By the Pond: (Dreams, Imaginings, Musings)

By Sidonamarie

In Native American culture, they speak about individuals called Contraries. Contraries are considered clowns (not as we think of them) and doing everything backwardsexcept in battle, they are fierce warriors. They are also considered healers and teachers (especially of children). My poetry is a journey that began as an earthquake of the mind with a sudden traumatic occurrence in 1993. The kind no one else sees but you. As you read, you will walk with me from my now (my present) back to the first poem I ever wrote in 1977. For me, it has been a journey of remembering who I am, who I have been, and who I will fiercely fight with heart, soul, spirit, and mind to continue to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504911474

Sidonamarie

My poetry has been my therapy over the years. In 1993, I experienced an unusual traumatic event. Over the years, poetry has helped me sort things out. I have always had a strong spiritual nature that is balanced by strong doubt. During periods of tremendous confusion, my poetry (sometimes more like stories, my son thinks) has helped me remember who I am, how I feel, and what I think and always have since childhood. The theme I hope comes through is that we should not have our heads too far in the clouds or too deep in the dirt. Life exists as a balance somewhere in the middle, with little visits to both edges. For all fifty-six years of my life, I have lived in Michigan. I was born in Kalamazoo on September 16, 1958. My parents separated when I was young due to my mother’s mental illness. My dad died in 1965, at twenty-nine, from a cerebral hemorrhage. I was six when he passed. Grandma Peggy (my dad’s mother) went to court seven times over the course of one and a half years to fight for my younger sister, Kim, who was mentally impaired, and me because my dad had asked her to. She won custody of us. Consequently, I lived with her in Bangor, Michigan, through high school and college. I didn’t begin to write poetry until I went to live with my aunt (my mother’s sister) in Wartervliet, Michigan. There, I attended Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor. My aunt lived near my mother and her mother (Grandma Elsie). After two years there, I attended Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. I graduated with a bachelor of arts in English and a minor in elementary education. Right out of college, in the fall of 1984, I was hired at St. Mary’s in Paw Paw, Michigan, as a kindergarten teacher. I taught half-day kindergarten for one year before I was moved into a full-time first grade position for three years. I met my husband, Gary, during that time. On October 17, 1987, we married. At that time, I moved to Fennville, Michigan, where I live today. Gary and I have a son, twenty-four, and a daughter, nineteen.

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