2015 digging to the roots poetry anthology calendar

Bill Holm Witness Poetry ContestWriters Rising Up to Defend Place, Natural Habitat, Wetlandswww.writersrisingup.org

Digging to the Roots

2015Calendar

Writers Rising Up to Defend Place, Natural Habitat, Wetlands is a 501 (c) (3) literary non-profit based in Eden Prairie. The Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail was a four year project the non-profit undertook to create a permanent guide to Eden Prairie’s history and natural biomes in a 125 acre stretch of untouched prairie, big woods, sedge meadow, oak savanna and bottomland forest. Writers Rising Up has partnered with the Arboretum on writing workshops and readings related to place and natural habitat with Minnesota writers Carol Bly, Bill Holm, Paul Gruchow, Deborah Keenan, Joyce Sutphen and Michael Dennis Browne. Writers Rising Up encourages a deeper understanding and participation in environmental stewardship. Through the literary arts at community events, contests, workshops, literary performances, interpretive installations and publications, our focus is on nature education and writing. We promote writers who associate their work to cultural, spiritual and social connections to place, the land, natural habitat, including flora, fauna and wetlands. We welcome program support from the community. Writers Rising Up is a 501(c) (3) public charity. Contributions are tax deductible under 170 of the Code. Writers Rising Up is also qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises, transfers of gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the Code. Writers Rising Up™ is registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office for educational services, namely literary contests, competitions, and events for writers to submit and perform literary interpretations related to place, culture, natural habitat, wetlands.

Writers Rising Up Projects and Programs

Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail is an interpretive trail which was donated to the city of Eden Prairie and funded by Writers Rising Up, local families and business sponsors.http://www.writersrisingup.org/efeinterpretivetrail/The Digging to the Roots Poetry Anthology Calendar is an annual online publication. The poetry selection is done through a submission process. Information about the rules and guidelines are on the events and contests page at the following URL.https://wrup.submittable.com/submit

Photo and all Calendar Images by Victoria Price ©2015 Writers Rising Up

Writers Rising Up to Defend Place, Natural Habitat, Wetlands

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Photo and all Calendar Images by Victoria Price ©2015 Writers Rising Up

Wilderness in the City Excursions are seasonal walks and workshops at the Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail at the Richard T. Anderson Conservation Area in Eden Prairie. Join us for seasonal excursions, writing workshops, and Wildcrafting at the EFEIT/RTA in 2016.Writers & Readers Common Grounds is a seasonal online writing submission opportunity. Send in a poem or short essay about place, natural habitat, seasons, or culture related to a place.Bug City: Make a Bug is an annual Fourth of July tent workshop for kids at the Eden Prairie Hometown Celebration. Carol Bly Short Story Annual Submission Opportunity with $150.00 prize.Paul Gruchow Essay Annual Submission Opportunity with $150.00 prize.Variations in Winter: Bill Holm Witness Poetry Annual Submission Opportunity with $150.00 prize.Prairie Poetry Prize: Prairie Sampler Annual YouTube Submission opportunity with an online presentation.

JANUARY 2015

Martin Willitts, Jr.Syracuse,New York

Martin Willitts Jr. was a co-winner in the Bill Holm 2013 Poetry contest. His poem “Calendula” was in the 2014 Digging to the Roots Poetry Anthology Calendar for the month of October. Martin won a national ecological contest for his full length collection “Searching For What Is Not There” (Hiraeth Press, 2013). He also won the International Dylan Thomas Poetry Award for the centennial.

January at the Harbor

Every fall we put a red net around the slipwhere all the sailboats had dockedand now had been hauled awayby trailers to their homesfor the ice comes quick and thickand by January the ice might shear and ripthe underside of the boats like a knifeused for gutting fish.

The ice knows its turnlike a sailor knows when to lower the sailsbefore an unexpected gale.

During winter the boats will dreamand all the troubles in the world will sail byreflected on clear waters that are never choppybut smooth as the sky full of gullswhose singing sounds like laughing.

