I’ve been busy working on some other things, and just noticed that there were problems with the website. Three hours worth of head pounding later, I’ve got them fixed. As usual, it was a simple problem, that was a nightmare to figure out. Next time I talk to Mom, I’m going to ask her to write a poem about how computers drive us nuts.
Regards
Wayne
PS: A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.
I’ve uploaded a few more poems, and found a couple of wonders.
Please Love Me is about adopting a cat from the pound. I love animals, both cats and dogs, and this poem nearly had me crying (I’m sitting on the couch writing this, sandwiched between a mostly black cat, and a beagle, both of whom are snoring).
To Be A Precious Stone is about life. Mom compared personal growth to the growth of a pearl in an oyster.
The Olde Curiosity Shoppe is one of Mom’s fantasy pieces, about one of those little stores that, well, just read it. You’ll like it.
And I’d better get back to uploading poems.
Wayne
Hello all! I’ve just finished uploading another batch of Mom’s poetry (and yes, I am awake at 2:15 AM, I’m having problems getting to sleep). All of the poems I’ve uploaded in the last twenty-four hours were written in the year 2000, the last year of the Twentieth Century, and I would like to share a couple that I consider special.
First there is White Stallions. White Stallions is a powerful piece about a storm. In my opinion it’s one of Mom’s best early pieces, and I know Heather agrees, because she has put it to music, and it’s on her list to be included in the CD we are recording. We’ve already done several practise runs, working on the correct instruments and mixing to bring this poem to life in song, and I think when we get finished it will be incredible. Heather plans to post a copy here as soon as we have finished working on it.
Second there is When We Were Young, and evocative piece about Mom’s youth in the Potteries District of England.
Third and last, there is Warning Signs, a strong spiritual piece. Just think of all those little things that you could have done, but didn’t because it wasn’t convenient, and how not doing those little things has interfered with your spiritual growth. I’m one of those to gets ‘to busy’ to do what I should sometimes, and this poem has reminded me of that, and that I’ve wasted a lot of time doing things like watching TV, when I could have done something more productive spiritually. Guess I’ll just have to try harder.
I’m trying to make sure that I upload at least twenty poems per day. Since I’m back dating them to when Mom wrote them, that means that they aren’t going to show up as new posts. It’s not ideal, in fact I wish there was some way to tag newly uploaded older poems as new, or to show two dates (date written and date uploaded), but at present this is the best option I can think of.
Good night all!
Wayne
Heather and I have been working on uploading Mom’s poems to this website. It’s slow work – we have to read each one to decide how to tag it, and also to check the date that Mom wrote it. I’ve read lots of Mom’s poems in the past, but never so many in such a short time, and as I’ve read them, I’ve come to realize that I’ve underestimated Mom.
I’ve known Mom for twenty-four years now. I’ll never forget the day that I walked Heather home, and she insisted that I come inside with her. I used to be incredibly shy, and I was terrified of meeting her parents. When she finally got me in the door, Mom immediately tried to set me at ease. And that is Mom. She cares about people. Of course that didn’t help. About the only thing that would have helped was leaving, but if I had, Heather would have killed me. Yes, I was that shy.
I didn’t even know that Mom wrote poetry until Dad started talking about putting a book of her poems together. That would have been ten or twelve years ago. I was curious (and no longer so totally shy of them. Dad and I ended up getting along pretty well much to Heather’s surprise). But poetry really wasn’t what I was interested in. I used to have an incredibly narrow view of what is and isn’t art, and poetry really wasn’t part of it.
Dad encouraged Mom to write more poetry. And he worked hard to get all of Mom’s poems typed up on the computer, spell checked, and safely backed up in more than one place. Dad was Mom’s biggest cheerleader. I know a lot of people used to be scared stiff of Dad. He could be gruff, direct, and he didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was also loving, considerate, and organized. If Dad hadn’t have organized all of Mom’s work, we wouldn’t be able to put together this website. Everyone has heard the saying that ‘Behind every successful man there’s a good woman’. Well folks, the reverse is also true. Dad was the first to recognize Mom’s genius, and her greatest supporter up until the day he passed away. He put together Mom’s first website over on Geocities. He put together at least ten collections of her poetry, and got them signed ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers). Dad loved Mom, and he loved her poetry. He stood behind her every step of the way.
In part this website was put together based on what we, her children, believed that Dad would have wanted. Heather is the one who will do most of the talking, but others of us have worked on it as well.
As I’ve been reading the poems, I’ve come across some beautiful pieces, pieces that I want to share. Dad had come up with the idea of numbering Mom’s poems, and in September 2000 she hit number 1 thousand, and being Mom, she wrote a poem about it. You should read it. It’s really neat.
And then let’s go back to January 2000. Mom was having problems. Cat problems. You know what cats are like in winter. They want you to open the door, and when they see it’s winter outside, they want to try another door. I don’t know how many times Mom got up to open the door, but she wrote about it, and having been there myself with cats, it put a smile on my face.
As I continue to post more of Mom’s poems, I’ll post links to my favourites, and I hope that you will enjoy them.
Wayne Borean
March 30, 2010
Hello all.
A few things, if you could do me a favour, leave a comment or two in a poem, even if it’s just :Hi Ann. I like this one. Just so I know you you’ve been here. Oh and tell me where you heard about the Web site.
We’re working on three different sets of poems at once, Current, old poems of the week, and the bog group, Dads old web site. That will likely take the better part of , a long time. There are some 5500 poems to put up, even if we could do a 100 poems at day, that’s 55 days. We have two major surgeries coming up and other things take up our time. We’re working as fast as we can so please be patient as you can.
Passing the hat to get Mom to Halifax. She’s been cleared to fly to Halifax, you can send a cheque to her (ask me for her address) I’m at heather.borean@gmail.com. We my also set her up with a paypal account in the future.
Heather