Category Archives: My Poetry

Carol A. Stephen – Writer Beginnings

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Carol A. StephenJust discovered this 3-part interview I did with Vicki Hudson in June, and sorry that I missed it till now. Thanks, Vicki for taking the time to let me ramble about my poetic journey!

Link to part 2: Carol A. Stephen – Writer Reads

Link to part 3:   Carol A. Stephen – Writing Life and Community

Vicki Hudson's avatarVicki Hudson

PurplehatVAH: Welcome to Three by Five, Carol. Do tell, why do you write?

CAS: It seems to be a compulsion really. Words, phrases, ideas come to me, seemingly at random, but they won’t let go ‘til I put them into a poem.

VAH: Why did you become a writer and when did you know or feel like you were a writer?

CAS: I hadn’t written in 25 years, but after my husband died, I began to find the poetry coming again. I decided it was time to find out whether I was really a poet or a dabbler. I first felt like a poet when a workshop leader wanted to steal one of my lines.

VAH: Ah, that sounds validating. “A poet or a dabbler.” A good question for introspection. Is there someone or something that influenced your development as a writer?

CAS: Reading other poets is…

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Above the Hum of Yellow Jackets

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An unexpected and nice surprise today to see this on Claudia Coutu Radmore’s blog. Claudia senses things in these poems that I have not seen myself, and at times brings me back to the place inside where the poems began.

ccrauthor's avatarclaudia radmore

Above the Hum of Yellow Jackets, Carol A. Stephen (2011, Bondi Studios)cover hum carol your sideswipe smile, thin lips only/ no eye involvement/ just enough to bait your trap/ no longer enough to spring it/ lost widows and orphans control

Here is a chapbook to delight. You know someone just like she has described above, don’t you. And don’t you wish you’d written a poem about him/her…Carol’s deft word choices, facility with metaphor and connections to the here-and-now make her poems comfortingly precise and on point.

The excerpt above is from her poem ‘no eye involvement’ from this chapbook; I love its perfect title. Carol lives in Carleton Place, a small town, our small town, but her poems encompass the places she has been, her neighbourhood, her garden, as well as emotion, description and philosophy.  When she takes you to a place, you will discover something you never knew or…

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Born Without an Umlaut by Carol A. Stephen (All About My Name Poetry Series)

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My poem, Born Without an Umlaut, appears on Silver Birch Press as part of the All About My Name Poetry Series!

silverbirchpress's avatarSilver Birch Press

Carol Stephen Grade 7
Born Without an Umlaut
by Carol A. Stephen

Born to an unpronounceable surname,
I wandered through school always
far down the list at roll call, knew
my turn had come when teacher stopped
after my first name. That same cough, a glance up,
then the struggle: Swuh, Swuh, SSSS –
Embarrassed, I’d raise my hand, call out “Here!”

Always the middle vowels tying tongues. “AE.”
I could see by their wrinkled frowns
they were thinking: Is it AY? Or the long Ah?
Swaebe. Could be Swayb, could be Swab, or even Swabby:
that odd name missing its precious umlaut.

Dad’s long gone. I search for him online, looking
for clues to never-mentioned relatives and ancestors.
Discover Dad, born under another unpronounceable name.
Not Swaebe at all, he was a Pfahl! (Fall or Pfffal?)
I cough, I struggle. I wonder if he ever knew.

How would life have unfolded, if our…

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Gelato Love Story

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Visited Stella Luna Gelato on location at the Carp Farmers Market twice this summer. I was so pleased to find them a little bit closer to home! Pure indulgence. My brother, Norm, had the Ferrero Rocher and I had the Chocolate Toffee flavour on the first visit, Lemon on my second. What a lovely tasty treat!

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