Poet for the Land

 

Nancy Canyon, Writing the Land Poet

As a Writing the Land poet, I adopted Todd Creek, a Whatcom Land Trust parcel, last year, my one year tenure beginning May 2022. The program is through a group called NatureCulture, pairing land trust parcels with poets. I have written many poems about the river, the creek, the floods, the river silt, dead trees, growing trees, and all those rocks you see beside me. It is a beautiful parcel the Land Trust is protecting. 

Writing the Land poets turn in three poems each, and a recording of reading one. They are then published in books that are available online. See the book for the northeast poets here: https://uvlt.org/product/writing-the-land-northeast-poetry-anthology/

Yesterday, when we went out to Todd Creek (it's about 45 minutes from our home in Bellingham, WA) while my husband, a land steward,clipped invasive species I wrote words in a little book for future poems as I walked along the access road and then along the beach. 

The access road seems part of the experience to me, as it rounds a field of corn where bee hives are placed in the summer. There are also trees that have been planted along the road on the right that are about 20' tall now. The range from fir, grand fir, spruce, to cedar. They are quite beautiful.

The Todd Creek parcel has many planted saplings with blue cones surrounding them. Some are thiving, some are surviving, and some are dead. I can see this parcel shaded by tall trees in the future. It will be a great protection for the river, for wildlife, and for the land itself.

If you get a chance, go to the NatureCulture site and see what the poets are doing, I'm sure you will be impressed.

Best in poetry,

Nancy Canyon

STRUCK: A MEMOIR by Nancy Canyon (Coming Soon)

STRUCK: A MEMOIR by Nancy Canyon (Coming Soon)

STRUCK EXCERPT:

On Corral Hill Lookout at 6,000 feet, we watch for smoke, which might not be visible if a lightning strike catches fuel beneath the ground—a bigger fire waiting to happen once ignited by oxygen-rich air. Our boss, Arizona, says the roots can burn for a long time. Sometimes, in the forest, ground collapses into the space where a root once took up room—and a hole is left beneath the forest floor. 

Above or below the surface, fire calls to me. I have stared into beach fires, campfires, and at the blazing logs in the resort lobby stone fireplace. I’ve stared at Presto logs burning in my family’s fireplace, pine sticks burning in the kitchen trash burner and in the converted oil stove in the living room of the Old Mare house where I lost the baby.

Starting fires is one of my gifts. Once I caught my hair on fire when I leaned too close to a candle while looking through a microscope. And the bottom of a frypan, once super heated, went poof—blue flames leapt up the sides and just as quickly died out. When I was in high school, a plastic platter in the oven to keep the meat warm, accidently got turned to broil. Shortly that plate was popping and melting and making a horrible stink, filling the kitchen with toxic smoke. Dad grabbed the platter with a potholder, ran it outside, flinging it into the backyard. We went out for hamburgers that night.

When Jack and I were first together I caught my apartment on fire. We’d made several mushroom-shaped candles on the beach at Priest Lake. Though I’d blown out the one I was burning, the string-wick reignited, starting my kitchen table on fire, the curtains, and then the entire kitchen wall went up in flames.

We weren’t gone long, just downstairs visiting our friend, Michael. I’d blown out the candle before we left. Time passed, and I began to smell smoke. When I got to the top of the stairs, smoke was pouring out from beneath my apartment door. Jack ran in and my cat ran out. While he tried to douse the blazing kitchen table with water tossed from glasses I’d left setting in the sink, the fireman passed me on the stairs. I was bawling my eyes out and hugging Jude, who wasn’t harmed, thank goodness. Inside, they hosed down the wall and tossed the burning table out the second story window in a volley of sparks. All that remained was a charred stink and blackened walls. We sanded and painted, but in the end, I had to move into another apartment.

Now we stand on the catwalk watching heat rise off the forest. The eerie high-pitched cry of a red-tailed hawk sends a shiver down my spine. There’s something a little frightening about heat. It just keeps going and going, melting pavement, scorching skin, damaging paint jobs, and crisping the forest….

