“Truths” – Poem by California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick

19 Sunday Jan 2025

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Korean American Poet Lee Herrick
Official Author Photo by Curtis Messer
Source: The Poet’s Official Website

My Poetry Corner January 2025 features the poem “Truths” from the poetry collection Scar and Flower (USA, 2019) by poet Lee Herrick, the first Asian American to serve as the tenth California Poet Laureate (2022-2024). Born in 1970 in Daejeon, South Korea, he was adopted at ten months old by an American couple. He grew up in Northern California where he attended Modesto Junior College and received his BA in English and MA in Composition and Rhetoric from the California State University, Stanislaus.

He lives with his wife and daughter in Fresno, Northern California, where he is an English professor at Fresno City College since 1997. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA program at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe.

“Adoption is seen through Hollywood’s lens as purely and essentially as a blessing and a gift. Which in some way may be true, however adoption is also wrapped in trauma,” Herrick told Sara Ohler during an interview in May 2023 for The Rampage literary magazine.

Though blessed with a warm and loving family, he was struck with anxiety in 1989, during his senior year in high school and throughout most of college. Growing up among family members in the creative arts—his mother is a visual artist—he found relief in music and poetry. “You kind of just had to make do or things weren’t very helpful,” Herrick said. “‘Handle your business or be a man,’ so the arts and music was a great outlet for me.”

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The Writer’s Life: Year 2024 in Review

05 Sunday Jan 2025

Posted by in The Writer's Life

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Neighbor’s Succulent Garden – Los Angeles – Southern California – December 1, 2024

To embark on writing a full-length novel (80,000 to 90,000 words) demands a long-term commitment that may take several years. Happy the writer who can complete such a project in one to two years! As with my first two novels, I estimated a four-year period for the completion of my creative nonfiction work-in-progress. Since writing the first draft in 2020, I had planned for revision and publication in 2024. Sad to say, things didn’t go according to my goal. Due to both personal and external forces, shared with readers over the past four years, my focus stalled (writer’s block), wavered, and changed.

The unrelenting violence against the Palestinians in Gaza, especially the children, continue to disturb my sleep. Only a god created in men’s image of oppression, conquest, and colonization would sanction such violence against humanity.

Even more consequential is humankind’s ongoing violence inflicted on the Web of Life together with the interconnected atmospheric and oceanic systems that sustain all lifeforms, including our own, on Mother Earth.

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Song “Peace (Heal the World)” sung by Brazilian Singer Daniel

22 Sunday Dec 2024

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My Poetry Corner December 2024 features the song “Peace / A Paz” sung by Brazilian sertaneja singer Daniel, born in Brotas, interior of the State of São Paulo. The song is the adaptation of Michael Jackson’s song “Heal the World” with Portuguese lyrics by Nando of the group Roupa Nova. While the adaptation emphasizes Jackson’s powerful message of healing the world and making it a better place, Nando also highlights the message of peace, unity, and hope.

Chorus:
Only love can change what has already been done
And the power of peace brings everyone together again
Come, it’s time to light the flame of life
And make the whole Earth happy

The lyrics of the song in English and its original Portuguese is available on my Poetry Corner December 2024.

May your holiday celebration be filled with peace, joy, and lots of laughter among your loved ones.

Thought for Today: Massacre of the Innocents

08 Sunday Dec 2024

Posted by in Save Our Children

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Massacre of the Innocents, 1824 painting by Léon Cogniet (1794-1880)
Photo Credit: Wikiart

The continued bombing and starvation of the Innocents, in the land where Jesus the Messiah was born, echo across time and space from that very first Christmas in Bethlehem.

Joseph flees with Mary and Infant into Egypt. The massacre of the Innocents by King Herod.

A voice was heard in Ramah,
Weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children;
And she refused to be comforted,
Because they were no more.

Matthew 2: Verse 18, New American Standard Bible (NASB), Updated Edition 2020, by The Lockman Foundation.

