Writing

Fruitbox Castles: Poems from a Peach Rancher's Daughter, Finishing Line Press
This collection of poems is illuminated with a sense of place framed with memory and all that remains. There is much to delight in the sensory: stubbled fields, perfume of pears. Hard labor is honored, planting, harvesting, “summer saved in jars.” And working in a cannery: “Hands that burn from sweet juice…where jobs were scarce as shade.” “Morning light poured across the wooden planks,” reminds one of Vermeer.

Jeanine Stevens is the author of, Limberlos, a six-time Pushcart Nominee and the winner of the national poetry award from WOMR.

Jennifer O’Neill Pickering, a woman with deep roots in Northern California soil, take you in their arms and hug you hard. She writes of the strength of her peach farmer grandmother, the betrayal of her mother, a dreamer father, and the beauty and generativity of the land. In one of her most powerful poems “The Alchemy of Grief,” she writes, “In theory we begin our journeys at birth./Travel backwards moving forward.” Take that journey with her in Fruit Box Castles.
Wendy Patrice Williams, poet and educator, author of Autobiography of a Sea Creature: The Healing of Trauma of Infant Surgery, UC Health and Humanities Press, In Chaparral: Life on the Georgetown Divide, California, Cold River Press.
Two Poems:

Bountiful
Mom midwifed rows of freestones
Late July we’d sit under umbrellas of the walnut tree
peel pink ribbons of skin
release pits in a curl of wrists
Peaches fill canning jars rattling in caldrons of water
pale circles of paraffin float on bountiful mouths
November we yank the light’s chain
creep down the grouchy stairs
to the basement’s crochet of spider webs
scatter whatever, behind steamer trunks that store secrets:

kimonos wrapped in tissue paper, awaiting an occasion,
the dragon tea pot, formal tables,
helmets pitted by shrapnel, uniforms grown too small
letters in cursive, a wedding gown--- the first mistake.
On one wall saves summer in jars: snap beans, pickles,
yellow hearts of peaches;
Mom stopped canning and I could never fit into her waders
use the watery screen of an iPad to can words---
keep memories--picked ripe in season

honest labor.

A Lucky Girl

She is the youngest daughter
the good listener,
the lucky one with straight
teeth, the last born,
not often given to advice.
People tell her their secrets.

Before Dad ran off to Mexico,
with the best friend,
the older sister never had
much to say about life at Farmlands;
the high-water bungalow,
twenty-acres of tomatoes,
stewing in summer’s kettle.
How she skips right through his warnings
Don’t go down to the river.

Never speaks of the whippings,
behind the barn,
except to the little sister,
the good listener.
How it takes forever to unhook his belt,
the one with the horseshoe buckle.

How she braces for the sting
against the planks of bubbled paint.
leather to soft skin
tattooed with welts
as if she just stepped
on a wasp’s nest,
and not out of line.

“Blooming In Winter, I Street Press, KDirect
A lyric voice alive to the environment and as awake to the interior weathers,"
Sacramento Poet Laureate Emeritus Julia Connor,
"Both sweet and painful pulling the reader close with a clear lyrical voice.”
Sacramento Poet Laureate Emeritus, Bob Stanley

Blooming In Winter, is culmination of a lifelong dream. It is a collection of my lyrical poetry celebrating the sense of place: rural and urban and important passages: birth, love, loss, exploration, maturity, and death. My poetry is both accessible and thought provoking; often humorous, it reflects an interest in nature and the nature of human relationships. I have tried to honor beginnings in rural northern California writing of the loss of habitat,and farmland --and a longing for simpler living. I invite urbanites and country cousins to connect with these poems . The book includes 10 color plates of my visual art. It can be purchased on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and elsewhere. Click on the book to "look Inside." arrow at Amazon. The first chapter are poems about trees. Some of my favorite poems are:

"Sock Relations," "I Am the Creek," "First Harvest," and "Three Questions to a Daughter." You can read some below. I hope you find your favorites too.

I am grateful for these fine publications and institutions that support my writing of poetry, prose, and memoir (partial list).

Dime Show Review v.2 issue 3 (fiction)
Raven's Perch (creative nonfiction)
Sacramento Metropolitan Art Commission (poetry)
Sacramento Poetry Center (poetry)
Writer's On the Air (podcasts fiction)
The Dog With the Old Soul (creative nonfiction)
The Voices Project (poetry)
Open Circle (sculpture including my poetry) Sacramento, CA
Goddess Utility Box (visual art and poetry) Sacramento, CA