I’m with Sally at Smorgasbord Blog Magazine today. Sally features my post about the legend and traditions of Chinese New Year. I learned a lot by preparing this post. It brought back many childhood memories. Please head over to visit Sally and her rich features on her blog.
Since this series began in January 2018 there have been over 1100 Posts from Your Archives where bloggers have taken the opportunity to share posts to a new audience… mine.
The topics have ranged from travel, childhood, recipes, history, family and the most recent series was #PotLuck where I shared a random selection of different topics. This series is along the same lines… but is a ‘Lucky Dip’
In this series I will be sharing posts from the first six months of 2021 – details of how you can participate are at the end of the post.
This is the first post from children’s author and poet Miriam Hurdle and was published in February 2021 and is a celebration of Chinese New Year.
Chinese New Year – Memories, Calendar, Legend, and Traditions
Chinese New Year begins on Friday, February 12, 2021. It is the year of Ox. The holiday was…
It’s an exciting day today to share the goodnews with you about my friend, Elizabeth Gauffreau’s new release GriefSongs: Poems of Love & Remembrance.
About the Book
Blurb
“Poetry readers willing to walk the road of grief and family connections will find Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance a psychological treasure trove. It’s a very accessible poetic tribute that brings with it something to hold onto–the memories and foundations of past family joys, large and small.” ~Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review
“Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance is a passionate ode to loved ones lost and an intimate portrayal of one family’s shared grief. It holds the key to solace in home photographs and illustrates just how special our singular moments can be. ~Toni Woodruff, Independent Book Review
“A beautiful, personal collection of family photos and poems that express the author’s most inner feelings. Nostalgic and heartfelt, Gauffreau’s poems are written in the Japanese style of tanka, simple, thoughtful, and full of love. Filled with wonderful memories of the past.” ~Kristi Elizabeth, Manhattan Book Review
My Review
Grief Songs: Poems of Love and Remembrance is a poetry collection written in Tanka form. After her mother passed away, Elizabeth Gauffreau cleaned up the “forbidden rooms” and found the “hidden photographs.” These are the photographs of the author and her father, mother, and brother George.
Grieving is a personal process that can last for any length of time. The memories of the loved ones could be fleeting or lingering moments, and the emotion of grieving could be of the surface or intensely deep.
In Grief Songs, the photos brought back the intensity of the precious memories to the author. Elizabeth expressed her grief in poetry. She paired the poems with each photo included in this collection.
One poem was about the author’s mother took her and George to the vaccination. Their mother gave the kids a treat of root beer floats for being good for the occasion. By the way, root beer is a soda, not a beer with alcohol! Another fun poem was about a youth group picnic when the author and her brother waited for their dad in the car after the picnic. Apparently, their dad didn’t come right away. They pressed the honk for so long that when their dad finally came back; the battery was dead. I loved the poem and the photo with Elizabeth and George sitting on their father’s lap for reading time as a nightly ritual. The lines were, “Waiting until your father gets home, not a threat but a promise.”
There were poems about Elizabeth as a kid for the first sacrament, confirmation, and baptism. What precious memories as she could see the history from the beginning of her life when father and mother holding her in their arms that led to her present life.
Family time such as clam bake at the beach and the family reunion always flashed back fond memories that ache the heart yet bring smiles on the face. The dying takes away a part of the ones left behind yet leaves them something sweet and long-lasting.
The poetry is a short read, yet the emotion of joy and sorrow lingers long after I put down the book. Highly recommended
Elizabeth Gauffreau writes fiction and poetry with a strong connection to family and place. She holds a B.A. in English from Old Dominion University and an M.A. in English/Fiction Writing from the University of New Hampshire. She is currently the Assistant Dean of Curriculum & Assessment for Champlain College Online, where she is an Associate Professor. Her fiction and poetry have been published in literary magazines and several themed anthologies. Her debut novel, Telling Sonny, was published by Adelaide Books in 2018. Liz lives in Nottingham, New Hampshire with her husband.
This week Tina of the Lens Artists team invites us to join them in exploring places and things that have “seen better days”. I’ll explain the reason I close the photos for this theme.
My husband, Lynton, is a helicopter pilot. During our travel, we often visited the military aircraft museums, submarines, and battleships. He wanted to be in the military to defend this country, but he was in the middle of his schooling and missed the opportunities. He has family members who were in the services for many years, but I’ll stay on track to do this post.
