Poets Salon: Neighborhood Walks

POETS SALON

– 04/28/21

Hosted by Kath Abela Wilson

painting
the town pink anyway
our morning walk

~ Kath Abela

LA River, Herons Nest (Photo – Robert Stewart)

Robert Stewart

that time of year
love in the air
Even primitive dinosaurs
children involved
underfoot also

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Peacocks (Photo – Meher McArthur)

Meher McArthur

Closing my laptop
I walk a trail of spring scents
and eye-healing hues

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Neighborhood Walk (Photo – Alicia Viguer-Espert)

Alicia Viguer-Espert

Morning Walk

It happens every day
after climbing the slope.
I sit on the stone bench
under the carob tree,
then,
open the empty bowl
of my hands
to receive the blessings

Ο

Three (Photo – Robert Stewart)

Neighborhood Walks: Quotes and Credits

Robert Stewart says: “Great birds action. First Pelicans diving, action instead of repose. One portrait the same as any of the others around, so why bother so much. Then my discovery of the LA River a block from home, favorite Sunday afternoon shooting after fish tacos at Atwater farmers market. Essentially the Great Blue Heron and greater Egret, but also Snowey Egret and Dark-necked Night Heron. Territory essential, everybody knows to stay far from the Great Blue, the biggest and meanest. The most primitive and unevolved. But now in knowing them better through their nesting, and watching couples raising children I have a different opinion of these animals left over from the age of dinosaurs in love with each other.”
Artist and Poet Robert Stewart has a 200 piece exhibit in the Living Room Gallery at the home of Poets on Site, our home in Pasadena. He’s also showing his work at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silver Lake (Los Angeles).

Meher McArthur is an Asian art historian specializing in Japanese art. For the last two and a half years she has been Academic Curator at Scripps College, Claremont, and very recently joined JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles as Art and Cultural Director. Previously, she was an independent Asian art curator, author and educator and for 9 years prior to that she was Curator of East Asian Art at Pacific Asia Museum (now USC PAM). .
As well as curating art exhibitions, writing books and articles and lecturing on Asian art and artists, Meher loves exploring nature on her daily walks. This involves photographing many of its details as well as composing the occasional poem.

Born and raised in Spain, Alicia Viguer-Espert learned English as an adult. Her debut in 2017 earned her The San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival Book Contest Prize with Holding a Hummingbird. A second chapbook Out of the Womb of the Sea was published by Four Feather Press. She’s a 2019 and 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, published internationally. Today, she lives in Mount Washington, Los Angeles, among lots of trees, friendly neighbors made up of coyotes, humans, hawks, crows and squirrels. On her daily walks she’s saluted by quiet vistas and the perfume of flowers. She loves it.

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Send short poems, haiku, senryu, tanka, cherita haibun, tanka prose, short prose poems, etc., or your own unique approach, to Kath Abela (click here to email her directly) or via a Facebook message (@Kathabela).

1. Send directly in email or message, no attachments, except photos.
2. Suggest an original theme you would like to see, or consider:
   Openings, Taking care of one another, Encouragement, Good humor in challenging times, Consolations.
   
3. Send a short bio, and comments on the theme.
4. Send several photos or artwork by you, or a friend that would complement your writing if possible. Include one landscape (horizontal) photo or artwork.
   
5. We like to vary the poets, but please send every few months if you like, and contributions can be saved for later. Kath Abela will answer within a week from your sending.

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