Old Bones, Old Dreams Now that I am getting older in my bones, I am getting old in my dreams. I have watched John Keats kiss Fanny Brawne in the spring of their lives on my television screen and I pine for younger days. I walk like a crooked stick morning, noon, and night waiting for a burst of energy…
Extended Review: Sonja James
Poems in ‘Cross Country’ Rooted in The Concrete December 26, 2013 By Sonja James – Special to The Journal , journal-news.net “Cross Country: Poems of an Expatriate Southerner” by Douglas M. Tedards (Cranberry Tree Press, 2013, $14.95) In this series of meditative narratives, Tedards reflects on topics as diverse as his childhood in South Carolina, his grandfather, the dreams he…
Extended Review: From Expat Northerner
A Review of Cross Country: Poems of an Expatriate Southerner (Cranberry Tree Press, 2013) Cross Country is a truly grand achievement, one well titled to capture its expansive scope and intimate generosity of insight. The vision embraced in and by these poems is one that gracefully encompasses not only the changing nature of our nation over the course of a…
A Boy’s Barn
It once stood within sight of the foothills to the Blue Ridge Mountains and it comes back to me in dreams. Corn cob fights over bales of straw and lespedeza, with sunlight filtered through weathered slats that barely held to hand-cut cross beams. Pal and I galloping through the front pasture gate, full stride for the big barn door, and…