At that time the hospital was run by an order of nuns, and as such it was ruled over by “Matron”. In the hospital, or any hospital run by a “Matron”, Matron was the rule of law. She was all powerful. What Matron said or thought dictated the actions of all her underlings. Even the medical consultants would think twice about going up against Matron’s instructions.

 

Every evening Matron would go on her rounds of the hospital and in each ward she would visit every patient and have a brief conversation with them to ensure they were comfortable and felt they were getting the attention they required. When Matron arrived at my bed on the evening of my admission day, she greeted me and asked me how I was and wished me luck for my procedure. Then she said, “I see there is another McClean in the ward. Is he a friend of yours?”

 

In the nature of an unthinking eleven year old boy, I responded, “No! He’s my brother!”

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About Peter McClean

I am into my seventh decade on this planet and have reached what some call my Third Age. Having retired from full-time employment in the world of operations management and consulting I can now devote more time to my reading, the activity that I used throughout my career to counterbalance the stresses of the day-job.

           

Peter McClean

                       

Erin Pringle on Rendezvous with a Writer OutWest, December 14

On December 14, I'll be chatting with Bobbi Jean Bell and her husband Jim on their radio show Rendezvous with a Writer. I'm especially looking forward to the discussion because I've talked about my other two books with Bobbi Jean Bell on The Writer's Block, an LA Talk Radio show she co-hosted with her friend Jim Christina. 

I thoroughly enjoyed talking with Bobbi and Jim. They'd read the books, had real questions, and we told good jokes between the more poignant exchanges. After our discussion about The Whole World at Once, Jim sent me a coffee mug with the show's name on it, and a book that he thought I'd like. During our second interview, this time about Hezada! I Miss You, Jim and I decided we'd meet up for lunch at a diner, as he'd moved to Idaho not so far from me. 

But before we hammered out the details, Jim died. 

You'd think that having only talked to him for two hours in my life that I would not have cried on and off the day I learned, but of course I did. Maybe it's because writing is an extremely personal thing--I put all that I am into it. Maybe because my writing largely revolves around grief and death, and so in talking to Jim and Bobbi about the stories, I connected them to the people I have cherished and lost. And so talking with Jim and Bobbi over the years about my writing has been important and real. 

When Unexpected Weather Events, my new book of stories, was about to be published, I reached out to Bobbi to let her know about it. She invited me to talk about the book on her other radio show, Rendezvous with a Writer OutWest. She has hosted it for a number of years, and while I do not write Westerns, I do live out west, and so here we are.

Please tune in to hear the show.

Rendezvous with a Writer OutWest

December 14, 2023

6 PM (PST)

LA Talk Radio: https://www.latalkradio.com/content/rendezvous-writer

Also, The Writer's Block episodes are still available:

• On Hezada! I Miss You 
• On The Whole World at Once

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Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (December 3, 2023)

 

Reading good poems by other people most Sundays.

Today: 

• He Writes by Kateryna Kalytko, trans. by Oksana Lutayshyna and Olena Jennings
• [Less than a day before the beginning of war] by Kateryna Kalytko, trans. by Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky 
• 1918 by Ostap Slyvynksy, trans. by Anton Tenser and Tatiana Filimonova

Poems collected in In the Hour of War: Poetry from Ukraine, edited by Carolyn Forché and Ilya Kaminsky 

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🠊 More Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Catch the live show Sunday mornings at some time-ish: https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle 

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (November 26, 2023)

Next week will bring us into December, and so I guess this is the last of our November poems for the year. 

Poems:

• Everybody Lying on their Stomachs, Head Toward the Candle, Reading, Sleeping, Drawing by Gary Snyder (from his book No Nature)
• Love’s Map by Donald Justice (from his book The Summer Anniversaries)
• The Other House by W.S. Merwin (from his book Garden Time)

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🠊 More Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Catch the live show Sunday mornings at some time-ish: https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle 

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (November 19, 2023)

Please excuse the background hum during the recording; my usual computer is broken and my desktop refuses to record quietly or with any manners whatsoever.

I'll have a special Thanksgiving Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee, so check back for more poems this coming Thursday.

 

Poems:

• November by Maggie Dietz
• Winter by Marie Ponsot
• November by Billy Collins

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🠊 More Wake to Words here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Catch the live show Sunday mornings at some time-ish: https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle 

Unexpected Weather Events on Fiction Bestsellers with Small Press Distribution (SPD)

Good news. My short story collection Unexpected Weather Events has made the top twenty list of bestselling fiction for September/October 2023 with Small Press Distribution. And as the book only became available in October, I'll take that as a good sign.

View full list here.

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Unexpected Weather Events is available online and in brick-and-mortar. Please support these locations, especially the one nearest you.

• AWST Press (Austin, TX - publisher)
• Annie Bloom's (Portland, OR)
• Auntie's Bookstore (Spokane, WA)
• Fact and Fiction (Missoula, MT)
• Giant Nerd Books (Spokane, WA)
• Last Word Books (Olympia, WA)
• Wishing Tree Books (Spokane, WA)