Audio Essay: "My Husband's Being Deployed on Tuesday" plus more

 "My Husband's Being Deployed on Tuesday"

I've taught in the University of Maine System for 25 years, both live classes and on-line ones. This audio flash essay was broadcast on the show "Esoterica" by community radio station WERU.   It was inspired by an e-mail sent to me by one of my students. You will need to click the tiny MP3 button under the title.

https://archives.weru.org/esoterica/2018/01/esoterica-112117-2-2-2-2-2/


"Security Clearance" 

In other news, I forgot all about this: My essay, "Security Clearance," is coming out in an anthology about Florida to be published by the University of Florida Press this March! It was so long ago that I was first approached by the editor Jim Ross about including my piece in "In Season: Stories of Discovery, Loss, Home and Places in Between." You can pre-order it through Amazon, but, of course, I prefer you ask your local independent bookstore to get it for you.  https://www.amazon.com/Season-Stories-Discovery-Places-Between/dp/0813056950/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515881710&sr=1-1&keywords=jim+ross+in+season

If you'd like to read the entire essay first published in Burrow Press you can see it here: http://burrowpress.com/security-clearance-linda-buckmaster/. And here's the opening line:

“Wait here. I have to put my knives in the car to get through Security,” my brother Ric says.

"Flowering"

And last, but certainly not least, my little poem "Flowering" was read this week on Maine Public Radio by Maine Poet Laureate Stuart Kestenbaum https://mainearts.maine.gov/Pages/Programs/Maine-Poet-Laureate. You can hear it at mainepublic.org under "Poems From Here." This poem has had a life of its own and has been around the block a few times. Now, if it would only send home money  . . .

A Poem for the New Year

Return

Where the Passy meets the Bay, we come together,

gathering like ducks at Solstice: 

Barrow’s Goldeneyes down from Hudson’s Bay,

here once again in sight of the old bridge,

bobbing  and drifting, each small bird complete

but always swimming near to one another.

We, too, drift in this bright stream,

floating a life, returning to light.

Note: The Passy is the local nickname for the Passagassawekeag River that empties into 

Penobscot Bay at Belfast, Maine. It's 4:22 pm, and I think it is a bit lighter this time of day than it was two weeks ago.