Encore

 Can there be too much of a good, poetic, thing? 

The Capitol Hill Poetry Group will be reading from our new collected work, The Other Side of the Hill, at the Hill Center (yes, all these hills converge) on November 2. The Hill Center is located at the former site of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where, ironically, my husband worked until it closed. We offer different medicine... through poems. 

"Readings and Refreshments" November 2, 5:00-7:00 pm, 921 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Washington, DC

The arts in DC are alive and well and getting work done! 

Cheers,
Charise

On the Spot

The marvelous and greatly entertaining Grace Cavalieri emceed our event (look her up!), and put each poet on the spot with her personalized questions. 

Grace: " How does being a dancer help you write poetry? "

Charise: " Ah, that could be a book. There's the movement of the poem, how the poem moves... how it takes shape, and even how it's spaced on the page. 

There's also something ineffable about both of these arts, and that's where they meet." 

Celebrating Fifty years of the Capitol Hill Poetry Group

Feels like you were there, right?

Cheers,
Charise

Capitol Hill Poetry Group 50th Anniversary

There are other things going on in Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, besides politics. This is the home of the Capitol Hill Poetry Group, since 1975. Fifty years strong! I was invited to be a member in 2017, and this group is instrumental to my craft of poetry. Come listen to us read from our newly published anthology The Other Side of the Hill at DC's iconic Politics and Prose bookstore on October 12. Enjoy a good dose of poetic artistry live and in-person. 

Here's what you need to know: 

https://politics-prose.com/capitol-hill-poetry-101225

Cheers,
Charise

Get Me to the Forest on Time

In this case, the forest is the "church," and the occasion is my eldest daughter's wedding. 

I leave you with glistening aspens and the call to the woods, wherever and whenever you can. Seek out the restorative... autumn is just around the corner. 

Cheers,
Charise

No Place Like...

No Place Like Decorum

 

I’d like to live in a magazine

for a spell… to laze beneath high ceilings,  

            sink into overstuffed cushions, 

 

 

admire a variety of whatnots. 

Footstool here, taper candle there. 

Chair wearing its throw like a pashmina. 

 

Colors that contrast, disparate art.

All is in accord.

Behind the décor is a good eye…

 

beholder who makes a place 

inviting, sets the moon cactus in a chipped

cup, believes that fine china has character. 

 

 

 

 

 ~CMH

 

Not the Usual Bent

When David Lehman offers a poetry prompt for his column "Next Line, Please" of The American Scholar, try your hand! Of course, the latest column is titled "Dead Man's Hand," but have no fear, this is all in fun... serious fun (more on that descriptor another time). Seriously, I would not have written my poem "Theatrics" in response to a Botticelli painting without prompting. I doubt my poem would have gone in the direction it did without this writing community and its esprit de corps. Here's a link to the most recent column, where you'll find "Theatrics" and other wonderful poems generated by "Next Line, Please": 

https://theamericanscholar.org/dead-mans-hand/

Cheers,
Charise

The Marvelous Life of a Bookseller

When all goes well, poems become books and poets become booksellers. It's the oddest thing, to write alone and share widely. But art is made to speak. And the voice of that expression doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's in the context of this chaotic, exhilarating, faltering, sweet slice of life we've been given. 

Thank you to all who visited the poetry porch at
"Art On Cullers Run" in West Virginia and all who joined me for "Poetry & Sound" in Maryland. A deep bow to you. 

Cheers,

Charise