New/Renew

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Kieran York

Blushing Aspen in a newly released volume of poetry. What is it about – about 170 pages, and about over half a century of my life and times. My poetry is about love, and loss, and about the splendor of life.

Some poems are about the inequality and bigotry of yesterday and of today. “Gleams from a Heartbeat” displays our loneliness. “Moonshine” tells the story of isolation. It is about being abandoned or bullied by bigots and about being found by love.
from “Sapphic Adolescence:
We were consigned to our own realms when we came of age.
The lesbian nation matched us perfectly.
That DNA was rockin’.
Who we were, how we were born,
should never have hurt anyone.
Including us.

Naturally, my love of women comes in. From “Homespun Heart” to “Wilting Romance” – women are involved. And my love of today. – “Treasured” and “My Aviatrix – My Love.”
From “Touring with my Wilding” an excerpt:
For it is our heritage – so gently dispatched.
We assemble – as two nomads mandated with laurels.
Lifting peaks are vistas insisting on gratitude.
I hold her in my arms –
for we can cross-reference one another’s survival.

Well, that is a sampling of Blushing Aspen.

It is the Sappho’s Corner Solo Poet Series, Volume 4 – Edited by Beth Mitchum. It doesn’t get any better than being in Ms. Mitchum’s company. I’m honored!

RENEW:

It’s summertime, and I suggest a unique and intriguing read. Careful Flowers is my love letter to three generations of women.

Words from Shawn Marie Bryan – Careful Flowers was a stand out for me this past year.

From Jerry L. Wheeler’s “Out in Print” – …never shorting the reader. Part of this is due to her timing and ability to weave some of these disparate threads together, but part of her success also comes from creating interesting characters and letting them work through their paces without author’s interference.

Released late last year, Careful Flowers slipped below the radar of many readers. A thumbnail sketch – it draws many varieties of love and of hatred. It is the story of both valiant and villainous hearts. From the Hippie Era, to the Holocaust – it is a book translated from many yesterdays.

It is the story of Fleur Hamilton, a woman whose life has been careful. Suddenly it all becomes an unknowns. She risks her career, her relationship, and her stability to find her past.

Her odyssey unwraps the lives of her parents, as well as a deepening mystery of their death. As the stories are layered, they converge for Fleur to discover herself. She can then deal with not only her broken relationship, but her future as well.

Careful Flowers and York’s Appointment with a Smile, a 2013 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, are available through http://www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Books and Kindle e-books, are also available through Amazon.

If you’re interested in poetry, she is a contributor in an anthology. Check out the best-selling Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Wet Violets, Roses Read, and Delectable Daisies Volume’s 2-4. These collections are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

April’s A’Tossing

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Kieran York

April is a’tossing all kinds of great emotional pleasures of the season. It does this every single year.

I really like Vita Sackville-West’s lines from “Spring,” The Garden. She says:
April the angel of the months, the young
Love of the year.

Hey, my bulbs are protruding through earth’s surface. Crocus, tulips and more dots of color. That’s good enough for me. Although I know there will be a little kick or two left from Winter – for the most part – it is a done deal. Mentally, I’ve got my garden planned and planted. My happiness is sprouting like fireworks on the 4th.

The birds are obviously every bit as delirious as I am. This morning they were having an April sing-along. They make me smile – realizing that smile from the beginning to the end, as my lips curl.

Blossoms, clear skies with the warmth of sun and ‘can do’ attitudes become magical festivals.

I’ve always been sold on Spring. But there is a funny thing about having Colorado’s four seasons. Summer’s turn will find us standing in rows of fresh growth. There is the green herbal of everything from dill to lavender. And Summer will thrill me.

After Summer is the Autumn bounty of harvest, and the magnificence of fall colors. Then there’s that moment’s rush when large, cleansing flakes of snow drift down. Winter.

Life is certainly a ‘Gee Whiz’ event. I’m glad that Spring has tossed us an April of simple heart pleasures. Those are the joys my life appreciates most.

While it may be April Fool’s Day, I’ll be the first to admit – my soul isn’t fooled one little bit. April’s A’Tossing out days, weeks, and months of wonder.

—————————

Kieran York’s latest fiction is Careful Flowers, available in book form through http://www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through Amazon.

Her romance, Appointment with a Smile, a 2013 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, is also available in both book form and e-book through Amazon, Blue Feather Books or Bella Book Distribution.

A new book of poetry is planned for a summer release. Blushing Aspen is a Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series Solo book for 2014 – published by Ultra Violet Love. Her poetry is also published in the best-selling Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Wet Violets, Volume 2; Roses Read, Volume 3; and the newly released Delectable Daisies, Volume 4. These collections are edited by award-winning poet, Beth Mitchum. They are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

—-

Interviews:

A print interview with Kieran York is available by going to: http://ultravioletlove.com. You’ll find it under Featured Author’s Series: Inside the Writer’s Head.

