Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Cold Mountain”
A few months back, I entered the Fall 2025 Adult Contest of the Oregon Poetry Association. One of the categories this time was called Extended Prompt. The rules were one page and one poem maximum in any form following the prompt, “Turning Point.” The judge, Richard Tillinghast, provided some additional guidance: “Write a poem about a turning point in your life, a landmark event or life-choice. Something—
good or bad—has happened that changes everything.”
My poem, “Juneteenth,” was published in Scissors & Spackle, Vol., 3: Laundry Lines: An Anthology, way back in September 2013. At the time, it took its title from Ralph Ellison’s second novel, Juneteenth; in the decade since, Juneteenth has (finally) been recognized as a National Holiday! My poem is about a very different subject, however—a vignette from June 19, 1977 when I was a very new, very young mother…
…
