The First Pressing: Poetry of the Everyday

By Donna Wahlert

"In The First Pressing: Poetry of the Everyday, Donna Wahlert takes us on a journey through the four seasons of life, capturing tiny moments of everyday living. She carries us from the specific to the universal; with eloquence, clarity, and depth of spirit."
-June Cotner, author of Graces, Wedding Blessings, and one dozen other inspirational anthologies.

Whether Donna Wahlert writes about attending the spring birth of her granddaughter or finding a newly born fawn at her front door; or describes summer work in a bakery selling wedding cakes, or the mysteries of the Mississippi River; or hints at the autumn anxiety of a child going off to college or the contentment of rocking a grandchild against a harvest moon; or the grief of the wintry years of her mother's Alzheimer's disease, she leads us through complete seasons of emotion. She evokes the events of our own lives in such a way that we are touched to the very core. She writes about the moments of the everyday that we are experiencing but are unable to describe in her unique and touching way. She pilots us through awe and wistfulness, through fear and loss, and leads us back to hope, fulfillment and grace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 20, 2003
• ISBN: 9781469739861

Donna Wahlert

Donna Wahlert’s work has appeared in several literary journals and anthologies. She has studied with many prominent poets and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She and her husband have five children and fifteen grandchildren. They live in Iowa and Florida. Her first book was The First Pressing: Poetry of the Everyday.

Book preview

Contents

Still Life

Preface

Part One

Spring

Attending the Birth of My Granddaughter

Triolet to a Spring Fawn

Echoes

Blessings in All Directions

Eve

To My Eurasian Grandchild

Sacrament

Before My Grandson’s Surgery

Triolet To Sydney

Hanna

The Mother Goose Prayer

A Snake As A Pet

Tea Time at Thomas Hardy’s Cottage

The Barometer Plunges

Colic

Deer Domain

*Putti

First Communion

Windchimes

Part Two

Summer

We Have Moved To A New House

A Three-Year-Old Visits

Climbing Down the Rocky Mountains

Flora

Music to My Ears

Separation

Meditation at 7:00 a.m.

Generations

The Transplant

God As Heat

Ballooning Over Minnesota

Making Way For the Interstate

Concerning Dogs

Evening Drama

Storm Signals

In The Garden With My Grandson

This Mississippi

An Astonishing Side Trip

Ode to Bread

Wedding Cake

East meets West

Nine-Eleven

Nocturne

Part Three

Autumn

Another Season Part 1

Windfall in the Orchard

Animal Blessing for the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Observing Thanksgiving

The Quilters

Sonnet To My Daughter on Her Twenty-First Birthday

I Wish I could Write a Poem About My Mother

My Grandmother’s Kitchen

Blessing For Family Reunion

*Novena

Dust

Old Loves Revisited

Go Figure...

Last Chance

I come from a house with no floors.

To A Lost Grandmother

A Catholic Woman Asks: Who is Priest?

Still Life

Part Four

Winter

Snowbirds

On Folding Napkins For a Dinner Party

When the Time Comes

Strands

The Jelly Maker

Lucy Conquers ALS

The Curtain Falls

In China During Christmas

Gabriel

Closing In

Untethered

After Life

Seasoning

Earthbound

Here Let Us

Between Two Worlds

The Long Good-Bye

Leaving This World For The Next

Reflection

Triolet to My Five Children

After His First Heart Attack

Forty Years Are Not Enough

After His Second Heart Attack: A Psalm

Upon Awakening

Explaining To My Children

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of publications in

which the following poems previously appeared. There may be slight

changes in titles and format.

Ancient Paths, No. 3, Fall, 1999, Separation

Animal Blessings, June Cotner, HarperSanFrancisco, 2000, Deer

Domain and Blessings in All Direction and Animal Blessings for the

Feast of St Francis of Assisi

Baby Blessings, June Cotner, Harmony Books, 2002, Colic and To My

Eurasian Grandchild

Bless the Beasts, June Cotner, Seastar Books, 2002, The Mother Goose

Prayer

Christmas Blessings, June Cotner, Warner Books, 2002, Gabriel and In

China During Christmas

Clarke College, Mary Blake Finan Literary Award, 1985, Sonnet to My

Daughter on Her Twenty-First Birthday

Earth’s Daughters, No. 47,1996, Wedding Cake

Gulf Coast Chapter, National Writers Association, 1999 poetry con-

test, I Come From a House With No Floors, First Place Winner

Heal Your Soul, Heal the World, June Cotner, Andrews McMeel, 1998,

Windchimes

Hidden Roots, Penhaligon Page Ltd., England, 2000, You Herald A

New Dynasty (To my Eurasian Grandchild)

Kalliope Vol. XV, NO. 1, 1992, Explaining to My Children

Lifeboat: A Journal of Memoir, Leaving Home, Issue 1: Autumn,

2002, Leaving This World For the Next

Lyrical Iowa 1998, 53rd Annual Anthology, Triolet to Spring (Triolet to

a Spring Fawn), Honorable Mention

Looking for God in All the Right Places, Loyola Press, October, 2003,

Windchimes

Mediphors, No.4, Fall/Winter, 1994, Colic.

Mothers and Daughters, June Cotner, Harmony Books, 2001,

Attending the Birth of My Granddaughter and Sacrament and Before

My Granddaughter’s Surgery (Before My Grandson’s Surgery)

100 Words on Secret, University of Iowa, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1995, Closing

In

Palo Alto Review, Spring, 1994, Triolet to My Granddaughter (Triolet

to Sydney)

Poets On: Complaints, Issue No. 37, Summer, 1995, Earthbound, nom-

inated for Pushcart Prize

Poets On: Twentieth Anniversary Reprise, Vol. 20, No. 2, Summer,

1996, Earthbound

Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge, Poetworks/ Grayson Books, 2003,

Still Life

Sistersong: Women Across Cultures, Vol. 2, no. 2, summer, 1994,

Novena

Slant, Vol. 8, Summer, 1994, Tea Time at Thomas Hardy’s Cottage

Thema, Vol. 5, No. 4, Summer,