Local poet opens up during Poetry Appreciation Month
Just For Fun April 26, 2020
Kay Whatley is a local poet who opens up about her craft. April is Poetry Appreciation Month.
April is Poetry Appreciation Month and poets everywhere want others to know it isn’t just something you studied in high school. For some, it’s a part of their being, a way to express themselves. For Kay Whatley, poetry provides understanding the parts of life which confound her and provides a way of coping.
“It helps me deal with personal hardship and tragedy if life comes at me that way,” she said.
Whatley is a teacher, gardener and writer in Northwest Georgia and part of the Calhoun Area Writers.
She said she’s been writing poetry all of her life.
“Luckily for humanity, those older verses no longer exist!” she said.
She wrote her first poem as a campaign speech in high school.
“I was running for State President of the Y Clubs of Georgia,” she said. “I wrote and memorized the poem and delivered it before an audience of about 1,100. It must have been okay because I won the election. To date, it is my only ‘prize-winning’ poem!”
She finds joy in telling poetic stories that bring happiness to others, especially children, she said.
“There is no thrill quite so sweet as to have their faces light up because of something I wrote,” she said. “Poetry is the outlet for the real me who hides inside most of the time.”
Inspiration
My ideas usually come from my life,” she said. Something she saw, or don’t understand or something that changes her can become the foundation of a poem.
“Sometimes, (the inspiration is) something I’ve read that I want to restate in a different format so I can comprehend it better,” she said.
Sometimes, though, they come unbidden in the night, she said.
“These spontaneous ones are nearly always complete except maybe a small thing that needs correction or clarification. They are also rare.”
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Whatley said she was raised on Mother Goose rhymes.
“I know many people don’t count them as poetry, but my mother read them to me constantly and insisted that I memorize many of them,” she said. “I think that is largely responsible for the sense of meter and rhythm I feel when I’m writing.”
She said she still recite most of them and why she prefers simple, story-telling poetry over the more literary type and why she loves to write for children.
“In my teen years, I was fascinated by Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Lewis Stephenson.”
Both had a sense of rhythm that helps open her mind so she can understand.
“I also love the prose of older eras like Oswald Chamber, C.S. Lewis, and Louisa May Alcott,” she said.
For more poetry, check out poets.org.
Calhoun Area Writers (CAW)
This group of writers offers a supportive setting that meets monthly.
“The great programs every month helped me learn more of the craft of writing and the critique groups where we hone our skills have made my work much better and given me the courage to share it with other people,” she said.
She said many writers face similar struggles and the support offered by the group is important.
“It’s invaluable to being emotionally able to continue in the face of rejections,” she said, adding they have also helped her learning computer skills and programs.
“All my work would have been tucked in books and notebooks at home,” she said.
Currently, she is working on a children’s picture book written in lyrical rhyme in the style of Dr. Seuss. It’s called “Creation Jubilation.”
“It’s my attempt to retell the story of creation in a way children can understand and also enjoy,” she said. “Without CAW, I never would dhave had the courage to start the project or the help and knowledge I needed to finish it.”
April is also Anklyosing Spondilitis month. For one woman’s battle against the autoimmune disease, read here.
“American Classical,” or jazz is a melting pot of influence
Arts & Entertainment, Just For Fun April 19, 2020
Sometimes called “American Classical,” jazz is truly a melting pot where French, Spanish, African, Italian, German and Irish influence melded with European classical music and African/Caribbean folk and American mainstream.
That’s a lot notes to ponder.The fire under that melting pot was New Orleans in the 1870s. With Charles “Buddy” Bolden leading the way, jazz became central to the Crescent City nightlife, where music and dancing were more necessity than a hobby.
Toshiko Akiyoshi is the featured jazz musician during JAM.
One of the traits that sets jazz apart from other genres is improvisation. Musicians often improvise what they play, include call and response patterns, and let the music and atmosphere guide them. It’s tricky and difficult to pull off, but the great ones do, in fact, pull it off.
April is Jazz Appreciation Month, or JAM, created to introduce the world of jazz music to the masses and encourage them to participate in some form or fashion — going to concerts, listening on iTunes, or reading books.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History started JAM and this month, they are spotlighting women in the industry, particularly Toshiko Akiyoshi, who immigrated to America with her parents at the end of World War II from Manchuria via Japan. She studied at Berklee School of Music in Boston.
Other famous women in jazz include Mary Lou Williams, the Sweethearts of
Nathan Bingle
Jazz is life in New Orleans.
Rhythm, Leigh Pilzer, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others.
Akiyoshi and husband Lew Tabackin, a saxophonist and flutist, formed the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra. She is known world-wide for her big band compositions that include Japanese influence. She was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in Down Beat magazine’s annual Reader’s Poll and earned the title of NEA Jazz Master in 2007.
