free poetry

About the Author ( #TBT )

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

1998 About the Author was literally the bio I picked for my first book of poetry Pose Prose & Poems (My Thoughts Exactly)

Ahhh I was so naïve. In hindsight even my most sinister & darkest moments at that time were no more than a cloudy day.

I was cursed with curiosity

Blessed with being poor

The fifth of seven children

Who could ask for more?

More fun than one should want for

More fights than one could win

More plates than food to go on

Yet I’d do it all again.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO all who have touched my life and allowed me into theirs. Remember, light casts a shadow, so stand in the light.

From Getting Me Back (A Poem & A Picture by Me & of Me)

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

I cannot count the number of trips taken in that old station-wagon, but I do recall the passengers (nine, twelve and sometimes fifteen) packed liked sardines in a can; damp and smelly and filled with anticipation.

janna 1976

…

Looking back: It is like sitting in the third row seat of an old station wagon, staring ahead at the road behind you…

It is not enough to sit in the front seat and see where you were going – you didn’t know anyway. To understand how you got here you have to look at where you have been.

In that third row seat facing backwards you might be tempted to stare at the floorboard or the marks on your shoes or the stripes on the asphalt that never seem to end, but don’t. To understand you must look up, look back and accept the scenery for what it was.

When the pain and fury and fear rise up —  remember it is only a hill in the distance, you have already passed over. That queasy feeling in your stomach is no more than a sour memory.

…

I speak as if caressing scars and lament but what of the scars I have inflicted? Do I grieve for them? The answer is yes; indubitably yes.

______________________________________________________________________________

Reminder: This is the last day Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) will be FREE  (April 18th through the 21st). It is also the last “A Poem & A Picture by Me & of Me” for this year’s NPM. You can do your happy dance now. 😉

Oh, and Clan Destiny (Unjustified Favor) Book 3 in the series is your complimentary title for April 21st -23rd. Have a super-fantastic read filled weekend and I’ll see you next week.

Hemingway’s Beloved (A Poem & A Picture by Me & of Me)

/ Janna Hill / 2 Comments

Okay, I might have been wrong in yesterdays post. We received [well] over 13 downloads of Getting Me Back. Thanks y’all. It wouldn’t matter if we got 13 million – we are sticking to the plan. We bought the ticket – we’ll take the ride. That’s my spin on a Hunter S. Thompson quote. JANNA HEMINGWAY DRUNK & DISHEVELED (731x800)

This photo was taken in front of Hemingway’s house in Key West, Florida. Of course it is now a museum. I look like I am either drunk or crying. I think it was both. Talking to ghosts sometimes has that effect on me.

Hemingway’s Beloved

Did you shake his hand –?

the hand of a man’s man?

Did you see how his eyes searched the space around him as the world grew smaller?

Did you learn the secrets of Africa or discuss his tomes over drinks?

Of course not.

You could not for we were mere children –

our wedding day marking the twenty second anniversary of his exodus… his rise to immortality.

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature the year you were born – did you know that?

I was but two months in the womb when he placed the beloved twelve-gauge inside his mouth and obliterated the ciphering pheasants once and for all.

Did you see how he caressed her?

How her cold, soft metal against his finger was as pacifying as the perfect daiquiri… how she (his beloved) alas cured him of the demons.

In a flash she rooted them loose one by one from their hiding place – a place liquor nor currents could mole; a cavern so deep no joule or watt could grasp. Ahh, but she did.

She exorcized them, set them to flight riding on soft grey tissue laden with hemochromatosis and fragments of bone.

Christ might have offered the fiends a swine but not her or better yet not him…

A sacrifice for the Bay of Pigs?

It was all such folly — such unholy madness for a simple man and a literary saint.

~o~o~o~

*Hemingway’s Beloved was first published in the HWA (Horror Writers Association) Poetry Showcase Volume I.

So Getting Me Back (The Voices Within) will still be FREE April 18th through the 21st while we do this A Poem & A Picture by Me & of Me.

What else can I say about Ernest Hemingway that has not already been [acceptably] said?