The Writer’s Life: Changing Focus

24 Sunday Nov 2024

Posted by in The Writer's Life

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Front Cover: Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response to Collapse by Jem Bendell (UK, 2023)

This month, I will not be sharing “Chapter Seventeen: Set Adrift in Shark-infested Waters” from my work-in-progress. To tell the truth, I’ve not yet completed this chapter. Like Chapter Sixteen, this period of my life has been difficult to revisit. After leaving the convent, I lost purpose and direction in my life. I was set adrift. I floundered. I’m still working on forgiving that younger self for losing her way.

Fifteen months have passed since I read Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response to Collapse by Jem Bendell, released in June 2023. His findings shook my world. Our climate and ecological crises are far more critical than we’ve been led to believe. We’re now living on a planet where every year is hotter than the year before. My work-in-progress, though important in calling attention to women’s issues, became meaningless in the face of the collapse of industrial consumer societies. I lost focus.

How could I share Bendell’s findings? No one wants to hear bad news. Yet, to look away means we will not be prepared when our world as we know it begins to fall apart around us. The recent victory of the minority elite ruling class, under their chosen authoritarian leader, will only serve to accelerate societal collapse. The picks for his cabinet speak volumes of their plans to execute The Heritage Foundation’s Mandate/Project 2025.

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“Waiting for Rain (Again)” – Poem by Jamaican Poet Tanya Shirley

17 Sunday Nov 2024

Posted by in Poetry, Women Issues

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Jamaican Poet Tanya Shirley
Photo Credit: Mel Cooke/Jamaica Gleaner

My Poetry Corner November 2024 features the poem “Waiting for Rain (Again)” from the second poetry collection The Merchant of Feathers by Jamaican poet Tanya Shirley, published by Peepal Tree Press (UK, 2014). The collection was longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. (All excerpts quoted are from this collection.)

Born in 1976 in the Caribbean Island nation of Jamaica, Tanya Shirley holds a BA (Honors) in English Literature from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica. In 2000, she gained an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland, USA. For over fifteen years (2002-2018), she was an adjunct lecturer in English Literature at the University of the West Indies (Mona). She lives in Jamaica.

Who is the merchant of feathers? Why feathers? In the epigraph of her poem “The Merchant of Feathers III,” Shirley quotes Psalm 91, verse 4 (King James Bible) that speaks of God’s protection: He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

But the merchant of feathers in Shirley’s poetry collection is not the Lord. As gleaned from the three poems bearing this title, it is the diversity of women from all walks of life who populate this collection. They are indomitable women who have learned to navigate the complexities of being female and have survived. As a woman, I can relate with their stories.

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Climate Crisis Update: “Perilous times on planet Earth”

10 Sunday Nov 2024

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

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California Governor Gavin Newson (second from left) visits the Mountain Fire disaster area – Ventura County – Southern California – November 7, 2024
Photo Credit: Official Website of Governor Gavin Newsom

The news is not good. Here on Planet Earth, we live in perilous times. Such is the warning from fourteen climate experts from Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States in their article “The 2024 State of the Climate Report: Perilous times on planet Earth” published in the BioScience magazine on October 8, 2024.

“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” they warn. “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.”

Why the bleak prognosis? Of the 35 “planetary vital signs” they use to track the climate emergency, 25 are at record extremes. These include U.S. heat-related mortality, fossil fuel subsidies, coal and oil consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, per-capita meat production, global tree cover loss due to fires, ocean acidity and heat content change, glacier thickness change, and ice mass change in Antarctica and Greenland.

As demonstrated in “Table 1: Recent Climate Disasters from November 2023 to August 2024,” they emphasize the rapidly escalating climate-related impacts of our global failure to support a rapid and socially just fossil fuel phasedown. Not included in this list are the supercharged Hurricanes Helene and Milton that developed in the Gulf of Mexico in late September during publication of their report. Unforeseen, too, are the flash floods in Spain on October 29th triggered by an “extraordinary deluge” that dumped twenty months of rain in just eight hours. Sounds familiar?

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The Writer’s Life: Telling Our Stories About Harassment in the Workplace

27 Sunday Oct 2024

Posted by in The Writer's Life, Women Issues, Working Life

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Photo Credit: New York City, Sexual Harassment Prevention

In Chapter Sixteen of my work in Progress, I share my experience of sexual harassment as a public high school teacher by a government official. It was a period of my life that I had buried deep in my subconscious until my best friend insisted that my second novel should be about my life in the convent. Sadly, she passed away before I had completed the final revision of The Twisted Circle: A Novel, dedicated in her memory.

