Poetry Contest

     I was recently asked to serve as the contest coordinator for the Poetry Society of New Hampshire's twice yearly national poetry competitions. I am thrilled that Lauren K Alleyne, Poet-in-Residence and Assistant Professor of English at the University of Dubuque has accepted my offer to serve as judge of the November contest. For more info about Professor Alleyne see http://laurenkalleyne.com/bio.html.

     Here are the guidelines for entering the contest open to all. I look forward to finding your poems in my mailbox on or before November 15th!

 

 

National Contest Coordinator
Tammi Truax
187 Meadow Rd
Portsmouth, NH 03801

Please note limit is forty lines. Name and address must appear in the upper right hand corner of the copy on which they appear. NO identification is to appear anywhere on the second copy.

The Poetry Society of New Hampshire sponsors two National Contests open to all poets, members or not. Judges for the contests are not members of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Prizes are awarded to four places, 1st place, $100, 2nd place, $50, 3rd and 4th places $25 each. Winning poems will be published in our quarterly magazine, The Poets Touchstone, and winning poets will receive one copy of the issue in which their poems appear. Rights revert to the author after publication.

Guidelines

Entries that do not meet the guidelines will not be considered or returned. Poems must be postmarked by the deadline date.

• Subject and form are open.
• Length limited to 40 lines.
• One poem per page.
• Poems must be typed.
• Two copies of each poem, one with NO identification (no name, no address), the other with the name and address in the upper right corner.
• #10 SASE for winners list only. Poems will not be returned.
• Entry fee is $3 for the first poem, and $2 each for others. Entries limited to 5 poems per poet per contest.
• Poems must not be previously published, have won a prize, nor be currently entered in another contest.
• Poems must be postmarked by the deadline date. Deadlines are: May 15th and November 15th.
• Mail poems and check payable to the Poetry Society of New Hampshire (PSNH) to the coordinator at the address above.

Truth Be Told

        I’d been thinking about him so much in the last few months, had even developed a genuine affection for him that surprised me, and truth be told, I didn’t really want to travel alone. So, since I was en route to his house anyway, and there was an empty seat beside me, I decided to conjure him up. I closed my eyes and asked him to come sit with me a spell.

      And then … there he was, in all his magnificence, smooshed into a coach seat between me and a young traveler who looked equally befuddled, but kept her reactions to herself, and perhaps her 1472 non-believing Facebook friends. He looked down at his knees, his long muscular legs rammed into the seat in front of him, and he shifted his riding boots slightly. He looked at me. I was agog. He looked remarkably well for the 214 years that had passed since he died an agonizing death. Really – remarkable. His hair was still clean and well-powdered and pulled back into a relatively tidy braid that I knew made my wild traveling tresses look like I might be a zombie. His suit was well-tended right down to the shiny brass buttons. Also quite shiny was the sword dangling from his hip, that I was pretty sure the flight attendant would consider a sharp implement. His mouth was shut tight. I tried to recover from my dorktitude. “Hi,” I said.

       “High. Yes, by God, I see we are,” he replied in a soft sort of sexy voice, his gorgeous blues fixed on the window beside me where cumulus clouds wafted by. “Is this conveyance how we ascend to heaven then?”

       “Oh, well, no, well yes and no,” I stammered like a fool. “We are flying through the sky, but we are not going to heaven. I’m sorry. We’re going to Baltimore.”

       “Baltimore!” he bellowed. “Why the devil would that be? For what cause have I been summoned so? I demand a coherent explanation for this extreme trickery.”

       He was upset and I felt bad. While trying to shush him, I said “I’m sorry General. You’re just visiting me in the future. This is the year 2013. We fly around in these airplanes rather routinely now.”

      “Air – planes?” he repeated staring hard at me. Then lifting and looking at his big hand, added, “I am an apparition.”

      “Yes sir. I just really needed to meet you. You see, I’m writing a book, a work of fiction based on historical facts, that is to say, I’m writing about you. I’m on my way to Mount Vernon now to learn more about your life.”

