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| BROADSTONE BOOKS Presents Sheila Bucy Potter Home Place and Other Poems Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the premier Kentucky Literary Award for Poetry in 2003. |
After a childhood spent in England and several locations around the
United States, Sheila Bucy Potter has lived most of her adult
life in Kentucky. She has degrees in English and History from
Murray State University; an MA in Medieval Literature from
Southern Illinois University; and post-graduate work in English
Literature at the University of Kentucky. Her work has appeared in
the Journal of Kentucky Studies (Northern Kentucky University)
and Pegasus.
United States, Sheila Bucy Potter has lived most of her adult
life in Kentucky. She has degrees in English and History from
Murray State University; an MA in Medieval Literature from
Southern Illinois University; and post-graduate work in English
Literature at the University of Kentucky. Her work has appeared in
the Journal of Kentucky Studies (Northern Kentucky University)
and Pegasus.
Paperback, xiii + 129 pages
Publication Date: 2003
ISBN: 0-9721144-0-8
Price: $14.99
Publication Date: 2003
ISBN: 0-9721144-0-8
Price: $14.99
In her first book-length collection of poetry, Kentucky writer
Sheila Bucy Potter breathes new life into traditional narrative
form with her verse cycle, “Home Place.” The title work is
a dialogue between a farmer and a woman who buys the
adjoining farm because, she says,
I’ve lived in my cage a very long time
And I wanted some spaces around.
As his initial doubts about her give way to hard-won respect
and eventual love, these two people, both damaged by life,
find a new chance through her trials and small triumphs.
Praised by former Kentucky Poet Laureate Richard Taylor
as “Frost with less irony and more heart,” these poems
celebrate the ageless redemptive power of nature, the
unexpected possibility of love, and, in unabashed and
unadorned terms, virtue.
The balance of poems in the collection are by turns
confessional and reflective, ranging over themes personal and
mythic, concluding with the powerfully drawn “Reflection of
1968,” a cry of a generation still yearning for form within
formlessness, meaning out of randomness, a desire that
ultimately informs and gives context to all of the poems
gathered here.
Sheila Bucy Potter breathes new life into traditional narrative
form with her verse cycle, “Home Place.” The title work is
a dialogue between a farmer and a woman who buys the
adjoining farm because, she says,
I’ve lived in my cage a very long time
And I wanted some spaces around.
As his initial doubts about her give way to hard-won respect
and eventual love, these two people, both damaged by life,
find a new chance through her trials and small triumphs.
Praised by former Kentucky Poet Laureate Richard Taylor
as “Frost with less irony and more heart,” these poems
celebrate the ageless redemptive power of nature, the
unexpected possibility of love, and, in unabashed and
unadorned terms, virtue.
The balance of poems in the collection are by turns
confessional and reflective, ranging over themes personal and
mythic, concluding with the powerfully drawn “Reflection of
1968,” a cry of a generation still yearning for form within
formlessness, meaning out of randomness, a desire that
ultimately informs and gives context to all of the poems
gathered here.
Read the First Poem from "Home Place":
“You really don’t want this farm,” he said,
Just a neighbor who stopped by the gate.
She gave him a slightly puzzled look
And said, “You’re a little too late.
It’s already mine. I just bought it.
The pasture’s so green and so fair.”
“Always is in the summer,” he said.
“In the spring there’s water to there.”
“But it’s already mine,” she repeated,
“And farming is not in my plan.”
“If you don’t aim to farm
And you haven’t a herd,
Then why did you buy all this land?”
She shook her head just a little
And cast her eyes on the ground.
“I’ve lived in my cage a very long time
And I wanted some spaces around.”
He looked at the woman, not pretty or young,
And felt his heart warm a bit.
Then said in a voice that had lost all its edge,
“If it’s a home that you need ma’am, you’ll fit.”
“You really don’t want this farm,” he said,
Just a neighbor who stopped by the gate.
She gave him a slightly puzzled look
And said, “You’re a little too late.
It’s already mine. I just bought it.
The pasture’s so green and so fair.”
“Always is in the summer,” he said.
“In the spring there’s water to there.”
“But it’s already mine,” she repeated,
“And farming is not in my plan.”
“If you don’t aim to farm
And you haven’t a herd,
Then why did you buy all this land?”
She shook her head just a little
And cast her eyes on the ground.
“I’ve lived in my cage a very long time
And I wanted some spaces around.”
He looked at the woman, not pretty or young,
And felt his heart warm a bit.
Then said in a voice that had lost all its edge,
“If it’s a home that you need ma’am, you’ll fit.”
Read a Selection from Other Poems:
Texas Star
My grandmother was old-fashioned,
At least it seemed so when I was four.
She lived with windows open
And hung her clothes out of doors.
Her basement was lined with a hundred old shelves
That supported the food that she canned.
She saved every scrap from her sewing
And made all her own quilts by hand.
I have a quilt in my upstairs bedroom she made
With stitches too tiny to see.
She had made it over long winter evenings;
Years passed and someone gave it to me.
With scraps from my little girl dresses,
And some, I remember from dolls,
She fashioned an intricate pattern of stars,
All from clothes she knew I’d recall.
It was love from the very beginning,
Given form by her fingers and skill;
A message so strong, that when I’m sad, sick or lonely,
My grandmother tucks me in still.
Texas Star
My grandmother was old-fashioned,
At least it seemed so when I was four.
She lived with windows open
And hung her clothes out of doors.
Her basement was lined with a hundred old shelves
That supported the food that she canned.
She saved every scrap from her sewing
And made all her own quilts by hand.
I have a quilt in my upstairs bedroom she made
With stitches too tiny to see.
She had made it over long winter evenings;
Years passed and someone gave it to me.
With scraps from my little girl dresses,
And some, I remember from dolls,
She fashioned an intricate pattern of stars,
All from clothes she knew I’d recall.
It was love from the very beginning,
Given form by her fingers and skill;
A message so strong, that when I’m sad, sick or lonely,
My grandmother tucks me in still.
| About the Author |
