A Walk in the Woods

 

Thank you d. ellis phelps and formidable woman sanctuary for including three of my poems in woodlands, a collection of art and poetry by 49 writers and artists. You can see the journal by clicking here.

They're Here!

A knock on my door, and then I found a box of these on my porch. What joy!

My third chapbook, Not Me: Poems About Other Women, is now in print. 

(Side note: The cover was inspired by a photo of Bette Davis.)

Here's what poet Diane Averill says about the book:

"Through a prism of voices, both real and imaginary, we gain new understanding of women's lives in a world that is not always made for them. At once subversive and strong, Ferguson's imaginative language both heightens and deepens our awareness of ourselves and others." –Diane Averill, author of Beautiful Obstacles.

If you'd like a copy, you can purchase one from me or order one from Finishing Line Press by clicking here.

Six...Oh!

Me on Christmas morning, 1987

Sixty is sexy.

Maybe?

Anyway, as my birthday approaches, I think this year is going to be good...delightful, even.

Because I've been reading Ross Gay's The Book of Delights, I've been pondering the delights in my life, and they're lots of them...although I gather I'm supposed to feel lousy about my age.

Here are a few delights I'm thinking about:

Cruising

When my husband gave me my Raleigh beach cruiser for Christmas in 1987, I didn't ride it that much.

Now, in 2022, it's my main form of transportation.....especially since our car has been in the shop since August. 

Oh yes! I bike to buy food and to fetch dog supplies and to pick up books at the library. To Taborspace to teach my classes and to visit my son on the other side of town. 

I started cycling about four years ago. Then last year we got a pup who barked a whole heck of a lot, and I rode even more just to get out of the house and away from that awful sound. What bliss to pedal over the Tilikum Bridge and have a moment of peace as I looked down at the Willamette River and saw it slowly moving to its own music.

Like a set of matryoshka dolls, there are multiple delights within this one delight. For instance, what possessed my husband to buy a bike for un-athletic me in the first place? But how wonderful that he did. It was like his way of saying, I know you can do this. Now, that's a gift.

I have finicky knees, I'm not the speediest person on two wheels, and biking on busy and wet streets can be, of course, treacherous. In fact, just this morning a driver in a little silver car cut in front of me...which was delightful compared to the driver of a semitruck who did the same thing last week. Who knows how long I'll be able to keep up with cycling, but for now I ride with a whisper of a prayer for our burning planet and a secret, giddy feeling: Wheee! Look at me go, and I'm nearly 60!

Shall We Dance?

Backstage in 2010

I gave up dancing -- one of the great loves of my life -- 10 years ago and thought, Well, that's that. Now, thanks to two ladies in London, England, my dance journey is beginning again. 

A few years ago, Susan started teaching her mum, Elizabeth (whose body was experiencing the less-delightful aspects of aging), ballet exercises. The two of them were having such a blast they decided to share the fun and benefits of dance by forming Ballet Based Movement, which offers lively, good-humored classes on Zoom for beginning and over-50 dancers from all over the world.

Thanks to Susan's energetic encouragement and inspired choreography, in this class we transcend the real and imagined limits of age and enter a world of music and muscle where we become Giselle challenging the spell of ghostly spirits; or Sylvia, the goddess of the forest with our bows and arrows; or a crowd of cheeky-cheeksters cocking our hips to Scott Joplin's "Elite Syncopations."

We're not just dancing: We're laughing and straightening our spines and getting stronger (dancing these past two years has made me a better bike rider and vice versa!), and falling head-over-pointed-toes in love with movement.

Psst, if you'd like to join us, check out the Ballet Based Movement website. 

Woof

You know those silly people who knew nothing about dogs and went out and got one anyway at the peak of the pandemic? 

Hello, I'm one of them.

Craving long, meditative walks with a warm companion, I started my search for The Perfect Puppy, which led my husband and me to Jenny. 

