Courtney Gant's "Why Creativity?" after hannah grace

WHY CREATIVITY?

by Courtney Gant

after Don’t Forget To Dream by hannah grace

Because my feelings are

As a river

Flowing through and through

Because my life is parchment

And my soul is the quill,

Dripping in ink

Because my mind is

Words, words,

Oh, so many words

Because my aspirations

Lie within the very craft

Of a word, a note, a stroke

Because I am

A communicative being

And those surrounding me are as well

Because I connect

With others through things

Opposite from the superficial

Ask me, “why creativity?”

And I’ll say,

Because it is me.

Doug McHargue's "Blackberry Nation" after Laura Crooks

Doug McHargue photographed at the July 13, 2019 tour of Alexander County Library and FOUND: The Art of Community exhibit curated by Miranda Burgin. The photograph that inspired her work was taken by library director, Laura Crooks.

BLACKBERRY NATION

by Doug McHargue

after One for Solitude by Laura Crooks

Blackberries in the foreground, they are wild,

ready to swallow the chair.

In the grocery, they lie fat and indolent,

anemic hothouse plastic.

At the river they grew all over

and I picked two gallons

in a morning, smaller but real

and wicked little tarts, lost.

Now my fog eyes think vines

are city skylines, blackberries

inching their way up concrete, steel,

crawling up from the river

where they were stepped on,

chainsawed, bulldozed,

a blackberry nation rising,

then fruit raining

into the river, Catawba running

with its secret pouring

into a front yard near you.

Ann Chandonnet's "Wet Clover" after Eric Schumacher

Artist Eric Schumacher joined the tour of FOUND - Art of Community at Alexander County Library on Saturday, July 13, 2019. Eric's photograph inspired one of Art of Poetry's first contributing poets, Ann Chandonnet who now lives in Missouri, to share this poem from afar.

WET CLOVER

by Ann Chandonnet

after Water Bubbles by Eric Schumacher

My Mom was born on a 13th in August.

She always considered it her lucky day,

no matter the month.

She enjoyed sitting under the maples 

shading the front lawn

looking for four-leaf clovers.

She had little patience with her five kids

but lots for clovers.

Farming is a hard life,

which did not agree with Mom

who preferred sun bathing

in skimpy halters

to weeding corn,

canning jars of staples

or slinging bales of hay.

So although she had bid

for this farm life,

she left, hovered

elsewhere;

looked for four-leafed clovers elsewhere.

None of us accompanied her.