Nancy Canyon, MFA, creates in a studio overlooking Bellingham Bay. Her paintings, poetry, and prose are widely published: Adventures NW, Sue C. Boynton, True Stories II-IV, Raven Chronicles, Floating Bridge Review, Cirque, & For the Love of Orcas Anthology, to name a few. Nancy coaches for The Narrative Project and teaches writing for Chuckanut Writers. Her memoir manuscript “Struck: A Memoir,” details Nancy’s work as a lookout attendant in the Clearwater National Forest in the 70s. Celia’s Heaven (novel) & Saltwater (poetry) are available at Village Books.  

Please sign up for my blog posts with helpful writing tips, excerpts from my stories, and links to my classes and events. Thank you, Nancy Canyon.

Recent Posts

• STRUCK: A MEMOIR by Nancy Canyon (Coming Soon)
• Nancy Canyon: Poet For the Land
• Writing the Land Poet, Nancy Canyon
• “CELIA’S HEAVEN” Available at Village Books, Bellingham
• Luminous Nature: Upcoming June show @ Inn at Lynden

Categories

• Art
• Poetry
• Resources
• Uncategorized
• Writing

Subscribe

Join my mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from the blog, artist and author events, and upcoming classes.

 
 
 

©2022 Nancy Canyon | Privacy Policy | Site design by Silent Sidekick

CELIA’s HEAVEN by Nancy Canyon – Magic Realism, Family Saga, Contemporary Literature: Book Review

 

Rating: 

Title: Celia's Heaven

Author(s): Nancy Canyon

Genre(s): Family Saga, Magic Realism, Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Penchant Press International (April 30, 2020)

Buy the book now at:

Village BooksAmazonAuthor's Website

It’s as if a large chunk of her heart was wrenched away in an instant. Celia’s twin sister died suddenly in a terrible accident. Now Celia is haunted by this dear sister who is gone forever. Moreover, the emotional distance between herself and her parents, the only family that’s left behind, is painful. From her hell on earth, she yearns for her own, Celia’s Heaven, where all could be right again. But the road to Heaven is paved with broken promises and a shattering revelation.

Celia leads an unsatisfying life. The residents in her town are repulsed by her because she works as a stripper. Her father berates her for her life choices. She gets it, but she makes good money, and money is hard to turn down. Although Celia’s boyfriend asks her to marry him, she still likes to be with other men and acts on her impulses. Amid the emotional chaos, Celia continues to look for a miracle. The only thing on the horizon, however, is the worst winter snowstorm in years, and it could be deadly.

On the anniversary of her twin’s death, Celia reminisces about the times the two shared together.  But something weird is happening, she is seeing glimpses of her twin – even hearing messages from her. What is she trying to say? Is there some warning to communicate? Or is it some secret she needs Celia to know? Her sister’s spirit is restless, and Celia is trying to understand and help. Perhaps by helping her sister, she will be helping herself as well.

Nancy Canyon’s beautifully written story has a smooth, crisp, surface tone with an underlying, pulsing energy. Fascinating, conflicted characters will grab any reader’s interest right from the start. Even the dialogue is masterful for what is said and what is left unsaid. All in all, Canyon shines at painting detailed, intense character portraits that spring to life and find their way right into the heart of the reader. Each character struggles to reconcile the choices they’ve made that affect them and those around them. But now they face fears about what is to come. The powerful writing takes the reader into the intimate journeys of Celia, her boyfriend, and others including her sister. These are women and men who live in quiet desperation, and thoughtfulness, praying for a better life and hoping to survive.

Set against a backdrop of a nightmarish snowstorm, Canyon’s characters are put to the test, trying to survive the current situation that seems to have supernatural strength and the emotional turmoil they each face. Is peace a possibility? Is happiness and love too much to hope for? Celia’s twin may know something that will change lives forever if only Celia discovers the key to unlock her message.

Celia’s Heaven won First in Category in the CIBAs 2013 PARANORMAL Awards.

