Category: My Farm Whispers

Literary treats at Atlantic News, Halifax, NS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Triple sweet treat spotted at Atlantic News. Treat your sweetie this Valentine’s Day to a free copy of Open Heart Forgery and Open Heart Farming poetry, or a creatively-priced copy of my My Farm Whispers poetry chapbooks. Three publications and a store with heart ❤️ !

You can savour issues of Open Heart Forgery and Open Heart Farming at https://ohforgery.com/ and https://ohforgery.com/open-heart-farming/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out Atlantic News at http://www.atlanticnews.ns.ca/

PS This is a little promo of these three publications that are dear to my heart. Stay tuned for more tales!

Dawn Poems – Janet Parker Vaughan on publishing a collection of poetry

I have an interest in independently publishing collections of poetry. It has been a great adventure putting together my poetry chapbook, My Farm Whispers, and working with my daughter Evelyn Stewart who designed by. When it wasn’t picked up by a press that I had submitted it to I thought, heck, I’ve done all this work so I’ll publish it myself! I’ve been happy with the sales, and have copies on consignment in several independent bookstores in Nova Scotia. It’s allowed me to raise money to support the education of my young friends at Himalayan Hope in West Bengal, India. http://www.himalayanhope.org/

It’s been particularly rewarding to give copies to family members who share my memories of growing up on our farm.

I have lots of tales to tell you about My Farm Whispers and my friends in India, but today I want to tell you about my friend Janet Parker Vaughan’s writing practice and her poetry collections, Dawn Poems.

Janet shared her experience:

“I have in the past year or so published three small volumes of Dawn Poems.  

 A few years ago I started getting up early in the morning with the idea of dedicating the first hour of the day to writing a poem. I took the first image or line that came to me as a starting point.  When I looked back, I found I had over three hundred poems, prayers and poetic statements, most of which I had forgotten I’d written. With the wonderful Sandra Barry’s evaluation and encouragement, I thematically arranged them into four volumes. I self-published them and over time have given them away to family and friends. 

 Our childhood farms forever haunt us.  The outer landscape through which we moved and had our being became over time Inner Landscape, a place of infinite reflection. Weren’t we lucky!”

Yes, I feel lucky and very blessed to have had the experience of growing up on a farm with all its inspirations. Hope you’ll be inspired to put together your own collection of poems.

Thanks, Janet, for sharing this.

(Quote used with permission.)

About Me

Hi I’m Mary Ellen Sullivan and I am excited to set up my first Word Press blog. Hope you’ll enjoy traveling with me as I figure this out.

I’ve been writing poetry since I was a pip-squeak. I write a lot about growing up on my childhood farm, food and farming issues, and just about everything. Lately I’ve been writing more prose and a couple of articles. I plan to share them to you in later posts.

I’ll be telling you about a little poetry project I started called Open Heart Farming. For the past 5 years I’ve put together an annual issue of Open Heart Farming poetry. The poems are by Nova Scotian poets on the themes of food and farming. And fun! Visit the issues and explore Open Heart Farming at https://ohforgery.com/open-heart-farming/.

I’ve also independently published a collection of my poems, My Farm Whispers, designed by my daughter Evelyn Stewart.

Now to get a little serious, here’s a more formal literary bio:

Mary Ellen Sullivan grew up on a farm outside Guelph, Ontario and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Much of her writing is inspired by her love for her childhood farm.  Her poetry and prose has been published in the Ecology Action Centre’s newsletter Ecology and Action, Understorey Magazine, Rural Delivery Magazine, Rhubarb, the anthology In the Company of Animals: Stories of Extraordinary Encounters, Canadian Jesuits International Mission News and a poetry chapbook, My Farm Whispers. She won the 2012 Elora Writers Festival for poetry and the 2014 Atlantic Writers Competition for poetry.

Mary Ellen is the proud poetry harvester for Open Heart Farming Poetry, an annual collection of farm and food-centric poems by Nova Scotia poets, and writes the Open Heart Farming blog. http://maryellensullivanblog.tumblr.com.  

My short story, “Raising Nellie”, was published in In the Company of Animals.

Looking forward to chatting with you.