When we went to Arizona one year, we visited the Luke Air Force Base Airpark. The aircraft had their glorious and courageous days to defend this country or assist other countries. I took many photos of the aircraft displayed and included these four in this post. They proudly retired. Their appearance reminds us of the price the heroes paid for our freedom.
“Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it… it flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it.” – Unknown
Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish an air superiority in the battle space. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield permits bombers and attack aircraft to engage in tactical and strategic bombing of enemy targets.
The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft. The USAF has operated the C-5 since 1969. At that time, the air lifter supported US military operations in all major conflicts, including Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, as well as allied support, such as Israel during the Yom Kippur War and operations in the Gulf War. The Galaxy has also distributed humanitarian aid, provided disaster relief, and supported the US space program.
The C-130H performs the tactical portion of the airlift mission and can carry out a diverse number of roles, including airlift support, Antarctic ice resupply, aeromedical missions, weather reconnaissance, aerial spray missions, firefighting duties, and natural disaster relief missions.
I’m not an aircraft expert and can’t identify this fighter aircraft. It looks like this is a single seat F-16 fighting falcon. I know there are experts and retired military heroes out there. You could help me identify this one.
Air Force Rescue helicopter can be deployed in casualty evacuation, medical evacuation, non-combatant evacuation missions, civil search-and-rescue, humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and insertion or extraction of combat forces.
In Boston, we took photos of the USS Constitution and toured the warship USS Casson Young.
“Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.” – Abraham Lincoln
The greatest glory for Constitution came during the War of 1812. Constitution’s crew defeated four British frigates during three separate engagements. She earned the nickname “Old Ironsides” because the cannon fire from enemy ships seemed as if they couldn’t penetrate her strong oak hull.
Built for speed and capability, USS Cassin Young engaged in seven Pacific battles in World War II, survived two Kamikaze hits, and served another full decade beyond her expected lifetime. Built in 1943 in San Pedro, California, she is one of 175 Fletcher-class destroyers built during World War II.
When we were in Australia, we visited The Australian National Maritime Museum and toured the destroyer HMAS Vampire, and the submarine HMAS Onslow.
“The sanctity of our battlefields, monuments, and veteran’s institutions is of utmost importance to preserve military history and pay respect to those who fought.” – Henry Waxman
HMAS Vampire was the third of three Australian-built destroyers serving in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). One of the all-welded ships built in Australia.
The submarine Onslow was laid down at the end of 1967 by Scott Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Scotland, launched almost a year later, and commissioned into the RAN at the end of 1969.
“On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., killing everyone on board and hundreds of people inside the building. It was initially viewed as an accident until, just a little over 15 minutes later at 9:03 a.m., hijackers crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower, killing those on board and several hundred inside the edifice.” – Newsweek
The school superintendent came to our office a few minutes before 9:00 a.m. as part of his routine visit on that day. Someone called our attention and we turned on the TV in the meeting room. No word could describe the horror we felt within the first half an hour of the crash. It was a day I would never forget.
The following Sunday as friends got together at a meeting, a couple who worked for Morgan Stanley shared that a few days before the attack, they were at the Headquarter on the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The wife remembered looking out at the surrounding buildings from the floor to ceiling windows. As she shared, she was shaken with tears in disbelief of what had taken place.
No matter how you choose to reflect on this day, images of what happened on 9/11 will forever serve as a reminder of the resilience we had—and still have—as a nation in the face of tragedy. As the world continues to change, the suffering and strength of that day will always remain a part of us.
A beautiful tribute to Sue Vincent from Jim Webster. Thank you, Jim, for speaking for all of us and let Sue know what you were doing before her passing. She held all our love and appreciation with her.
Sue lived a courageous life. She was still writing when her legs were too weak to stand up. She showed us to be true to ourselves and be vulnerable. She didn’t complain about her dying but continued to value her living.
Sue, you lived a life greater than life itself. We all missed you tremendously and we’re thankful for the precious words you left behind!
There are times when a poet must make a stand and say, “This has happened without my cognisance and I will not accept it!” Today has not been the best of days. Today I got a note from a patron. Common enough, especially from her, as she was always quick to praise, swift to encourage. But today the note had a bitter flavour. She was sitting awaiting death. A week? Longer?
And what can a poet do? A poet can protest, a poet can stand tall and say firmly that this will not do. A poet can bang the table with his wine glass obvious of the fact it has shattered and the pieces lie glistening but incoherent, shards of dreams never now to be dreamt.
Others have known Sue for longer than I, others will doubtless feel the grief more keenly, will mourn longer, but my job as a…
The Showers of Blessings 