My great granddaughter and I attended our “Mommy and Me” swimming class today. Her mother teaches the class, so I get the honor of playing the mommy role. After an enjoyable class, we went down to the dressing room to shower and dress. When we were on our way up to the stairs, she said “G.G. (great grandmother), I can’t walk up all of these stairs, can you carry me like mommy does?
“Well, I’m getting kind of old, and you are getting kind of big, so I can’t carry you up the stairs, but I can teach you to fly up them”.
Put your arms way up and out to your side, and wave your hands and fingers as fast as you can, now start up the stairs and you’ll see how easy it is. She managed to get up all 9 stairs, and when she got to the top she called out loudly in her two year old voice. “G.G. I did it”. When we got to my daughters home, she told her grandmother that her G.G. taught her how to fly. My daughter said, “What’s next Mom, roller skating?” I’ll think about that.
What sweet memories we can make out of the simplest things . . .
Mary Ann Eils is a retired registered nurse working part time as a nursing instructor. She has been married for sixty years. Mary Ann is a mother of four, grandmother of nine, and great-grandmother of two. She enjoys writing true to life stories with a humorous touch.
It was a cold, snowy February night. I drove home from UWP in tears over the stories I had just heard; stories from women who had faced huge obstacles in life and had tremendous strength within them to overcome. It was overwhelming to hear, and even more overwhelming to realize the power within each one of them at having written those stories down.
On another cold, snowy day in January (let’s face it – this is Wisconsin so there are a lot of cold, snowy days!) I sat at a restaurant by the highway telling a writer the changes I felt she needed in the book she had given me to edit. My comments were not easy to hear, and I wondered how she was taking it all in when she reached across the table, grabbed my hand, and said, “Will you be my therapist?” Continue reading →
Short story, set in New Orleans on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, in which a father takes his teen-age daughter to the Lower Ninth Ward to say goodbye to a classmate who is moving to Wisconsin.
“..It was the anniversary of the disaster. Walter Hobbes was on his way uptown to pick up his daughter, Louise, at Trinity. She had the dentist at four. Then the two of them were going for a hilariously early dinner at the place Louise liked—Papa Andre’s—out on the Chef Highway, a roadhouse on stilts that the flood had missed. Then they were going back to his condo for her homework and a Bill Murray movie. This was New Orleans. It was the anniversary of the disaster. Walter Hobbes was on his…”
RG Productions isn’t your average theater group. They perform original radio plays that take audience members back to a time when the radio was the center of every home. Nita Hunter, Founder and Executive Producer of RG Productions invited Expose Kenosha to watch a rehearsal and speak to the cast of Sherlock Holmes.
Upon entering the auditorium where rehearsal for would shortly commence, we were greeted by actor Jan Michalski, who lifted up his shirt. “I thought this is what you meant by Expose Kenosha,” he quipped. Yeah, we get that sometimes.
Francisco and I milled about through the crowd, speaking with those who were not performing.
Sometimes the hardest part of anything is taking the first step, and knowing which direction is right for us to go. Finding guidance to unveil our dreams, passions, talents, and enthusiasm, can be your first step to revealing the author within.
Literary women and men are growing up, thanks to Marie Boyum and her talented, effervescent staff of educated, well-published writers and authors– but don’t be scared off because they will ignite, guide and inform the budding, and seasoned writer on their journey. Be it for personal satisfaction, publication goals, spiritual enlightenment or personal issues to better the world, with being published a first or secondary goal, you are the one to decide, The Eloquent Author will assist.
I had the opportunity to interview Marie. I invite all who are or want to be writers, to partake of this literary feast.
Quite frankly, a meeting between two writers can last a very long time – about three hours non-stop to be exact. I will therefore try to spare you the long, technical discussions and report only on that which will interest my fellow Kenoshans! Actually, scratch that – it’s all fascinating so I’ll tell you everything!!
Don’t tell him that folk music is dead. Saying folk music is dead “is like saying people are dead. Nowadays if you’re washing dishes or mowing the lawn you might listen to and iPod, but when I was a kid we didn’t have that stuff. We had radio; we didn’t have television. We would sing while we were doing that stuff. In African culture everybody sings whatever work they’re doing. The work is lighter when you sing,” says David.