 

By W. Kendall

Celia's Heaven: A Novel by Nancy Canyon

 My novel, Celia's Heaven, is now available at bookstores near you. This is a family saga about Celia Monroe and her twin, Star Monroe. They live in a small town in Washington state, Vinegar Valley, where their preacher father has great influence over the community. He isn't supportive of Celia, as he looks down on her profession: exotic dancer, and lets his congregation know that she is a dark smudge on his sense of purity and on their family history. The Monroe family is known for their miraculous healings, though Star Monroe does not resurrect from a drowning accident; however, she does come back from the dead to help Celia remember the bad thing that happened to her as a child. When her daddy moves in with her during a terrible winter storm, things begin to change between Celia and her daddy.

Like a hypnotist, Nancy Canyon lures us into a world more luminous than our everyday lives. She gently allows us to see beyond the veil that separates body from spirit, and we follow her willingly wherever she will take us. 

~Brenda Miller, author of An Earlier Life, winner of the Washington State Book Award for Memoir 

For more about Celia's Heaven, see www.nancycanyon.com and amazon.com/author/nancycanyon

Day 18 NaPoWriMo

Daddy

In March he turned 95. We celebrated,

witnessing the Daddy we used to know,

laughing while we sang him Happy Birthday.

His wife says she’s losing her mind.

She cried, “He’s declining,”

fell and broke his hip. Hospital.

I walk the dog

standing to watch from the path,

nibbled by the beaver--

spring lilies crowding the pond.

Day 17 NaPoWriMo

Fourth

Tommy blew a hole in his hand and yes it was with a firecracker and yes Grandma had warned him and everyone else in charge especially Dad the biggest kid of all should know not to set them off as they were illegal and dangerous grandma said and twisted her hands in her apron and we all looked on watching because that is how you learn from the parents and family members what to do with your power who does as someone else says in this family, and grandma drawing out dad’s proper name, Richaaard and dad looking sheepish and there we went single file to the night yard each with a sparkler in our hand of course the sparkler is safe but the firecracker the one that pops so loud and so close to your ears it does damage as does the cherry bomb brother set off in the fireplace as a joke blowing the screen right off the bricks and dad’s temper right out the top of his head.

Day 11-14 NaPoWriMo

11. How I Came About

Mama’s intention was to have more children, maybe at first just to

replace the baby boy who died, and then with a new boy, the need for

a girl came to light. I’ve always wanted one of each, she said, and then

I came along, A fast child wanting to pop out in the backseat of the yellow

cab that Mama and I road to the hospital in. And Daddy, she told me later,

wasn’t in the cab, nor did he give us a ride in his Silver Eagle, because he

was on the road, the driver of a big rig that I have no recollection of, but

in my made-up story, I see it parked outside the house and Mama climbing

a little ladder because the cab sat far off the ground. Up and in we went

and off to the hospital, Daddy honking that big semi horn all the way there.

With an adventure like that, there was no need to come out in the back of

a cab. I wanted anyway, to make my mother happy. 

12. Ahtanum Ridge

The mountains are bare, like they’ve forgotten

to dress this morning, the flesh in a

high crease, folds seductively, the waist also

bends to wrinkle and crease where

shade becomes prominent, brush growing

in damp places.

First one brown hill, then

another devoid of trees

Waxed smooth each morning

13. Two Birds Fly, One Hits the Window

We are in a wind   a big blow   knocking furniture

across the back porch    the sky is gray-black    the sound of a truck, a plane     a freight train once when the wind hit 90     miles per hour is high  and so the birds fly willy-nilly on gusting currents     meanwhile a solar wind blows down through the atmosphere    clocking our hearts at a sensational speed    their rhythm and our minds race    sleep evades us    the rustling whistling wind alters trajectory    it is always ringing bells and busting heads   fast around corners    birds sit tight   your fellow has fallen

14.

What the Dictionary Has to Say

My repeating dream is of a wobbly table floating

about a room, tipping teacups and saucers toward the floor but like a flying carpet, lift into the air swirl around. All this is orchestrated by a magician with black eyes, laughing as he twirls sideways past you. The dream dictionary explains the tipping table as a symbol of loss of control and flying teacups: a need for retreat, as all good warriors do.  It’s like lining up before a firing squad, teacups flying toward you, breaking against the brick wall behind. Then we come to the magician, the man wearing dark clothing and white gloves. The gleam in his eyes makes

your breathe catch as you struggle to wake: trickery

the dictionary says, beware of this fellow.