Jenny, as fluffy as a stuffed animal asleep on your pillow, but also fiercely reactive with an unnerving bark that feels a lot like broken glass grinding into your ear canal. 

Instead of achieving my Zen state through our dog in 2021, I was roiling in the bottomless depths of my own personal hell, which, I was all too aware, I'd made for myself. 

Jenny.

Jenny bug.

Jenny beans.

Jenny bear.

Jenny Sinclair Redpath. 

We named her after one of my husband's relatives in Scotland. My father-in-law was orphaned as a teen, and his aunt took him in. Just like that he went from being an only child to having a houseful of rollicking cousins/siblings, including Jenny Sinclair, his favorite.

After 18 months of training, our Jenny has calmed down a bit. She licks our ankles with her long tongue, and sometimes, when there's no one else out (no neighbors or squirrels or dogs or crows or kids) we enjoy a nice long walk.

*

What makes Ross Gay's book on delight so appealing is that it's not all sunshine and flowers. Gay sees the world's less endearing qualities and still finds delight everywhere, whether it's a bright bloom of happiness, a slender stem of pleasure or a seed of irony.

On a birthday or any day, what more could you wish for?

 

The Golden Shovel

What's a golden shovel?

It's a type of poem. You take a line from someone else's poem and use each word from that line to end a line in your new poem. 

Thank you to the Oregon Poetry Association and judge James Benton for including my golden shovel poem "Our Eyebrows Raised Like Cathedral Arches" among the winners for this fall's contest. Marvin Lurie and Trina Gaynon, the other winners, wrote absolutely stunning pieces. You can read them all by clicking here.

A Prism of Voices

My newest book, Not Me: Poems About Other Women, will be here soon!

Advance praise:

"Through a prism of voices, both real and imaginary, we gain new understanding of women's lives in a world that is not always made for them. At once subversive and strong, Ferguson's imaginative language both heightens and deepens our awareness of ourselves and others." –Diane Averill, author of Beautiful Obstacles.

You can order by clicking here.

Fall Creative Writing Classes

This is bliss:

Making plans for a new season of my creative writing classes, including in-person, email and Zoom offerings.

All experience levels are welcome to join these warm, encouraging communities of creative inspiration.

"Linda shares her expertise in a way that supports, stimulates, and stretches each writer's unique voice. This class is a highlight of my week." --Susan Donnelly

Here are the details:

Creative Writing for Women at Taborspace

2nd Mondays, October - December

October 10, November 14, December 12

10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

For now, vaccination is required and masks are optional.

$40 for all 3 classes or $15 to drop in

5441 SE Belmont Street

Creative Writing at Taborspace

3rd Mondays, October - December

October 17, November 21, December 19

10 a.m. - noon

A more leisurely paced class with plenty of time for discussion.

For now, vaccination is required and masks are optional.

$15 to drop in

5441 SE Belmont Street

Emailed Prompts

1st Mondays, October - December

October 3, November 7,  December 5

Receive a batch of monthly prompts, with the option to share your writings with this creative and supportive group.

$30 for 3 months

Creative Writing on Zoom

3rd Saturdays, October - December

October 15, November 19, December 17

11 a.m. - noon

$10 to drop in for a class

For more information, email me at ljdferguson(at)gmail(dot)com.

Back to School

Here's a poem from my newest chapbook, Not Me: Poems About Other Women. Just 10 more days to preorder. You can click here to order or for more information.

From the Imaginary Journals of Venetia Burney
the math-loving English girl who named Pluto

 

In class, I fly on the backs of winged numbers —
with computations, I can have my plum cake
and eat it too, both the thrill and the comfort
of equality — 12 – 3, 8 + 1, 45 ÷ by 5 —
so many ways to get to nine,
or any number that I like.

But even from my silver hill of symbols and signs,
I sense the warped orbit of fear and scratching here.
Running my finger over the raw letters carved
into my wooden desk, I trace the initials of a girl
I once saw trip a fellow student then
apologize with her lips shaped
in a honeysuckle smile.