Although I had extensively explored my final year in the convent for the novel, I struggled over several months to complete this chapter. I even considered leaving it out altogether. To share the real-life experience of a dark period comes with its own challenges. To have failed and be rejected had left a deep emotional wound. To expose and uproot the shame requires self-forgiveness.

As I also share in Chapter Sixteen, harassment in the workplace is not limited to the male sexual pervert or predator. We can also suffer harassment from the female boss or colleague who, for a variety of reasons, perceive us as a threat. Sister Albertus, a fictitious name, was my female co-worker and tormentor.

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FEMA: When a Natural Disaster Strikes Across State Lines

13 Sunday Oct 2024

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, United States

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FEMA Search and Rescue Teams Respond to Hurricane Helene – September 26, 2024
Photo by Patrick Moore / US Department of Homeland Security Media Library

My heart goes out to all the folks whose lives have been upended by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. As the warming of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere continues unabated—due to humanity’s inability to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels—tropical storms have become supercharged and more destructive over a much wider area.

Such was the case recently when America’s southeastern states were hit by Hurricanes Helene (September 26-28) and Milton (October 9-10). It’s not just their wind speeds that make these storms deadly. Their size, speed, and capacity to hold more moisture can wreak havoc over more extensive areas. What’s more, their rapid intensification has alarmed our meteorologists. Within just two days, the unusually warm water of the Gulf of Mexico transformed Hurricane Helene from a relatively weak tropical storm into a historic Category 4 hurricane for this time of the year. Not to be outdone, Hurricane Milton took just over 48 hours to intensify from a tropical depression to a Category 5 Hurricane, according to NOAA Climate.gov. This is bad news. Millions of people in their projected path may not have sufficient time in which to evacuate to safety.

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Thought for Today: Proposal to Break Up and Commercialize NOAA

06 Sunday Oct 2024

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, United States

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NOAA Satellite Image of Hurricane Helene moving into the Gulf of Mexico – September 25, 2024
Image credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION (NOAA)

Break Up NOAA. The single biggest Department of Commerce agency outside of decennial census years is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which houses the National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, and other components. NOAA garners $6.5 billion of the department’s $12 billion annual operational budget and accounts for more than half of the department’s personnel in non-decadal Census years (2021 figures).

NOAA consists of six main offices: The National Weather Service (NWS); The National Ocean Service (NOS); The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR); The National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS); The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS); and The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and NOAA Corps.

Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful func­tions. It should be broken up and downsized. [Emphasis mine.]

[…]

Focus the NWS on Commercial Operations. Each day, Americans rely on weather forecasts and warnings provided by local radio stations and colleges that are produced not by the NWS, but by private companies such as AccuWeather. Studies have found that the forecasts and warnings provided by the private com­panies are more reliable than those provided by the NWS.

The NWS provides data the private companies use and should focus on its data-gathering services. Because private companies rely on these data, the NWS should fully commercialize its forecasting operations.

Excerpt from “Chapter 21: Department of Commerce” by Thomas F. Gilman from Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project by The Heritage Foundation, Washington DC, USA, 2023 (pp. 674-675).

Thomas F. Gilman served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration and Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. Department of Commerce in the Trump Administration. Currently, he is a Director of ACLJ Action and Chairman of Torn­gat Metals. Gilman is the former CEO of Chrysler Financial and has had a 40-plus year career as a senior executive and entrepreneur in the global automotive industry, including roles at Chrysler Corporation, Cerberus Capital Management, Asbury Automotive Group, TD Auto Finance, and Automotive Capital Services. He holds a BS in finance from Villanova University.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is one of six agencies falling under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The agency’s mission is “to provide daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration, and the supporting of marine commerce. NOAA’s products and services support economic vitality and affect more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product. NOAA’s dedicated scientists use cutting-edge research and high-tech instrumentation to provide citizens, planners, emergency managers and other decision makers with reliable information they need when they need it.”