Poetry of the People: Amy Alley

This week's Poet of the People is Amy Alley.

Amy Alley is a poet, writer, educator, and artist who I originally met through Cassie Premo Steele. She hosts poetry and art events from Greenwood to Newberry. She is a quiet, nurturing, and generous connector of people and talents and is the keeper of the poetry torch in her corner of South Carolina  . 

Amy is a talented freelance writer, poet, author,  artist, educator, and solo mother of one son who somehow managed to make it to University (hooray!) Because that isn't enough, she is currently training to become a certified yoga teacher. A so-called ‘curator of sophisticated chaos,' she knows what it is like to strive for balance in the throes of a busy, hectic life - but she has learned to breath deep and embrace the flow. She has a passion for service and enjoys helping others express the story they wish to tell through writing and/or art as well as discover new tools for creative expression to promote wellness and wellbeing. She also loves fashion and style, like, a lot.

If You Reached Out  

If you reached out 

While children clamor at our feet 

And on our laps 

And people chatter all around us 

In a language I fall in and out of understanding 

I would take your hand 

 

If you reached out 

I would follow you into your world 

I would let you lead me 

All the way 

Because I’m so tired 

Of being at the wheel 

 

If you reached out 

I would let you teach me 

The language of your ancestors 

So that I could speak to you 

With the same words that 

You dream in. 

 

If you reached out 

I would let you into my world 

Where the solitude you’ve never known 

Bears fruit 

In color that swirls on the canvases 

That you admire so much 

 

If you reached out 

I would take you to a place 

Where you can hear the owls 

Call to one another 

Their ancient language one 

With the sound of night settling 

 

If you reached out 

Across this table 

And these children 

And these worlds 

And languages 

And all that seems to lie between us 

 

I would fall into a space 

That seems to be as vast 

As the night sky  

We both dream beneath 

Counting the stars 

In different languages  

Living in worlds 

We both fall in and out of 

Understanding. 

 

 

Shoe Fetish 

I’ve kicked off more shoes than you could imagine 

Wasted, wanton shoes 

confining 

shoes that fit only for an instant 

and never 

never ever 

let me dance. 

 

I’ve kicked off more shoes that you could imagine 

and ran barefoot instead 

through meadows of clover and freedom 

where nothing is too tight 

and I can dance as much as l like 

 to the tune 

of me. 

 

MYCELIAL 

I wanted to write about me,
but I am possessive
so it comes out as my
and my mind goes to mycelium
and mycelium is another name
for God, I have been told.
And God was possessive, right?
The source of what connects us all
and it runs deep underneath,
connecting everything to itself.
The fungi know this. There’s
communication down in the deep,
dark spaces where the gods really live.
There’s magic in my and mine and
maybe not so much shame
in wanting to possess something
completely. Mycelial networks
are so intrinsic, a worldwide
web of their own. We don’t see it,
just like we don’t see the internet,
but it’s there all the same, sparking
magical mystical connections.
And there’s magic in me and mine
and he and his and we can’t own
each other but we can think about it.
We can go down deep into
all the dark places below where
the mycelial hyphae of our minds 

run like strands of Ariadne’s thread, 

under all the layers of us,

and earth is this space where
we finally touch one another,
touch the magic, and watch the light
of it spread to all of our parts.

 

Black and White Dream

Spring came too early,

again. It seeped in 

everywhere, overnight. Dew

glistening on green like 

sweat on skin after

making love. Sunny and 

74, too early. March 3

is not Spring. A long

afternoon walk leaves me

like dew on green - 

anew - as though everything 

wasn't breaking down,

as though I'd spent 

idle hours with 

Wang Ming's Humble Hermit

of Clouds and Woods,

having stumbled upon him

in a black and white

dream, making love between

cups of tea in his

thatched cottage, hidden

by ink branches and 

boughs of pine. And 

why not, when everything

is breaking, broken.  At least 

once before, this scene, in a 

dream, waking up

like dew on green

leaves - anew - but not

enough. I have spent days

in woods, in clouds, in

meditation, trying to find

my feet back on that

jagged path. Hermits like

to make us think that they

are wise, but I take 

my gurus with a grain of salt 

these days. Fragile as me

they are, and just

as broken. Spring has come

too early, again. And everything

is breaking,  broken, except

the black ink branches and 

pine boughs that hide 

a thatched cottage where

lives the man who

prefers silence and solitude 

to the chaos of Spring. Who

prefers his loneliness

to my black and white

dream. Who doesn't see 

everything breaking, broken, 

who doesn't see me

blinded is he 

by a warm Spring sun.

Too early.

Last Night I Dreamt of Pow Wows  

Last night I dreamt of friends long past 

Divorced from one another 

And otherwise scattered 

Lost to the winds of time 

Lost to the miles between us 

Lost to themselves  

And lost to me. 