Today our teacher drones about Plato’s ethics while I braid
strands of my hair with the hair of the other girls —
bully, witness, victim — a woven rope to read
like braille and bruises when I can’t sleep.

I hear a new planet has been found. Would life be better,
more fair, on the edge of the galaxy?

Maybe in places where only dim starlight shines,
appreciation for each pale ray is multiplied.

This poem originally appeared in The Wild Word.

August 11

Yesterday was our anniversary. Here's a little poem from my book Of the Forest to celebrate.

Love Song 2

          for my husband

 

 

                                       Some things I love aren’t green –

 

oatmeal’s cinnamon steam

juice of peach, single strawberry

easy breaths of blue bedroom

moon-gray shoes

with laces of velvet ink

scrape and burn of crow’s caw

the gleam of Gram’s onyx ring

dreamy depths of our daughter’s

azure paintings

and our son’s red-gold hair

somehow spun from the straw of our genes—

 

                                      but your voice—

 

all sprouts and fronds

and stirring seeds, laughing leaves,

echo of bells over the hills –

up and down and around we go 

every morning, the new, green tips

of possibility.

Merci Nathalie

Nathalie Le Breton's musical poetry isn't meant to be just read but experienced. 

Her work reminds me of what E.M. Forster wrote in A Room With a View:

          "I only wish the poets would say this too: love is of the body; not the body, but of 

           the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we confessed that!"

Le Breton's verse, which is spiritual, is of the body too. Her words don't merely sit on the page: They roll, leap and twirl...and invite us to do the same.

Many thanks to her for letting me share four of her poems with you.

Erzulie

 

Once I met a ghost.

She wore a purple hat

and spoke all languages.

 

She also spoke in tongues.

dancing island tongues,

swirling tongues of joy and

pounding tongues of sorrow.

 

She touched her silver heart.

She told the old story

of women and children,

and she cried.

 

Then there was our goodbye.

Some ghosts come only once

and leave their heart behind.

 

 

 

Thrill

 

I never liked them.

Carousel or Ferris wheel,

name them all,

I never liked them.

But I too wanted to be thrilled,

I too wanted to feel under my skin

the fragile miracle,

and abandon myself in it

and lose the mind

lose the routine

live and feel.

 

One might say I had superior ambitions.

Maybe, but I have been forgiven.

 

So I threw away my shoes,

ran up the green hill

where butterflies flew in circles,

and I danced with them,

in their golden carousel

flapping my own large wings

in a blue sky no Ferris wheel could reach.

I was spinning,

my body electric,

then I rolled down the hill

buzzing like a bee

filled with ecstasy.

 

 

 

Mossy Teachings

 

 "I hold tight to the vision that someday soon we will find the courage of self-restraint, the humility to live like mosses.” Robin Wall Kimmerer - Gathering Moss.

 

Who knows what moss would say

if only she could speak.

She would tell you stories of light

and love stories of rain.

She might also tell you of her own

 

improbability,

of her rootless travels to the little spaces

and how she had to change

when the winds turned around.

She might then remind you of your own

 

improbability,

tell you to take little

and give more in return,

Whisper there is still time

to let yourself glitter.

 

 

  

For You

 

Come sit with me,

We’ll smell jasmine

Spell the word wind

Eat strawberries.

 

You’ll kiss the sun

I’ll watch the bees

I’ll sing a song

You’ll smile at me.

 

Come sit with me,

We’ll drink iced tea

Spell the word sweet

Wiggle our feet.

 

My Darling you could be,

Come sit with me.

About the author: 

Nathalie Le Breton is a French native speaker who has relocated in the Pacific Northwest. She enjoys exploring a different language as a form of personal discovery and melodic expression. She also enjoys reading poetry and children's books, knitting, drinking tea, and walking slowly through the seasons.

Fabulously Unapologetic

Just three more weeks to preorder my newest book, Not Me: Poems About Other Women. This collection is a little different from my last one because it's all fiction...or is it?

