About Me

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Lake Arrowhead, California, United States
I live for my family, teaching, reading, and the joy of every new day, and I write to live! I've written both non-fiction, and adult and young adult fiction, and am currently working on a novel set in both California and London. This means I get to travel! Qualifications/Education: M.F.A., Creative Writing, 2009 Goddard College, Vermont. California Single Subject Teaching Credential Program, English, 1996 University of Redlands, Redlands, CA. B.A., English Literature, 1996 California State University, San Bernardino, CA.

Monday, June 6, 2011

A Writer's Exercise

Writers! Try this: Walk about. Find 5 images—objects, scenes, etc. Free write in any form about these images—poetry, sketches, photographs, history of the images, etc.  I chose the The Mission Inn, in Riverside, California.  From the roof, near Writer’s Row, I found a spot near the Alhambra Mirador Suite. I wish I had taken a photograph…but this is what I saw…



Alhambra Mirador

Two cypress trees

Spiral green flames

Stand on guard

Small domesticated

Versions of Van Gogh’s

Black torches

In

Starry Night



This is not a wild place

But an oasis of order

Solidly built by man

Above the brown tinged

Air of city streets

Below



Half a dome

Defines one corner

…I wonder

Does its under belly reflect

Blue

The early spring sky

Flecked with lavender and

White clouds

Above me



The largest dome stands

Solid

Across the courtyard

Jack-o-lantern eyes

Pumpkin colored shape

Harvested from the architect’s Halloween memories

Childhood’s verdant fields



Another nearby

The dome modestly sized

Modestly adorned—the third in the trinity



Christ’s cross rises in between

The color of sand and rust

A broken spirit perches atop



Lemons

And the Madonna and her child

Share the same sun drenched square

The smallest, yet brightest residents…

Wreathed in the impossible yellow

Citrus

Blue cornflowers.
Posted by Rachel Lorene "Lori" Johnstone Pohlman at 6:10 PM

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Bodies of Smoke

From Bodies of Smoke

"The day was suddenly quieter, or maybe it just seemed to hush as Jan witnessed the spectacle of ashes falling all around him, slowly turmbling out of the sky, carried on the soft breeze from some unknown fire. He looked toward the forest, thinking of a wildfire, but the sky in that direction was serenely blue. The wind was blowing from the other direction, anyway. It was coming from town. Oswiecim. There was a railroad station there, and a camp.

Jan continued to stand, face upturned, wondering what was happening. What new calamity might this foretell? Maybe the whole world was going to light itself on fire. Maybe it already had.

Ashes continued to float down on his face, his head, his shoulders, cradling themselves in his outstretched hands. Finally, ashes covered all of the roses."


Bodies of Smoke

copyright protected, R L Johnstone-Pohlman, March 14, 2010

What Are You Reading? The Two-Minute Book Review Series

  • Wallace, David Foster. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.
  • Foer, Jonathan Safran. Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
  • Irving, John. A Widow for One Year
  • Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking.
  • Dunn, Mark. Ella Minnow Pea.
  • Donnelly, Jennifer. A Northern Light.
  • Kingsolver, Barbara. Prodigal Summer. This is one of my favorite novels; it's lush and filled with nature imagery, humorous and thought provoking. Entirely wonderful.
  • Knapp, Caroline. Drinking: A Love Story. For anyone wondering about the alcoholic experience, here's your book. Exceedingly readable and feels absolutely honest.
  • Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye
  • Gaiman, Neil. Neverwhere
  • Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. As my writer friend says, "This is the book I wish I wrote." A book narrated by Death about a little girl living in Germany during WWII. This book will always live in my library!
  • Selznick, Brian. The Invention of Hugo Cabret. YA Graphic Novel. Some of my teen readers loved it, others found it too simple.
  • Colfer, Eoin Colfer. Airman. This book was voted favorite of the year with my middle school age book club.
  • du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca
  • Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game
  • Proulx, Annie. Brokeback Mountain
  • Spinelli, Jerry. Milkweed
  • King, Stephen. On Writing
  • Hamilton, Edith. Mythology
  • Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird. My favorite book on writing!
  • Gilbert, Elizabeth. Committed.
  • Skibell, Joseph. A Blessing on the Moon. An amazing Holocaust tale..this book stays with me. I want to read it again for the first time!
  • Anderson, M.T. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing
  • Harris, JoAnne. The Girl With No Shadow

Poetry Corner

"August in Waterton, Alberta" by Bill Holm


Above me, wind does its best

to blow leaves off

the aspen tree a month too soon.

No use wind. All you succeed

in doing is making music, the noise

of failure growing beautiful.



"Lincoln by Vachel Lindsey"


Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,

That which is gendered in the wilderness

From lonely prairies and God's Tenderness.

Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,

Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,

Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,

Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire--

Fire that freed the slave.



Read!

Read!