      His countenance changed as if he’d been slapped. His jowls slackened, and his furrowed brow and eyelids lowered. The great bulk of his shoulders caved inward a bit much to the delight of the girl in the aisle seat. “Mount Vernon,” he repeated softly.

      “Yes,” I said gaily. “It was saved and preserved as a museum.”

     “You’re taking me there – home – to my farm?”

      “Wasn’t planning on it Sir. I think there is too much on the ground that would be distressing to you.”

       “Well, young lady,” he said politely, covering for both my age and his impatience, “You speak in vexing circles. I must suggest it would benefit us both if you stated your objective forthrightly.”

      I, of course, resumed my signature stammering dorktitude. “I guess I just wanted to see you, hear your voice, maybe get your blessing for my work.”

      “Desist with guessing. Stand tall with your convictions. If you are being called to write something then do so. If you apply all of the honesty and integrity to your work that you can muster you will be able to withstand any criticism that follows, I assure you. To encourage literature and the study of history is a duty to which every good citizen owes his country.”

      “Thanks, I am being honest in my work. I cannot tell a lie,” I teased.

      He looked unamused. I got serious.

     “I’m writing about you as a slave owner.”

      “I see,” he said seriously. “There is plenty of honesty in that. I was a slave owner from the tender age of eleven years until my death, though I provided for my people’s freedom in my will. I knew it to be a withering institution and could foresee it’s undoing in short time.”

     Suddenly, I saddened. I didn’t want him to know the truth. I didn’t want to tell him what happened after, though I want to tell everyone else. Children, no matter how old they are, never want to disappoint their fathers. Cannot bear to see the look of failure in their father’s face, reflected back upon us in his eyes.

       Averting his gaze, I took his right hand in both of mine. Borrowing his wife’s term of endearment for him, I said, “Yes, Old Man, thank you.”

     With his legendary intuitive intelligence, he said just before disintegrating, “Whatever has yet to be done, charge on.”

     “Yes sir,” I said to his departing particles, “We will.”

Update

     Well, in my own defense I can honestly say that my excuse for blog neglect is that I have been so crazy busy working! I have been writing up a storm as the historical novel I'm working on nears completion of its first draft. I was up in the middle of last night tweaking three scenes that I was laying in bed, wide-awake and thinking over. This muse is a whip-cracker!
      And most exciting of all has been the release of my first completed novel as an eBook. Now at least a small fraction of each day needs to be devoted to a task I call book pimping. The least pleasant part of being a writer today, but it is unavoidable. I now have to find ways of getting the book reviewed which I really don't have any idea how to do.
      It is an interesting, and humbling, experience, setting one of your babies off into the world to see how it does.

     Here's a link. Reviews most welcome...

Announcing book release!

     After about three years of hard work, I am so happy to announce the release of my debut novel as an eBook now available through most eretailers. With a big shout-out of gratitude to all my friendly beta readers, especially WB Bernan, Sarah Flause, Kate Leigh, and Zachariah Johnson, and to my editor Erin Brenner, who also had to work hard. It is a rewarding feeling to set this one free, so that I can now fully focus on birthing my new baby. A big bouncy thing kicking it's Mama hard from the inside.
     I would be most grateful for reviews of the first born, really I would! Or if you prefer a more private exchange please feel free to message your thoughts to me. Broken Buckets is a tale that an agent told me no traditional publisher would touch because the subject matter is something no one wants to think or talk about, which is exactly why I wrote it. Now I need to know what you think.

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Buckets-ebook/dp/B00EBGEZDM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377257235&sr=1-1&keywords=broken+buckets

My Community

     So I am settling back into my life as a writer working out of my home where I am alone most of the time. It is not a lifestyle that I dislike. In fact I fought hard to make it happen, and at this particular time of my life it suits me well. I have had to put a considerable amount of effort over the last few years in figuring out how to manage the lifestyle, and in protecting my writing time and space from encroachment. It really did take several years to figure it all out. The only thing that the lifestyle lacks is community. You can feel isolated, walled in.

