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A better state through the arts

Season’s greetings from Kathryn Byer
& the North Carolina Arts Council!

A Garland of Holiday Poems

My thanks to Julia Taylor Ebel, who wove this garland of holiday poems. When Julia and I began discussing the project, we envisioned a string of poems for children. Like many garlands, this one twined longer than we expected, and in the end a few "grown-up" poems made their way into the last swag. Print it out and drape it over your mantel! Wrap it around your Christmas tree! Wear it as a holiday shawl! Whatever you do, enjoy it!
-- Kathryn Stripling Byer

Poetry is word play at its best. Words skip and dance across a page -- or stroll and linger. Sounds play with each other, calling us to listen, teasing our ears, leading us through the lines.

Holidays offer opportunities to share timely poetry with young readers and listeners. You will find here seasonal poems by North Carolina poets. May this garland of poems brighten your holidays -- Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa -- and usher you into the new year with a new, child-like sense of wonder.

You and the child in your life can write your own holiday poems. Choose a focus first. If you ask a few leading questions, even a preschooler can give you the words of a poem to treasure for years to come. Sally Buckner gives you a start in her poem "The Second Tree."

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy New Year!
-- Julia Taylor Ebel

Julia Taylor Ebel lives in Jamestown, but part of her heart is in the North Carolina mountains, where hikes lead to poems and conversations lead to stories. She is available regionally for school and community programs. The untitled poem that follows is by Ms. Ebel.

The Second Tree
   by Sally Buckner

There was another tree in the Garden of Eden. . .
. . . and it is evergreen,
shucks brown needles just as new ones
spring from limbs like slim green spears of light;
roots plunge deep, hold fast in solid ground;
branches spread wide welcomes.
At the tip, a star,
Solid core of radiance
Silvering the dark.

It is always the season for lights,
And gifts abound,
Safe in the tree's soft shadow,
A new one every time I look:

(Complete this poem by listing
the gifts -- both tangible and invisible --
underneath your tree.)

Advent
   by Susan Lefler

The old woman in a Santa hat sits
near me in her folding chair, surrounded
by gravestones, waiting for the Christmas parade.
She's probably never heard of Advent, but she knows
something is coming, now that trees
have shrugged off leaves and the long
mountains rest, bare on their elbows,
and rime ice cloaks the ground. She waits and I wait.

An old flatbed covered with hay floats
by the graveyard with its small tableau of children.
Mary, cloaked in a blue sheet, bends
over the swaddled doll in its wooden crate.
Joseph leans on his stick and tries to keep
the yarn beard out of his mouth. An angel lurks
nearby with a crooked wing.
The old woman watches and smiles.

That first Christmas they made do
with swaddling clothes and a stall,
angels sang after the fact, shepherds and kings
straggled in, late to the party. And still, the road
to Bethlehem is long and we hold back,
wait for a sign that something is coming,
We watch and wait, the old woman and I,
smiling among the stones.

A Great Miracle Happened There
   by Mimi Herman

In elementary school, I was the shyest kid in my class.
The hamster or guinea pig or anaconda --
Or whatever we had as pet that year
Made more noise.
The cursive alphabet above the blackboard
Demanded more attention.

I was aiming for invisible.

But every year, in December or sometimes November,
According to a calendar none of the other kids had heard of
(Except Kenneth Zogry, the know-it-all from Hebrew class,
And my best friend Betsy Katzin),
My mother arrived for Hanukah,
With her bright orange pantsuit, her frosted hair,
And her electric frying pan

To mesmerize us with the story of Judah and his Maccabees,
A battle for the boys, a miracle for the girls.
That tiny bit of oil that burned for eight days and eight nights,

And which my mother now poured from the Wesson bottle
Into the pan.

We spun dreidels,
Until the tops wobbled and toppled to the ground,
I held my breath. Maybe with the Maccabees on my side,
I could win all the chocolate gelt.
In this ancient gambling game,
Even a classroom loser could become a winner.

My mom let me light the menorah,
That you weren't supposed to light before sunset.
With both hands, I held the shamos
The helper of all the other candles,
And kissed each wick with flame,

While latkes sizzled in oil in my mom's frying pan.
A miracle! Potatoes turned into pancakes!
We ate them from paper plates, with plastic forks.
Slathered them with sour cream or applesauce.
My family's weird food, which the other kids loved.

The whole class sat rapt at my mother's stories.
I was -- for that one day -- visible,
My mother's glowing child,
The shamos, the winner, the girl draped in apples and cream.
A miracle.

