Kathy Jederlinich is a retired art teacher and prolific artist in multiple media.This acrylic painting is one of two now showing in the exhibit, Beyond Words,at the Benton County Historical Museum in Philomath, OR.
Kathy Jederlinich
Willawaw Journal Spring 2018 Issue 3
Our third issue includes the prompt by Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen and offers a wealth of visual art. The poets are listed in (nearly) alphabetical order with the artwork interspersed:
Cover Art: Leslie Green's "Sunrise," 24 x 30, acrylic on board
Editor's Notes
Page 1: Jude Brigley Elizabeth Cohen Jim Zola Laura Dinovis
Page 2: Katherine Edgren Judith Sander Erric Emerson Vincent Francone Abigail George John Grey
Page 3: Frances Van Wert Marc Janssen Kathy Jederlinich Karen Jones Gary Lark Frances Van Wert Anna Leahy
Page 4: Joana Lutzen McCutcheon Layla Lenhardt Judith Sander Sherri Levine Sue Fagalde Lick Gargi Mehra
Page 5: Leslie Green Megan Munson Paulann Petersen Gail Peck Marjorie Power Frank Rossini
Page 6: Kathy Jederlinich Lauren Scharhag Judy Shepps Battle Jim Zola Penelope Scambly Schott Sheila Sondik
Page 7: Leslie Green Dorothy Swoope Vivian Wagner Frances Van Wert Linda Wimberly Matthew Woodman
Page 8: Back Page with Judith Sander
Lauren Scharhag
Montego Bay
For thirty-three years, your exposure to water
consisted of quarries, creeks,
and the occasional lakeside barbecue.
Life on the transplant list kept you grounded,
so this was only our second seaside vacation.
You came prepared with beach shoes,
a swim shirt because the anti-rejection meds make you
high-risk for skin cancer, and snorkeling gear.
You were determined to explore a reef that lay
somewhere beyond the buoys.
Before I knew it, I could barely see you.
You can’t imagine the panicky flutterings,
as if I’d swallowed live kelp,
akin to watching you get wheeled off to the operating room,
glaucous hospital light a universe apart
from the blue Caribbean.
I carry it with me forever, that light,
the way I will carry forever the flash of sun on your fins,
how, in that moment,
you were closer to the horizon than you were to me,
how you dove.
Lauren Scharhag is an award-winning writer of fiction and poetry. She lives on Florida’s Emerald Coast. To learn more about her work, visit: laurenscharhag.blogspot.
Judy Shepps Battle
Frozen Tears
I never cried when dad died
and relatives wept
offering consolation
assuming pain I didn’t feel
clucking disapproval as I
lit a cigarette in the funeral
parlor saying I couldn’t smoke
even though others were
or when mom sobbed
and tried to jump
in his open grave
I shut my eyes and
pretended to be asleep
as others pulled her
from the abyss
I never cried when mom tried
suicide, not the first or fifth
or tenth time she picked up
scalpel-like knife, took pills,
or stopped eating
not when she heard voices
neighbor voices making fun
and urging her to jump
from fifth floor apartment
and sounded like she was
ready to leap
not even when she went into
a Princeton nursing home
refusing to recognize me
when I visited
animated only for peers
who said she is so
sociable, so caring, and
it is a shame her children
never come to see her
I never cried when mom died
just got angry at callous funeral
director who charged more
to store her dead body than if
she was staying at Four Seasons
and got furious at blue shag carpet
when I tripped going to the
fridge seeking chocolate chip
cookies and milk.
Judy Shepps Battle has been writing essays and poems long before retiring from being a psychotherapist and sociology professor. She is a New Jersey resident, addictions specialist, consultant, and freelance writer.
Jim Zola
Jim Zola is a poet and photographer living in North Carolina.
Penelope Scambly Schott
I Thought I Should Be Joan of Arc
The white gown flares over my flesh.
The fire stings like a winter river.
Even in the arch of the flames, I ask
Have I done enough?
Am I good enough?
I could be Amelia Earhart
injured and starving under the wing
of my Lockheed Model 10 Elektra
lost on an uncharted Pacific island,
my flight goggles shattered.
See what happens to women heroes?
When I was a child
I thought I should save the whole world
to be good enough to satisfy my parents.
I should be smart, pretty, charming, brave,
pile on the adjectives.
I thought and I thought and I thought
and I rushed into having babies.
That’s when I got brave.
Penelope Scambly Schott‘s newest books are Bailing the River, and Serpent Love: A Mother-Daughter Epic. She is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry.
Sheila Sondik
Bodega Bay
The dunes changed shape every year
and every year the change surprised us.
We flew kites, snapped bull kelp like whips.
The giant shrub ate our shuttlecocks and wiffle balls.
We found an LP of Just So Stories in a closet
and played it for our daughters.
The great, gray-green, greasy Limpopo River,
all set about with fever-trees…
We’d sit in the tiny, whitewashed porch,
and watch the broad creek riffle in the breeze.
Only here, we indulged in saltwater
taffy and 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles.
Great blue herons stalked Salmon Creek
while ospreys dive-bombed for their dinner.
Next door, a mysterious round structure
gave off a counterculture scent.
Lines of pelicans back from the brink
coasted over the surly gray-green Pacific.
Farther up the dunes, I poured sand
from plastic bucket to sandmill
and watched the spinning paddlewheel
with a dumb joy I still can’t fathom.
Sheila Sondik is a poet and printmaker in Bellingham, WA. Her poetry has appeared in CALYX, Kettle Blue Review, The Raven Chronicles, Floating Bridge Review, frogpond, , and many other journals. Egress Studio Press published her chapbook, Fishing a Familiar Pond: Found Poetry from The Yearling, in 2013.