                                               

     Community is a beautiful word, but is, I believe an essential concept, an essential component to healthy human living. We do not thrive without it. We might survive, like a random wildflower bursting through a sidewalk crack, but we will not thrive. Not to our maximum potential. Last week I found my community. It is called AROHO, short for A Room of Her Own.

      AROHO is non-profit foundation that seeks to support female writers and other artists in a variety of ways, most especially with financial and emotional support, and with a biennial professional writing retreat for women in the mountains of New Mexico (though oddly I found many connections with my home state of New Hampshire). In their own words the organizers say, "Since 2003, the AROHO Retreat has gathered women writers to exchange ideas and develop their craft in New Mexico’s magnificent high desert, nourishing a unique esprit de corps. Nestled in the red rocks of Ghost Ranch that inspired Georgia O’Keeffe, AROHO Retreat participants enjoy abundant time to write, reflect, and establish critical and often life-changing alliances with other professional women writers."


      "The organic and evolving AROHO Retreat program is best defined as co-created by the women who participate, with utmost respect for the individual’s capacity to challenge herself and others, and to mold each day to her needs. "


      While I was there I kept finding myself thinking, "These are my people." An interesting feeling in that the 100 writers chosen to attend AROHO represented the most diverse group of women I have ever been assembled with. Certainly that added to the beauty of the experience, and beauty is what happens when diverse minds mingle. But the inspiration goes beyond the participants present and how we impacted one another. In addition to connecting with the people present, you feel yourself connected to past participants of AROHO retreats whoever, where ever they are. You feel yourself connected with Georgia O'Keeffe whose vibrant art sprung from the dusty land you're breathing in and whose presence you can feel out among the hills. You feel yourself connected with Virginia Woolf whose words inspired the founders and whose presence you can feel especially at the quiet rivers edge. You even feel connected to the nameless, faceless spirits that have always been thought to inhabit the vast space of Ghost Ranch. There really seems to be, in this place where dinosaurs are excavated from ancient rock, an unearthing of organic inspiration that happens here in ways it does not elsewhere.

                                               


      For me, beyond meeting and learning from many amazing women I would not otherwise have met, my retreat involved quite a bit of personal reflection and future planning that I wasn't expecting. Another way AROHO might differ from other retreats is that I found while there that I was not just concerned with my own work, but also in how I could serve other women writers while at the ranch and upon returning home. It is not a one week community, but one with legs. Legs to carry you forward across all kinds of terrain. Beautiful lady legs. Glamourous gams.


     In my writing last week I was surprised to find that I was not focused on quantity, the word count I'd been yoked to at home, but on quality. A few key scenes in my novel-in-progress were polished til they glistened like the stars that make Ghost Ranch feel like it is situated at the very top of the world, where if you climbed a kiva ladder you could in fact touch the tippity-top of the heavens, the very apex of the universe ~ because it is within your reach.


      That is what AROHO does for women.

                                             


       That is what AROHO did for me.

Yes.

New Poem

     I don't usually post my work online. My son cautions me against the practice, and his counsel on this particular subject, seems wise. But today I am choosing to post my most recent poem. I just wrote it a few days ago, after the Zimmerman verdict, so it will probably be revised a few times yet. Still I share it now in support of the president's statement yesterday. I do welcome feedback.

For the Other Parents

Since the year 1863

there has been a talk many American parents

have to have with their American sons

at just about the time that their son’s

voices begin to change, and their muscles

begin to harden into impending manhood,

at just about the time that referring

to the boy as boy changes too.

They say things like these,

things I have never had to say to my son,

nor have any of my ancestors

since the year 1863.

***

There will be times, from now on

when people will be afraid of you.

You have to be aware of this at all times,

to develop a sense for it,...  to feel it

before it turns bad, because

very bad things can happen to you

when people are afraid of you.

You can’t play with toy guns anymore,

or swords, or pick up pipes, or even sticks.

Always be aware of your surroundings.

Try not to go anywhere alone,

especially at night.

If you’re being followed try to find someone

so you’re not alone.

Cooperate with authorities even when

your dignity makes that hard.

Don’t do anything with your hands but put them up.

Don’t worry about winning or losing.

