Happy news. We now have 35 poems in hand from our wonderful friend, the poet Mary Kellogg, and we are ready to publish them. We’ve titled her third volume “How We Dance.” Mary, who will turn 85 this year, has been writing poetry since she was eleven, I am very proud to say the first person she ever showed one too was me, and that happy encounter with me and Maria let to the first two volumes of her work, My Place On Earth, and Whistling Woman. Mary had Lyme Disease and couldn’t make it to our Open House this year, she says she will be here next October with bells and whistles, hustling her book and reading her new poems.
How We Dance is yet another life affirming volume of poetry that explores life, land and age with great feeling and wisdom. Maria and I are very happy to be publishing this third volume of Mary’s work, we are taking it to the printer this week and hope to have it available for sale by Christmas. Details to come, I’m hoping Connie will sell them from Battenkill Books and Maria will sell the book on her website as well. Mary has asked me to take some photos for this volume, as I did the last two. I think she ought to be on the cover.
Mary is very happy living on her 30-acre farm in North Hebron, she always laughs at the idea she might ever want to be anywhere else. “Oh, no,” she says, “this is where I belong, this is where I will stay.” Believe it.
Maria and I both feel that publishing Mary’s wonderful work is one of the best things we have done or will do.
Mary is a wonder and an inspiration, I’m sharing one of her poems from the new book here:
Dance Of Life
we are born with one desire
to suckle at our mother’s breast, warm, fed and loved
discovery follows
step here and step there
searching
seeing expanse around us
our bud to sprout
spring to dance
question
how to dance
within the frame
step within sight
where walls are high
feet tangle
dance of life is full
dance now with final curtain
drawn close behind you
collect your loves
dance together
cherish the prize
Mary Kellogg October 9, 2013