Featured National Poetry Month Contributor: Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D

Photo by Susanne Kappler

In honour of National Poetry Month, I am pleased to include an original poem by Cassie Premo Steele on my blog. Cassie lives in Columbia, South Carolina, where she writes and runs her creativity coaching business from a studio overlooking a wooded creek. With the cherry trees and apple trees in full bloom, and on the occasion of her birth (Happy Birthday, Cassie!), she shares this fragrant burst of spring:

Blossom

by Cassie Premo Steele

You tell me you are

not sure what you

are doing, sitting

in the cave of your

old life. I take your

hand and say, come 

on, let's open

to the light

just dawning

like a knife.

Spring is late

and reluctant

this year, but

we light our 

breath--

breathe 

in, breathe out, 

in cold spring air, 

and know that

she is near.

Two weeks later,

the blossoms on

the cherry tree

have bloomed

and everything

around me has

exploded, and

I hear the echo

of the boom and

I don't run.

I am here, says

spring, as bees

buzz in the pink, 

and all new life 

begins with an

implosion-- this began 

long ago within--

like my sap that 

flowed last year and

had to slow.

This is your

time of blossom.

Beyond in or ex

plosion-- beyond yes 

or no-- into everything

you came here for

and are now 

doing. So, flower, do 

what you know. Do it.

Flow.

© Cassie Premo Steele, 2013

Thank you so much, Cassie! It hasn't looked much like spring from where I write in Toronto, but I'm seeing cherry blossoms today!

It's National Poetry Month

I couldn't let this beautiful month slip by without acknowledging something so very close to my heart -- Poetry! I was reminded this week, in a post celebrating the wisdom of Dr. Maya Angelou (and in honour of her 85th birthday on April 4th):

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”

Okay, look at me! Or rather, look at this, folks. I will devote as much space as possible this month to poetry, whether original poems written by yours truly, or commentary on some of my favourite poems. Here's one from the latter category:

"Dance Me to the End of Love" by Leonard Cohen. This, of course, is a well known song, but with Cohen, there has always been, for me, a blurring of distinctions. Whenever I take up my copy of Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs it seems to open up on its own to page 337 and the haunting lyrics:

...

Dance me to the children
who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains
that our kisses have outworn...

This was a poem/song that I quoted to my husband in my wedding speech to him over ten years ago. And now we have those children. I imagine that it will stay with me for life. Or at least until the end of love.

Easter and other Awesomeness

Cinnamon the Bunny

Sunday we got together for lunch and other festivities at my parents' home. Among the highlights:

- Celebrating Easter, as well as three family birthdays

- Homemade lasagna! Cannoli! (need I say more?)

- Fred G. Bunny's very detailed letter to the kids about the egg hunt, which included a paragraph reassuring them that all the treats were egg-free, gluten-free, and nut-free (the Easter Bunny is so with it!)

On this topic of food (somehow it always creeps into these posts) I wanted to share some of our experiences from our recent March break vacation, and to give a shout out to two very good restaurants in the Orlando area.

But first, a little aside: When I was graduating from university in Ottawa, my parents came for the convocation and to spend a little time touring the city with me. We found an Italian restaurant in the Corso Italia, and I remember bracing myself for my mom ordering food. She's not exactly like Sally from When Harry Met Sally, but she knows what she wants, and she's not above telling a server or the chef exactly how to season, cook, and serve her food. I realize, nearly twenty years later, that I have become the same woman when I order food in a restaurant. But there's a different reason. It's for my son.

So, on to the Orlando dining experience. Since the Bambino began travelling with us, we steer clear of any hotel room that does not have a full kitchen. First stop in Orlando, right after checking into our hotel, is the Whole Foods, where we can stock up on what we need, including all the allergy-safe food we haven't carted with us in our luggage. The majority of the time we are eating in, so our schedule revolves around this and the ability to pack enough foods to keep everyone sustained. There's no avoiding, however, needing to eat out for a few of those nights. In 2012, we had a very nice experience in the dining room upstairs at Wolfgang Puck Grand Cafe at Downtown Disney, so we made sure to book a reservation again. We were not disappointed. Same delicious food, great service, and consideration for all of us. The Bambino got to speak to the head chef himself, and order his cumumber and grape tomato salad. I ordered the rest. The chef personally prepared and delivered the food to the little guy. And even though the Bambino didn't finish his gluten-free pasta and grilled chicken breast that night, he had it for lunch the next day in our hotel kitchen. A few nights later, on our way home from LegoLand, we stopped at Ruby Tuesday. After I spoke briefly to the host at the front about accommodating allergies, we were seated, and a manager promptly presented me with a binder listing all the menu recommendations for particular allergies. Even so, I created a dish for my son, and he ate most of it. Not in the same league as Wolfgang Puck's but almost everything was fresh and good. And, most importantly, there were no cross-contamination issues. That made for a much more enjoyable vacation for everyone. So, a big thank you to all the staff at these restaurants, for being so with it!

