Thanks to all of the poets and listeners that came out to our last Poetry Reading at the Education Center.

Please plan to attend a free, all-ages oriented poetry reading night at your Education Center of Tipton County. Some nights will feature a prominent Indiana poet, others may feature some student readers from a Tipton County school, and all nights have an opportunity for many poets to read their works or the works of others. If you would like to be a reader, please arrive 15 minutes early to sign up for a reading that night. While you are at the Education Center, feel free to ask about other educational opportunities and look at our educational technology. We may be having creative writing and poetry workshops that could be of interest.

2005
Jan. 7

 

April 2, 2004
Featured Poet - To be announced

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May 7, 2004
Featured Poet - Poetry Contest

Click here for details!

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He owns a public relations firm in Indianapolis where he lives with his wife Lois.

in the depths
of my white protestant childhood
standing always standing
to sing the last familiar hymn
I wanted something more
than a benediction of
bringing in the sheaves
or the old rugged cross

now:
protestants crowd me still
joined by groups of
genuflections
pigmentations
and david's familiar star
allowing me an expanse of life
I only imagined as we
closed the hymnals
and prayed for the heathens
I now call kin

© 2002 John Sherman  All rights reserved

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October 4, 2002
Featured Poet - Sarah Skwire

Sarah Skwire was born and raised just outside of Cleveland, Ohio. She left to attend Wesleyan University in Connecticut where she majored in English, and then pursued her M.A. and PhD. in English at the University of Chicago. She is currently a Fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit educational foundation.

Her academic work has covered subjects as varied and odd as: chronically ill 17th century women poets, the Mary Carleton bigamy scandal, and fairy tale motifs in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She is also the co-author of the writing textbook Writing with a Thesis: A Rhetoric and Reader.

Sarah has published poems in The Vocabula Review; The New Criterion; Oxford Magazine; Mobius; Writing on the Edge; Lynx Eye; and Coracle. Sometimes she even gets paid. Her children's story "Answer Mountain"-a fable about questioning authority-will appear in the second edition of What if Nobody Forgave? And Other Stories of Principle, forthcoming from Skinner House Press.

A recent transplant to Indianapolis, Sarah reads at the Writer's Center of Indiana's open mic nights as often as her schedule will allow and has been delighted with the warmth and talent she's discovered in the writing community in her new home.

Sarah and her husband Darren have two cats, six computers, and nowhere near enough books.

WHY SHE'S LEAVING

hesitant slow strokes
will never
light a match

WHY SHE HASN'T YET

even water
never freezes
all at once

© 2002 Sarah Skwire  All rights reserved

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November 1, 2002
Featured Poet - Richard Pflum

Richard Pflum is a native of and lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of two full length books of poetry, A Dream of Salt and A Strange Juxtaposition of Parts by The Frederick Brewer Press (The Raintree Press) Bloomington, Ind., 1980, and the Writers' Center Press, Indianapolis, 1995, respectively. He has appeared in Tears in the Fence (U.K.), The Flying Island, The Reaper, Exquisite Corpse, Ploplop, The Hopewell Review and Kayak and the NewLaurel Review. He also has a poem in the anthology, A New Geography Of Poets,University of Arkansas Press, 1992.

He has taught part time, and currently runs a long term poetry interest group through the Writers' Center of Indiana. He has an esthetic interest in astronomy and enjoys viewing deep space objects, planets and sunspots. He also enjoys listening to all kinds of music (mostly classical) but has no talent for making it. He regards himself as a sort of anarchic formalist in the arts.

THE HAUNTED REFRIGERATOR

EDGES

I know where to search.
Where to gather with proper
pail and footstep.
I walk the edges.
Old railroad beds, the woods.
Between brambles and wicked
hooks of wild rose
I gather the scant, dark berries.

Not a good year, the weather
and birds having taken their toll,
the remains are small, tight as fists
not wanting to give up anything.
Blades of sunlight flash
as I turn through leaves and wands.

Stains flavor my fingertips,
the far reaches of my body,
my thoughts, the edge
of torn wilderness and reason.

Between thorns of underbrush
and a deep silence of trees
I gather what I need.
If enough for pie
I will have pie.
I will slice the edges clean.

