
Call of the Sea




For all those who have asked me about where I go in the winter, I am showing pictures of Colon, Costa Rica. I live about a half mile above Colon and usually go into the Centro for cafe con leche or errands sometime during the day. It is a writer’s paradise for which I am very grateful.
“No es cierto que la gente deja de perseguir sueños porque crecen viejos, envejecen porque dejan de perseguir sueños”.
“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”
― Gabriel García Márquez
I just learned from the New England Book Festival that my book, Banshees, was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Poetry Category for best books of 2015. I guess I’m a local writer, which helps. I am grateful for the acknowledgement.

WRITE MINDS: An evening of poetry at 7 pm December 15 Thirsty Mind in South Hadley with ~ Tommy Twilite ~ Bob Hoeppner ~ Linda Wlodyka ~ Gerald Yelle ~ Marian Kent~Eileen P. Kennedy. Join us.
Thirsty Mind Coffee and Wine Bar
$ · Wine Bar.
Located in: Village Commons
Address: 23 College St # 6, South Hadley, MA 01075
My publisher, Flutter Press, has been kind. Flutter Press nominated me for a Pushcart Prize for my poem, “Eulogy for the Costa Rican Ghosts,” from my new collection of poems, Banshees:
http://flutterpress2009.blogspot.com/p/pushcart-nominees.html
The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published annually, is one of the most honored literary projects in America. Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in their annual collections. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series. Every volume contains an index of past selections, plus lists of outstanding presses with addresses. Among poets who have won this prize are Wendell Berry, Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Donald Hall, Jane Hirshfield, Tony Hoagland, W.S. Merwin, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Robert Pinsky, James Tate, and William Carlos Williams, to name a few.
Here’s an excerpt from “Eulogy for the Costa Rican Ghosts.”
I feel their aching in the night air
their souls shaking in the tropical trees.
I remember their presence here
and bear them closer as time goes by…
my years stealing to inevitable death.
I am grateful for the nomination. Wish me luck with the competition!

Gallery of Readers will present Alice Barber reading from her book
Blue Butterfly Open: Moments from a Child Psychotherapy Practice
Sunday, November 22, 4 pm Neilson Library Browsing Room,
Smith College.