 

But for a moment 

Together again. 

Some long ago powwow 

Where we laughed and sang together 

And danced under starshine 

To a drum as familiar 

As the beating of my own heart. 

 

I wake up  

Wanting to reach out 

Find everyone 

And bring us all together again. 

 

But my heart says no 

It is a time long past 

They are lost to the winds of time 

Lost to the miles between us 

Lost to themselves 

And lost to me. 

 

I begin my day nostalgic 

With the memory of moccasins on soft earth 

Keeping time with a drum  

That fell silent long ago. 

 

Making War 

The way of the peaceful warrior 

is not my way. I fight. 

Against the grain, against 

myself. Against the oppression 

of cultural expectations and 

societal norms. What is normal 

anyway, the collected insanity 

of the masses? Peace 

is not achieved without a fight. 

Inner, outer, it doesn’t matter. 

You have to slay the demons, and 

they fight back, scratching and biting 

and you bleed and your blood flows 

to all the inner and outer places. And 

They don’t go down easily, no. Begging  

and pleading and willing them away 

won’t work. You have to fight back. That’s 

why it’s important that you know how.  

 

You, sitting on your velvet cushion with your hands 

folded, thinking “Namaste,” you better know 

how to throw – and take – a punch. Because 

the way of the peaceful warrior is not 

achieved through the bliss 

of meditation, no. It takes the screaming of war 

to get to that place, inner or outer, 

where peace resides. It takes 

making war on yourself 

to stop making war 

on the rest of the world. It takes 

fighting back. Hard.  

And you get stronger, scrappier. And 

wounded. But the bleeding 

stops. And scarred, you put away your sword, 

for now. You can only be 

a peaceful warrior if you put 

it down completely.  

And you might. 

 

But I fought too long 

and too hard for the right 

to hold mine 

to just let it go. I’ll 

put it away, though. And I’ll sit 

on a velvet cushion, with 

my hands folded and think “Namaste” 

all day. I will 

be peaceful.  

I will. 

 

You should know, though… 

in a moment’s notice 

I can be armed  

and ready for war 

in the event 

that you choose 

to wage it. 

 

 

Poetry of the People: Jo Angela Edwins

My seventh Poet of the People is Jo Angela Edwins. What impresses me the most about Jo Angela is her humor and ability to find the divine in unexpected places. 

Jo Angela Edwins is the poet laureate of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina and a professor of English at Francis Marion University. Her collection A Dangerous Heaven appears in 2023 from Gnashing Teeth Publishing.

Parts of Speech

Verbs do the heavy lifting:
shoot, explode, weep, scream.


Adverbs tell us, mostly, how:
often, swiftly, wildly.


Adjectives describe:
fearful, mad, thunderous.


Conjunctions link:
armed and dangerous, dead or alive.


Articles define:
an ally, the enemy.


Prepositions direct:
over the wall, through the tunnel, across the killing field.


Interjections exclaim:
Stop! No! Help!


Nouns remind us
that earth is filled with places
where people turn persons
into things.

When Louis Armstrong Landed on the Moon


Quiz question: Who was the first person to set foot on the moon?
Student answer: Louis Armstrong
Picture his space helmet
specially equipped
to accommodate the trumpet.
He must have resembled
a Seussian cartoon:
that polished horn
sticking stiffly through the visor,
the aperture gasketed
tightly with polymers,
a protection against oxygen leaks,
for this man with elastic cheeks
needed all the air he could get
on that airless orb
to shatter silence across
the Sea of Tranquility.
His jaunty rendition
of “When the Saints Go Marching In”
bopped its best that day,
and those saints in their heaven
that hovered like a low ceiling
over his bobbing head
realized slowly
that their feet had gone to tapping
against narrow golden streets.
As he leapt from rock to rock
across that milky desert,
surely his heart skipped beats
in time to music. Back home,
Mission Control heard his gritty vibrato
crooning a capella
through the fuzz of the two-way
as he gazed backwards at the foggy earth:
I think to myself—
what a wonderful world.

(Originally published in Porcupine Literary, issue 2, Summer 2020)

The Lilies You Sent


were lovely for so many days,
and I cannot bring myself to throw them out.
They still offer sheen and a shadow of flair,
but the petals fall in a whoosh. Gravity
is brother to death, and all the green is blackening,
and the water that once held them firm goes brown,
and even a carpel comes tumbling down
here and there. I collect what falls,
dutiful steward to withered angel wings,
and my fingers stain with the glitter of each anther,
the pollen that would propagate what lived
had it not died for the sake of spreading kindness,
a better reason than most, I suppose, to die,
and for this killing that brightened my life, I thank you.