I’m pleased to share that my tanka, “Over the River to Grandmother’s House We Go,” has been published in the July 2022 issue of First Literary Review-East. Like “Candia, New Hampshire, 1926: Velma,” this poem was published without its companion piece: Our Other Grandmother who is this person never leaves her chair black maid welcomes […]
#tanka publication: “Over the River to Grandmother’s House We Go” — Elizabeth Gauffreau
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Looks like lots of fun!
Here is my pictorial of the Mary Poppins Festival 2022 in Maryborough, Queensland, where Helen Lyndon Goff (better known as Pamela Lyndon Travers) grew up with no inkling of her wonderful life ahead as an author and creator of a children’s literary icon.
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https://thoughtsbecomewords.com/2022/07/09/mary-poppins-and-five-years-of-blogging/
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I love hearing about how a story goes from 1st thought to end product – so inspiring, Meg…
In my last post, I referred to “the glorious rubble” that was the process of excavating and clearing out my childhood home. And that, on account of me being me, that rubble fed inevitably into the creative well, setting all sorts of things in motion.
Today, I want to talk about the first of those things, which has turned into a gorgeous little picture book called Ella and the Useless Day. As is the case for a lot of my work, this is something I started working on many years ago, which has had a long and bumpy ride to publication. When I first wrote Ella, back in 2005, it was the story of a little girl and her father who have a big cleanout and take all the useless things they don’t want any more to the local tip. There, where the bulk of the story’s action…
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Received my copy today and absolutely loved “Ella and the Useless Day”! I know my grandie will too. I am taking it to him next week. Thank you, Meg and well done, yet again!
Firstly, thank you: for your kind and enthusiastic and kindly enthusiastic responses to my last post. I am particularly heartened that people seem to like my scribbled poetry notes. These little fragments are where I feel most at home creatively and I look forward to rambling about them at length in the future.
For now, though, I’ve been thinking about the long, slow process of cleaning out my childhood home, which took place over the last couple of years – firstly in a big, focused burst, and then in dribs and drabs and trickles and whimpers. It was full of sadness and joy and reminiscence and teeth-grinding and head-shaking and many more things besides. We moved around a lot in the first few years of my life and I have blurry memories of that time, but the year I turned five, my parents bought the one and only house they…
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Once again I am inspired by my brother’s wonderful close-up photography…
HAIKU: To a Raven… Mr. Raven, why the frown? The sun is shining... What have you found? Frances Macaulay Forde © 2022
#Insta-Inspires:Haiku:ToARaven #ozbushbytes #WABirdlife #Inspiration #Instagram #Poetry #POETRY:Haiku #WestAustralianBirds #NatureInspires #HaikuPoems
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My brother Paddy has started sharing his wonderful photography and video of West Australian Birdlife via an Instagram account which I find very inspiring.
Haiku: Dance Pink-Eared ducks dance their cycle of life, dinner table drill. Frances Macaulay Forde © 2022
#Insta-Inspires:DanceHaiku #ozbushbytes #WABirdlife #Inspiration #Instagram #Poetry #POETRY:Haiku #WestAustralianBirds #NatureInspires #HaikuPoems
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Thanks to the Instagram image Rose Van Son posted this morning:
FOREST HAIKU Red stalks, black bark. Rain greens after burning. Forest life returns. Frances Macaulay Forde © 2022
#Insta-Inspires:ForestHaiku #RoseVanSon #LocalPoets #WAWriters #Inspiration #Instagram #Poetry #POETRY:Haiku #RainAfterFire #ForestRenews #HaikuPoems
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Just shared this post on Instagram:
Whilst rediscovering a lost love in Ireland, I spent 14 months absorbing inspiration, in the cradle of storytelling. I am currently working on putting some impressions into a small chapbook.
Irish Midsummer The young hare on country roads, blurred speed, dancing with danger. Ears flat back along, legs pumping, stretched out in thumping rhythm. Teenagers vogue among foxgloves, buttercups, daisies… Identify fatal perfumes inviting the innocent, unwary sniffer to twitch inquisitive noses roadside. Sudden glare of spotlights freeze-framed, seconds star struck - THWACK! Her body flies up, stops. Legs loosely flap - fold. Here lies… with body stilled, knees crossed like a lady… Frances Macaulay Forde © 2003
#POEM:IrishMidsummer #FrancesMacaulayForde #BOOK:SketchingInIreland #IrishPoems
#Nature
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From the WWF post on Biodiversity Day, I would like to focus on No 1 of Australia’s five Most Valuable Players (MVPs), Ecologically speaking:
QUOTE: ‘While people might overlook the dirt beneath their feet, the health of soil plays an enormous role in the overall success of the ecosystem. Soil regulates water, cycles minerals and nutrients, and filters out potential pollutants and threats to plants and animals (including humans!). From supporting nesting burrows for wombats, frogs and many more species to hundred-year-old tree roots, healthy soil = healthy habitat!’ :UNQUOTE
This poem was first published (January, 2008) in the ‘Lines in the Sand’ anthology from Fellowship of Australia Writers, WA. I was also invited to read the poem at the launch of John Kinsella‘s book: ‘Shades of the Sublime & the Beautiful‘ on 29th April 2008, at UWA Bookshop.
desertification before cultivation the water flowed bouncing on leaves, falling, falling to pool on fertile forest floor below before cultivation the water flowed flora bursting with life and clean air jostling for sunspace canopy flirting before cultivation the water flowed we didn’t listen as we ploughed clearing tree roots to feed fields before cultivation the water flowed now encrusted salt lusts after land no sweetness here just bitter dry sand Frances Macaulay Forde © 2007 Reading the poem
#BiodiversityDay #MVP#1Soil #POEM:Dessertification #FrancesMacaulayForde #ClimateAustralia #ClimateLove
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Like millions, I sat and watched the Windsor Celebrations on TV and felt - like my parents would have been, very proud to celebrate Our Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Such a perfect performances of horsemanship, precision marching and bands, drummers and dancers. All the pageantry I love: Army/Navy/Air Force bands, bagpipers, galloping horses, Scottish, Irish, Bollywood dancers, orchestral music, steel band and drama. The only negative (for me) was Tom Cruise? He certainly managed the most amazing PR for his latest movie. I am baffled; why was an American actor given first billing over and above higher-achieving British performers? I thought it was a celebration of Our Queen and the Commonwealth? Did the Queen really choose to include him? Counting sleep… I have so many Pinterest boards, they overwhelm me… but it’s necessary I check them every night before sleep. Gazing at the beautiful photos calms me, prepares me for rest. It’s a mystery – drives hubby mad as I consider for hours… glittering jewels, intricate designs, glamourous clothes. Royal fashion icons addictively inspire imagination. A girly thing, I know, which by now, I should have outgrown… Then last night’s epiphany! I don’t actually want jewels, gorgeous gowns… travel to exotic places, adoration. It’s something else entirely. Lingering over pictures of our Queen examining her dress… Remembering my mother similarly draped, often in home made. I need that royal smile or frown knowing her royal age, limited time left to vicariously exist… believe I’ve not lost someone I love and still miss. Frances Macaulay Forde © 2018
#QueenElizabethII #GallupThroughHistory #ProudToBeBritish #ScottishCountryDancers #AcrobatRiders #PrecisionDrummers #Bagpipers #TrinidadSteelBand #BollywoodDancers #IrishDancers #FrancesMacaulayForde #POEM:CountingSleep #LostLovedOnes #Missing Mum
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