Military Writers Society of America Award Winner Publishes for Mother's Day

Remembering Mothers a New Way

Award-winning Poets From Two Hemispheres Co-Author Chapbook

She Wore Emerald Then was conceived by Californian Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Aussie Magdalena Ball as an alternative to the cloying greeting cards usually available for mothers in card shops. In fact, originally it was to be a thoughtful digital upgrade for a card. It would be about the same price as a card but an entire chapbook full of poems.

That idea was influenced by the pair’s awareness that the Net was, in fact, what allowed them to meet and collaborate. But the chapbook turned out to be both digital (for greenies who want to save paper, postage and airline fuel) and a lovely to have-and-hold book for those who still have room in their hearts only for the real thing. And the book is still no more expensive than some of the fancier cards.

Howard-Johnson's first chapbook, Tracings (Finishing Line Press) was honored for excellence by the Military Writers Society of America and named to Compulsive Reader's Ten Best Reads. Her poetry has also been published in journals like Pear Noir, Montana State University's literary magazine, Writings from the River, Mt. St. Mary’s College journal Mary, The Pedestal magazine and in the soon-to-be released anthology by UCLA’s own Suzanne Lummis. She is the author of several other award-winning books. She is also an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

Ball’s novel Sleep Before Evening received unanimous 5-star reviews for its linguistic beauty and the intensity of its plot. She is also the author of an award-winning poetry chapbook Quark Soup, and a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment: How to Review Anything. Her website The Compulsive Reader, http://www.compulsivereader.com/html, has become a benchmark for high quality online literary criticism.

The two poets collaborated last year on a book of what Howard-Johnson calls "unsyrupy" poetry for Valentines Day. It is available at http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/images/cherishedpulse.htm

Artwork for She Wore Emerald Then is by May Lattanzio. She is a freelance writer/photographer, and author of Waltz on the Wild Side -- An Animal Lover's Journal and contributor to Native West's anthology Least Loved Beasts of the Really Wild West - A Tribute.

Learn more about Magdalena Ball at http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/images/MediaRoom.htm

Learn More about Carolyn Howard-Johnson at www.HowToDoItFrugally.com

Find a catalog of Lattanzio's writing at http://maylattanzio.blogspot.com and her photographs at http://www.jpgmag.com/people/may or http://www.thelensflare.com/u_may.php.

Find She Wore Emerald Then on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/She-Wore-Emerald-Then-Reflections/dp/1438263791/

How Iraq's Sand Is Like Irises: A Thank You from a Grandmother to Her Soldier Grandson

Below you will find the letter I sent to my grandson after receiving from him a bouquet of iris on Mother's Day. It seems very private but then it occurred to me that it is also very American, about generations and love and really, what our soldiers are doing over there or -- if that doesn't describe the way they're thinking about it now -- then it may be about what they thought they would be doing over there. He is serving in the tradition of his father, his grandfather, his Great Uncle Bob, and Jim, and another Great Uncle he has never met, Doug. Veterans all.
Dear Travis:

How I loved the flowers on mother's day, though the sand you mentioned from Iraq's deserts--unblooming ones I must presume--would have been adequate. It's the thought.

As it turns out, the flowers were iris. So, if it's the thought that counts, they made me think.

Your great, great grandmother Ruth Howard (the one who is a main character in This is the Place) raised iris. Raising iris is different from planting iris or just having some in your yard. She had a patch of them just beyond the side yard where that huge Mormon family sat in Adirondack chairs. There were some 40s /50s style metal lawn chairs there, too, a tad rusted. And the clothesline. I think it was made so the ropes could be taken down during family parties but those ropes were supported by poles where wasps liked to build their nests. They were cozy homes for the wasps, hollow with nice little holes for them to ease into and out of. Good hiding places. One never saw the actual nests, only the comings and goings. Once I leaned against one of their entrances (or perhaps exits). Someone didn't like it much and he (or she) stung me in the armpit. That's the first time I noticed the holes were there. Before that they had just been good places to hang from your knees.

Anyway, beyond that yard, all nice and green and shaded by an apple tree that put out the bitterest, hardest, greenest apples of all time, was the iris patch. Beyond that the chicken coop. Chicken manure made very good fertilizer for the iris so it was nice and convenient. Grandmother putzed in that patch. She crossed iris with iris to see what she would get. A little pollen from this applied with her finger to the female organs of that. She also tried for size, I think, because her iris were huge, as big as the biggest California-grown grapefruit. And the colors. Some had mismatched petals, the top ones that curved up different from the ones that made a skirt. Some glittered in sun like mica. And not just the color of Van Gogh's irises. Oh, no. Much too plain. These came in pink and gold-orange, the color of sunsets. Blues and lavenders, the colors of Utah skies in summer.

Grandma liked to give tubers (for they are tubers, really, and not bulbs) to people who came to visit for she kept them nicely divided so they didn't lose any of their energy and life. By dividing them her iris she kept them forever young. It worked that way for Grandma, too. Because she was always busy and interested in something she remained feisty and fun until she died in her 90s. The olds woman in Hollday, Utah at the time.

Getting a tuber from Grandma was a treat. It was always a surprise the following spring to see what color would come of those roots that looked like giant rat turds. Grandma produced miracles with her iris.

You did, too. (-:

Love,
Grandma Carolyn

PS: You can see that iris have been influential in my life. The cover of one of my book's of poetry (co-authored by Magdalena Ball) is covered with iris, courtesy of an artist friend, Vicki Thomas.