Born May 31, 1930, to Joseph Earl Smith and Olive Birdie Jenkins Smith, she was the youngest of four children. Her early years were spent on a farm in rural Michigan. She graduated from Bay City Central and earned her teaching degree from Central Michigan University. Joye married Philip Giroux in December 1951. She taught French and English at South Lake High School in St. Clair Shores, MI and Big Rapids High School during her years as a beloved educator. She was a poet who initially wrote to ease the pain of losing her husband, Philip, to cancer in June 1969. She went on to serve as President of the Poetry Society of Michigan and publish several books. Full obituary HERE.
Category: Uncategorized
Deep Freeze / Emory D. Jones
I am not going to say it is cold,
But when you milked the cows,
They gave ice cream,
And you could knock over
Any frozen goat.
The chickens hatched penguins,
And the horse snorted
Ice-sickles.
The windows of the house
Glazed over,
And as the inside heat
Melted the ice,
It became running rainbows.
The thermometer
Plunged to ten below zero,
And the trees exploded
Like cannon shots.
Now that was cold,
And if you believe me,
I will tell you another
Tall tale.
Emory D. Jones / Iuka, MS
Three Poems by Steve Williams
The Parade / Radhika Iyer
The Parade
Shattering winter’s biting chill
is the songbird’s sonorous trill.
Piercing through it’s white landfill
is the ruby tulip, ready to kill.
Ransacking its icy rill
is the graceful swan’s orange bill.
Infecting its very spill
is the sun ray’s most treasured skill.
Niggling at its dreary shill
is the eternal hope’s cheery pill.
Generating a brand new will
is nature’s way to March uphill.
Radhika Iyer / Detroit, Michigan
Crane / Nina Craig
Crane (Ajijaak)
Her fine long legs, careful step by step
cross marsh and bog in slow dance
feeding on sweet morsels that rise
to greet sun and their demise.
A sound, she listens – one leg poised midair
towering above, still art – a comma,
a question mark buried in mud, messages
etched into the inner flesh of birchbark
still held by the curve of riverbanks
still layered with our relatives’
dust and their tarpaper shacks
still remembered by Ajijaak.
Nina I. Craig / Kalamazoo, Michigan
In Which We See Our Selves: Eric Torgersen
With In Which We See Our Selves, Eric Torgersen begins with the formal structure of the ghazal as popularized by Agha Shahid Ali and unapologetically makes a more American thing of it, arguing in his Afterword that this transformation is as inevitable as what happens when the children of immigrant parents pass through an American junior high school: not everyone is pleased with the result. “I’ve tried to avoid faux-Eastern themes and tones,” he writes. Fluently metrical and effortlessly rhymed, at times in short, hard-hitting lines with refrains as brief as a single word, these poems leap off the page with speech as American as this:
My gang all quit when I didn’t split the take right.
We crashed and burned when I didn’t hit the brake right.
(Click the cover photo to order from Mayapple Press)
Eric Torgersen was born in Melville, New York. He has a BA in German Literature from Cornell University; after two years in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia, he earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa. He retired in the spring of 2008 after 38 years of teaching writing at Central Michigan University. He lives in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan with his wife, the quilt artist Ann Kowaleski. Since retiring, Eric has volunteered for the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy. He enjoys fishing and foraging for wild mushrooms. He is available for workshops and readings.
Mr. Torgersen is presently serving a two-year term as Honorary Chancellor of the Poetry Society of Michigan.
Spindrift / Laurence W. Thomas
Spindrift suggests stuff blown onto beaches, beaches of discovery in one’s mind. When these poems show a squirrel, a fish, birds, a beggar, an Irish pub, or a dish we see these as metaphors which conjure up ideas or feelings from our own familiarity with them. A poem that begins as an abstraction, like an enemy or peace or patience, becomes objectified. Spindrift is comprised of whatever little gems might be found along the shore, examined closely to become part of the reader’s experience. These jottings of spindrift take off from that experience like going to an airport when you want to be someplace else – or like poems which say one thing when they mean another.
Published by Atmosphere Press, 2021. 124 Pages, ISBN 163649532X
or purchase from Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
Laurence W. Thomas is the founding editor of Third Wednesday Magazine. He has been around long enough to know the sting of rejection and the salve of acceptance. His shelves are lined with his own publications as well as the works of many other poets. He Chancelor Emertus of the Poetry Society of Michigan.
I Hear Hawks / Nancy Shattuck
I HEAR HAWKS
before I see them
scree scree at regular intervals,
doppler waves sounding the distance
flattened wings circle thermals overhead,
or the chorus of shrilly scolding bird flocks
chasing until it drops its young prey,
or squawking chickens when they see a shadow
of this predator too late to flee,
or the soft unexpected thwup on fence
when it lands, as stunned as I am,
a heart leaping arm’s length away,
eyes devouring me where I stand.
Nancy Shattuck / Farmington Hills, Michigan
Prompt: Faults as Praise
From Western Wind by Mason and Nims: Write a poem about someone you love, using a list of his or her faults as a basis for praise.
Prompt: A Carnival Ride
From friend Eben Gering: Write a poem about a carnival ride. Then get in a brawl with it at the end. ( I don’t exactly know what that brawl part is about, but carnival rides: what a rich source!) Thanks, Eben.
Poetry Society of Michigan 