Two blog radio interviews are available through: http://beabehn.com – click left on Be(h)n’s Bookshelf to find discussion on Careful Flowers and Appointment with a Smile.

Amazing Treasure

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Kieran York

AMAZING TREASURE

2013 has been an amazing treasure of a year. I made it through with great happiness in my heart. And completely unscathed. It has been a year packed with love, friendship, and family.

Careful Flowers was published. I wrote a great many poems that have resonated in my soul, and they were given birth to in 2013.

My favorite saying is that I’m blessed. Sometimes I’m asked about why I’m usually happy, and feeling blessed. My response is always that throughout my adulthood, living has been a shining, loving treasury. It has been a pleasure, and a privilege to live at this inventive and magical time in history.

So much of my life is pure enjoyment, complete enchantment! It is full of amazing treasures. Although as in any life, there have been events and people who have been left behind. Once in my heart, most have never been removed from my thoughts. Magnificent times have been categorized and stored in a special corner of my mind’s memory. People seem always to be carefully placed inside my heart.

There have been so many, and are so many, wondrous times and people. What has been unpleasant in my life has not encumbered me. For I doubt that any life hasn’t known some unhappiness. My growing up, on a scale of terrible to unpleasant, was terribly unpleasant. But childhood and adolescence only toughened me up and prepared me. It provided a grateful appreciation for all the good that I’ve seen.

My adulthood has been pretty much pure loveliness. Naturally, I’ve lost people I’ve loved, and the years have handed me a life-threatening illness. And I’ve been hurt by a few people who have let me down. Who hasn’t suffered these, and far worse, problems? I don’t know anyone unfamiliar with some defeat, loss, or hurt.

We encounter difficulties, and we continue on. We crowd out those who harm us. We weed out those who make us unhappy. And we outfit ourselves in resilience.

How can I not be happy when I am surrounded by those who provide my life with humor, tranquility, beauty, and joy? I keep my Love, my Friends, and Family near and dear to me. Their spirit and kindness surrounds me. They are the people I trust, admire, and I love. Happiness is their gift. I hope I give that happiness back to the Love of my Life, my Forever Friends – the many decades of friendship, and my Ever-supportive Family.

I am within an enclave of heart-sharing people. I honor them, not only each New Year – but every moment of my life. They are kind, courageous, dependable, respective, honorable, intelligent, and humorous. I entrust my friends and family with enduring love and friendship.

That is my secret to enjoying life! I surround myself with amazing people. They wrap me in all things fine.

In addition, I have so many wonderful pals I’ve met on Facebook. And I’ve been re-acquainted with several of my best friends through the magic of Facebook. If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of my FB friends. I’ve met so many genuine, talented, decent new friends. And for this I’m thankful.

My FB friends have enriched my life. Together so many of us embrace the advancement of Sapphic literature. Together we share dreams for an inclusive world. Many are gracious with sharing the works of one another. The evolution of lesfic literature is the very continuation of our hearts. Our dreams are a legacy of our times. Our words belong to all. We lift ourselves as we lift one another.

As most of you know, I love author’s quotes. So I’ll close this blog with a few of my own quotes.

From Careful Flowers: No singular odyssey solves all queries. There was the soul to consider.

From Wet Violets: She brings the world’s secrets to where I am.

From the Royce Madison mystery series: Plenty Amazing!

From Appointment with a Smile: I shall forever believe in love.

And so, we approach 2014! I thank all of you for reading my words, for sharing them, and for your love and support. I thank you for bringing my laughter, and sometimes a tear or two. I thank you for your friendship. The gift of friendship includes wonder, humor, kindness, love, and peace. I wish each of you all of these portions of my friendship.

Happy New Year! May it be the best of all. 2014!

———————————-

Careful Flowers is available in book form through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Book Distribution for books or e-book. Books and Kindle e-books are also available though Amazon.

Kieran York’s romance, Appointment with a Smile, a 2013 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, is also available through Blue Feather Books, Bella Book Distribution and Amazon.

If your interested in poetry, check out her poetry in the best-selling Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Wet Violets, Volume 2; and Roses Read, Volume 3. These collections are edited by award-winning poet, Beth Mitchum. They are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

—–

Interviews:

A print interview with Kieran York is available by going to : http://ultravioletlove.com. You’ll find it under Featured Authors Series: Inside the Writer’s Head.

Two blog radio interviews are available through: http://beabehn.com – Click left on Be(h)h’s Bookshelf to find discussions on Careful Flowers and Appointment with a Smile.

