6th Jan...Poetry Chronicles

a.k.a. "the Yellow Book" - Happy 2025 - WAHOO!!

Jan 06, 2025

So delighted to welcome YOU with poetry into the new year! It’s with great joy and relief that I’ve submitted my third collection of poetry to my printer…Poems For My People: Community, Volume 3 has ACTUALLY been published.

It’s been an unexpectedly long-time coming…since I thought it’d be out a whole year ago. As one of my writing friends often reminds me, writing takes as long as it needs.

But, I’m pleased to say that it’s finally here (!!!) and available to purchase online via other online bookshops as ebook and hardcover as of: November 30, 2024.

It was just a few weeks back that I officially ordered my own personal copies, and it was thrilling. I cried real tears of joy, relief, excitement when the order processed.

If you want a signed-by-me-the-author copy, buy my book here. :) Otherwise it’s available via online bookshops—or, ask your local independent bookstore to order you a copy!

Here's a photo with my personal typewriter poet view whenever I’ve been out poetry busking at Yellow Bike Coffee in Duluth, Minnesota.

Visit them at:
4411 Venture Avenue (near the airport)
Duluth, MN 55811
U.S.A.

or

600 E Superior Street (in Fitger’s)
Duluth, MN 55802
U.S.A.

Find out more about Yellow Bike Coffee joy on their website here:
https://www.yellowbike.coffee/.

Oh, and if you weren’t sure why I call it “the yellow book” it’s because it’s the third in a series of Poems For My People. I’m creating a rainbow of a collection—because I thought it’d look amazing on your bookshelf!

As a celebration to share with you that Poems For My People: Community, Volume 3 is (wahoo!!) finally out…here’s a mini-essay, a “Coffee Chat…” Just pretend like we’re sat in a coffee shop together (like Yellow Bike in Duluth) and we’re having a chat about why I’m sat there with my typewriter.

Here’s… “Feeling Prayerful.” Enjoy!

Why do you pray before you write?

My faith has been at the core of who I am for decades. And, especially as an artist, I want to honor God with this offering. Sometimes it feels like a bit of a crappy offering and other times it feels like I have something good to bring. For me, and I suppose it’s this way for a bunch of artists, but it’s easy to get wrapped up in performance and base my value as an artist, as a human, on the quantity and quality of poems I produce.

But really the only thing that is in the realm of my control is that I show up. And so part of praying is an opening of myself, a getting over myself, a reminding myself to just breathe, trust the process, listen well, be patience, remember who I am, remember whose I am…Normally I write notes and a draft in my notebook before I commit it to the typewriter, but when I pray, I just breathe my thoughts through click-clacking on the page. It sets the tone for me…and the sound primes the pump with intrigue for potential poem recipients….

Yellow Bike Coffee has been hosting me as Typewriter-Poet-in-Residence for two years and has made space for the writing of poems in each of the red, orange, and now, yellow collections, Poems For My People: Community, Volumes 1, 2, and 3. I’ve written and shared a couple hundred poems with Duluthians and visitors alike who have strode through Yellow Bike Coffee’s doors.

The impression Shannon, her team, and their beans have left on me is deeper than a coffee stain, more beautiful than a perfectly poured cup of latte art, more invigorating than a shot of pure espresso…and, it is so much fun!

I hope and pray you experience some of this in the pages of Poems For My People: Community, Volume 3. It truly is a special collection.

An Invitation to Peace

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