DHBD comes from a strong family tradition of music. His grandmother was a part of the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee. On Friday nights he would go with his brother and parents to a local bar for a fish fry. The boys would sit in a corner and watch as their parents danced. Their father sometimes played the accordion. Brought up during the John Wayne-era of real men don’t sing and dance, DHBD was raised to believe “Music is okay. Poetry is okay. Dancing is okay.” His family used to sing together at night. He remembers the first record they got was Harry Belafonte’s Christmas album.
Click the arrow to listen to Nick Demske’s performance
COMMON SENSE
I didn’t think it was loaded. But it was a kn
Ife. So we’re both right. I foresee
Blinding enlightenment. I beat these children like the deadest of horsies.
The people cheer at their victory. Peasants dan
Cing in gutters, commoners singing like so many
Semi-trucks breaking. This is the ultra-vulgarity to those who make
The definitions. This is cops getting shot in abnormally
Broad daylight. I will make me beautiful if it takes
Uglying everything else; a reflect
Ion so unfamiliar you feel impolite confronting it. I am the awestruck lex
Icographers, staring back into a nightingale. I will beat these
Precious children back to life. Fuck me, shit me.
Remind me what it’s like to be offended, Nick Demske.
Ah. Already with thee.
Nick Demske is a poet living in downtown Racine, Wisconsin, above Wilbur’s Barbeque, with his girlfriend, Angela Malone. He is a Creative Writing graduate of Carthage College (May ‘06) and a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School (Nov. ‘06), a program that involved 3 months of living outdoors in the Rocky Mountain wilderness. Currently, Nick is working on two manuscripts: a self-portrait sonnet sequence called “Self-titled” and a manuscript based on a character he created called “Otis Henry.” Or did Otis Henry create him?
Nick works at the Racine Public Library and is working to start several programs through it, including a youth workshop analyzing social justice through poetry and a contemporary poetry discussion group in collaboration with JavaVino, a local wine and coffee shop.
If you see Nick about town, feel free to request an impromtu poetry reading (We did). He typically only responds when called “Nicki-poo.”
Each month at the Nook in downtown Kenosha women writers are gathering to share their stories, work on assignments, and learn more about writing. In the dark Kenosha evenings, they sit around tables with cups of warm coffee and tea and read aloud the pieces they wrote during the previous month. Constructive comments are offered, discussions ensue, and then it’s on to more writing – some spontaneous and some given through assignments. The women come from various backgrounds, educations, careers, and writing abilities. Some are there with the plans of becoming serious writers, some because they just love to write. All have the common goal of supporting one another in writing and continuing to practice their craft.
Colleen Kappeler leads these groups as she has several others in the Kenosha and Racine areas in the past four years. Her goal, as always, is to encourage the women to write and to see their own particular talents in the craft. She offers constructive critiques for the writers, helping them to see where their strengths lie and where they need more attention in their writing. And then she keeps them writing with free-writes (done spontaneously) and monthly assignments, as well as a yahoo group she’s created for the circles’ writers to communicate with each other during the month.
The circles run the first Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. and the first Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m. (January’s circles will be the second week due to the holidays.) The cost to attend is $10 which includes the workshop, a drink, and a snack provided by the Nook. Both nights contain the same material. If you would like to attend a circle, or have other questions, please contact Colleen by visiting www.colleenkappeler.com or by phone at 359-0712.
Through a collaboration between the Racine Public Library and Racine’s Java Vino wine and coffee shop, the Racine Public Library brings “Poetry Roundtables.” This new program invites the public for discussions of contemporary American poetry at Java Vino, once a month. The events are free and the setting will be conducive to a group of individuals with varied levels of experience with poetry. Each month will focus on a new contemporary American poet. Participants will read excerpts from a poet’s work together, analyze it, and discuss what significance it has in today’s society.
To supplement this program, the Racine Public Library’s internet website is providing a page with links pertaining to each author that include poetry, interviews and criticisms, among other resources.
This month we will focus on the works of Poet Ben Lerner and the event will be taking place on THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH from 7-9pm. Continue reading →
Each month at the Nook in downtown Kenosha women writers are gathering to share their stories, work on assignments, and learn more about writing. In the dark Kenosha evenings, they sit around tables with cups of warm coffee and tea and read aloud the pieces they wrote during the previous month. Constructive comments are offered, discussions ensue, and then it’s on to more writing – some spontaneous and some given through assignments. The women come from various backgrounds, educations, careers, and writing abilities. Some are there with the plans of becoming serious writers, some because they just love to write. All have the common goal of supporting one another in writing and continuing to practice their craft.
Through a collaboration between the 