JFK Remembrance

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Kieran York

JFK REMEMBRANCE

The following is an excerpt from a book written about my junior year in college. I was a creative writing student at the University of the Americas, in Mexico City. The year was 1963, and the month was November. Our president was murdered.

I’ll never forget those horrific days – and certainly, I shall never forget the funeral Mass held in Mexico City. I attended with friends. We shared a moment in history.

From my book an excerpt about that time – JFK remembrance:

It was a time for our somber pilgrimage to honor our martyred president.

While John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s coffin was taken by caisson to Saint Mathew’s Cathedral for a funeral Mass, the American colony of Mexico City assembled at the Basilica of Guadalupe. Seats had been reserved for Americans.

As young John-John was saluting his father’s flag-draped coffin, my friends and I were a country away, saluting Kennedy in the only way we could. The final leg of our journey across Mexico City to the basilica was by streetcar. Nora, Leigh, Carlos, and I traversed the city in silence.

Arriving, there was still only minimal conversation. We made our way through the plaza, passing wooden-faced merchants. We stopped for Nora, Leigh, and I to put mantillas on our heads. While we busily pinned down our lace head scarves, a Mexican handed Carlos a small American flag. Carols fished his pocket for change, but the peddler moved away. He had wanted to give an American one of this flags today.

I was in awe when we entered the basilica. It was magnificent. Transfixed by the image above the altar, I wished my Gran could see this. At the atrium was the venerated, miraculous painting of the Virgin Mary. I recalled hearing that Kennedy had visited this place. He had worshiped the image of the Madonna. I reflected, wondering if he had prayed for guidance and peace. Or if he prayed for a world without violence.

I bowed my head throughout the Mass.

And when it was finished, we filed out onto the plaza as if we were weary warriors returning from a lost battle. Kennedy’s charisma and vision had ended. The Mass had ended. But the memory of blazing candles, the aroma of incense, the Latin chanting, and the congregation of fellow Americans would remain.

None of us could grasp it. But we all knew we’d been transformed. The chill of reality caught us. The fragile thread that ties us to life’s most precious aspirations had been weakened. Our leader was lost. The life of our youthful, vigorous president had been severed.

It not only shattered Camelot, it had rearranged history. It had rearranged us. It was seared into our memories. It painted our justice system with the primary colors showing our deficit – our infamy. It displayed our inability to resolve a complexity that yielded only faded images on tattered canvas. Throughout the muddied investigation, a futile search would continue. Our frailty was to be exposed. It would also brush away our own beliefs of immortality. For a portion of our best hope had been destroyed.

No one lives forever. Youth of the 1960s, as all youth, believed otherwise. But this act intruded upon our security.

We shall miss him. We shall miss the part of us that was Camelot.

———————————————————-

Fiction by Kieran York: Careful Flowers, her latest release. Appointment with a Smile, is a 2013 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. Both books are available in book form through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Book Distribution for books or e-books. Books and e-books are also available through Amazon.

If you’re interested in poetry, please check out her poetry in the best-selling Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Wet Violets, Volume 2; and Roses Read, Volume 3. The collections are edited by award-winning poet, Beth Mitchum. they are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

Earth Artist

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Kieran York

The book I’m currently writing is called Earthen Trinkets. In it the main character is an artist of pottery. It reminded me of a poem I wrote many, many years ago. I’d titled my poem “Earth Artist” –

