Words from the Heart

When Melissa Davey, our guest blogger and writer for St. Jude Retreats, first contacted me, I jumped at the opportunity to discuss the topic of Teen Drunk Driving. A few days later, I read a story about honor student, Erin Cox, who was punished by her school when she went (sober) to pick up a drunk classmate that had called her asking for a ride home. I thought, what kind of mixed messages are we sending our kids?  I believe that, in addition to talking to our kids frankly about drinking and driving, we also need to make sure that the school officials and the local police are all on the same page. We can't expect our kids to do the "right" thing, when they are afraid that they will get punished for doing it. This just doesn't make sense.  Melissa shares with us what teens and parents need to know. The Impact and Consequences of Teen Drunk Driving  Before a teenager hits the age of 16, we as parents need to begin having conversations regarding the impact and...

There has always been something about the autumn season that has lent itself to poetry for me.  I am not sure if it was because it seemed to be the time when poetry was introduced in the school, or because my mother would recite lines of Robert Frost poems as the days grew shorter, trees change color and nights became colder. We'd take a walk down the beach, the trees all red and gold. I would walk along to top of the seawall, as Mom would quote, " Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out,/And to whom I was like to give offense. " (Mending Wall) Or, " Heaven gives it glimpses only to those/Not in position to look too close, " (Passing Glimpse) would be recited when I called for her to come and see what treasure I had found. Poetry and autumn, for me, go hand in hand even more these days.  I will be taking the 30 Poems in November challenge to raise much needed funds for the Center for New Americans, a local non-profit...

Kathleen Fearing is a writer extraordinaire!  Her latest book, Caught in the Crossfire, an anthology of poems about children living with war, is a hauntingly insightful look at the suffering forced on the innocent who have no way of understanding what is happening to their world or why it is that way. I had the honor to interview Kathleen about her book this week.      Welcome, Kathleen!  I am so excited to have you as a guest on the blog.  So, let's begin - what inspires you to write poetry?  First of all, I want to thank you, Linda, for agreeing to be a part of my latest book of poems, Caught in the Crossfire – Poems of Children in War . It was such a creative and rewarding project and I’m thrilled with the results.  As far as my inspiration, I don’t know if I can put my finger on it, but years ago, I was reading a book that was written in verse for young people . My imagination went through the roof because it was so different and ...