Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Marcie Flinchum Atkins Here. Thank you, Marcie, for hosting.
First, there are two winners of Valarie Short’s picture book THE SOUNDS OF FREEDOM COMING!
CAROL VARSALONA and PATRICIA FRANZ
CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!
It’s not my book, but it’s still fun to give things away.
(Carol, please send your address to me at Janice.scully@gmail.com)
What a crazy time we live in! I’ve been busy editing my novel in verse entitled WHEN MY BROTHER WENT TO WAR. It’s a fictionalized version of the year my brother went to Vietnam through the eyes of his fourteen year old sister reading his letters and hearing his stories. I’ve posted about this I believe, so I hope I’m not sounding repetitive. I am enthusiastic, though. I really like how it’s taking shape.
A year ago I rather gave up on it as it seems that a Vietnam War story was no longer relevant.
Ancient history.
No one would be interested.
I lost faith in my ability to get this story into the world.
But possibilities seem to be changing as we are perhaps about to relive that era, granted, through a bazaar surrealism lens, a blending of fantasy and reality.
So, I’m plugging along and have been encouraged by the responses of several reliable readers I’ve shared it with. Over time the ending has become stronger, more nuanced. If anyone knows of agents and editors looking to publish or represent verse novels and might be interested in a war story, let me know.
Meanwhile:
My daffodils are getting taller, just short of blooming.
DAFFODIL LAST WEEK IN MARCH
Blue green leaves
cradle a hidden yellow
ruffled promise.
© Janice Scully 2026
I’m a bit emotional, what with the actual clinical-level insanity going on in our country (behavior certainly described in any psychiatry text), the heartbreak of families losing soldiers and the visions I see in my head of the personal loss of so many overseas. I also just listened to a podcast about the extreme misogyny in right wing circles, the flat out hatred towards women.
This is not normal.
However, we still have daffodils and adorable grandchildren. My grandson Tommy is walking. A little like Frankenstein but he’s not even a year and a half!
Thank you, Marcie, for hosting.