The Holiday
Season as You Have Experienced It
But Rarely Read About It
Blooming Red
Christmas Poetry
for the Rational Co-authored by award-winning poets
Magdalena Ball and Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Blooming
Redis an e-chapbook and paperback
published in the time-honored
tradition of poets everywhere.
A USA Book News
finalist
A Military Writers Society of America Silver Award
Winner
This year please consider sending
holiday-themed poetry to
A
Recovering
American Soldier
c/o Walter Reid Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Ave.
NW Washington DC 20307-5001
Blooming Red
is an holiday book
for soldiers because
there is something in it for most everyone,
including
lots of American holiday nostalgia including humor
(see the Santa poem on this page!). There is
something to please all, with an awareness that all
who
celebrate the holidays may not be Christian.
"
Both Blooming Red poets write with authority and
skill, and the language throughout the collection is
stunning. Reading this collection made me hungry to
pick up the pen and write. Each poem took me outside
of myself, lifted me to another place, and made me
think while I relished the language. "
~Kathleen M.
Rodgers, reviewer
"I
like very much the words in 'Arizona's Christmas
Card.' I need to
look up some of them to know exactly what they mean,
but I like the strange,
exotic words bunched together."
~
Trippe Callahan, student at Trinity College at
Cambridge University
My poetry partner Magdalena Ball and I figure there is no holiday
greeting more meaningful than a poem—a real poem, not sing-songy
impersonal verse from the shelves of card shops. With that in mind, we
have created the Celebration Series of chapbooks and have released
achapbook titled Blooming Red:
Christmas Poetry for the Rational just in time for the holiday season.
Now, here’s
the exciting part. Literature lovers everywhere can order these
chapbooks with full-color covers by prize-winning water colorist Vicki
Thomas for only $3. each. That’s only $75 for 25 of the most memorable
holiday greetings you’ve ever sent to your friends and relatives. Each
booklet is a card and gift in one.
Blooming Red includes Maggie’s
science-inspired and Carolyn’s nostalgic poetry. It also includes some
humorous poems for fair measure.
Magdalena Ball runs the highly respected CompulsiveReader.com
review site. She is the author of the poetry book Repulsion Thrust,
which was published to unanimous five-star reviews. Her novel Sleep
Before Evening was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's poetry appears frequently in review
journals. She was accepted for the Poets & Writers
prestigious list of poets. Her chapbook of
poetry, Tracings (http://bit.ly/CarolynsTracings),
was given the Award of Excellence by the Military Writers Society of
America and She Wore Emerald Then won its highest honor of gold.
One of her poems recently won the Franklin Christoph Poetry Prize. She
is also an award-winning novelist and short story writer and was an instructor
for UCLA Extension Writers' Program for nearly a decade.
To Order
The chapbooks in the Celebration Series include Cherished Pulse
(for anyone you love), also with artwork from California artist Vicki
Thomas (www.bit.ly/CherishedPulse);
She Wore Emerald Then (for mothers on your gift list) with
photographs by May Lattanzio (www.bit.ly/MothersDayKind);
Imagining the Future: For Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions
(for the men in your life) (www.bit.ly/Imagining).
And now Blooming Red for the special folks on your holiday list!
(www.bit.ly/BloomingRed).
Sublime Planet is the entry
for Earth Day and Deeper into the
Pond is a gift for feminists or Women's Day.
All are available individually at only $6.95 on Amazon but are only $3.
each when ordered in quantities of 25 or more directly from the poets.
Put QUANTITY POETRY ORDER in the subject line and send an e-mail to me at
HoJoNews@aol.com. I will make payment arrangements with you and give
you the small shipping cost for the number you order.