Writers Rising Up toDefend Place, Natural Habitat, Wetlands

© 2015 Writers Rising Up

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www.writersrisingup.org

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

FebRUARY 2015

Ina Roy-FadermanSunnyvale, California

Ina Roy-Faderman: I received formal creative writing training through the English Department at Stanford University. My poetry has appeared or will be appearing in Pif Magazine, Writer’s Digest Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Clade Song, and Punchnel’s. While writing, I snuck in an M.D. (Stanford) and a Ph.D. in philosophy (Berkeley). Currently, I live near San Francisco, where I teach for the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University, herd my unruly family, write, and drink a lot of coffee.

Love Songs From DogsI. My paws write on miles of white lake our friendship papers.

II. You ready your skin.In the gloves, the coat, your hat, I breathe scents of you.

III. Your wheels and skis singwhee, and we run together,great pack of three.

IV. Here be dogs, these great, small, silent, wuffling,furred shelters of joy.

P.S. Dog says hello

Got your postcard from Titan,a picture of an ethane lakereflecting thick, gaseous waves: Had fun, rode a methane wind, slid the ice pebble plains,swam the swamp aquifer. Even saw a sunbeam.Having a great time, wish you were here.

Directions

“At the end of the street, turn north,” she said,and suddenly, I became a cow, my brain as blank and smooth as a sheet.Without you, I revert to the well-worn pathways my muscles know, the landmarks my eyes remember – five glass blades bent, the rut that becomes a slop of mud in winter.I need the 7-11, the square corner office building spraypainted with red scrolls, the huddle of myrtle saplings in the median – familiars, as magical as a witch’s cat.On the way to the party,I see a man and a dog,neither leading the other , the leash a line connecting two dots, saying, here are related things.The dog is purposeful, nose forward,the man, upright.They need no directions – here is where they are going,and here is where they are.



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MARcH 2015

Maureen LeubaPeoria,Illinois

Maureen lives with her husband, their three sons, and Zoey, the wonderdog in Peoria, IL. Her children have been her inspiration to create stories full of fantasy and fun for the past 17 years. She has only recently begun sharing her writing with others, after overcoming a battle with cancer.

Frozen

Crystals frolic in frigid crevices. Rays of light creep in to play. Yearning to be released;From this prison, this looking glass.This mesmerizing prism. Yet, holding back to behold winter’s beauty.A peace surrounds.Frozen in time in an alabaster glow.Desperately clinging.Cherishing each moment; holding on. A spectrum of light surrounds.Mighty incandescence beamsthrough translucent melting frost.

Watching as others linger.

Watching as others fall. Warmth and tranquility overcome.Luminous droplets plunge from hues of brilliance.Tempo quickens with the promise of spring.It is time for the thaw;For life renewal.



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APRIL 2015Soaring the Sky

Fearlessly, she steersinto the light,assails it with full strength,resiliency and grace.She lifts, she soars,she rides the wind,glides through the clouds,through sun-dropsever wideninginto dawn.Triumphantly,she thrusts her wings above the tree line,the prairiesand the plains,drinks deep the viewof wetlands,rivers, streams. This is her universe,her sky, her glowing sun.



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Phylis campbell DrydenLebanon,

Pennsylvania

Born in Vermont, Phylis Dryden emigrated to upstate New York when in her twenties, then moved to south-central Pennsylvania a quarter of a century later, where she was an English professor at Lebanon Valley College for fifteen years. Now retired, she devotes part of her time to nature photography and to writing about storm water management. She belongs to a clean water alliance.

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MAY 2015

beatriz F. FernandezMiami,Florida

Beatriz F. Fernandez is a Reference Librarian at Florida International University in Miami. She has read her poetry on WLRN, South Florida’s NPR news station, was the grand prize winner of the Second Annual Writer’s Digest poetry award and was featured in the Latina Book Club blog. Her poetry has been published by a variety of journals including Boston Literary Magazine, Falling Star Magazine (2014 Pushcart Nomination), Northern Liberties Review, Spark: A Creative Anthology, Verse Wisconsin, and Writer’s Digest. Her first chapbook, “Shining from a Different Firmament”, is upcoming from Finishing Line Press.

Late bloomers

I see them nodding from the shady edgesof the road that brought you home—these tall Waterleaf blooms, corollasbursting like fireworks frozen in time, leaves sprinkled with silvery traces of tears.