Old December
   by Heather Ross Miller

Mistletoe, myrtle, and oak
to my west, and a long roll
of old pastures, these my
best wild treasures, unearned
and for free. The trees of
Hebron and Galilee, the white
pagan berries for kissing
at Christmas, and the durable
dark thicket.

Winter solstice, and the dried-
up old druids, the old tea-leaf
readers, hover outside,
dreading to climb my trees,
oh, how brittle their bones,
and the sun like a thin gold sickle.
New moon, old moon, half moon,
horned - the night overwhelms
them as they slice the boughs,
and the woman whose house
this is, the woman I am,
sees.

Countdown to Christmas
   by Joy Acey

Ten moose on the roof stringing colored lights
for Santa to find them on Christmas night.

Nine happy beavers gnaw a balsam tree
then haul it home for all their friends to see.

Eight calling blue jays hang balls with silver string.
They're chirping of gifts that Santa Claus will bring.

Seven jolly chipmunks believe nobody knows
what's inside each package they've tied with satin bows.

Six ruddy raccoons all rush to write their lists
toys they want from Santa, so no one will be missed.

Five gray mice practice singing Christmas songs.
Santa is coming. They hope it won't be long.

Four chubby woodchucks measure, sift and beat,
baking sugar cookies for Santa Claus to eat.

Three bushy squirrels stack those cookies on a tray,
leave them for Santa and the deer who pull his sleigh.

Two lop-eared rabbits pour milk into a glass,
each of them is wishing tonight will quickly pass.

One sleepy little bear tries patiently to wait
to spy Santa Claus, but it is getting late.

His eyes keep closing as the time ticks on.
Soon he falls fast asleep long before the dawn.

In the morning when he opens up his sleepy eyes
all around the Christmas tree he sees a big surprise.

Presents stacked everywhere! Oh what fun!
Laughing friends dance and shout,

      "Happy Christmas, Everyone!"

Snow Lace
   by Julia Taylor Ebel

Snowfall
frosts green
of hemlock boughs
and laurel leaves,
weaves white lace
on every twig
of birches,
beeches,
   and oaks.

Dashing Through the Stores
   a parody by Scott Kinard and Michael Beadle

Dashing through the stores
With a red-hot Christmas list
Lines are way too long --
How do I pay for this?

Molly wants a doll.
And Tommy wants some boots.
If I don't get them wrapped on time,
My kids will think I'm Scrooge!

O, Mistletoe, G.I. Joe,
Playstation number 3
Stars Wars game
For what's his name
To place under the tree.

Parking space, smiley face,
It's snowing all around.
Sleigh bells ring. People sing.
I love that Christmas sound.

Silent Night
   by Michael Beadle

Thick flakes fall feather lazy,
everything soft as a prayer.
Blurry streetlights, an eerie lemon.

Bare limbs earn new clothes.
Inches rise, clouds mound
over a deserted pickup

with windshield wipers stuck
in mid-sweep. Your face aglow
in kitchen candlelight.

A burn on my lips
as I kiss your forehead, twice
for good luck.

I remember not wanting to break
the spell of a night
that made us mute with wonder.

I remember not wanting
to say anything at all,
wanting the snow to say it for me.

The Snowflakes' View of Town
   by Carol Boston Weatherford

Christmas Wren
   by Julia Taylor Ebel

Deep
   in December
darkness
   holds night,
light
   comes slowly,

yet a cold
   winter wren
on frozen
   branches
sings
   to morning.

Inside Christmas Day
   by Kathryn Stripling Byer

If Dog is Love,
as the bumper stickers say,
then Love is playing in the snow today,
her long nose white
as whipping cream I'll beat
into sweet snow drifts for pumpkin pie
that's cooling on the countertop.
I watch my Dog's shenanigans,
from my place among the pots and pans.
The turkey's sizzling,
green beans simmering,
cinnamon and clove scent
rising from the potpourri
while all around us,
Dog and me,
this Christmas day
hangs, shimmering.

Santa Belled the Christmas Cat
   by Allan Wolf

At the North Pole each December,
Santa sets about adorning
sleigh-bells 'round his good Cat's neck
to give all Mouse-Folk ample warning,

so Goodman Mouse might scurry home
to share his family's Christmas cheese
and sing a squeaky wassail
with a mousling on his knee,

then gently kiss dear Goody Mouse
beneath the mini-mistletoe.
So next time when you hear a chime
at Christmas time you'll know:
Santa belled the Christmas Cat,
and Goodman Mouse is safe at home.

