[stylist] another Member has Poetry Published! Celebrate!

Tue May 3 19:42:46 UTC 2011

Here is the text of the message, followed by the poetry. (I like the message
and I actually --- not being a poetry-head --- I got the feel of the poem.

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Robert,

I thoroughly enjoyed Carry Thompson's two love poems that you attached. You
may have a "Tiger by the Tail" by starting to send out member's recently
published poems and articles. 

Because you have started this, I will cut and paste my last published poem
to this and hope that the format comes out the same as it was published.

Although this was submitted two years ago to the NFB Writer's contest, I
resubmitted it to the AZ State Poetry Society Annual Contest in 2010. It
appeared in the Sandcutters, the quarterly of the AZ State Poetry Society,
Volume 44, Issue 4, 2010 Contest Winners.

As a word of encouragement to all blind poets, I lost my sight, retaining
very little, and at age 76 I had to start learning how to use a screen
reader, without enough vision to use Magic or other enlarging programs.

Since then I have had about seven poems published. A very supportive group
of poetry Critiquers has trained me in the kind of errors I most frequently

make. Slowly I have found the techniques to get out presentable copy.   

I am severely auditorily deficient, but the voice on JAWS is totally clear
to me, and so the creative progress goes on.

I spent over twenty years teaching learning disabled students, and from
them, I learned perseverance. By teaching one learns.

Learning Braille, though I must use jumbo Braille, it inspired this poem.

2. Love Poem
Jacqueline Williams

                                                                        1431
W. 7th Place

Mesa, AZ 85201

480-834-1782

My Fingertips Braille You to Me

My warm and sensing fingertips explore

dots 1,3,4,5,6, the “y” for you—

trace tenderness awaiting what’s in store when warm and sensing fingertips
explore.

My fingertips urge you to want me more.

That lovers love with fingertips is true.

My warm and sensing fingertips explore

dots 1,3,4,5,6, the “y” for you.

I will not feel badly if you cannot post this. The more communiqués I
receive from you, the more I realize how very busy you must be in behalf of
all of us.

I thank you very much for the opportunities you provide.

Jacqueline Williams

jackieleepoet at cox.net

-----Original Message-----

From: Robert Leslie Newman [mailto:newmanrl at cox.net]

Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 11:42 AM

To: writers nfb

Subject: Member has Poems published in Breath and Shadow

Congratulations to Kerry Thompson! (Chris Kuell is the editor of this
on-line magazine) 

The online journal Breath and Shadow has published two of Kerry's poems in
the Spring 2011 issue. Here is the direct link to her poems (And I have
pasted them into the lower half of this message):

http://www.abilitymaine.org/breath/spr11e.html  The Troubadour's Song

By Kerry Elizabeth Thompson

>From the South the Summer brings a star That sings within my soul, blithe as
a bird, Lifting the light of her loveliness through the dark That lay
unknown and heavy on my heart; Until her smile awoke the driving thirst To
find a haven in her love's deep harbor.

Unpolluted and boundless is that harbor, Where burns the crystal fountain of
a star, At whose flowing love I'll slake the thirst Of one long pent in
sorrow, like a bird With beating, bloodied wings that bursts its heart And,
with its failing sight, sees only dark

Beyond the close-set bars; till, through the dark, A lighted way falls open
to a harbor.

And then he sees, the light beats from a heart, Whose gentle love-pulse
beacons like a star To which, unerring, constant as a bird He flies, till in
the light, he drowns his thirst.

Ever drowning, never sated is that thirst For love's sweet flowing light
that turns the dark Into a vaulted rainbow, where a bird Sings, calm and
joyful, come at last to harbor, Warm and sweet as kisses of a star That fall
as soft as sea-foam on the heart.

And what long sorrow could defend a heart From the gentle importuning of
such thirst, By drinking deep, that can renew a star Reclaim it, soul and
body, from the dark And bring both star and gazer to safe harbor - There to
nestle softly as a bird

That's found her mate. Then happy sings that bird, For having, though two
bodies, but one heart, Since each in other finds a tranquil harbor And
endless drink to slake their starless thirst.

Till, from the dark, their love returns to dark, Unfearing, in the shadow of
a star.

And so, my star, come to, and be, my harbor With heart enclosed and closing
from the dark, And drink, sweet bird, to quench my aching thirst.

The Lady's Song

By Kerry Elizabeth Thompson

My timid, restless soul sings in the dark The while it seeks a sure,
protecting harbor Where drinking deep at fountains of a star At last it will
relieve its deepest thirst And close its wings within the sheltering heart
That guides and guards it homeward like a bird.

Traversing pathless night, sure as a bird, Undaunted by the markless,
changeless dark, My soul holds true and singing toward that heart Whose
lode-song guides it safe into the harbor, Clear and deep, the end of all our
thirst, At last to taste the pulse beat of a star.

For long my soul has sought that blazing star, Tremulous and certain as a
bird That follows, swift, the call of love's long thirst Until at last it
soars above the dark And there, beyond despair or hope, it finds its harbor
To rest forever safe in one true heart.

But what avails the anguish of a heart

Before the blazing blindness of a star

For such a light can guide it to no harbor But dazzle it, bewilder like a
bird Who seeking for its mate, lost in the dark, Can find no song to slake
its soul's long thirst

Until, despairing, driven by long thirst, It plunges back upon its bleeding
heart And groping, listless, aimless in the dark Finds in its hand a living,
throbbing star And flutters tremulous as if a bird, Long tossed by storms,
should find a sunlit harbor

And riding gentle waves safe in the harbor Should find them sweet to slake
an unthought thirst With love that, singing, soars up like a bird To welcome
from long exile home a heart That, following love's instinct, found the star
That evermore would shield it from the dark.

So, safe within my harbor like a bird

I'll nestle in the dark of my love-star

Whose quenching fans my thirst for your sweet heart.

Kerry Elizabeth Thompson is a writer and amateur web designer. She has been
legally blind and physically disabled since a medical accident in 1970, when
she was six. Largely home schooled, she briefly attended a secondary school
for blind girls while living in England in the early '80s. She holds a B.A.

in English Literature from the College of Our Lady of the Elms in Chicopee,
Massachusetts and an M.A. in Medieval Literature from the University of
Connecticut.

A longtime member of the National Federation of the Blind Writers Division,
Miss Thompson has had poetry, fiction and nonfiction published in the
Division's magazine, Slate and Style, as well as in other small press
periodicals and anthologies. Her interests include Catholic Theology and
Hagiography (the lives of the saints), Space Science and songwriting. She
writes on a Windows XP system using Word 2000 and Window-eyes 7. She lives
in Springfield, Massachusetts with her family, which includes nine rescued
cats.

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----

Robert Leslie Newman

President, Omaha Chapter NFB

President, NFB Writers' Division

Division Website

 <http://www.nfb-writers-division.org/> http://www.nfb-writers-division.org

Chair, Newsletter Publication committee

Personal Website-

 <http://www.thoughtprovoker.info/> http://www.thoughtprovoker.info