Bright against fields of early meadow rue shaped like children’s outstretched hands, they may have witnessed your early years as a lawyer, and spied upon youand your first love, Ann Rutledge, courting from the dappled shade of a woodland garden.

Some say you were also a late bloomer—president only after years of struggle,you towered over a nation in need.Like these wildflowers, which perhapspealed like bells upon the passingof your funeral procession, your colorsbloomed late and faded early, but left potent seeds on strong stems scattered wide like stars on summer fields.



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JUNe 2015Honeysuckle Summer

All it takes is one easy breeze from those soft blossoms,trumpeting the fragrance

of their glorious song,and I’m right back there

in a honeysuckle summerfeeling loved, at peace,

at home, where I belong.

I catch just a whiff drifting in the air.

Time suddenly has no boundaries.I’m gliding in the porch swing.

Calico is curled, purring in a chair.It’s 1973 again.

I haven’t got a worry.Not a problem, not a care.

If only it were so simpleto return to the past,

but the blossoms are fleeting.The summers never last.



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connie biltzAkron,Ohio

Connie Biltz is a freelance writer and poet. Her work has been published in Seventeen, Sunshine, Family Circle, On Campus, Working Writer, and Cats Magazine among others. Several of her poems were published in the book, “Musings 2013: Short Stories, Poetry, Nonfiction” and in the book, “Old Broads Waxing Poetic.” She also writes a poetry blog called “More Where That Came From” which can be found at www.conniebiltz.com. She resides in Akron, Ohio with her husband John, and they have two grown sons named Chris and Andy.

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JULY 2015

Phylis campbell DrydenLebanon,

Pennsylvania

Born in Vermont, Phylis Dryden emigrated to upstate New York when in her twenties, then moved to south-central Pennsylvania a quarter of a century later, where she was an English professor at Lebanon Valley College for fifteen years. Now retired, she devotes part of her time to nature photography and to writing about storm water management. She belongs to a clean water alliance.

Munching

I have just now arrived at this viciouslatticework of munch.These holes are others’ leavings, their residue – proof that they were here before me, feeding, chomping, taking crueldelight in nature’s bounty,its bumper cropof green.While it may seem there’s green enoughfor all of us, were I to graze this sumptuous, verdantbanquet, it would destroy this lush green feast,for others and for all.



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AUgUST 2015

Marian Kaplun Shapiro Lexington,

Massachusettes

Marian Kaplun Shapiro is the author of a professional book, “Second Childhood” (Norton, 1988), a poetry book, “Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play” (Plain View Press, 2007) and two chapbooks: “Your Third Wish”, (Finishing Line, 2007); and “The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday” (Pudding House, 2007). A resident of Lexington, she was named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts in 2006, in 2008, in 2010, 2011, and 2014. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2012.

ground

s’s curving

from the ground up, a trellis

fragrant with roses, smelling of

golden, pink, white, and red,

of fields of purple loosestrife,

of morning glories, of sweetpeas,

and necklaces of Concord grapes.

Pendants of still-green tomatoes

growing heavy, growing

heavier, headed towards Fall,

up-ended U-turn,

ivy arching back towards

the earth it came from, a

sukkah of words, a harvest

holding us in the moment

of this transient penultimate season.



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SePTeMbeR 2015starlingssay “chipp chipp” and hop like toy springs between clumps of dry pampas grass,beaks drop-stitch the earth. baste the earth like needles tograb last bugs or crumbs,maybe the last seeds waiting for snow.who knows what they eat,dull-feathered, neither black nor brown,who knows how they live,how they fluff themselvesand their eyes spark to life, alive as a river,though autumn is coming.

Turn Around and Around

Outside Child, you spinlike a maple seed, earthbound,giggling as you fall.

What We Save

The last green leaf,the dew before the frost,one final breath of mellow, rounded air, sunlit and still.



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Ina Roy-FadermanSunnyvale,California

Ina Roy-Faderman: I received formal creative writing training through the English Department at Stanford University. My poetry has appeared or will be appearing in Pif Magazine, Writer’s Digest Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Clade Song, and Punchnel’s. While writing, I snuck in an M.D. (Stanford) and a Ph.D. in philosophy (Berkeley). Currently, I live near San Francisco, where I teach for the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University, herd my unruly family, write, and drink a lot of coffee.

