Welcome to A Poet’s Potpourri,

a monthly newsletter designed for your pleasure.

My intention is to share—

This issue is dedicated to my five childhood friends, The Bay City Babes, who’ve renewed my appreciation for my hometown, Bay City, Michigan.

ENJOY: Grandpa Joe had a cabin

LOOK: Saginaw Bay and Bay City, Michigan, my hometown

MEET: Ellen Ford Blakely, fine artist, doglover, and philanthropist

LEARN: Sense of Place A trip to my hometown inspired me to look further into the importance of sense of place in my own life and in my novel. Where do you have a strong sense of place?

READ: Whiskey Tender by Deborah Jackson Taffa, a memoir.

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ENJOY: Grandpa Joe had a Cabin

in Michigan’s Northwoods.

He drove with the window rolled down

puffing on a Cuban cigar.

Two hours brought us halfway,

stopping in West Branch for chocolate ice cream.

After Roscommon there were trailers, tall pines and sand.

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I opened the car door

to the song of the Au Sable River.

Its serpentine bend circled

the cabin and bunk house,

known as Squirrel Bend Lodge.

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I headed to the woods.

Pine branches filtered out the sun.

At my feet, ferns and downed trees.

Dim, moist, serene,

the only sound

the ever-present river

running downstream to Oscoda.

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The deer tip toed down the trail.

Sensitive to my scent,

they hid when I appeared.

The ground yielded to my steps,

supple and spongy

from centuries of fallen needles.

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Each time I explored

the path offered a new discovery—

ripening huckleberries,

a leaping rainbow trout,

the sound of paddles scraping

an aluminum canoe.

The best—

the tranquility.

Susan Schwartz Twiggs

LOOK : My hometown, Bay City, MI

MEET : I’m standing in Ellen’s art studio that’s filled with light. Acrylic paints and pastels as well as partially painted canvases pique my interest. Ellen focused on watercolors early in her career. Paintings of flowers and landscapes are detailed, realistic. «Watercolor technique, according to Ellen, «requires more control and careful drawing.» She loves the tranparency of watercolor and the difficulty of this medium. Lately she’s been interested in acrylics and pastels. Her previously controlled work is replaced by layers of bright colors on abstract backgrounds. «[Ellen] loves the intensity of their color and their richness of texture. They are spontaneous and direct. » Her home is in Belleair, Florida and each summer she escapes the heat to return to her family’s cottage on the shore of Saginaw Bay in Michigan’s lower peninsula. I’ve known Ellen since I was born. Our mothers were best friends. I remember as a child she was constantly drawing. She often entered drawing contests and sometimes, she won. We roomed together at U of Michigan where she studied Art until she transferred to U of Wisconsin where she graduated in 1970. She completed a Commercial Art Degree from Tampa College in 1987. She’s taken many workshops with mentors Sandra Freckelton and Charles Reid.

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We return to the studio to paint our own canvases. Ellen reminds us to study the white space, to search for images of animals or humans. She urges me, «Look closely! Does the canvas tell you anything ?» Ellen photographs what she intends to paint and then returns to the studio and works accompanied by music. «I become spiritually involved in most paintings to the point that I experience an out of body feeling, where I am unaware of any physical sensations…When I quit for the day, it is sometimes difficult to come back to reality.»

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Ellen has always loved dogs and last year established a foundation to promote animal welfare in Pinellas County, Florida. Through sales of artwork and an annual fundraiser at her home, the Ellen Blakely Foundation makes lives better for the animals in her community.

Website www.ellenblakelyfoundation.org Originals are for sale as well as prints. All proceeds from art sales go directly to help homeless animals.

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LEARN : Sense of Place- The connections people form with a specific location, encompassing the unique character, history, physical features, and social interactions of a place. It's how individuals experience and perceive a place, a filter that can lead to comfort or distress, belonging or alienation. Sense of place is personal for a person or a character. It determines the meaning and memories they carry with them for the rest of our lives. My poem about my grandfather’s cabin has a strong sense of place. An Arizona poet commented after I read, “your poem takes me back to when I fished in northern MI with my dad.”

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READ: Whiskey Tender by Deborah Jackson Taffa, Harper Collins, 2024. Finalist for the National Book Award. Named A Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, Time, The Atlantic, NPR, and Publishers Weekly, and an Oprah Daily «Best New Book». The author was named after a Little Debbie’s bakery down the street. Little Debbies, those ultra processed cakes, my boys could not get enough of. Deborah leads us through her early years, how her family left the reservation in search of a better life. While they found economic stability, Debbie struggled with separation from her extended family and the traditions of her father’s tribe. This is not an easy read and I almost put it down, but I’m glad I finished it. Taffa has done her research . She personalizes the tragedy of white leaders making promises through treaties and then breaking them. This is more than dry history. Taffa shares the ups and downs of her growing up and how she blended her heritage and her experience to become a gifted writer and Indigenous educator. .