To listen to the words of Toshiko Akiyoshi, visit her Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Interview.
What else is claims April Awareness? Read our previous stories on one woman’s journey in America for Arab-American Heritage Month and how a Chatsworth martial artist doesn’t let Ankloysing Spondilitis stop her.
Featured image photo by Chris Bair on Unsplash
Are you ‘Aware’ in March?
Arts & Entertainment March 15, 2020
March brings with it thoughts of spring, as winter begins to fade. We become more aware of the world turning green, stretching out before blooming, and breezes that are warm rather than biting.
The month also brings some interesting subjects to be more aware of. There are at least six topics that have staked their claim to March. Some serious, like National Colon Cancer Month, some heritage-related like Irish-American Heritage Month and Women’s History Month, some educational like Youth Art Month, and some quirky like Mustache March and Hexagonal Awareness Month.
So, let’s jump into these Awareness issues and see what the talk is all about.
National Colon Cancer Month
The American Cancer Society estimates 104,610 new cases of colon cancer and 43,340 new cases of rectal cancer in 2020. Men have a slightly greater chance, 1-in-23, of getting colon cancer than women, 1-in-25.
According to the American Cancer Society, symptoms can include feeling like you need to have a bowel movement but doesn’t subside even after you go, a change in bowel habits, diarrhea, constipation, or a narrowing stool that lasts for more than a few days, bleeding from the rectum, blood in the stool, cramping, weakness, fatigue, and unintended weight loss.
Infections, hemorrhoids, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease are also common, non-cancerous causes for these same symptoms. Still, if you have these symptoms, see your doctor.
Since symptoms of colorectal cancer appear after cancer has grown or spread, it’s best to be screened or tested even if you don’t have symptoms. This gives doctors a chance to remove possible pre-cancerous growths called polyps. The American Cancer Society recommends talking to your doctor at age 45, earlier if there is a history of colorectal cancer in your family.
To learn more about colon cancer and cancer in general, check out Cancer.org or look for FYN’s Ask the Doc segments under the Lifestyle Section of Sunday Edition.
Women’s History Month
In 1981, Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 declaring the week of March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” However, a week isn’t long enough to learn about suffrage, women in space, surviving the Depression, women in medicine. So, after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9, designating the entire month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.”
Women’s History Month has been going strong since then.
To learn about women’s role in history check out the National Women’s History Alliance. Interested in Georgia history from a woman’s perspective? Check out the Georgia History. Also, Become Aware at Women’s History Month.
Youth Art Month
Children’s Art Month, the precursor to Youth Art Month, was created in 1961 by the Art & Creative Materials Institute to promote the value of children participating in art. It began to include secondary students in 1969, becoming Youth Art Month. Now the Council for Art Education coordinates the program on a national level.
Benefits to children include problem-solving, building creativity, observation, and communication.
So, whether it’s painting, drawing, or whatever medium, break out the art supplies, take a painting lesson, and get the creative juices flowing.
Become Aware at Art Educators or the Council for Art Education.
Irish-American Heritage Month
It’s probably only fitting that Irish-American Heritage Month is March, since St. Patrick’s Day, the American celebration of all things Irish, is also in March.
Interestingly, St. Patrick was British, not Irish. He was kidnapped by Irish raiders. He was taken to Ireland where he was forced to work as a shepherd. Often alone and afraid, he clung to and grew in his faith. After six years, he escaped. Once he became ordained, he returned to Ireland to minister to Christians living there and convert those who weren’t believers. To build repoire with the Irish, he incorperated their symbols and culture into Christianity. The Celtic cross was created when he added the sun to the Christian crucifix.
The pride of Irish is seen every March as rivers are dyed green, beer flows freely, parades march and corned beef is served.
Become Aware at Irish-American Heritage or at St. Patrick’s on History.
The unique six-sided jet stream at Saturn’s north pole known as “the hexagon.”
Hexagonal Awareness Month
Yes, it’s a thing. It even has it’s own society. The first recorded observance was in 2012, but according to their website, hexagons may have been celebrated since the early Neolithic era.
Even Saturn is in on the six-sided craze, having a hexagon-shaped tower above its cloud tops.
Become Aware at Hexagonal Awareness Month, at EarthSky, or at NASA.
Air Force legend and Moustache March Honoree, Robin Olds.
Mustache March
Move over No Shave November, make room for the ‘stache. This movement started as an Air Force tradition to honor Air Force legend Robin Olds. Technically, there are strict regulations on facial hair, but this was a good-natured protest. Olds apparently grew a waxed handlebar mustache which was not in compliance. It became a symbol for the 8th Wing in Vietnam, where Olds served as a pilot.
However, once on American soil and ordered by Air Force Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell to “take it off,” Olds replied with “yes, sir,” and did so.
Become Aware at Mustache March or on Wikipedia.