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OcTObeR 2015

Dennis DrippsPhoenix,Arizona

Dennis Dripps writes and photographs life in Arizona. From the deep inspiring sunsets to the heat of the desert, the simplicity of the land creates a world filled with discovery. Dennis currently works at Arizona State University, and is an alumnus of Nebraska Wesleyan University. He is beautifully distracted by his family and his two dogs. He writes a weekly Tales from the Bus, as he chronicles his daily journey through the public transportation system and the amazing people that he meets.

The beams of light, just barely visible as the sun tips its hand,

creating spotlights of color only visible to me as I walk along with the flow of the river.

The darkness taking its leave.

Orange, yellow and red waking up with the song of the morning dove.

And the crunching of the leaves beneath my feet telling the story of the triumph of the summer, the story of a struggle, and the feast of the eyes.

The swirling of the water, bubbles escaping gently into the morning mist and the hint of light bouncing off the water taking me back to the valley where I grew up.

My old bones, chilled with the hint of days to come, take me further into the forest, to the trees where my stories came to life.

Where I watch them bow to the greatness that unfolds before me as the wind flips the tuff of my hair and the dance of the leaves begins all over again.



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NOveMbeR 2015

connie biltzAkron,Ohio

Connie Biltz is a freelance writer and poet. Her work has been published in Seventeen, Sunshine, Family Circle, On Campus, Working Writer, and Cats Magazine among others. Several of her poems were published in the book, “Musings 2013: Short Stories, Poetry, Nonfiction” and in the book, “Old Broads Waxing Poetic.” She also writes a poetry blog called “More Where That Came From” which can be found at www.conniebiltz.com. She resides in Akron, Ohio with her husband John, and they have two grown sons named Chris and Andy.

Last Defense

November leaveson the trees in the valley,form balls of rust, smoke, and fog.They are crumbling, disintegrating,turning into wisps, swirling away,leaving behind desolate trunksof black, silver, and brown.The trees wield their brancheslike swords.They are the guardians,the last defenseagainst the advancing winter.They are the final holdoutbefore the attack.The snow, the ice,the blasts of cold air--they are coming.The trees brace at attention.They are ready.



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DeceMbeR 2015

M.J. IuppaHamlin,New York

M.J.Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. “Between Worlds” is her most recent chapbook, featuring lyric essays, flash fiction and prose poems (Foothills Publishing, 2013). Recent poems, flash fictions, and essays in When Women Waken, Poppy Road Review, Wild: A Quarterly, Eunoia Review, Andrea Reads America, Canto, Grey Sparrow Journal, The Poetry Storehouse, Avocet, Right Hand Pointing, Tiny-lights, The Lake (U.K.), The Kentucky Review, and more. She is the Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College. You can follow her musings on writing and creative sustainability on Red Rooster Farm on mjiuppa.blogspot.com.

belongingsLingering near a window’s tense twilight,I want to welcome winter’s first snowwithout dread. Its chill and light dust makes me think of housekeeping,the way I push things around day today, saving stuff that’s seemingly weightless— floating stacks of paper,of books, of letters that matter in the waysknowing a second language matters. I want transparency that slides side-ways, like a skin of ice on the cat’swater dish left on the porch. To see what’s beneath the surface:A little madness, a little grief,a strange collection of no two things alike— I want to store that inmy house of footnotes when I canno longer see the snow covered road.



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Donate to Writers Rising Up at both Razoo and GiveMNwww.razoo.com/story/Writers-Rising-Up or https://givemn.org/organization/753103007-35082

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Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail- an interpretive trail project of Writers Rising Up donated to the city of EdenPrairie by Writers Rising Up and local family and business sponsors.

Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail- http://www.writersrisingup.org/efeinterpretivetrail/EFEIT Birders’ Entomologists’ Botanists’ Blog http://efeitbirdersblog.blogspot.com/

All Images by Victoria Price © 2014 Writers Rising Up

2015 digging to the roots poetry anthology calendar

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