New Review at California State Poetry Society

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Hi Friends,

Happy New Year! Sending wishes for a good year to all of you.

As 2023 begins, I wanted to share a review I did for Andrena Zawinski’s new book of poems, Born Under the Influence. The review is featured as part of California State Poetry Society’s December Poetry Letter.

You can read the review HERE, along with some other excellent, Pushcart nominated poems. And you can visit Word Poetry Books to learn more about Andrena’s book, as well as purchase it.

Sending care.
Judy

Wildflowers Cover Everything

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Hi Friends,

Happy to report that some of my work is now up on Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh Digital Exhibits. These works, part of my solo exhibit, “The Numbers Keep Changing,” were displayed at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh in Summer 2019, with the painting hung alongside this corresponding poem, which also functioned as the label.

See it at here and down below.

 

WILDFLOWERS COVER EVERYTHING FOR FATHER PATRICK DESBOIS*

And the priest reports
A few villagers,
Aged but still living,
Remember

The festival days.
Mozart was played.
Strudel was served.
And beer.

There will be no towers
Of shoes or dentures,
No photo galleries,
No lampshades or gold teeth.

I write this poem
And Father Desbois does what he can
To survey, to count, to record,
But they were millions.

A New Poem at Bike PGH, and More at Persimmon Tree

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Hi Friends,

December already. Wow. Wishing you a nice final month of the year.

In the meantime, I have a poem featured on Bike PGH and also another painting featured at Persimmon Tree. You can read the poem below, see the painting above, or click links to go straight through.

Sending care.
Judy

• • •

everyone

I tell everyone to try

to take note of things

that are improvements

like soft foaming soap in a bottle

vastly sturdier tires

air in the shrunken city —

so much cleaner that men don’t

wash cars on Saturdays anymore;

everyone is wearing black

and talking on small personal phones

many are fat and no one smokes

but everyone knows the way

to stay alive is movement

dance spin run yoga make room

for those bikes but watch out —

everyone runs the red lights.

Hemingway Poetry Series — July 26

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Hi Friends,

I’m pleased to announce that recordings are now available from the July reading which featured myself, along with the remarkable writers Joan Bauer, Scott Silsbe, Anastasia Walker, Mant¿s, Bob Pajich & Meghan Tutolo.

Follow the link here to find more information on each writers, as well as audio recordings of each reader.

Thanks for tuning in. Until next time.

xx
Judy

Intimate Interview at The Christal Ann Rice Cooper Website

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Hi All,

I’m pleased to share with you something more than a poem or a story. Recently, I was interviewed by The Christal Ann Rice Cooper Website to speak about my poem, Now the Sadness, which concerns itself with the grief of losing my son. Never an easy topic, but I was honored to have a space to speak about my son, and also how I wrestle with his passing in my writing.

Full interview and gallery can be found here.

Until next time,
Judy

Evening Street Press Now Online

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Hi All,

Happy to report that the Summer 2022 issue of Evening Street Press is now online and can be read free of charge. You can also purchase a copy from the links below. My poem Prompts to Self is featured in the magazine.

Evening Street Press
https://eveningstreetpress.com/product/evening-street-review-number-34-summer-2022/

Google Books
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=jNl1EAAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.PA1&printsec=frontcove

Scribd
https://www.scribd.com/document/578736375/Evening-Street-Review-Number-34

Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4F6B6VQ

Wishing you all a nice summer. Stay safe and healthy.
Judy

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Review and Friday Forum

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Hi Friends,

Hope this finds you well. Lots of good news to share with you today.

Firstly, I’m very pleased by and honored with a nice review of Buy A Ticket from Kristofer Collins at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

“All of it, though, the suffering and joy, the innocence and experience, are in Robinson’s poems all of one piece, a whole cloth, a brilliant heartbreaking tapestry.”

You can read the entire review here.

Also, I’m happy to report that I will be reading from Buy A Ticket as part of Carnegie Mellon’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute’s Friday Forum. The forum will take play on Friday, May 20th at 1pm. Learn more about it here.

Thanks for sharing this news with me. Take good care.

Until next time,
Judy

Artist Profile at Jewish Chronicle

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Hi Friends,

Hope everyone is safe and healthy. I’m pleased to announce that the Jewish Chronicle has run an artist profile on me in lead up to the publication of my new book, Buy A Ticket as well as the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books.

You can read the profile here, as well as see me read on May 14 at 3:15pm during the Festival of Books.

Look forward to seeing some of you there.

With care,

Judy

Artwork Featured on Persimmon Tree

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Hi Friends,

Hope you are as good as can be. I’m pleased to announce that my art has been featured in the Spring edition of Persimmon Tree, an online magazine of the arts by women over sixty. (It also appeared in their recent newsletter.) The Spring edition is entitled Forgetting, and there you will find wonderful prose and poems by a slew of talented writers. I hope you enjoy it. Until next time…

Judy

New Book and Events Are On The Way!

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Hi All,

Happy New Year!

I’m pleased to announce that my new book of poems, Buy a Ticket will be published in early spring. Its publication will also be the catalyst for a string of events and readings to promote and celebrate the book.

Here are a few readings that are already on tap, with more to come:

Saturday, May 14
Pittsburgh Book Festival

Friday, May 20
Carnegie Mellon University/Osher Friday Forum

Tuesday, July 26
Hemingways/Whale Poetry Series

Also, here’s the blurb from the back of the book:

This is a collection of poems about life—its imperfect beauty, its poignance, and the forces that propel it forward. Toggling among life stages—from a child’s recollections of school with its “blue-lined grainy first-grade paper” to an adult’s look back through the eyes of shared reminiscence with a boon companion, these poems resonate with a sense of time’s passage, its transience and elasticity. Grief and disappointment compete with an indomitable will to continue despite setbacks and loss. Whether through the eyes of teenage Holocaust survivor, Dora, who gleans the forest floors in her quest to live, or the “jobless-wounded-welfar-ians” who keep on dreaming of the windfall that will make it all better, the human beings in Judith R. Robinson’s poems may be beaten and bruised by life’s hard knocks—but they are not down for the count.

Stay tuned for more information.

Stay safe!
Judy

The Art of Poetry: An Ekphrastic Evening

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Hi All,

Excited to share a poem that was part of The Art of Poetry: An Ekphrastic Evening put on by the Pittsburgh Society of Artist. More on the event in this PDF, including other poems and artwork.

Take good care!
Judy

Ekphrastic Event - 54th Annual Exhibition-1 copy.jpg
 

Why A Stick

based on Woman With Stick by Mary Ellen Raneri

I stand before you in full glory of myself.

See my proportioned torso, my sturdy limbs,

The sleekness of my skin.

My body grew full, well- nourished, beautifully shaped.

I would say perfect.

I flowered in tender, sheltered light.

I was loved. I was protected.

But it was as though I slept:  much was kept from me.

Later,  grown, I  stepped out of my blessed sanctuary,

Awakened into a landscape split by want and rage and loathing,

Suffering of innocents without mercy or  explanation.

Shocked,  cowering, I wished to be other than myself:

A rock, a hill, a river, an island in the sea.

But I thought this could not be. 

My flesh rebelled, turned red with fury,

I dwelt in fear for many seasons .

Only under a  sturdy elm I found a measure of peace. 

The leaves of  this majestic  tree rustled with a message:

You are not  the only creature I have offered succor.

Here is my limb, I give it to you. Take it! Lean on it!

It  is stout, it is strong, it is part of me, and I am  part of everything.

Accept  the tragic  beautiful world as it is.  Take it and walk free. 

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