Body Meaning

By Sandi Huszagh

Sandi Huszaghs free and structured verse takes an intense look at how family dynamics shape daily life yet create legends for future generations. Her close-at-hand experiences with death and the dying allow her work to soar above the pain and fix hope on regeneration. Exposure to dissimilar regions and cultures is reflected in her treatment of powerful coastal encounters and the healing relief of the Great Plains. From her daily exchanges with street people, she expresses profound connections but keen awareness of their manipulations and miseries. Confined within family and societal strictures, her poems yearn for transformation and release.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491700914

Sandi Huszagh

Sandi Huszagh considers close family relationships her most enduring achievement—foremost among them her husband of fifty-four years, two entrepreneurial sons and their equally entrepreneurial partners, and five amazing grandchildren. A marketing professor for twenty-one years, she survived her youngest son’s death, multiple cancers, and a near-fatal drowning in the brackish waters of Georgetown, South Carolina.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgments

Water

Marsh Grasses

Waterfront Savannah: Lunching at Huey’s

Willy

The Boat

Family

Halloweens

Thanksgivings

English Peas and Welsh Rabbit

Split My Gut Open on the Pea-Green Carpet

Diane

The Transit

The Daughter-in-Law

William Floyd McRae

The Legacy

Blind Appaloosa

To My Granddaughters

Souls and Spaces

The Pedicurist

Small Plates and Cocktail Napkins

Carol and Vern

The Window

Fall in Kansas

The Fur Shed

Joplin

Valley Hope

Street People

The Cowboy

Beaufort

Dorothy

Sammy

The Vet

The Community

Flesh

The Wasatch

Growing Down

Regeneration

The Flirt

Prayer for Transformation

Not Now

Caged

Body Meaning

For the eleven . . .

Acknowledgments

Without my family’s and friends’ support, these poems would not have been written. Reading drafts to Rick Huszagh, my husband, consistently brought his praise, occasionally his tears. He was with me at all times. Joanne Sheehy Hoover, my friend of fifty years and published poet, provided invaluable insights as she intently listened to particular poems and then closely read the entire manuscript. To Joanne I am particularly indebted for conceptual and clarifying edits. Our family friends consistently voiced belief in my work when my own belief flagged. Finally, my coach Dorine Jennette guided me meticulously in the early creative years, schooling me in structure and encouraging me to break out into free verse.

Water

Marsh Grasses

Reeds massed upright

march in synchrony.

Balancing one-legged,

snowy egret sentries

signal