Nine Years Old and All's Well
   by Sally Buckner

Just before dawn,
stars glint like bits of frost
in the velvet Christmas sky.
Inside, our Heatrola roars a toasty blast.
Cozy beneath the shelter of our cedar,
I inhale its spice and relish
the threads of silver glistening from its boughs,
exult in the treasure beneath:
Roy Rogers gun-and-holster for tomboy me,
baby doll and layette for my motherly sister,
a tumble of boxes bound in red-and-green mystery,
a stash of tangerines and chocolate kisses.
On the sofa, a broad smile on her rosy face
Mama perches in her flowerdy cotton robe.
Behind her, sipping black, black coffee,
Daddy grins from his recliner.
At his feet, Sister sits cross-legged, in dazed delight.
In that little room, happiness bubbles
like the the hot chocolate simmering on the range;
its glow almost as dazzling
as the rainbowed rope of lights
spiraling to the tip of our aromatic tree.

Nine Holiday Haiku
   by Lenard D. Moore

Snowglobe
   by Lorraine Stark

Nativity
   by Rand Brandes

When the SS screen
Flashed our unnaturally
Green family tree
Under the Christmas lights

It struck me --
I had forgotten
Your middle name --
June, Roberta June,

Summer solstice
And sunshine
Lit the room,
The strange snow melting.

The Day after Christmas
   by Kathryn Stripling Byer

Scent of ashes
from the hearth.

Tattered colors
strewn like rainbows

on the the rug.
The drip

drip of snow melt
from the eaves

and underneath
the tree an emptiness

that means
our lives are full

with gifts just opened,
gathered now into our keeping

for another year
of longing toward the peace

that passes
every day's misunderstandings.

The Last Night
   by Rand Brandes

Parchment sunset, the porch lamp lit
Little illuminations after dark
Days of rain over running garden paths

Transformations meteorological --
Wind chills and waves of wintry clouds,
Silence and dreaming out loud

The tufted mattress sky, pockets
Of blue, white quilted into sleep
Then a rainbow too dark to see

Blankets the night, covers the stars.

Notes on the contributors:

Joy Acey has consistently won prizes for her poetry from the North Carolina Poetry Society and the Poetry Council of North Carolina. She's published in Footsteps, Main Street Rag, New Review, Urban Hiker, Bay Leaves, Award Winning Poems, Pockets, Ladies Home Journal, Poets for Peace Anthology and Kids News. She was on the TV game show "Joker's Wild" and won enough to pay for a trip to Australia. She has lived in England and Japan. She has walked across a volcano in Hawaii and a glacier in New Zealand. She has gone swimming with iguanas in the Galapagos and was in Ecuador during a recent revolution. She is a performance artist with the Durham Arts Council, Creative Arts in the Public/Private Schools. She teaches workshops in poetry for people of all ages and abilities. She lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, two Welsh Springer spaniels, 47 fish, goldfinches, cardinals, owls, snakes, lizards, turtles, squirrels, rabbits, possum, bats, butterflies, and deer. She has two grown sons and two collections of poems, Monsters, Trolls and Other Odd Folks and Extra Hands, Extra Heart.

Michael Beadle is a poet, journalist and teaching artist who lives in Canton. His first book of poetry, An Invented Hour (Hard Times Press), was published in 2004, and his poetry has been featured in The Raleigh News & Observer and Gatherings (Spring Street Editions, 2001) -- an anthology of western North Carolina poets edited by Kathryn Byer. Mr. Beadle is a contributing writer with Smoky Mountain News, a weekly newspaper covering Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Swain counties. As a performance poet, A+ Schools Fellow, and writer-in-residence, he tours the state doing writing workshops and poetry shows for schools, festivals, church and civic groups, and Elderhostels. His work appeared on this web site in June, 2006.

Kathryn Stripling Byer is North Carolina's poet laureate. Click here for more information about her and her work.

Rand Brandes is the Martin Luther Stevens Professor of English at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, where he teaches creative writing and modern British literature. Balefires, a collection of poems, was published by White Fields Press (Louisville, KY) in 1996. A recipient of two Fulbright senior research fellowships to Ireland, he has published widely on modern Irish poetry. His book Seamus Heaney: A Bibliography 1959-2003 (Faber and Faber) will appear next year. Mr. Brandes is the founding director of Lenoir-Rhyne's visiting writers program, "In Their Own Words."

Sally Buckner edited the anthology Word and Witness: One Hundred Years of North Carolina Poetry (1999) and also Our Words, Our Ways: Reading and Writing in North Carolina (1995), both published by Carolina Academic Press, based in Durham. She is professor emeritus of English at Peace College and lives in Raleigh.

