It's April, it's finally spring in Tennessee, and it's National Poetry Month - all great reasons to emerge from my blogging hiatus and participate in this year's BIG POETRY GIVEAWAY being curated by Kelli Russell Agodon. Be sure to visit Kelli's blog for a list of all the blogs participating in this event. How it works: I'm supposed to give away my own book and a copy of a poetry book I really love. I'm also throwing in my poetry and roots music CD and another chapbook from a fellow Tennessee … [Read more...]
Sharing for Veteran’s Day: A Poem by a POW
November 11, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Honey and I recently re-visited the National Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola, Florida. We've always enjoyed this museum, and it had grown and changed since our last visit several years ago. I was especially moved by a display on The POW Experience which includes the handwritten poems of several servicemen while they were Vietnam prisoners of war. Here's one that particularly caught my attention. I've taken the liberty of adding some notes on the image itself, in case the photo circulates … [Read more...]
The Built-Wells Upright 4-String Washtub Bass: A Labor of Love and a Lot of Fun
August 9, 2013 By 8 Comments
The Built-Wells Upright 4-String Washtub Bass: As discussed on Thunder Radio's Bluegrass Crossroads Show (listen here), appearing on our CD, and maybe at a music festival near you. I've been a wannabe musician for a long time, and the "wanna" has grown stronger in recent years as I've seen how much fun goes on at bluegrass and old-time music festivals. I've squeezed into a circle of musicians with a video cam at plenty of jams, often filming my daughter Kelsey, an old-time fiddler, and … [Read more...]
Old Bunch of Keys: A Documentary on Old-Time Fiddler Kelsey Wells
May 28, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Proud mama alert: Kelsey Wells is the subject of a new short documentary from folklorist Caitlin Coad. Old Bunch of Keys, named for an old-time tune, as well as Kelsey's latest CD and thesis project as a Buchanan Fellow at Middle Tennessee State University, is a fifteen minute film available here on Vimeo. Yes, yes, I'm her mama, so of course I've watched it more than once. But even you might enjoy at least one viewing to: Learn more about old-time music, particularly fiddling Sample a … [Read more...]
An Interview with Former Astronaut Rhea Seddon
April 8, 2013 By 1 Comment
Rhea Seddon, M.D., has a history of strapping herself into rockets and orbiting the earth in the name of medical science. As I write in She's Such a Geek and allude to in my poetry collection Heaven Was the Moon, astronauts have been my heroes since Neil Armstrong took those first small steps on the moon, so I'm thrilled to have an interview with Seddon now appearing in 2nd & Church. I've been intrigued with all the buzz surrounding Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In: Women, Work and the … [Read more...]
