Three Poems at the Stray Branch
The following poems were published in the Fall/Winter 2021 edition of The Stray Branch:
Three Doors Down, One-Armed Bandit, Hot Rod McGurk
Available at Amazon
Diane Sahms-Guarnieri
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Poet captures the essence of 2020 in new book
Covid 19 2020 – A Poetic Journal by Diane Sahms-Guarnieri
Sahms-Guarnieri’s work embodies the magnitude of feelings felt at the beginning of the pandemic. Readers are left with the heaviness that 2020 left behind, but also gratitude that they survived a truly chaotic year. Megan Milligan- Northeast Times. Read the full review here: https://northeasttimes.com/2021/08/26/local-poet-captures-the-essence-of-2020-in-new-poetry-book/
You can buy the book here: https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/sahms-guarnieri-diane-covid-19-2020-a-poetic-journal/294?cs=true&cst=custom
Covid 19 2020 – A Poetic Journal by Diane Sahms-Guarnieri
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Moonstone Press has just released Diane Sahms-Guarnieri’s, Covid 19, 2020 – A Poetic Journal.
The Chapbook is available here: https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/sahms-guarnieri-diane-covid-19-2020-a-poetic-journal/294?cs=true&cst=custom
What Others Say:
As sobering as Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, when the Bubonic Plague devasted London, Diane Sahms-Guarnieri’s, Covid-19, 2020 is a grim recounting of the horrible year through which we have just lived.
Starting with the ironically named “March Madness” section, a term that usually refers to the annual NCAA basketball tournament but so succinctly captures the mass disorientation, like “a sci-fi movie, yet real,” as she notes on 3-23-2020, the journal proceeds through April, the cruelest month, mixing death and rebirth in its stew of life, into the horrific summer of 2020 –
185,000 dead in the United States by Labor Day – and into fall/winter with the mounting dead, the glimmer of hope that a vaccine may soon be available. The collection ends on New Year’s Eve, over 350,000 Americans dead under the chaotic leadership of the Trump administration, the most of any nation in the world. Along the way, as if the pandemic were not bad enough, Sahms-Guarnieri addresses the social turmoil that tore the country apart, the racial injustice that spawned BLM.
Sahms-Guarnieri captures the fear and loneliness so eloquently in the April poem, “Nature & Mothers Weeping,” which begins:
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Horrific scene played on TV—
a mother weeping & wailing
for daughter, dead. COVID-19.
.
Last seen alive via FaceTime:
Mom, I can’t breathe.
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I, with thoughts of my only
living daughter, weep
for those whom I don’t know
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The July poem, “Untouchables, for daughter, Mary,” drives the point home :
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We who always embrace every time
we meet & whenever we leave each other,
came no nearer than 6 feet.
.
An unmeasurably cruel calculation
for me & daughter, whose hazel irises,
as life protectors, gently glided into
.
mine: touching, without touching,
.
As Defoe wrote over three centuries ago, “everyone looked on himself and his family as in the utmost danger…London might well be said to be all in tears.”
—Charles Rammelkamp, author of Ugler Lee and Mortal Coil
You can get the chapbook here: https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/sahms-guarnieri-diane-covid-19-2020-a-poetic-journal/294?cs=true&cst=custom
Worm Moon Published at The Pangolin Review
The poem, Worm Moon, published at The Pangolin Review https://thepangolinreview.wixsite.com/mypoetrysite/issue-18-part-2-d-to-j
Vaporous at Nine Cloud Journal
The poem, Vaporous, published at Nine Cloud Journal https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Cloud-Journal-August-2020/dp/B08DSX3HY3
New Poem up at Passager Pandemic Diaries
Diane Sahms narrative poem, May Day, has been published at Passager Pandemic Diaries. You can read the poem and others at this link: https://www.passagerbooks.com/pandemic-diaries/
Three Poems at Poetry and Covid
Three poems about the pandemic just published at Poetry and Covid : https://poetryandcovid.com/2021/04/02/three-poems-62/
Diane Sahms on Arts Access TV
Diane Sahms Cafe Improv performance will be featured on Arts Access TV next week!
Friday, March 26 | 6:00-7:00 p.m.
- Exhibition Tour: Re-materialize by Arthur Ross Gallery
- The Principles of Hip Hop: Peace, Love, Unity, and Having Fun by Young Audiences Arts for Learning NJ & Eastern PA
- Cafe Improv 2019 by Diane Sahms
- Family Tree by Andorra
New Poem at North American Review
The poem, Mercury Grand Marquis published at North American Review, Spring 2021 issue. https://northamericanreview.org/
Directional Flow published at Brushfire Literature & Arts Journal
The poem Directional Flow was published at Brushfire Literature & Arts Journal – Edition 73, Volume 1.
https://issuu.com/brushfire/docs/brushfire_fall_2020_final_draft_raw_cmyk
