Category: My Poetry

My Poetry, New Orleans, Photography, Poetry3 Comments

Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 2

Charlotte Hamrick

 Photo by Infrogmation In rememberance of lives lost and lives forever changed due to the Federal levee breach in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’ll be posting poems and short essays I’ve written over the past 10 years through August 29. Never forget. Birdless We watched for the return of the birds. The air around the house was silent and devoid of flutterings, a vacuum of tweets and whistles. What stragglingh flowers were left went hummingbirdless while twigs and string were just twigs and string with no hope of sheltering featherless offspring. It was strangely quiet, as though … Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 2

My Poetry, New Orleans, PoetryLeave a comment

Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 1

Charlotte Hamrick

Photo by Infrogmation In rememberance of lives lost and lives forever changed due to the Federal levee breach in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’ll be posting poems and short essays I’ve written over the past 10 years through August 29. Never forget. ***** Disparity In that house red beans & rice cooked every Monday for four generations until the water washed it away. It floated down Forgotten Street, clapboards splintering like frail old bones in the jaws of the beast. The land where it stood’s going on five years empty now, sacred ground bleached with the salt … Continue reading Seven Days of Rememberance: Day 1

My Poetry4 Comments

Mamma and Granny

Charlotte Hamrick

I’ve written many poems about my mother in the past few years but they’re all about her time in ICU before she died in 2012. It was a sorrowful, stressful time and I tend to write more when I’m melancholy. I was looking through them to find one to post today for Mothers Day but they’re all sad except for this one. It’s short (my preferred form) but it refers to a basic truth that I only recognized after her death. Dowser   You were the divining rod of my life long before I even knew you, when I was … Continue reading Mamma and Granny

My Poetry, Photography6 Comments

New Poetry in CPR

Charlotte Hamrick

I Big thanks to Barry Basden and Camroc Press Review for publishing four of my poems. I’m honored to be a part of this respected journal, especially since this is the last year CPR will be in publication. Please do go over there and enjoy the fine work in it’s pages while you can! The photo is of the courtyard at Tableau. I spent yesterday afternoon in the French Quarter with my friend, Sandy, where we attended the one-woman play “The Waltz by Dorothy Parker” and meandered around taking photos. It was a great day with beautiful, balmy, sunny weather … Continue reading New Poetry in CPR

About Writing, My Poetry, NaPoMo 2015, Poetry11 Comments

The Dotted Line

Charlotte Hamrick

Yep. I’ve signed on it, virtually speaking. And now I’m getting the jitters and doubts and semi-regrets because, as much as it pains me to say it, I’m not a joiner.  But recently I’ve agreed to do several things, join things, show up, participate, chime in, stretch. The closer the start time gets, the more I think about pulling out and so I’m trying really hard to convince myself that I can do these things, that I just have to organize and structure my time effectively. April 1 is the beginning of National Poetry Month (NaPoMo) and I’ve signed up … Continue reading The Dotted Line

Morning Meditation, My Poetry, New Orleans4 Comments

Morning Meditation: Moments

Charlotte Hamrick

Where do those moments go, the ones where you feel perfectly content, like your place in the world is perfect and guaranteed and you are where you’re meant to be? They appear so unexpectedly: looking out the window at the kitchen sink as you pour your second cup of coffee, beneath the old magnolia with your hands in the dirt, on the ferry landing at the clang of the streetcar and the river breeze in your face. The sun shines on your head and you feel it’s soothing warmth traveling to the ends of every nerve in your body, a … Continue reading Morning Meditation: Moments

My Poetry, Poetry2 Comments

Live Luscious

Charlotte Hamrick

I always chop the olives by hand. I like a rough chop that says someone still cares about the preparation of food instead of settling for little identically square bits popped out by a steel thing attached to a cord that gives it life. The knife and I give new life to these olives; messy, uneven life such as it is. The earthy texture of the black and the pungency of the green will soon mix with onion, pimento and the special piquant of a home-canned Gardiniera. Aaron Neville croons “Tell It Like It Is” in my ear as I … Continue reading Live Luscious