Loose Leaf Notes

Poetry pings but doesn’t pick up It can’t be tracked and doesn’t call back Sometimes it pocket-dials as an unknown caller whose voicemail you listen to over and over _________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

We’re losing our minds and acting our age with an honest delving into the expanding horizon that comes with the narrowing of life. We’re working on it. It’s a trio this time.  Katherine Chantal and I will be joined by Mary Wiley for our next Soulful Aging poetry reading. We might forget a name but […]

-The following is an article by Neil Harvey on the Death and Bereavement class that Katherine Chantal and I were invited to read our poetry for. It appeared in Radford University’s Highlanders in the News January 13, 2022 Robert Frost said poetry occurs “when an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found […]

I gave it all away spent it all in one place Now I’m doubting my literary ability and checking the sofas for loose change __________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

Colleen Redman grew up as one of nine siblings on a peninsula in the South Shore of Boston, MA during the ‘50s – ‘60s.  Since 1991, she has lived with her husband in a cabin off the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd, a rural Virginia county known for its mountain culture, roots music, small […]

She liked tunnels but not bridges rooms rather than open floor plans documentaries more than biopics and gingerbread more than brownies She teared-up when she saw Andrew Wyeth’s art in a D.C. museum and listened to every song that Mark Knopfler ever recorded She said, “I always feel more prepared when I have a toy […]

My mouth is slowly disappearing like a shoreline receding a basin emptying into a shrinking waterway of winding lines My hair is fading like a bleached coral reef as my timeline is rising on the way to eternity My skin thins translucent like frosted glass on a night sky view where a veil is lifting […]

“It takes time in the dark room to bring lived-experience into focus and to develop the meaning we’ve made of our lives.” Poems from the Dark Room, Colleen Redman’s third book of poems in a series, has been published and can now be ordered ($13) from Amazon and is available locally at The Harvest Moon […]

Turntable moon A long playing disc Climbs the charts and spins all the hits __________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

The poem is an anchor dropped down in the water that must be pulled up or cut from the body to meet its potential while I inconspicuously follow I close my eyes to see _______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

There’s nothing new under the sun But the moon is an unread mystery novel A magical trick of mythological logic that has no alibi The sun is the day’s bloom But the moon is the night’s deep root The inside out insight Invitation to reflection A veiled visitor to follow The sun is the usual […]

I measure out darkness like a potion I know will kill me when my body is a riddle tied in knots a host for virus and plastic because the world is not a promise the moon is not a puppet and the sun doesn’t owe us light What wakes me at night is the thought […]