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