EARTH ARTIST

Earth is awhirl within the sprawling heavens.
It is designed as our natural inheritance –
of that I’m certain.
A potter’s hand sculpts earth.
Those hands reshape clay,
and interprets precious clumps of soil.
Those hands cut clay blocks with wire strings.
There is the lift and plunge of a fist into a rotating block.
Guesswork begins, and it turns into the calculating touch of skill.
Earth’s direction began unpredictably
as it unleashed across this universe.
In throwing clay, with each whirl of the wheel,
creation is forged.
Spinning discs promise the imagination a free ride.
Circular, orbital, as with the galaxies, the wheel rotates.
Clumps of gray, tan, red – and in between colors of wonder
stitch expression into reality.
The cool, damp clay is adroitly formed
with wet hands that allow the wheel to dictate its pull.
Edging clay upward is a communication
between the imagination and the touch.
A container is born, a sculpture is invented.
Clay lifts, edging as a sediment-sweetened sponge drips.
Stoneware is formed.
The land’s face connects, for it is tilled.
Potters caress molds.
Framing the terrain’s bounty into contours
of beauty produces life’s bounty.
Fine ceramics are engineered
as they are cradled by knowing touches.
Lessons of clay reflect chance,
just as our globe’s destiny presents itself.
The crust fades, when fragile material is overly stressed.
The clay is placed aside and restored by time.
Time settles both terracotta and territory.
Time strengthens both and gives each endurance.
With insured plasticity – art is constructed,
and becomes pliable, and then resilient.
It is sturdier than raw clay.
Learning patience with each effort,
the potter comes to know life’s wait.
Drying time, produces its own lesson.
As the vessels, and creations await firing,
the artist accepts the timing of existence.
Drying time is where ‘preludes’ seem most at home.
When the leather-hardened art is fired,
fortune takes command.
Cone-monitored temperatures assist in predicting creation.
Speculation is only a dream that presents a lesson.
For preparation corrects mistakes; prevents mistakes.
The beauty of earth takes on another form of loveliness.
From the kiln comes bisque.
After it is dipped into vats of glaze,
brushed with oxide, and twirled,
it becomes an artist’s vortex.
Chemistry has mingled the best rainbow designs
from inside a potter’s mind.
Sunrise colors and twilight hues
blend into nature’s visionary promise.
Although there is an awareness buried somewhere within,
there seems to be no way to encroach upon reality.
There is only imitating nature.
Nothing is overlooked, and nothing is ignored.
Inspiration finds its reverence
and appreciation of life’s components.
Expressing, translating, and conducting impulses,
energy flows from hands to the touch of earth.
Connecting, yielding, and sheltering,
is part of the process.
There is the beguiling swirl of invention and vision
when indentations are created from a serrated tool.
The corner of the artist’s heart must be shown.
From the glow of a prism, to the texture of life,
it becomes a replicated knowing of the universe.
Earth is often scarred, punctured, and battered.
Yet with peace, patience, and acceptance,
there is love’s reprisal.
It is captured within a magnificent reward called art.
Earth’s alloys and bonding agents are nearly as complicated
as each of life’s earthlings.
In each unfurling of creativity
wisdom is created as if by a miracle.
An earth artist’s task is to sculpt
an offering of pleasure.
And most importantly,
a texture of love.

————————————————

Fiction by Kieran York: Careful Flower, her latest release, is available in book form through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Book Distribution for books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through Amazon. Appointment with a Smile, a 2013 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, is also available through Blue Feather Books, Bella Books and Amazon.

If you’re interested in poetry, check out her poetry in the best-selling Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Wet Violets, Volume 2; and Roses Read, Volume 3. These collections are edited by Beth Mitchum. They are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

Careful Flowers

Posted on October 19, 2013 by Kieran York

Careful Flowers

It is my love letter to three generations of women.

It includes many varieties of love, as well as of hatred. It is the story of both valiant and villainous hearts.

Careful Flowers by Kieran York is about a woman whose life has been careful. She finds that nothing is as she believed it to be. Life suddenly becomes an unknown.

Fleur Hamilton is botanist with an important project and a pending grant. She’s in a relationship facing a crossroad. Her love for the woman in her life has taken a critical turn. As she enters her fourth decade, she finds not only her relationship being topsy-turvy – but everything in her life has capsized. She has lost her beloved great aunt.

Ever the scientist, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about her aunt, and about her own roots. It takes an examination of many lives for her to locate her own historical truth.

As she slowly uncovers her parents’ Hippie Era and their lives, she also discovers more about her Great Aunt Golda’s life as a prisoner of the Holocaust. Fleur is forced to make a horrific decision. Her unearthed heritage strengthens her as it directs her.

Love, hatred, kindness, and evil overwhelm her once tranquil life. It is the flowering of a treatise of what went before. Fleur’s emotional journey comes with not only a tour of history, but it includes the by-stories of each era.

Her odyssey to San Francisco is where she first discovers both her personal past, as well as her unique humanity. She unlocks her background by unwrapping her parent’s Hippie Era. She uncovers her beloved aunt’s understanding of both love and hatred. She sees the world of a Holocaust survivor as it unfolds.

Her adventure becomes Fleur’s own history. As the stories are layered, they converge for Fleur to discover herself. She can then deal with not only her broken relationship – but her future.

It is today’s story of yesterday.

———————————-

Careful Flowers is available in book from through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Book Distribution for books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through Amazon.

Kieran York’s romance, Appointment with a Smile, a 2013 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, is also available through Blue Feather Books, Bella Book Distribution and Amazon.

If you’re interested in poetry, check out her poetry in the best-selling Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Wet Violets, Volume 2; and Roses Read, Volume 3. , and Delectable Daisies, Volume 4.-isThe collections are edited by Beth Mitchum. They are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon. Also available through ultravioletlove.com/ and Amazon is the book of poetry by Kieran York Blushing Aspen, Sappho’s Corner Solo Poetry’s Series, Volume 4, edited by Beth Mitchum.

Kieran York

Embellish Your Smile

Tag Archives: books by kieran york