Magdalena Ball runs
The
Compulsive Reader. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews
and articles have appeared in a wide number of printed anthologies and
journals, and have won local and international awards for poetry
(including the Roland Robinson literary award), and
fiction. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel
Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book
The Art of Assessment: How to Review Anything and two other poetry
chapbooks
Quark Soup, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson,
Cherished Pulse and the other books in the Celebration
Series. She runs a monthly radio program podcast
www.blogtalkradio.com/compulsivereader
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's first novel,
This is the Place, and
Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered
are both
award-winners. Her fiction, nonfiction and poems appear in national
magazines, anthologies and review journals. She speaks on culture,
tolerance, writing and promotion and has appeared on TV and hundreds of
radio stations nationwide. She is an instructor for
UCLA Extension's Writers' Program
and has shared her expertise at venues like
San Diego State's world
renowned Writers' Conference, Dayton University's
Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop and SPAN's (Small Publishers
Association of North America) annual conference. Carolyn was recently
awarded Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment by the California
Legislature; her home town's Character and Ethics Commission honored her
for her work on promoting tolerance and the Pasadena Weekly named her to
their list of "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen" for
literary activism. Her nitty-gritty how-to book, The Frugal Book Promoter won USA Book News' Best Professional Book
2004 and her chapbook of poetry,
Tracings, was honored by the
Military Writers' Society of
America for excellence. Published by Finishing Line Press it is
available on
Amazon
's new and used feature.
About the
Cover Artist
Watercolor artist Vicki
D. Thomas received her B.F.A. from Minneapolis College of
Art and Design, including a year of study in Amsterdam,
Holland. She was a freelance fashion illustrator in Los
Angeles for 17 years before she found her love for fine art.
Since then, Vicki has enjoyed painting bright, colorful
watercolors in a multitude of subjects, each designed to
bring pleasure and joy to
the
viewer. Her favorite subjects are children and whimsical
themes as well as floral gardens and bouquets, but she also
draws and paints outdoor scenes. She is a published artist
with limited edition prints/giclee prints on paper and
canvas as well as greeting cards and many gift items in the
marketplace.
She has participated in
numerous art shows, exhibits, and various galleries in
Southern California. Now living in Northern CA. near
Yosemite National Park, Vicki is active in several local art
clubs and she teaches watercolor classes to young people. A
new area of writing a series of fantasy novels has entered
Vicki’s busy life. Visit her website at:
www.vickithomasartist.com
The artwork on the cover of
Blooming Red are from Vicki's painting of Red Clematis.
Reviews for Blooming Red
Reviewed by Joyce White
Award winning and
happily espoused poets, Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena
Ball, have teamed up once again, to help celebrate their
love of the holidays with their new book of poetry, Blooming
Red. Carolyn is the Frugal Book Promoter and the
Frugal Editor. You can find Maggie at the popular
Compulsive Reader.
Carolyn and
Maggie work together virtually as Carolyn lives in
California and Maggie lives in Australia. It fascinates me
how these two poets team up and get the best out of each
other. Each contributed 13 individual poems to this festive
holiday collection of wit, family charm, and myth. If you’re
wondering, they also collaborated on Cherished Pulse, She
Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future in
the same way. All can be found at Amazon.com. Both of these
women enjoy a common interest in celebrating their sexuality
and sensuality in poetry during the holidays.
Carolyn
experimented with abstract and form in her poetry, and some
of her one-liners, are:
“Christmas is
always a surprise package…no one wants to decorate a tree
pushing a star to the top of a 14-foot high vaulted
ceiling…”
“Christmases all
to soon pass us by as others laid claim to our progeny…”
“we have more
time to think…to write…to remember while “all the gremlins
and ants…cleverly disappear until it is Christmas time
again…”
Carolyn turned to
Google to help her find an anteater to adopt or rent out for
the holiday…Google’s keyword elf gave [her] the best gift of
all Christmas gifts…the idea of
making-dinner-reservations…out!
Carolyn writes
“Natures best gifts and ours never silent…blessed by no
human sound.”