Thanks to the sublime Claudia F. Savage for this early praise:

The real and imaginary women chosen for Linda Ferguson’s Not Me: Poems About Other Women fulfill every woman’s desire to be contrary, individual, and luminous. Fabulously unapologetic and brilliantly aware, Ferguson gives them their due amplification—“this is me, this is me” declares Constance Hopkins, “the scrape of a metal file across an old axe blade. / The screech of violin strings when a bow touches them.” “I will not… I will not…” defies the Princess in Pisanello’s House of Este. These women are feral (“today I’m a creature, breathing,”); their voices sure. Every poem offers the subject’s clear sense of self and her awe at the world. In Ferguson’s deft hands, we wonder “what else she might become.”

—Claudia F. Savage, author of Bruising Continents

Carolyn Martin's Praise for My Newest Chapbook

 

An ocean of thanks to the sublime poet/editor Carolyn Martin who wrote this early praise for my newest chapbook, which can be preordered through August 26:

What is so striking about Linda Ferguson’s Not Me: Poems About Other Women, are the startling imaginative leaps the poet makes throughout these persona poems. Whether she is writing about historical figures, literary characters, or fictional women, Ferguson’s intention is clear: “It’s not the house/I won’t leave./It’s the forest of my imagining.” She fills this forest not only with unique voices and stories, but with language  that gives readers pause and invites them to savor each line. When she proclaims, “... this is the way things are for everybody:/art and motion, ecstasy, ovation, encore!” these words describe the way this collection is for us: one that will continue to engage our imaginations with its artful motion and ecstasy. 

 

– Carolyn Martin, poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation 

 

July 26 Verseweavers Virtual Reading!

 

I'm happy to be among the prize-winning poets at the Verseweavers virtual reading on Tuesday, July 26 at 7 pm! Please join us by registering here.

Knock Knock

 

The moment I've waiting for: My Bluebird uniform has arrived, and I can't wait to wear it to school, smiling, with my two front teeth missing. 

The only hitch is Bluebirds have to go door to door selling candy, too. I like eating it (especially the mints), but selling it, no thank you.

My family comes to the rescue. My soft-hearted dad takes the candy to the office and sells it to his workmates. Then my grandmother, who has a sweet tooth, buys several boxes for herself and stacks them on top of her refrigerator where they'll be close at hand.

Today, in 2022, I'm faced with trying to meet another selling quota. Not candy this time, but poetry. I have two new books this year, and my publishers, understandably, would like me to promote them.

So consider this post a light knock on your door. My newest chapbook, Not Me: Poems About Other Women, is available for preorder until August 26 and can be ordered here. 

My award-winning chapbook, Of the Forest, was also released in February and can be ordered here. 

Here's some praise for both books:

Not Me: Poems About Other Women

Through a prism of voices, both real and imaginary, we gain new understanding of women's lives in a world that is not always made for them. At once subversive and strong, Ferguson's imaginative language both heightens and deepens our awareness of ourselves and others. –Diane Averill, author of Beautiful Obstacles.

Of the Forest

Though she tells us this is a 'simple suburban story,' every poem in this collection is a jewel, obscured by a diaphanous curtain of imagination, beckoning us to look behind. –Judith Armatta, author of Twilight of Impunity.

Not Me – My New Poetry Collection

 

I'm thrilled to announce my newest poetry collection, Not Me: Poems About Other Women, is now available for preorder from Finishing Line Press. The book captures a chorus of women's voices, including Emily Dickinson, a mermaid, a kidnapped heiress, and Carabosse (Sleeping Beauty's nemesis).

Advance praise:

"Through a prism of voices, both real and imaginary, we gain new understanding of women's lives in a world that is not always made for them. At once subversive and strong, Ferguson's imaginative language both heightens and deepens our awareness of ourselves and others." –Diane Averill, author of Beautiful Obstacles.

I couldn't have written this book without all the amazing women in my life, from my mother and grandmothers to the members of my former writing group and my creative writing students, past and present. 

