Prescott resident Sharon Seymour has a creative spirit. She has written poetry, essays and memoir for over fifty years. She also works in mixed-media collage and origami, which she learned as a child in Japan. She loves to sing, and has written a number of songs and chants. She practices and teaches the martial art aikido. All her activities flow from her inventive nature. “Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human, whether the manifestation is a poem, a garden, a symphony, a delicious meal or a great painting.”
A self-described “army brat” and the oldest of four children, her family was always on the move. She continued a nomadic lifestyle for many years as a single mother, moving 42 times in her first 43 years. She’s made one of Prescott’s historic neighborhoods her home since the early 1990s, arriving in town to work at the Prescott Public Library, where she held several positions up to her retirement, including reference librarian, adult programming and computer management.
While organizing programs at the library, Sharon became acquainted with the MAD Women Poets, a local group of writers formed during the days of the McCormick Arts District and dedicated to preserving the oral tradition in poetry. “I read my first poem out loud in public at the open mic after one of their performances.” She was very nervous. “I didn’t know whether my voice would get out of my throat.” From there she joined local writing groups and was eventually invited to become a MAD Woman Poet herself. The experience of sharing her work in public had a profound effect. “I realized my poems resonated with others. This was the beginning of a sense of belonging. I came to believe in my own voice, and my poetry became deeper and stronger.”
Sharon finds that poetry helps illuminate the world around her. Through metaphor, strong images can communicate universal ideas. “I believe metaphor is our native language as human beings. It has the power to reach out to people — metaphor lives outside any particular consciousness.” She turns to the work of other poets when looking for inspiration. “I have some favorite books of poetry, among them Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns, Four Quartets by TS Eliot, The Essential Rumi.” Poems can also appear unexpectedly. Recently she was walking through an underpass in Tucson when she came upon a bundle of blankets covering a sleeping man. “This moved me deeply, and a poem began writing itself in my head. I got it down on paper later that afternoon. Sometimes poetry finds me.”
Sharon meets monthly online with a group of poets. “I greatly value the sense of community and support that these meetings bring, the inspiration of hearing others’ work, and the feedback offered. There’s no substitute for reading poems aloud.”
Sharon is also a member of the Prescott Insight Meditation sangha, and she volunteers for the Community Compost Project. “I spend Sunday mornings in rubber boots and work gloves, shoveling, sifting, digging and washing lots of buckets.” She also spends her free time gardening and landscaping her home. “I take walks, I read voraciously, reread favorites often and unapologetically, keep in touch with friends and family, and spend weekends cooking so that I can eat for a week without washing a skillet or saucepan.”
The poem here can be considered an ars poetica, a meditation on poetry itself, and offers the reader a glimpse into the relationship between the writer and her craft. Sharon explains, “I’ve written several poems about writing poetry — still trying to figure it out, I guess. I feel wonder at the way poems emerge. Yes, there’s work involved, and technical considerations, but it begins with a seed that arises from some deep place and has to be tended with respect.”
Contact Sharon at skseymour@gmail.com.
all poets meet somewhere
point reyes past that rocky spur where the dead seal washed up last July
muley twist canyon squatting in a slant of sunlight by a rainwater pool
comb ridge feet dangling from slickrock a thousand feet above the desert
sharpie bleeding notes into a rumpled bandana
we meet in bars
snugged up in the corner banquette with an empty glass or
drooping on the last stool nursing a flat beer muttering as we pry
the worn elbows of our sweaters from a sticky spot
reach for a pen and a napkin
bewildered
we pass each other in grocery stores
scribbling sudden phrases over the milk bread eggs yet again
heading home with strawberries and chocolate
another package of farfalle because we remember that means ‘butterflies’
alone we drag our baggage home where
bandana napkin palimpsest
surrender their words
to snake around our ankles meowing
curl in currents from the heater vent
make their way onto pristine pages
dressed in their company clothes
their deepest secrets tucked into pockets
no one else will ever find
Dee Cohen is a Prescott poet and photographer. deecohen@cox.net.
