"Coming Home to the Valley"

The community poem at Art on Cullers Run is a tradition. This is our fifth year, a milestone. 

I am the weaver, not the author, threading individual bits of writing into a whole. What one person writes offers a different meaning when it's joined to someone else's phrase. And seemingly random thoughts/images end up perfectly suited to the final piece. 

Here's our 2024 arts festival community poem:

Coming Home to the Valley

 

Nomads wandering country roads. 

Floating seeds ride summer breezes. 

Buzz of insects… lilt of laughter. The art

of connections. The “hi” way up gravel 

 

roads to poets and porches, panting pups 

lapping water, shadows on sweltering grass. 

Warm air lazily lazing. I’m a poet but 

have control issues, moving incrementally 

 

as the sun moves across the sky. Bee 

breath in heavy air. Dancing with creativity… 

getting lost in shadows of moon, fireflies 

glowing the quietness. Their silent song. 

 

Blood-red barns born from slices of sunrise, 

band sanders and belt saws, sweat. 

Holes in the sky between clouds steal 

some art. And the woodpecker came home 

 

with us. I refresh with the balm of beauty,

admiring art in the shade. Reminding 

me how I love boxes… filling the void. 

Say what you will, I did my best. 

 

Burgeoning clouds take me home. 

Lightness of a breeze, a kind soul, relief. 

Time exiled to savor the moment. Art brings 

the world together. Again and again.

 

~voices of visitors to the poetry tent, Art on Cullers Run 2024

(assembled by poet-in-residence Charise M. Hoge)

Thank you to all the contributors! 

“Full Stop”

Thanks to Beyond Words Literary Magazine for publishing my poem “Full Stop” on the first page of their summer print issue. Here’s a look, complete with artwork: 

Cheers,
Charise

"Outsider"

     Outsider

 

    The fly at dinner has one wing––

    it cannot leave or lift.

    Instinct for flight ingrained

    ––in fits and starts––hops and stumbles.

 

    Privy to the chokehold of life, the zing,

    these hands––prone to swat or shoo–– 

    chauffeur the fly out––whence it came.

    Instinct to care for a hapless thing. 

    ~LCMH

Appalachian Mountain Hug

We're getting ready for the next Art on Cullers Run event in Mathias, WVA! 

This will be my fifth year joining as poet-in-residence. We've had a community-generated poem by visitors to my tent on each occasion, and it's a highlight of the year for me. Poetry as a patchwork quilt, you could say, where I'm the seamstress putting together other people's phrases thematically. This can't be done virtually––the in-person experience of the event, the location, the arts, and conversation becomes the "fabric" of a poem. 

"Art on Cullers Run 2024," surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains, is about a two hour drive from Washington, DC. See you there?  

Cheers,
Charise

Dance Portrait

I met my dance portrait in an art gallery. What a humbling, delightful encounter! The photographer is Jeff Malet, and his art exhibit “Fiesta Asia through the eyes of Jeff Malet” is on display at The Ven Embassy Row, Washington, DC. 

Coincidentally, I’ll be on stage again Dancing to Ancient Rhythms for Fiesta Asia 2024, June 1. All performances are outdoors near the Capitol, free to the public. Enjoy the arts… here, there, wherever you are. 

Cheers,

Charise 

May Means Manhattan Reading

The annual Kelsay Books poetry reading is happening at The Parkside Lounge on May 18. When you hear a poem in the voice of the poet, it takes on a certain magic. There's the difference between how the words live on the page, and how they move into the air, in an acoustic space. 

If you're in the area, stop by! Each Kelsay book author reads two poems in a lovely rotation of voice and approach. 

 

Last year I chose the first and the last poem of Muse in a Suitcase. It may be time to turn to the middle.

 

Cheers,
Charise

April is for Poetry

Happy National Poetry Month! This is a reminder to read a poem here and there... wherever you find one, in whatever voice speaks to you. 

This year the one I'm sharing is by Forugh Farrokhzad, a Persian poet who wrote in the 1950s & 60s. On the left of this photo capture is her original, on the right is an English translation. 

Enjoy finding poetry everywhere.

Cheers,
Charise