Caroline Misner








Sunflowers in August

These sunflowers are sentinels
tucked among the stones of my garden.
Their yellow heads bob in the wind
that rings in from distant places, keeping
vigil over old habits
that can be construed as sins.

From stalks thicker than my wrist
gold flakes from their centre pads;
sulphurous scatterings carpet the path.
The petals have unfurled and browned
as though burnt. And the gate
clamps shut against it.

So tall—
they’ve grown so tall as to block
the archway of my temptations.
The cats play among the withered
petunias I’ve grown from seed last spring.
Now they cower in the shadows 
of these behemoths, spreading their petals
like umbrellas.  The Dog Days of summer
are done, but their heat lingers still.
Continue...

Greetings one and all and welcome to my brand new website!  Please bear with me  portraitI work on filling its pages with news and musings. Being technologically challenged, it may take a while to work out some of the glitches and I hope to have it finished within the next few weeks.  In the meantime, please feel free to browse through the archives and have a look at some of my work.  I've been writing poetry ever since I could remember and I've decided to include a section of Juvenilia in the archives.  Most of the poems listed there were written in my early teens and many of them are just plain awful!  But a few gems do stand out and I hope you enjoy them.  Also, if you would like to know more about me and the work I do, please feel free to click on "About".  There I have posted a brief biography of myself.  I'm not trying to be falsely modest, but I really loathe bragging about myself.  I feel an author's work should stand on its own merits and where an author was born or where she lives or what she eats for breakfast are completely irrelevant.

I would also be remiss if I didn't included a big Thank You! to my oldest son, Kevin, who with a friend designed this website for me and programmed it so that even I could manage it.  And another big Thank You! goes to my dear father Jan Kurz, who was in on it the whole time and provided the stunning photography behind the text of the daily poem.  And another big Thank You! goes out to all the editors, publishers and fellow writers who have supported me and my work over the years and gave me a chance when I needed it, including a Journey Prize nomination and two Pushcart Prize nominations!


"...And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self doubt."
--Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)