© 2002 Stephen R. Roberts  All rights reserved

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January 10, 2003
Featured Poet - Scott Brewer

Scott Brewer was born in Grant County, Indiana. He grew up in Fairmount, and later in Fort Wayne. He graduated from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, with a B. A. in Classics (Greek Civilization) in 1980. Since then, he has lived in the Indianapolis area with his wife and three daughters (college, high school, and 1st grade). He is currently employed as a Municipal Arborist. Scott is a member of the Poetry Alliance of Indy, and has been writing poetry for several years. He has not alas, published much, but participates at many readings in the central Indiana area. He is slowly (very slowly) working on a book. His favorite subjects are Indiana and her residents, his family, and other poets.

INDIANA FANTASY

I love driving down
these cool country straights,
speeding through the summer dark
like an Italian launch
on the black Mediterranean.

I imagine you are with me,
head lain over on my thigh,
our hair gently waving to the sea.
The corn rustling by
is the mountainous coast

of the French Riviera
passing quickly to our right
as we top the foam toward Spain
to slip past Gibraltar and beyond.
Searchlights arcing through the misty

ocean of DeKalb tassels
a tardy farmer on his Deere John
wake me realize there is no one else,
but the waning moon in the back seat
winking over my shoulder in the shadows

to whisper like my daughter,
"Are we home now, Daddy?"
"Not yet, Luna dear...
We've got some miles
to go around the world."

© 2003 Scott Brewer  All rights reserved

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February 7, 2003
Featured Poet - Jeff Matheus

Jeff Matheus (pronounced "Matthews") was born in Gary, Indiana, and has resided in Indianapolis for the last eight years. During his teenage years, Jeff took an interest in the crafty use of language & imagery in the heavily-structured works of poets like A.E. Housman, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Blake, and he remains inspired and intrigued by that same classic "rhyme & rhythm" form today. Jeff has shared his original work in many diverse Indianapolis-area venues, and has become know for his sometimes dramatic & emotional reading style. In May of 1999, Jeff co-founded The Poetry Alliance of Indy with fellow Hoosier-poet Ricardo Parra. Since the formation of The Poetry Alliance, Jeff has hosted various
poetry/literary events across the state of Indiana, and continues to host a popular monthly open mic reading at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Carmel. Jeff is the author of two chapbooks of original poetry, "A Pageant of Reflections" (1998), and "A Fragile Sanctuary" (1999). In 2003, Jeff plans to continue his work with The Poetry Alliance of Indy, release a third chapbook of poetry (to be titled "A Moment for Dreaming"), and lastly, to record his first "spoken word" CD.

"IN THE CORDIAL GRIP OF APATHY"
by Jeff Matheus

With undivided clarity
I celebrate my apathy!
So snug am I, engulfed by this
Infernal warmth, internal bliss.
The path of least resistance lies
A promised land before my eyes,
For, paralyzed in numbing sleep
(So cavalier in slumber deep),
I feel the arms that nurture me
With glorious complacency,
...The cordial grip of apathy!

With self-indulgent eloquence
I now resolve to ride the fence!
So safe am I, ensnared inside
This callous trap where I reside.
The clamor of the World, so near),
I will not see, I will not hear!
With comfort as my second-sense
(Security, my recompense!)
I feel a glow surrounding me
With merry mediocrity,
...The cordial grip of apathy!

Copyright (c) 2003 Jeff Matheus, All Rights Reserved

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March 7, 2003
Featured Poet - Shari Wagner

Shari Wagner grew up near the small town of Markle, IN, but spent her eight grade year in Kenya and Somalia while her father, a physician, worked in a Mennonite mission hospital. After graduating from Goshen College, with a B.A. in English and co-major in Communication, Shari spent two years researching and writing the history of a small Choctaw tribe in Louisiana. While doing this, she developed a strong interest in folklore and in how personal stories can take on mythological significance. Shari left Louisiana to study poetry at Indiana University where she received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and where she also met her husband who was studying in the same program. Since then, she has taught part-time on the college level, as well as, on the elementary level as an Artist in the Schools. Currently, besides writing poetry, she is the editor of a small Mennonite magazine and cares for her daughters, ages 5 and 9.

Shari has been published in various literary magazines, including Southern Poetry Review, Indiana Review, and The Flying Island. She was the 2001-2002 recipient of an Artist Renewal Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis, and recently won first place in the Writing What You See competition sponsored by The Writers' Center of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Shari's most recent work focuses on places of mythological significance in Indiana and on family history. Her work will soon appear in an anthology of Mennonite poets published by the University of Iowa.

