A POETRY CONTEST CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

https://crosswindspoetry.com/poetry-contest-submissions/

If anyone has entered this poetry contest in the past, tell us what you think about it.
Leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Let's Remember Lee Iacocca

Our guest today is Roger Carlton.
Roger retired to Robbinsville, NC and now is a columnist for the Graham Star. Thanks Roger for letting us post this article.

If you believe that this area of the world is Ford Country. If you lusted after a Ford Mustang or possessed the joy of owning one of these Pony Cars. If you know who Carroll Shelby is. If you drive the macho Ram pickup. Or if you know today's SUV's morphed from the Chrysler K cars and minivans then you should mourn the passing at age 94 of Lee Iacocca whose innovation and marketing genius created all these American automobile icons.

Lee was born Lido Anthony Iacocca, the son of Italian immigrants. His family lost everything in the Great Depression which gave him his drive for economic success. He attended Lehigh University in the steel producing area of Pennsylvania and eventually earned a Masters Degree in engineering from Princeton. His mentor was Robert McNamara who had been named President of Ford Motor Company and within a year was tapped by President Kennedy to become Secretary of Defense.

My first experience driving a Mustang occured in 1964 when this amazing vehicle debuted. As a high school kid, I worked on weekends at a company on Miami Beach that sold sheet music to music stores and marching bands throughout the United States. The company had exclusive rights to the Beatles sheet music and the Mary Poppins tunes so we were very busy. My boss had a 1964 Mustang convertible with the 289 V8. He handed me the keys and said "bring this package to the company president's house and be careful with my car." The top was down and off I went...hooked forever on fast cars with lots of horsepower. To this date one horsepower is called a "pony" derived from the Mustang name and badge. To be declared a "muscle car" requires 0ne horsepower per ten pounds of vehicle. More than 400,000 units were sold the first year. It took General Motors three years to catch up with the Pontiac Firebird and the Chevy Camaro.

Eventually Lee's ego and abrasive manner put him in conflict with Henry Ford's grandson who had become CEO of the company and he was fired. Chrysler was on the ropes and close to bankruptcy. Lee was hired and he turned Chrysler around with the K cars and minivans. The federal government loaned Chrysler $1.5 billion to develop the K cars and that loan was repaid seven years early. Lee's ads on TV were very popular with his slogan "If you can find a better car buy it." He also wrote a very successful book entitled "Iacocca An Autobiography." In 1992 he retired from Chrysler after acquiring American Motors to capture their Jeep brand.

He was courted to run for President and thankfully took the advice of his friend Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill and did not get involved in politics. He also declined an appointment to the US Senate.

If you love fast cars or macho pickups and respect titans of industry who innovate and save their near-dead companies, stop for a moment and mourn the passing of Lee Iacocca.

First published July 11, 2019, Graham Star Newspaper

Karen Paul Holmes - presenter at A Day for Writers 2019

Karen Paul Holmes

Poet, Karen Paul Holmes, will be on the schedule for A Day for Writers, a one day writers conference in Sylva, NC on Saturday, August 24.

This conference, sponsored by the NC Writers' Network-West, is held in the lovely setting of the Jackson County Regional Public Library, Old Courthouse Annex. 

Holmes is a teacher of poetry and an author of two poetry collections. Her work has appeared in many journals and reviews. Her session is titled Metaphors, Images and Similes, part of the language of poetry we poets  must know and understand.

To learn more about this conference, the presenters and cost, click on 

Netwest Writers.

An interview I did with Karen is published in The Bind. 

In my family stories, I write about my parents, Coy and Lois Council.

Excerpt from my memoir:

My older sister, June, was born 1924. She entered this world at the home of our grandparents, Willie and Lula Robison where Mother waited for Daddy to send for her. Times were hard in the early 1920s for my family and many more. The economy of the United States was doing great, but only for certain people. As is often the case, the stock market was booming, but middle and low income families struggled.