Julia Taylor Ebel's writings reflect her love of nature, mountain culture, and family stories. She is the author of a historical picture book, Walking Ribbon, and two biographies, Addie Clawson, Appalachian Mail Carrier, and Orville Hicks: Mountain Stories, Mountain Roots. More than 40 of her poems have appeared in magazines including Cricket and Pockets.

Mimi Herman is a writer of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction who lives in Durham. She has been listed in the North Carolina Arts Council's Touring Artist Directory for many years, and teaches creative writing to children and adults across the state.

Scott Kinard is one-half of the dynamic duo known as "The Poetry People." (His cohort is Michael Beadle, whose biographical note appears above.) Since the fall of 1998 they have been performing for local festivals, civic groups, library programs, and private parties. They memorize and perform original, classical, and children's poetry -- with lots of parodies. Mr. Kinard lives in Saluda, where he works as a waiter, writes scripts, and develops video packages. He is a former member of Poetry Alive! and toured all over the country with them for several years.

Susan Lefler lives in Brevard and is contributing writer and editor-at-large for Smoky Mountain Living magazine. Her poems have appeared in The Lyricist, Icarus, Appalachian Heritage, The Asheville Poetry Review, Wind, Passager, and Lights in the Mountains. Her poem "Drawing from Inside Out" was published with honorable mention in Kakalak 2006 (an anthology of North and South Carolina poets). Her poem "Altars Everywhere" appeared with honorable mention in the North Carolina Poetry Society's Pinesong: Awards 2006. Her photographic history of Brevard was published as a part of Arcadia's series Images of Americain 2004. Her work appeared on this web site in July, 2006.

Lenard D. Moore has taught at North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University (where he earned a master's degree in English and African American literature), and Enloe High School, in Raleigh. Former writer-in-residence for the United Arts Council of Raleigh & Wake County, he is assistant professor of English at Mount Olive College. He also is an adjunct professor at Shaw University. He is the founder and executive director of Carolina African American Writers' Collective, co-founder of Washington Street Writers Group, and executive chairman of the North Carolina Haiku Society. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in more than 350 publications. "Nine Holiday Haiku" previously appeared in the anthology Merry Christmas, Baby: A Christmas and Kwanzaa Treasury, edited by Paula L. Woods and Felix H. Liddell (HarperCollins, 1996). The poem also aired on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's radio program "Poetica" on December 25, 2004.

Heather Ross Miller, with more than a dozen books of poetry and fiction, is Distinguished Professor Emerita at Washington and Lee University. She lives in Albemarle. Her most recent collection of poems is Gypsy with Baby (Hammond, LA: Louisiana Literature Press, 2005). Her work was featured on this web site most recently in November .

Lorraine Stark, a writer living in Matthews, is co-author of Good Night Ladies, a regular column in Wild City Times, an online publication. Her work has been published in the book Hungry for Home and The Pedestal Magazine. Three of her poems about September 11, 2001, are part of The Museum of the City of New York Virtual Exhibit. Her poem "For You" is also in the Smithsonian National Museum American History Virtual Exhibition, "Bearing Witness to History." That poem is also part of an online exhibit of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. Currently she is the moderator for Tir na nOg, an online poetic community. Her vignettes and comments about community and national affairs have been published in The Charlotte Observer.

Carole Boston Weatherford's first children's book, Juneteenth Jamboree (Lee & Low Books) appeared in 1995. Since then, she has received many literary honors, including creative writing fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council for 1995-96 and 2001-02. Her book The Sound that Jazz Makes (Walker Books, 2000) won the Carter G. Woodson Award from the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) and an NAACP Image Award nomination. Remember the Bridge: Poems of a People (Philomel Books, 2002) won the Juvenile Literature Award from AAUW-North Carolina, and was short-listed among the NCSS Notables, National Council of Teachers of English Notables, International Reading Association Teachers' Choices, and Voices of Youth Advocates Poetry Picks. Her books total 22, including three collections of poetry for adults. Two new books for children were featured on this site earlier this month and can be retrieved from the "Poet of the Week" online archive beginning in January, 2007.

Allan Wolf's most recent book is Immersed in Verse: An Informative, Slightly Irreverent & Totally Tremendous Guide to Living the Poet's Life (Asheville, NC: Sterling/Lark Books, 2006), which School Library Journal named "Best Book of the Year." It was also a "Children's Book of the Month" selection. An excerpt from the book appeared on this web site in September . Mr. Wolf travels widely, giving presentations to children and adults, through the Loyd Agency, which is based in Asheville, where Mr. Wolf makes his home.

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The North Carolina Arts Council is a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency.
Linda A. Carlisle, Secretary; Beverly Eaves Perdue, Governor