EVENING CHORE

My grandfather has climbed into his truck,
a rusty blue ford with a few stray
bales of hay bouncing like children
in the back. He's riding out to the far
pasture where cows have been grazing
twenty-five years in the shade of some elms.
The dog that disappeared in a thunderstorm
and never came back is on the seat
beside him. He's making whiny noises
and thumping his tail like an amplified
heartbeat. Before the door falls shut
behind them, the old man is cupping his hands
to call the cows away from the shadows
and into the field where the last light is
already sinking.

Previously published in Poetry In Motion

© 2003 Shari Wagner   All rights reserved

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April 4, 2003
Featured Poet - Poetry Contest

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May 2, 2003
Featured Poet - Jerry Dreesen

Jerry Dreesen has been writing poetry and short stories for 40 years and has self-published three collections of poetry, "Where There Was a River", "Bird Watching and Other One Act Plays" and "At Sixty-five". He has been active in several e-poetry forums, including The Critical Poet, in which he was a moderator. He has been published in a number of small-press journals including Loose-Ends, Agnieszka's Dowery, Skylark (a literary journal of Purdue University) as well as e-zines such as Stirrings, Fandango, Bonfire, HaikuHut, Nectarzine, Carnelian and Artella. Jerry is a member of the Indianapolis Writer's Center. Most recently he was first place winner of the 2002 "Masterpiece in a Day" Poetry Competition in Historic Fountain Square Indianapolis.

Seasons

April rains, cold wind,
remnants of before the greening.
You can't stop what's
coming or what follows.
It keeps on track,
gives,
then, never looking up,
takes it all back again.

© 2003 Jerry Dreesen  All rights reserved

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June 6, 2003
Featured Poet - Teresa Middleton

Originally from Newport News, Virginia, Teresa Middleton currently resides with her husband, Jim, and her daughter Elsie. She teaches English and creative writing at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis. She is the author of "Core and Seed," a collection of poems.

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July 11, 2003
Featured Poet - J.L. Kato

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Born in Germany, and raised in Gosport, Heidi Snodgrass graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English in 1993. She has worked as a server and as a bookseller (a job which only enabled her book addiction, from which she might happily never recover). Her work has been accepted by Poetry Motel and by Potomac Review. Heidi organizes the Two Poets & a Fiction Writer Reading Series in Indianapolis and volunteered to be a judge for the first Tipton Poetry Contest, sponsored by the Education Center of Tipton County. She is grateful to be most widely known as Michael's mommy, lives on the east side of Indianapolis, and is working on a manuscript of poems titled "Imperfect."

Promise

Alone you change the reels, a dark figure
mumbling to yourself at midnight.
These Planetary Designs exist and are rocks in your mouth,
fall out like minerals
joining their brethren on the beach.
Waves crash to shore (as they will)
belying a little violence in what is already so vast.
Shrugging, the music of dinner dishes being
put away, enters you.
The lanterns of other people's windows
drives you further out.

© 2003 Heidi Snodgrass  All rights reserved

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September 12, 2003
Featured Poet - Jody Rust

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October 3, 2003
Featured Poet - Patrick Kanouse

Patrick Kanouse's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Connecticut River Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Hyper Texts, and Chrysalis. He is the production manager for Cisco Press, a technology publisher in Indianapolis and the editor of The Raintown Review. He lives with his wife in Westfield, IN.

Vertumnus and Pomona

Faint etchings, fragments of languages we never
Learned. Distantly, I watch you cutting and pruning.

A storm approaches, and I turn into the dusk,
To the pub. Meanwhile, cosmologists debate

The universe's demise, how old it is, and
Its shape. In what mind or manner do we measure

The curves of ideas, of outlines of fingers
On the skin, of releasing the tongue from the throat?

GIs wrote their location in cipher--letters
In the letter home. Perhaps, in the street-corner

Sermons, we, too, can find our language. Neither time
Nor space is the compass of our conversation--

From distances my words cannot reach your ears.
You tend your orchard; I watch you pruning your vines--

The fruit lustry, fragrant, there. In the day's margins,
Scribbled notes become cryptic. The trinkets, tokens,

And photographs we carry are the addresses
Of the people we were, flourishes in journals.