Reading these two
award winners is like partaking in their womanhood, tasting
their femininity, and meeting their past head on. Their
poems cry out for their inner child who still wants Santa to
come visit them, you know…equality for all; and, I agree
with Carolyn who says “[in] Einstein’s less than balanced
world…we would be less than dead.”
Maggie writes of
abundance and waste, of gluttonous dyspepsia…of the
inability to digest joy when others are hungry, what cannot
be created or destroyed…a huge database of Christmas past
(found in the attic)…random messy knowledge curse of recall
becoming parcels he could leap…with only one present leading
him to greatness…with anticipation turning to memory before
weeping eyes…a house full of dreams, visions and desires,
each glass ball becoming a wish, taken from the tree of life
we decorate at Christmas…super connections pulsing, through
the anti-matter of your tired brain, wrought with nostalgia
and wrung through time’s dryer…Once the paper’s gone, it’s
just us again, tired, spent, remembering life…one tap of the
keyboard a newbie springs forth…no sacrifices in blood
here…this is a rational zone so many years on fertile.
Make your holiday
great and read your family Blooming Red. It is a
great holiday stuffer! Fun and Informal. Five Stars from me.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
Reviewed by Joyce
White, Sculpting the Heart Book Reviews Author of Sculpting
the Heart’s Poetry
and
Sculpting the Heart: Surviving
Depressionwith Art Therapy
Reviewed by Margaret
Fieland
A Blooming
Good Holiday Poetry Book
Looking for a holiday
stocking stuffer? Want
something to read aloud at
holiday dinners, something
the whole family can enjoy?
Then treat yourself to is
delightful collection by
poetic collaborators Carolyn
Howard-Johnson and Magdalena
Ball. This is a delightful
little volume, 58 pages
consisting of thirteen poems
by each poet. I love reading
poetry aloud, and this
volume is full of delight. A
couple of favorites:
Christmas Magic Wrought by
Google’s Keyword Elves
by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.
which begins with
At the stroke of dawn on
November first
gremlins tired from their
Halloween
and ends with
That’s when Google’s
keyword elves gave me the
best gift
of all Christmas gifts.
It’s called
the
make-dinner-reservations
-at-McCormick-and-Schmick
system of revenge.
.You’re sure to recognize
yourself in this holiday
tale of woe. The poor
narrator is having a hard
time at the holidays.. Ants
attack her turkey, the oven
thermometers are on the
fritz and the Kitchen Aid
has died just as its
warranty runs out. And are
more disasters to come. I
laughed but, like the
narrator, we, too, have
contemplated just chucking
the whole thing and going
out to a restaurant.
And another, this one by
Magdalena Ball – fond
memories, Six Million Years
Ago, from six million years
ago, when we were kids.
Six million years ago
when we were just kids
upright in thin desert air
bi-pedaling in anticipation
of holiday seasons yet to
come.
Time was different then.
and ends
the first law of
thermodynamics
what cannot be created or
destroyed
your burning
youthful
matter.
Do yourself a favor, and
create some memories of your
own by buying this book and
then sharing it with the
whole family over the
holidays.
Sample Poems
from
Blooming Red
Christmas Haiku (c)
Ducking flying mess
the greedy bacchinalia
ends in dark, fitful, sleep
In the rusty morn
quick hit anticipation
shimmers round the gifts
Beyond the pile’s draw
need, pain, joy, disappointment
no shallow sugar pops here
It’s all tightly bound
marketer and purchaser
symbiotic dance
Once the paper’s gone
it’s just us again – tired, spent
remembering life.
~Magdalena Ball (c) 2010
Christmas Magic Wrought by Google’s
Keyword Elves
At the stroke of dawn on November first
tired gremlins tired from their Halloween
shenanigans crawl into the cracks
between my baseboards and floorboards
to hibernate with the grease ants
and cobweb generators that also go
unseen until I say the (or even think!)
the word “guests.” I suspect
that’s where they’re hiding.
