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		"A circumstance does not free you, you must free yourself. Writing poetry is a form of liberation." - Gertrude Halstead *space between* poems by Gertrude Halstead, Poet Laureate of Worcester, Massachusetts 80 pages - 5.5 x 8.5 - ISBN-13: 978-0-9818661-0-9 Copyright © 2008 cover photo by William Attard McCarthy, “Flight to Freedom”- male Mediterranean/European House Sparrow. www.mccarthysphotoworks.com http://my.fotolia.com/photoworks to order this book or if you are in the Massachusetts area, you can contact: Eve Rifkah erifkah48 (a) gmail.com FROM THE BOOK. . . About the Author Gertrude Halstead was born in Germany in 1916. She escaped to France where during the war she was interned in Camp Gurs in the south of France. She volunteered as an interpreter and escaped by having the French authorities sign her release papers. She eventually made her way to Portugal where she was able to get passage on the last passenger ship, Excalibur, leaving for the United States. Her first book memories like burrs was published by Adastra Press. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award, 2006, from UMass/Dartmouth. She is presently Poet Laureate of Worcester, Massachusetts, USA and recipient of a 2008 Worcester, Massachusetts, Cultural Council Fellowship Award. A song-cycle based on her poems has been composed by Mauro DePasquale for piano, cello, alto and is part of a documentary filmed by outstanding filmmaker Peter Swanson of Global Visions. The DVD can be obtained for $30 through Poetry Oasis, Inc., 11 Rosemont Rd., Worcester, MA 01605. * * * gifts long fingers of the sun touch peaks foothills color all lavender flowers rocks falling water later turns the palest pink and at dusk boulders become wild goats descending my hands against barbed wire * * * flight on the train you had left me a message scrawled across brown paper wrapping hung like an empty garment bag hooked in the baggage net overhead it all seemed upside down no safety from that direction i could not reach anyway having inch by inch shrunken into myself pacing the moving compartment swaying upside down no safety in any direction * * * lunch after Picasso blue iris yellow velvet lipped sips at my table we toast Picasso periods i coffee she water we part nodding * * * the boy who identifies with fish he always trusted water how it rocked carried him at five his father made him hold fish by their lips in front of the family car later small lightweight strong lungs crossing the long schoolpool back and forth back and forth without surfacing he loves the under water more he identifies with fish that morning the first day of summer vacation he runs to the pond and is under the surface smooth over him he crosses back and forth back and forth on the way back a gentle splash barely a splash a sting a pain barely a pain he feels pulled his mouth lip struggle free he identifies with fish * * * Harriet i met her in a chinese restaurant she talked to me across the aisle friends call me Harriet they say it suits me better i don't believe them i am married you know language my lover at night slips between my softpressed thighs circles the other smooth breast tongues my nipple my lips until vowelsconsonantssyllables words sentences well i tell you what do you dream * * * © 2008-2011 Gertrude Halstead * * * Gertrude Halstead is an astonishing, powerful poet. Her images, potent as a room of pure-toned paintings, wash a reader clean inside the light of words. - Naomi Shihab Nye, author of numerous books including: You & Yours, Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East In our writing workshop we have made Gertrude's last name into a verb. "To halstead" is to make a poem so spare and fine that there is no word wasted, no space that doesn't do useful work as well, each word and space integrating and speaking to the other, the poem becoming so well crafted, so adroitly made, that it resembles Gertrude's iconic kite images, a perfectly constructed work of art, seemingly fragile, but actually intensely strong and radiant, each poem virtually capable of lifting into the air with its seamless design and timeless beauty. - John Hodgen author of Grace, Bread Without Sorrow, In My Father's House * * * * * return to top return to home page Website © 2003-2012 Walter E. Harris III