Your goal is to survive.

Let them stand their hallowed ground

that they’re afraid of you taking.

You just stay alive.

And always - remember

there is nothing wrong with you,

nothing wrong with the way you look.

You are who you have always been

and that is the ground that

you have to stand.

All rights reserved. (C) Tammi J Truax. 2013.

Wedding Vows

                                     

    In the eighties I was a struggling college student attending UNH. The first in my family line known to have gone off to college. Since my family goes back to the founding of America, that was a pretty long line. The reason the rest of us hadn't became quite clear. My people have never had much dough, and college, even back then, took a lot of dough. My parents did help me as best they could, and I borrowed money as best I could, at usurious Reagan era rates. But to make ends meet, I worked part time at any kind of work I could get that would allow me to put classes first.

     One of those jobs was for a caterer. A rather unscrupulous man, one might call a horse of a different color, who managed to bounce pay checks for thirteen dollars. But I stuck it out for a while. Commuting from my crowded apartment in Dover where passing trains caused my bed to do an Exorcist type of ritual a couple of times a day, I would drive in my shiny green 1978 Plymouth Duster to some breath taking estate on the seacoast of New Hampshire and wearing some God-awful-ugly black and white outfit in the heat of a summer afternoon I would wait on beautiful people who had come to watch a happy young couple celebrate their lavish wedding. Usually under big white tents, candle lit, on expansive rock walled lawns that were never easy to navigate with trays of china and crystal. In my own little invisible way I did what I could to make their day the special treasured memory I knew they wanted. And I used to think, yes like a pathetic little Cinderella, that if I worked hard in school, there would come a day when I wouldn't be the servant anymore. That someday I would be sitting on that side of the table. Smiling, toasting, and not worrying about having enough gas money to make it home. At some low point at one of those summer assignments I vowed to myself that it would be so.

     I did have my own special wedding day on the seacoast a few years later. But almost certainly like many of the pretty people whose weddings I had witnessed, things didn't turn out pretty. My husband got sick and died, leaving me with two small children to raise, which I've been busy doing for the last twelve years. That is what wedding vows are all about; to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, from this day forward, til death do us part…

     As life would have it I recently found myself atop a stunning New Hampshire mountain, wearing a God-awful-ugly black and white outfit and serving beautiful people at someone else’s wedding celebration. It was infinitely harder than I imagined it was going to be when I agreed to the gig. Physically harder, sure, I am fifty now, and carrying heavy trays for hours is not as easy as it looks. But it was also hard on me emotionally.

      I kept going back to my twenty year old self, … so much more hopeful about the beautiful life that she would be rewarded with. So sure that sometime, somewhere, in the future of her blossoming life, it would get soft and easy. Not remotely worried about things actually turning out worse. Never considering radical cell growth or rare tumors or physical agony. Not even able to imagine going to a blacker place where that kind of hope is carefully wrapped up and put away like a bridal veil, too white and virginal for the reality of the day. I was pretty then and think I must have smiled a lot. Probably even giggled. I remember me as sweet and slim and sassy, secure in a world where all the people looking out for me were still alive. I hadn’t thought of those days, or that girl, in a long time. But she has been bugging me a lot lately since I worked the last wedding under another candle lit tent on another beautiful estate.

      The truth is, it was terribly hard for me to be in that position again. To be invisible, with men only speaking to me to say things like, “Come on girlfriend, give me a full scoop of salad.” To be in the back, getting dirty, and listening to the fun. Just like when I was young I was most jealous of the dancing, my favorite part of any celebration. This time though, the mature me was less covetous of the idea of an adoring prince charming and a big shiny ring and a happily ever after, and far more envious of the bride’s pre-wedding accomplishments; namely being a successful writer and having launched her children into happy adulthood. These are my own grown woman aspirations, more important to me than just about anything else is anymore, but which I still have not achieved.

     There is still in me though, some hope left, that I will. Not the little girl have faith in the universe and wait for it to happen kind of hope I had at twenty, but the big girl have faith in myself and make it happen kind of hope I didn't have. Until now.