You can click here to order Not Me: Poems About Other Women.

Dutch Charm

My oldest brother once went on a European tour with his high school band. When he came home, he brought me a tiny Dutch shoe, which I then wore on a silver chain throughout my own high school days.

A  year or two after that trip, my brother brought home a dog. 

She was a Keeshond, a breed that originated in Holland.  

In the brief time she lived with us, I took her for a few walks and knelt by her and tried to comb her long gray fur. I was about fourteen and skinny and clenched my teeth in my sleep. Beside me, she felt like a warm, breathing rock.

Here's a poem about her from my chapbook Of the Forest.*

Walking My Brother’s Dog

  

We were different—

she was Dutch and

I was not—

but we had the same

thick, quiet hair

and eyes that watched.

 

She was strange,

my mother said,

from a place where girls

doused their skin

with perfume

in lieu of bathing.

But I liked to walk

up our curving suburban street

with her. I was a pale

brittle cookie with

cold hands.

She was dark, warm,

substantial,

a steady, silent bear.

 

Who would have guessed

she could move so fast—

one day she sprang forward

and was gone.

 

I stayed on,

preferring to leave

more gradually,

pocketing a handkerchief one year,

sneaking out a slipper the next,

followed by a knitted coin purse,

a pair of silver earrings, a box of

blank note cards, a palm-size radio,

and a felt-tip pen. The last things

I took before I left for good

were a drop of blood

and a sewing kit.

By then I had forgotten

her name but had found

my own weight.

 *This poem was originally published by Verseweavers, with the title "Foreign Exhcange."

Of the Forest was the second place winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, 2021.

June 2, 1995

 

I was riding my bike to the library yesterday (with trucks and buses rumbling past) when I thought of this:

27 years 

since my father 

died – still, if 

I should live 

another 27 –

or even more! –

I’ll never be

a fatherless

daughter

Some Thoughts on a Sunless Spring

 

Here's a scribble from my journal:

Who knows when the sun will shine again so

we can sit once more beneath the dogwood tree.

 

Right now its branches are in full bloom,

 

with petals not white or yellow or milk or cream –

they’re simply themselves

 

in spite of our steadfast rain

and the sudden April snow

 

that made the silken heads

of the proud red tulips bow.

I shared this freewrite with my adult students a few weeks ago, and they kindly shared their writing, too. Our congenial exchange brightened the sky inside my mind.

A Hastily Written Tribute to a Master

At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, circa 1979

Happy Birthday, William!

Or may I call you Will after

all this time? I've never

cared if you were squat or tall,

a glovemaker or an errant spouse ever

since I joined, at age 10,

the giddy band of fans who

for centuries have frolicked in the woods

where your fairies, queens and shepherds

plot and toil and kiss. Again and again we slip 

our feet into the shoes of your thwarted 

lovers and velvet-lined villains. We revel 

in the snap and sting of Beatrice's wit

and the fire and ice of Hamlet's

loneliness. And on our tongues, your 

phrases perpetually dance --

In my heart of hearts

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow --

as familiar as lawn, as jay, as 

sun, with the beat of each line moving us 

forward, calling us to create, whether

in ink or on this earth (this precious stone

set on the silver sea) our own version of

a brave new world.

Far from the Tree

 

What an honor to be among the winners of the Oregon Poetry Association's Fall 2021 contest. My sestina, "Far From the Tree," was second place in the Traditional Category. 

I'm especially happy to have this honor because the requirements of a sestina helped take my mind off of other things...like the pandemic, for instance. If you need a creative challenge, you might want to write a sestina of your own. Here are the rules of the form. If you're anything like me, it might tie your brain in knots at first, but keep going and you'll get there!

Thank you to OPA and to Marilyn Johnston, who judged this category and called my poem "a provocative women's history course." I can live with that!

To read "Far From the Tree," as well as the winning poems by Brad Maxfield and Amelia Díaz Ettinger, click here.