Tag: Environmental Poetry

Sterling Warner: “Annas Bay Anglers”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 

Annas Bay Anglers

Oyster beds rise
from tidal pools
like spiritual mounds
nurturing creation
creating calcium shell reefs
flashing occasional nacre—
mother of pearl prosperity—
distracting fishermen with its
iridescence before recasting
lines opening their third eye
and crown chakras,
activating,
balancing,
energizing
a dreamscape where meditation
of purpose guides each rainy day
angler’s quest for silver perch,
steelhead,
sturgeon,
& salmon.

About the Author: An award-winning author, poet, and emeritus English Professor, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared many literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Anti-Heroin Chic, The Galway Review, Lothlórien Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s poetry/fiction include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci, Abraxas: Poems (2024), and Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Presently, Warner writes, hosts/participates in “virtual” poetry readings, turns wood, and enjoys boating and fishing in Washington.

Image Credit: Public domain image originally published in The Naturalist’s Miscellany, or Coloured Figures of Natural Objects. London: printed for Nodder & Co.,1789-1813. Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

Sam Barbee: “Hybrid”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

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Hybrid

After blight, our chestnut forests
rotted.  Their shadows now emerge,
suffering in furniture and mirror frames,
within unconsecrated slights of legend.

A ring of scientists now cross-breed
remaining Chestnuts with a Chinese genus,
conjuring a stubborn breed, not quite clones,
but another noble effort resistant to demise.

Wooden spooled crib where our grandchild lies
hosts our echo, a remnant thrashing
versus what life will offer, wandering on
with the deceased against what wind strikes down.

So much put asunder, crumbling stumps
rootless and toothless beneath heaven
in a forest felled in microscopic confusion,
among graves where the mighty stood.

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About the Author: Sam Barbee’s poems have appeared Poetry South, The NC Literary Review, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina, Georgia Journal, Kakalak, and Pembroke Magazine, among others; plus on-line journals Vox Poetica, The Voices Project, Courtland Review, and The New Verse News. 

His second poetry collection, That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016.  He was awarded an “Emerging Artist’s Grant” from the Winston-Salem Arts Council to publish his first collection Changes of Venue (Mount Olive Press); has been a featured poet on the North Carolina Public Radio Station WFDD; received the 59th Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society for his poem “The Blood Watch”; and is a Pushcart nominee.

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Image Credit: Illustration originally from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine.London ; New York [etc.] : Academic Press [etc.]. Image Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Public Domain