     I vow. It will.

Looking forward to this gig

BEAT NIGHT AT THE PRESS ROOM

Thursday July 18 – 7:00 pm

Spoken Word + Improvised Music

We have amazing lineup this month, a one-time reunion of poetry royalty! 

Young Dawkins (former Emperor of Scotland)

Larry Simon (former Emperor of Portsmouth)

Tammi Truax (Fair Queen of Beat Night)

Ryan McLellan (The Dark Lord of Exeter)

plus the Beat Night Band

Scip Gallant | keyboards

Scott Solsky | guitar

Chris Stambaugh | bass

Mike Barron | drums

Frank Laurino | percussion

Cynthia Chatis | flutes

followed by The Open Mic – 8:00 pm

with your host Heather Elisabeth

The Press Room 

77 Daniel Street, Portsmouth, NH – 603.431.5186 – pressroomnh.com

(no cover)

Martha's lace

Today's most interesting research find; (Well so far that is...)
http://www.universityarchives.com/Find-an-Item/Results-List/Item-Detail.aspx?ItemID=52310

Vive la révolution! | SeacoastOnline.com

Something I wrote about celebrating Bastille Day.
Vive la révolution! | SeacoastOnline.com

Getting there...

     I have been working so hard lately, and want to say that seven day work weeks are exhausting. But, this streak of productivity is too good to bring to a halt, so I'm just going along with it like a happy little hitchhiking hippie.
      And I am happy to say that this week a lot of forward momentum was gained. It now looks like both of the books that I am putting out electronically will be ready to go public at just about the same time. Not necessarily the way I wanted to do it, but that is the way it turned out. One is my first novel, (the title was changed to Broken Buckets from Holy Buckets in the end) and will only be offered as an eBook and should be ready any day now. Just a few last minute tweaks to formatting are being worked out.
    The other is a project I have been working on for years. At least five years, maybe longer. Considering it contains so little writing it is surprising how very long it took, and how much effort had to go into it. It will be the reproduction of an old poem (not mine) with brand new illustrations. It is meant to appeal to all ages and I think it will. It will have the most appeal to people with a fondness for the Portsmouth, New Hampshire area, but is not at all limited to the region. For that reason though I am publishing it in print as well as electronically.
     Both books will be ready very soon, and I will be marketing both as I continue plugging away at my historical novel. It is an exciting time for a writer when anything you've been working on comes to some kind of fruition. Fruits are just about ready for picking! I will keep you posted.

Blame it on the muse

     Please forgive the lack of blogginess of late. My excuse is a fairly decent one; I've been much too busy working! The historical novel I am working on is coming fast and furious, and I am striving to honor the muse whenever she asks it of me. She's been asking a lot. Believe me, the blog is not the only thing in my life being neglected.
      I did though, take some time a few days ago to hear Nathaniel Philbrick speak to an overcrowded group at my local Barnes and Noble. He is hawking his current book about the siege of Bunker Hill. (Can you believe the price?!) It was really interesting to hear a nonfiction history writer talk about his process which is very much like my own, save the final step of creative interpretation. I bought his book as a Father's Day gift, but want to read it too.
     Also am now very close to the final steps of launching my first novel as an eBook. It has been a lot of work, and I am anxious to get it done. Please stay tuned...

Pretty little things...

     I visited The John Paul Jones house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire a few days ago.

     They were having a special Mother's Day lecture and exhibit and since I was the only one to show up I scored a private session with head curator and house manager Sandra Rux. 

      While I have always found antique clothing made especially for children to be irresistible,  I attended this talk as part of my research for the novel I am currently working on. I need to be able to write intelligently about American clothing in the late eighteenth century. Not just what people wore, but how they made their garments, and I am starting from scratch as I have almost no skill at all as a seamstress. Here are a few pics of the gorgeous little garments I learned about, though the pics do not do them justice;

Both of these were little boy outfits.

The girl who had the pink boots had an entire pink outfit all made to match.

A little Portsmouth girl, probably age four, wore this silk dress, which is darned all the way around the waist.

      I'm having so much fun writing this book!