You can fold space and time in your hands, if you like,
And dream a subtler dream than mine, but I speak

Hieroglyphs, and you understand only pi.
Between wind and eyes, the etchings lose definition.

We cannot hear the sermon, cannot break the code.
Language becomes theory, chaos, and conjecture.

© 2003 Patrick Kanouse  All rights reserved

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November 7, 2003
Featured Poets - Joseph Kerschbaum and Larry Sweazy

Joseph Kerschbaum lives in Bloomington, Ind. "The Human Remains" is Joseph Kerschbaum's first full-length collection of poems. The majority of  poems for the book was written while Joseph lived in Prague and traveled around Europe. A number of his poems have appeared in journals and magazines around the country (Facets, Poetry Motel, Eclipse, Stray Dog, Red River Review). In July, 2003 Joseph released his first spoken word CD, "1 of 29." The CD is composed of poems that were published in "The Human Remains" and also poems from his manuscript that is still in progress. Currently Joseph is working on his second manuscript, participating in readings and poetry slams around the region.

Larry D.Sweazy has had several short stories and poems published in various print and online magazines such as Hardboiled, Plot Magazine, Wicked Mystic, and Red River Review. His short story, The Promotion will appear in an anthology published by Berkley Publishing Group in the summer of 2004. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Society of Indexers. Professionally, he is a back-of-the-book indexer and creates indexes for Cisco Press, New Riders Publishing, Prentice Hall, and several other major publishers. Larry lives in Noblesville, Indiana, with his wife and a dog.

All Things Atomic

I pulled my arms tight, glued to my side
a slight tremble, a tiny bead of sweat on my tongue,
my hands over my ears, like sun-cracked seashells,
the air wavering, drawing in, suffocating visions
of match houses exploding--black and white Civil Defense films.
The spool ran round, this is not a movie.
The blast of a siren: Shrill, long, will it melt eardrums?
Will Marcy Wallace's face fall to the floor?
The Blob dripping, evaporating, a wave of white heat.
Under the desk. Third grade. Finding fear, glowing
green dust bunnies, taught, in-grained.
We Are All Going To Die! Faster than a
blink of the eye.
The Eye.
The bomb drops soft, like the intercom whisper:
This is only a test.

© 2003 Larry D.Sweazy  All rights reserved

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December 5, 2003
Featured Poet - Kristi Olson & Joseph Foster

 

 

 

 

 

Steering Wheel

Dad lets go of the wheel grinning.
My two sisters lean forward,
contagious in the back pulling
against the vinyl headrests You're
really gonna let him drive, Daddy?

We approach the Jureki's house, where
only two mornings earlier,
the paths of lead bullets were formed
through the skulls of a mother
and two of our classmates.
the bodies grew cold beneath bloody
bedsheets while Mr. Jureki
expired against the black leather
seat of his '84 Cadillac,
the pistons still hot from
a combustion that turns crankshafts and
exhausts fuel tanks of the family dream.

My palms begin to sweat keeping
wheels between white and yellow lines
Dad doesn't look to his left as we pass,
where the spirit of his two daughters
dance barefoot in the front lawn behind
yellow caution tape losing faith in God
and marriage, their plaid skirts twirling
in lampshade circles with empty hands
howling out from their bodies the way
gravity hurls heavy burdens burning for
the powdery coast of the moon and
blows seas of white dust into craters
named for emporers, philosophers,
gods and astonomers.

If not for the Virgin's rosary draped
from his fingers with shining silver braids
between beads at every traffic light,
at every pubble of spilt milk and every
mint-green dollar spent on tution,
Dad would have turned the wheel trampling
them before the wrong husbands did, before
they divorced the Church. He would've corrected
my horrible driving and taught me never to steer.

© 2003 Joseph Foster; All rights reserved

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January 9, 2004
Featured Poet - To be announced

 

 

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February 6, 2004
Featured Poet - Rusty c. Moe and Harold Wiley

Rusty C. Moe lives in Indianapolis, where he is a psychotherapist. He also is an instructor for the Indianapolis Gestalt Institute and is affiliated with the Christian Theological Seminary. He has been published in The Sun, Men's Journal, The Merton Seasonal, and Branches. His volumes of poetry are "Our Presence Together in Chaos" and "Where God Learns,"  both published by Black Moss Press.

 

 

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March 5, 2004
Featured Poet - To be announced

 

 

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