Daddy, Coy Council, had planned to wait until he had enough money saved before asking Lois to marry him, but he married at the age of 23 because he could not bear to be away from his beloved Lois any longer. In letters he wrote to my mother, it is obvious he was afraid she would find someone else. He was jealous of anyone she saw when he was not present.

Daddy had never worked anywhere but Pelham Manufacturing Company, (textile mill). He started there when he was ten years old, soon after his father died. At times the Pelham mill would close. Then Daddy, a young single man, took the train up to Thomaston, Georgia where he worked as a weaver at the mill there and rented a room at a boarding house. He barely made enough to pay his board, buy cigarettes and send money home to his widowed mother. He hated the work, but it was all he knew. 

On the positive side, he could always find work because between 1800 and 1910, cotton mills sprang up all over the south and middle Georgia had two or three in the same county. I find it interesting to see what fabrics were made in each mill. After the Civil War, the production of cotton duck, a canvas-like cloth, dominated production for use in ship sails, tents, and covered wagons. Duck gained new value as an industrial fabric in the booming new rubber tire business for automobiles in the early twentieth century. Osnaburg is a name I remember hearing Mother say when she looked at fabric in a store. It was one of those produced in the early 20th century.

My oldest brother, Ray, was the only child not born in Georgia. He was born in a tiny town, Rubonia, Florida where Mother and Daddy lived while my father worked with Uncle Charlie on his farm in Palmetto. Daddy also worked nights at an ice plant to earn enough to pay rent and feed his small family. In the days before refrigerators and ice machines, ice plants delivered ice to homes and businesses. It was hard work. Even in 1942, homes without electricity had an Ice Box on the back porch where a big block of ice would be placed to keep food cold for a couple of days until the ice man brought another block.

Little Ray became my father’s pride and joy. He had hoped for a son, and when that boy was born, in 1926, Coy Council burst his buttons with pride. The first-born son has long been a source of pride and joy to fathers. That son was expected to carry on the lineage of the father. Ray was, of course, named for his father. Coy Ray Council went by the name of Ray.

Little did anyone know what this precious child would mean to his parents, his siblings and to countless others whose lives he touched.

A block of ice carried with tongs delivered to someone's Ice Box

The Icehouse Job, 1926

After working 9 hours in the hot Florida sun,

he came home to eat a meal with her and his kids.

She told him how she wished he could stay with her

and rest, let her rub his back. I get scared here without you.

But he said he had to pay the rent, put food on the table.

As the kids were tucked into bed, he climbed

into his old truck, headed to work.

It should have been a relief after the sun burned

his skin to dark brown leather, but he wore his ragged

jacket and a cap with flaps over his ears

as if he had walked into dead of winter in Wisconsin.

Alone in the quiet he wondered how long could he go on

working two jobs, getting little sleep.

His back, tired from plowing mules all day,

his hands cold and chapped, he chopped

the fifty pound blocks. With both hands he clamped

the tongs that griped the slippery squares, swung his shoulders

tossing his burden up on the platform, over and over

until the clock said midnight, quitting time.

He climbed into bed too tired to bathe.

Her hand reached through the night,

touched his face. He slept but she lay awake

thinking of going home to Georgia, seeing her folks,

hearing him laugh again, and tell his stories to the kids.

                                                   Dedicated to my parents, Coy and Lois Council

Published in Literature Today Journal

Glenda Beall

August 6, 2015

WHO IS BENJAMIN CUTLER?

A native of western North Carolina, Benjamin Cutler is an English and creative writing teacher at Swain County High School in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina.

Benjamin Cutler

Benjamin is also a husband, a father of four, and he currently serves as the North Carolina Writers Network-West Swain County representative. In this position, he holds a monthly free meeting for writers and poets, open to the public, in Bryson City, North Carolina. 

When he’s not reading, writing, or playing with his children, Benjamin can be found on the creeks and trails of his mountain home. He loves the rivers and streams of the mountains.  

His full-length poetry book, The Geese Who Might be Gods, is available from Main Street Rag Publishing Company (2019).

