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Support Wisconsin's Poet Laureate
The Governor's Poet Laureate Commission has established the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Fund to supplement the $2,000 annual budget from state funds that support the Poet Laureate's travel and other expenses. The backbone of the effort is an endowment fund to be filled by voluntary donations from citizens. The goal is to establish a permanent fund of $25,000 whose interest income will help underwrite some of the Poet Laureate's expenses.
The WRWA Board of Directors voted to endorse this effort by posting this notice in the newsletter. Donation checks should be made out to the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, Inc. (which will maintain the endowment for the exclusive support of Wisconsin's Poet Laureate) and sent to Wisconsin Poet Laureate Fund, c/o Jane Hamblen, 3515 Sunset Drive, Madison, WI 53705.
A Child's Appreciation of Summer
Plymouth Summer
Sue Silvermarie
We sang it into summer twilights:
Red light green light
hope to see a ghost tonight.
If I got tagged between trees,
I turned, whoosh, into a ghost.
Bark beneath my palm
said I was safe.
It was the running I loved,
and the risk.
Reaching a tree pleased me
but leaving a tree
thrilled me.
I was the living wind,
not a ghost but a blur of girl
blended with dusk,
charged with evening's change.
Sometimes they caught me,
so I spun my fingers out
to steal another runner.
I screamed to scare them,
happy to use my power.
Red light green light
Hope to see a ghost tonight.
We singsonged it into dark,
sensing the real ghosts getting closer.
I longed to see one.
I hungered to pierce
invisible mystery.
Summer
From A Child's Point of View
Patty Mile
running free
chasing dandelion fuzzes
bare feet
on cool grass
feels good
to me
Endless Evenings
Jane Osypowski
Most summer evenings
I watch them trek down the hill
barefooted, bucket in one hand,
fish net in the other.
Little big game frog hunters
move stealthily to the swamp
where they giggle, swoop, scoop
and splash for hours.
Later, as darkness settles,
I hear the low voices.
They tell tall ribbeting tales
of outwitting the barefooted giants.
And then they giggle, they splash
and they wait for the children
to come out and play with them
another endless evening.
July Evening
Cathy Conger
Dusk, the violet hour
Summer hangs long
over lavender-tinted hills.
Damp mellow air
settles in for the night.
Shampooed curls toweled dry,
sister and I sit barefoot
in shorty pajamas on the back stoop.
We clutch our punched-lid mayonnaise jars,
wish upon the Evening star,
and wait for lightening bugs.
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