Or in the attic. Or the flue. I know
I don’t see them again till
Thanksgiving
when they reappear to fortify
themselves on bread crumbs
from the dressing (that’s turkey “stuffing”
where I come from) and sticky
fingerprints
left by cousins made rowdy by the sight
of black olives that fit on their
fingers
like puppets. Thus energized, these pests
(the gremlin and ants—not the cousins)
cleverly disappear again until Christmas
when the ants attack my Big Bird
thawing in the kitchen sink. I’ve tried
banishing them with
diatomaceous
earth, trails of salt and bicarbonate, innocuous
traps that enrich both the folks who
make chemicals
and the ants who find them more nutritious
than deadly. If they’re feeling frisky,
the gremlins tackle both the upper
and lower oven thermostats, guzzle
freon from the fridge , assault
my Kitchen Aid just as the warrantee
runs out, kill my car battery to prevent
a last-minute run to pick up
more Jell-O for the molded salad
that didn’t mold, or those fun
little fried-onion-thingys-in-a-tin
the family thinks essential for the
green
bean dish I make by wielding a can.
opener. I’ve tried incantations,
affirmations and the Rhonda Byrnes version
of the law of attraction. Last year
sometime before October’s witching hour,
I turned to Google to help me find an
anteater
to adopt—or rent out—for the holiday
season. As for the gremlins, I looked
up herbs
(artemesia wormwood?) or chemicals (arsenic?)
to do them in and surfed for vendors
of hoodoo or voodoo symbols or wood stakes
imported from Haiti. What is noxious
to werewolves, zombies, and Dracula himself
must deter gremlins. That’s when
Google’s
keyword elves gave me the gift of all
Christmas gifts. It’s called
the make-dinner-reservations
-at-McCormick-and-Schmick
system of revenge.
~Carolyn
Howard-Johnson (c) 2010
From
the Front Page of the Journal Creative Wisconsin
Buy Links for
Carolyn's Books
Great
Fiction
Purchase THIS IS THE PLACE
andHARKENING
at Amazon in their new and used feature.
Both of these books are out of print. They are available
only on Amazon's New and Used feature for about $1.
Most of Carolyn's books are
also available for the Kindle reader.
Did you know that with
the Free app, Kindle can be adapted to any reader--even your
PC!
Careers that are not fed die as readily as
any living organism
given no sustenance."
~
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Studio photography by
Uriah Carr
3 Dimensional Book Cover Images by iFOGO Logo by
Lloyd King
To
subscribe to Carolyn's FREE online newsletter send an
e-mail.
Did you know that Amazon’s Kindle
e-books are a low-cost/no-cost way to access books
even if you don’t have a dedicated Kindle reader?
You can read Kindle's e-books on smartphones,
desktop computers and any e-device in between. You
can even store the books on the Amazon cloud.
~
Quote from
Diana Schneidman author
of
Real Skills, Real Income: A Proven Marketing System
to Land Well-Paid Freelance and Consulting Work in
30 Days or Less
All Carolyn's Frugal Books Are
Available on Kindle
As Well as Paperback
Subscribe to
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's Sharing with Writers Newsletter
and get a FREE copy of Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers
"I have been a professional writer 40 years, and am also a
tenured full professor of journalism. Carolyn's Sharing with
Writers newsletter is most useful for me--and for my
students. I emphasize to them that while research is 90% of
writing, and the actual writing is about 10%, there's another
100% out there called promotion. Carolyn shows numerous ways to
get the message to the mass media."
~Walter Brasch, author
and educator
Best Book Award for The Frugal Book Promoter (2004) and The Frugal Editor (2008)
and the Second Edition of The Frugal Book Promoter
(2011).
Reader Views Literary Award for The Frugal Editor
New Generation Award for Marketing and Finalist for The Frugal Editor
Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award
Military Writers Award of Excellence for Tracings, A Chapbook of Poetry.
A Retailer's Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotion wins author Military
Writers Society of America's Author of the Month award for March, 2010
Gold Medal
Award from Military Writers Society of America, 2010.