–Pat Riviere-Seel, author of Nothing Below but Air & The Serial Killer’s Daughter says of Ben's poetry book, "At the heart of this collection are relationships in all their complexity – family, friends, students, and the natural world, especially our relationships with the nonhuman creatures. One poem concludes that a turkey vulture is “…not so different / from the rest of us / with your belly full of dead things / and your endless hungry search.” These poems may be an “endless hungry search,” but the reader will come away sated.

Ben will be in Hayesville,NC on Friday evening, July 26, at the Corner Coffee Shop on the square with Brent Martin, naturalist, writer and owner of Alarka Expeditions. Ben will be interviewed and will share some of his work from his latest book.

Kindle books are such a good deal.

Do you read books on your Kindle? 
Click on this link https://tinyurl.com/yxsju5cr and find Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins by Glenda Beall and Estelle Rice. 
This book is the perfect gift for an animal lover, dogs, cats, rabbits or horses. You will smile and maybe shed a tear, but it will be a happy tear.

For only $5.99 you can read and see the color pictures of our characters and other members of our family on your Kindle. Kodi, on the cover, was a gorgeous dog and such a sweetheart.
 Let me know how you like it.

https://tinyurl.com/yxsju5cr

Learn more here.

With my Kindle and my IPad, I have everything I need to keep me reading. But I still like the traditional books. You can tell by my bookcases all over my house. One day I hope to read all those books.

I bought another book Sunday. Val Nieman's new poetry book, The Leopard Lady, a Life in Verse.  Can't wait to get into it.

What have you read lately that you recommend?

No Classes for awhile - just news and advice for writers

There will be no classes at Writers Circle around the Table this summer or fall.
In the future, we will post any classes at the studio, so keep in touch.

I will post tips for writers, advice for writers, places to submit your writing and any other information that I deem relevant to my readers.

I would love to have guest bloggers in the coming months. If you are a writer and would be interested in submitting a guest blog for this site, please contact me. www.gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com

Outlander has grabbed me. But so has David Joy's book, Where All Light Tends to Go/

I am always behind in reading the latest or watching the latest on TV, but a few weeks ago my friend, Carroll Taylor, told me about the book and TV series Outlander, and then she went to Scotland and showed me the photos she took.
I found the series on Netflix and decided to watch it. I had no idea the books had been around so long, and that I really knew nothing about them. But the series has grabbed me as it does anyone who watches it. The characters are interesting, flawed and beautiful, the costumes in this show are absolutely wonderful, and the acting is fabulous. As the author says, it is not a romance, although there is a romance in it, but it is large and historical and about people, their faults, their feelings, their growth and death.

I began watching two or three episodes each night and finished the first two seasons in a couple of weeks. I was disappointed that there were only two seasons, but have learned it will be picked up by Amazon Prime for the next season or two. I know it was first shown on Starz, but I don't subscribe to that.

I never knew much about the Scottish Highlanders, the clans, etc. but once I watched this show, I found myself researching clans, looking to see if any of my lineage came from those people. They were a violent bunch, always fighting among themselves, but make great characters for historical fiction.

Tonight I downloaded the first book from Audible. I want to see how the book and the television show differs. One of the actors says the book is all written from the point of view of the main character, Claire, but the series shows Jamie's point of view as well as Claire's. I like that.

I also listened to a book this week by David Joy, who lives in a neighboring county. He is an excellent writer and is highly acclaimed in the literary world although he has only published a few novels. Where All Light Tends To Go, is his first book. It, too, is violent and I don't like violence, but some of the characters are very dark. I found that I had such compassion for the young man who was the narrator. He was caught in a world where he could not get out and he knew it. The language was XX rated, but fit the life style of these people, who, I'm sure really spoke that way. David Joy has a way with words. Some of his prose sounds like poetry, similar to the writing of Ron Rash.

As you can tell, I have been enjoying Audible and Netflix. I am not watching news shows, nothing that will make me anxious or concerned. And, I am sleeping better. That is unless I stay up too late watching TV.

Hope your week has been good and that next week will be great. What are you reading or watching instead of News?