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Saturday, December 2, 2023

The low down on the low profile Heron Clan


 


 

 

 

 

 

 

The Steiny Road Poet (a.k.a. Karren Alenier) usually doesn’t submit work to publications where she has been published before. However, she finds herself drawn to Doug Stuber’s Heron Clan anthologies and has been published annually there since 2020 in volumes VII, VIII, IX and recently X. The books, numbering over 200 pages of poetry by mostly poets she has never read before, are handsomely produced. They are promoted by Stuber on his weekly Sunday afternoon Zoom readings.

 

In a way, these volumes, in English, which often include poets who are not United States citizens, seem oasis often for unexpected poetic gems. Poets of all levels are represented. Stuber, Ed Lyons and librarian Richard Smyth developed the project in Rochester, NY in 1998 and has included such luminaries as Ilya Kaminsky.

 

Here’s one poem published in Heron Clan X

 

a mother in selma

   by Karren L. Alenier

 

there’s a mother

in Selma Alabama

I reached her

during a phone bank

an eleventh hour

action to flip

a Republican seat

in Congress she said

no one cares

about my vote

in one ear I spoke

I do they do in the other

ear her baby fussed

later I thought your

child will thank you

for joining the

community to elect

a better human being

but then I said

god bless you

and I could feel

her hanging on

with her life

 

 

The collection is published by Katherine James Books, but does not appear regularly in Amazon listings. For more information contact KatherineJamesBooks@gmail.com.

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