MWSA also gave a nod to She Wore Emerald Then,
a chapbook of poetry honoring mothers.
The Frugal
Editor
Named #! on Top Ten
Editing Books list.
Finalist
New Generation Book Awards 2012, The Frugal Book
Promoter, Finalist 2010 The Frugal Editor,
Winner 2010 Marketing Campaign for the Frugal Editor
The Oxford Award
recognizes
the
alumna who exemplifies the Delta Gamma precept of
service to her community and who, through the years,
devotes her talents to improve the quality of life
around her.
Winner Diamond Award
for Achievement in the Arts
Glendale
California's Arts and Culture Commission and the City of
Glendale Library.
And more than a dozen other awards for Carolyn's novel, short story collection and poetry.
See the awards page on this site.
Give Poetry for
the Holidays
Cover art by Vicki
Thomas, Poetry by Magdalena Ball and Carolyn Howard-Johnson
"Cherished
Pulse is full of poems that describe love from the eyes and
hearts of young and old. We see love in its youthful stage, stirring the
hearts of man and woman alike and tying a bond that even death cannot
break. As we continue reading, we understand that love deepens into an
awesome, but quiet joy as the couple grows older. These poems renew our
faith in love as they remind us of our own experience with this most
sought after emotion."
~
Lucille P Robinson for
Alternative-Read.com
Third in the Celebration
of Chapbooks with Magdalena Ball,
Imagining the Future is written expressly for fathers "and
other masculine apparitions."
She Wore Emerald Thenis a book of Moods of Motherhood:
thirty poems by award-winning poets Magdalena Ball and Carolyn
Howard-Johnson, with original photography by May Lattanzio. A
beautifully presented, tender and strikingly original gift book, ideal
for Mother's Day or any day when you want to celebrate the notion of
motherhood in its broadest sense. Share this collection with someone
you love.
Sublime Planetis an e-chapbook and paperback
published in the time-honored
tradition
of poets everywhere.
This collection of
ecologically oriented poems traverses a wide terrain, moving
from the loss of species to the beauty of the natural world,
from drought to the exploration of alternative planets. It's
an exhilarating collection that breaks boundaries and leads
the reader deep into the personal heart of perception.
Released by award winning poets Carolyn Howard-Johnson and
Magdalena Ball to celebrate Earth Day, this is a collection
of poetry that weaves the personal with the universal.
Photograpy by Ann Howley.
“Whatever your age these
poems celebrating women will
speak to you of times to look forward to or to remember. These are not
poems to be read once. They will stay with you forever.”
~ Nancy Famolari, author.
Also by
Carolyn:
Tracings is winner of the Military Society of
America's Award of Excellence and named to the Compulsive Reader's Ten
Best Reads of 2005
Imperfect Echoes is
Carolyn's newest poetry book. Writing Truth and Justice with Capital
Letters, lie and oppression with Small.
Cover and interior
art by Richard Conway Jackson
All proceeds go to Amnesty International
A
Selection of Carolyn's Past Speaking Engagements
Presenter
2009, 2010
Presenter,
2008, 09, 10, 11
Panel moderator, 2007
National Span College
presenter 2002
Fellows presenter, 2007,
08
Co-sponsor and presenter,
2007, 08, 09, 10, 11
University of Dayton Erma
Bombeck Writers' Conference, 2006, 2008
Sisters in Crime,
Pasadena, 2009
On the
Los Angeles Valley College Campus 2012, Rancho
Library 2013,
Valley College Spring 2014
Wisconsin Regional Writers Association
Presenter, Keynote 2010
the
viewer. Her favorite subjects are children and whimsical
themes as well as floral gardens and bouquets, but she also
draws and paints outdoor scenes. She is a published artist
with limited edition prints/giclee prints on paper and
canvas as well as greeting cards and many gift items in the
marketplace.
