FOCUS: New literary and art collection features S.C. writers, artists

Editor’s Note:  Editor Carol Bass, who lives iduring winter months on Edisto Island, offers an outstanding and fascinating array of poems, paintings, prose and photographs in a new collection, “Ripple Effect: Water Stories.” It includes some of South Carolina’s best writers and artists, such as Jim Harrison, Ben Moise, Josephine Humphreys, Ron Rash and our own Marjory Wentworth.

Bass, who grew up along the Edisto River, described the collection in the preface: “This book, filled with writing and art, was born from my love of a river and my hopes that through art, poetry and love we will grow to understand that rivers are our very own selves.  All rivers of the world are connected to each other just like we are connected to every other person on earth.”

To celebrate the publication of the book, Bass gave us permission to share a piece by Florida poet Lola Haskins, who has published widely and is honorary chancellor of the Florida State Poets Association.

Oklawaha

By Lola Haskins  | republished with permission

each stroke parts the pollen
that closes behind me i rest
my dripping paddle on my knees

and as the river sloshes against
my hull i wonder why
i ever wanted anything but this

*

palms and tupelo lift
their candles
to light

water lines
mark the cypresses
under which

tall lilies swoop
so gracefully they’ve no need
to bloom

overhead indigo fox grapes dangle
all tiny tang and pit from a confusion
of overhanging moss

near shore pickerelweed
backdrops water lettuce
and the yellow fists of spatterdock

its leaves unashamedly splayed
my kayak lurches
stills

something huge
something thousands of years
is sheltering under me

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