To read about eating gluten-free at Disneyland, head on over to April Peveteaux's blog for this post.

Happy 6th Birthday, August Avenue

Did I just write that heading? I cannot believe this little ol' blog of mine has been around that long. I know the frequency of my posts has dwindled over the past year or so, but I am proud of the fact that I haven't packed it in entirely. With the New Year (here we go, bear with me) I am trying to do the things that make me feel more connected to the writing life: reading printed books, bringing more music into my home, and setting aside quiet writing time, of course.

In the mean time, there's this place, where I get to ramble on. Thanks for reading.

Merry Christmas

Our family tradition is to get together and celebrate on Christmas Eve. While we don't make any of the kids wait up until midnight to open their gifts, it was a late evening nonetheless. On the car ride home, the Bambina was bright-eyed and calculating how many hours it would be until she could actually build her Lego Space Shuttle and activate her Club Penguin membership. Her brother was uncharacteristically silent, asleep and clutching his little motorized Thomas train. One could even say he had a death grip on that train since I couldn't pry it out of his hand until he was asleep for a few hours in his bed.

So today has been full of play and great leftovers. And looking at photos of my gorgeous family, many of those photos taken by my nephew who, overnight, seems to have transformed from a wild toddler in a Santa suit to a cheerful dude wielding an iPhone. Earlier, as I washed a giant pot in my mother's sink, my sister-in-law reminded me how it goes so fast. Try as we might, we can't stop that train, but we can certainly enjoy the view.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

The Pomegranate Songs by Cassie Premo Steele

Cassie Premo Steele, my uber-talented friend, who I work with on her Birthing the Mother Writer column for Literary Mama, will be releasing her music collection The Pomegranate Songs on October 15th. Scroll down to read more and to hear a sample of "Wish."

 

The Pomegranate Songs

Russ Eidson and Cassie Premo Steele

CD List Price: $16.00

44 minutes, 14 tracks

unbound CONTENT, LLC

A collection of songs inspired by poems from Cassie Premo Steele's The Pomegranate Papers, the #1 bestselling book for unbound CONTENT. A collaboration between the voice of a female poet and the vision of a male musician, this work combines earthiness, lyricism, and joyful rhythm. Poetry lovers and indie music fans alike will find something to love in this transcendent collection of songs about the cycles and seasons of creativity and relationship.

Preview the song, “Wish,” here:

https://www.box.com/s/d3ce66a9eacbdcbaf971

Poem for Wednesday: Ottawa, While Eating Gelato

Ottawa, While Eating Gelato

I knew you before
there was Starbucks
on campus
before we had Siri
to tell us where to go
before gluten-free pasta
could be found
at every ristorante
in The Market
before the huge
Shopper's Drug Mart
on Rideau Street
right across from
the crumbling Bytowne theatre
where they're showing
To Rome with Love.

I knew you before
this big SUV
parked behind all
the other big SUVs
on Murray Street.

You haven't changed a bit.

©2012 Maria Scala

Happy Birthday, Bambino!

The Bambino celebrated his second birthday recently, and this time around, he got to enjoy TWO birthday cakes. I know that's not such a big deal to some, but if you'd read last year's post about The Big One, you'd know that all he got that time around was Cheerios! Now that we know for sure he's okay with dairy, he's all over the ice cream! So I made him two ice cream cakes this year, one tiny practice one on the actual day, and one larger one for the family when we all got together. Of course my uber-talented sister "surprised" me with an elegant and delicious chocolate cake to mark the day I will forever share with my little guy. Most of the family went for that one, since it contained some actual "cake."

Almost two weeks after the fact, he's still reminiscing about those (non-allergenic) cakes, as in, "Have fun, ice cream cake." Although I will use whipped cream next time (instead of buttercream) and my decorating skills are rusty (those strawberries on top were my secret weapon) he stuck his hands right into the frozen cake and began licking his fingers -- the classic iPhone moment. His sister, also a fan of the ice cream, dug in, too. My kids haven't even seen or read The Accidental Tourist (remember Julian eating Rose's undercooked turkey and not getting sick?)

Book Review: The Pomegranate Papers

Here's my review at The Mom Egg of Cassie Premo Steele's beautiful and wise collection of poetry The Pomegranate Papers, which came out April 13th from Unbound Content.

Happy Easter!

Marshmallow Peep (the Bambino's gluten-free treat!)