Blue Heron Review
Welcome to our BHR 16 Spring 2023 issue of Blue Heron Review! We hope you enjoy this themed selection of poems — Sanctuaries & Places of Peace. To read the full selection of poems and view the beautiful, fine art photography included, please go to the BHR 16 page of our website. Take your time, allow yourself to leisurely sip and savor this issue. These poems will surround you with the energy of peaceful afternoons in the forest, time spent with loved ones, and the deep well of calm that exists within. Breathe, read, reflect, repeat. Thank you for joining us for this very special issue!
CONTRIBUTORS:
Poets:
M J Iuppa * John Davis * James Crews * Mary Alice Williams * Michael S Glaser * Kai Coggin * Javi Maria Cain * John M Bellinger * Tad Phippen Wente * Gloria Heffernan * B L Bruce * Beate Sigriddaughter * Jo Taylor * Patricia Nelson * Lisa Romano Licht * Andrea Potos * Kristen Baum DeBeasi * Abha Das Sarma * j lewis * Elizabeth McCarthy * Angela Hoffman * Jeannie E Roberts * Jenna Wysong Filbrun * Kathie Giorgio * Jennifer Dodge * Susan Glassmeyer * Mary Anna Scenga Kruch * Steve Bucher * Ginny Lowe Connors * Kathleen Deyer Bolduc * Helen Bournas-Ney * Penny Harter * Chrissy Stegman * Colleen Keating * Daniel Lanzdorf * Gwyneth Wynn-Davies * Ronnie Hess * Lynne Burnett * Carol Alena Aronoff * Diana Raab * Cheryl Byler Keeler * Patricia Carney * Jan Chronister * Joyce Ritchie * Joan Leotta * Michael Minassian
Artists:
Thomas A Thomas (cover artist) * j lewis (featured artist) * Fiona Capuano * Michael Jeske *
Editor’s Note:
It is with great sadness that I must share the news that we have lost a dear member of our Blue Heron Review family. Professor and poet M J Iuppa passed away last month. M J was a regular contributor to Blue Heron, and she was our featured poet for the month of March 2015. She will be greatly missed by the writing community. In honor of M J’s memory, her poem, “Drink This In,” appears as the first poem in our issue.
Send goodness and light out into our world. This will be our saving grace for tomorrow.
Peace,
Cristina M. R. Norcross, Founding Editor
Blue Heron Review
COLLEEN KEATING
winter days
On the mud-flats near an afternoons silver lake, i stop to watch a red dragon kite
soar with dips and dives on whistling air.
a child again
neck crinked back
carefree
A fisherman and solitary figure on the dunes watch this bird-like thing swirl and whirl.
Purple ribbon tails flutter, tangerine feathers swell, puffed up with air, tugging the string
the woman holds. I hum the Lark Ascending. I ask the woman why she comes each afternoon.
She replies, because looking up makes me feel so much better.
one feather
holds the worrying day
lightly
A Sydney-based, Australian, award-winning poet, Colleen Keating has four poetry collections and two verse novels published. Colleen belongs to several poetry critique groups – U3A poetry, Pennant Hills, Poetry at Writing NSW, and a Haiku group (White Pebbles). Her verse novel, Hildegard of Bingen: A Poetic Journey was double winner for a poetry book and for a non-fiction book in the Society of Women Book Awards in NSW State Library. Her new verse novel, Olive Muriel Pink: her radical and idealistic life, was launched in October 2022 in the Olive Pink Botanic Garden, Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and is being highly acclaimed.