Anima and animus. Love and sorrow. Past and present. An array of dualities are presented to us in these poems, accurately depicting both the beauty and horror of life at the same time in a masterful way that gives no ground to useless pretense or extraneous detail. Most importantly to me, these dualities are not presented as paradoxical or contradictory, but rather wholly integrated. The end result is quite illuminating.
What really hit home for me were the poems about Challenger/Columbia and the tragedy of Di. These specific poems are deceptively short — it may have only taken a few minutes to read them, but then it took me much longer to process the resulting flood of memories related to my own childhood and young adulthood. These poems are like a key, and oneās own life is the vault.
I can only assume that some sort of fancy voodoo magic was implemented by the author, because I am fully enchanted by these poems. Superb work, as usual.
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Heather was born in Ottawa, Canada. She lives with her husband and daughter near Montreal. She is an accomplished poet, photographer, and writer with publication in such magazines as Readers Digest. We are looking forward to publishing her poetic collection ‘Carry On Dancing’ this coming March in preparation for Aprilās National Poetry month.
Learn more about Heather on her Author Page and visit her website. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Carry On Dancing, Winter Goose Publishing, March 2012
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My crush on Mike Holmes could turn into a flaming hot romance. Or, at the very least, I want to bake chocolate chip cookies for him. My husband would approve.
I’ve always loved Mike Holmes’ TV shows about home renovation. Before he got syndicated and started appearing in everyone’s home in North America, before everyone else fell for him, we had something special. He tended to all my (housing) needs. He listened to me. He wanted to ‘Make It Right.’ He always did.
I introduced him to my husband, and they began a bromance. I wasn’t jealous. Things were getting done around the house. Getting done right.
I’m not saying my hubby didn’t know how to do things right around the house. He’s actually a fantastic handyman. But now he’s adding what some would call feminine touches; the extras he used to to guffaw at when he saw them on ‘girly’ home renovation shows.
This past weekend, we watched Holmes Inspection. At the end of the show, an elated woman showed the viewers her closet, complete with dark chocolate baskets that kept everything in their place.
A few years ago, my hubby added wooden shelves and a cabinet to our closet. It was gorgeous, but within weeks, we were just stuffing our clothes, my purses, and other knick knacks on the shelves. I honestly had too much going on to even think about baskets. So it’s my fault too. But this is supposed to be a funny story about the men we love, so let’s get back to that.
Months of girly home renovation shows did nothing for my husband’s imagination, or that closet. But one hour with Mike Holmes and my dear husband was hammering and sawing away in the basement, improving his closet renovation with the passion of a man inspired by art.
That’s not all. Last night, he came home with six dark chocolate baskets under his arm, another dozen in the car, and a smile on his face like a kid’s on Christmas morning.
These were practically the same baskets he had laughed at when some other home renovation experts showed them in their shows. Turns out those home-reno amateurs are easy to ignore. It’s not so easy to ignore Mike Holmes.
And that is why I love the man, and invite him to our home (to make renovations, of course) any time. I know there must be a long line of adoring women who feel the same way.
I’ll wait for you, Mike.
Beautiful Baskets copyright HGS
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Number FIVE! I thought my dream of hitting the top 10 in poetry in the iBookstore by Spring 2012 was a pipe dream. But I did set it as a goal a couple weeks ago, when I realized how well both my poetry ebooks were selling on Lulu.comĀ I thought, okay, now to top the charts of the iBookstore!
Today, Leap is #5 in Top Poetry Paid Books in the Canadian iBookstore! It is also being featured in the What’s Hot section of the Canadian and US iBookstores.Ā Where the Butterflies Go is trailing behind at #141 (I published this an a ebook a little later than ‘Leap’) but I’m thrilled it’s on the list at all.
Ebooks don’t make a lot of money. Hell, poetry doesn’t make a lot of money! So I have always felt the thing to do with proceeds from these two collections is to donate half to making a small difference in the world. Since 2008, we’ve been able to help four children go to school for a year, and provided part of the teachers’ salaries too. We’ve contributed a little to the grand expense of building desks for a small school in India, and this past Christmas, we donated pencils to an entire school.
I’m donating to Unicef again today (enough to give pencils to an entire school) as a way of thanking all of you for reading, buying and sharing my poetry links; for helping more people discover my work, and for helping me achieve my charity donation goals.
Thank you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you loyal readers.
Life is short. Keep on laughing. Keep on loving. Never stop leaping.
All my best,
Heather
PS Watch for ‘The Groovy Granny’ as an ebook on Lulu.com and in the iBookstore soon, and my new collection of poetry and photographs by Spring 2012.
#5! Top Paid Poetry Books - iBookstore August 24, 2011 Heather Grace Stewart with the epub 'Leap' for the iPad
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Heather Grace Stewart 