About Linda Sue Grimes

 

I serve as the Feature Writer for Poetry at Suite101.com and as a Contributing Writer for Alternative Spirituality and American History at Suite101.com.  I also write a weekly feature article on the Republican Party at BellaOnline.com.

 

 

 

The following poem reflects an attitude I lived with as I was growing up along the Whitewater River in central Indiana:

River God 

 

Every spring along the Whitewater

I saw that some mysterious hand

Had rearranged the rocks and sand.

The path I followed the summer before

 

Was slipping off into the water.

 

I could not figure whose force could drive

That water among the reeds & shift its bed    

& every spring draw me to its side.

 

Whose muscles uprooted those trees?

Whose fingers patterned those stones

 

Along the edge?  I guessed

Only the spring thaw

Conjured up changes

In those sleeping river images.

That attitude changed, as did my life, after I encountered the book, Autobiography of a Yogi by the founder of Self-Realization Fellowship, Paramahansa Yogananda.  I no longer guess who "Conjured up changes / In those sleeping river images."  My life is dedicated to becoming one with that Power. 

 

In addition to writing poetry and essays, I practice music, writing songs, playing guitar, piano, and keyboard. 

 

My web site Classic Poetry for Students Who Hate Poetry! offers assistance in understanding and writing about poetry.  I also volunteer for AllExperts.com in Poetry. 

 

What is Stone Gulch?

I grew up eight miles south of Richmond, Indiana, at the end of a country road whose name I did not know until I was about sixteen, when the Wayne County Highway Department put up a sign, ENDSLEY RD. 

 

But a sign that had impressed me was the one that read “Stony Gulch,” and it stood on a embankment at the first bend of the  road, marking the clubhouse of Harry Hoff, the man who lived on the estate.  Hoff owned a factory in Richmond (I think he manufactured bicycles, and my dad had worked in his factory for a time.)  I think I might have met Mr. Hoff once, but I don't remember for sure, but I did admire his sign, and the glimpse of the clubhouse always captured my imagination.

 

On down the road about two miles from US Highway 27, where we lived near the river, there stood a cabin that fascinated me as I was growing up.  The rustic seclusion of that cabin and the name “Stone Gulch” (I changed it from Stony to Stone to make it more my own) combine into a mental image and create an imaginary place, where I muse on all things literary .

 

 

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PUBLICATIONS

Books

          

 
Poems
  1.  “Starvers.” The Pointed Circle.  Portland OR.  1992-93 issue.  Annual.
  2.  “On the Pond.” Manna.  West Valley City UT.  Fall 1992.  Biannual.
  3.  “These Bones.” Innisfree. Manhattan Beach CA. #83. Bimonthly. Rex Winn.
  4.  “As Long as Gravel Bitterness Rattles.” Struggle. Detroit MI. W 92-93.Qu. Tim Hall
  5.  “Iron Robert.” Dog River Review. Parkdale OR. Fall/Winter 1992. Semian. Hawkins.
  6.  “After the Spring Thaw.” Ship of Fools. Rio Grande OH. W 92-93 Qu.Peregrino-Pines.
  7.  “Rivers.” The Berkeley Poetry Review. Berkeley CA. Annual. Cynthia Pierce.
  8.  “Metaphysical Reminders.” Amelia. Bakersfield CA. #24. Quarterly. Raborg.
  9.  “Primal Mud.” Portable Wall. Billings MT. Fall 1993. Semiannual. Struckman.
10.  “City Boy.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
11.  “Driving.” ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum. Tonawanda NY. Winter 93. Quarterly. C. K. Erbes.
12.  “Chief Muncie.”ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum.
13.  “Pollen.” Amelia. Bakersfield CA. #25. Quarterly. Frederick A. Raborg, Jr.
14.  “Every Time You Don't Speak.” -------------------------------------------.
15.  “Indulgence's Reward.” ---------------------------------------------------.
16.  “Twentieth Anniversary.”   A different version appeared in Eidos  Vol 7 #4
17.  “The Truth of the Bones.” Ellipsis:Literature and Art. Salt Lake City UT. Sp1994. Larsen.
18.  “Funereal.” CQ (CSPS). Orange CA. Autumn 1994. Jack Fulbeck.
19.  “Blood Fire.” Oyez Review. Chicago IL. Nr. 23. William Feehan.
20.  “Twenty-Eight Lines on the Moon.” Poetry Motel. Nr. 24. Duluth MN. Ellen Seitz Ryan
21.  “The Man in the Poem #2. --The Bellingham Review. Bellingham Washington. Knute Skinner.
22.  “The Man in the Poem #7. ------------------------------------------------------------------.
23.  “Glass Hammers.” West Wind Review. Ashland OR. Annual. 1995.
24.  “The Pause.” Sonoma Mandala Literary Review. Rohnert Park CA. Annual. 1995.
25.  “Couples in the Park.” ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum. Tonawanda NY. Winter 95. Quarterly. C. K. Erbes.
26.  “La Berceuse: Two Views.” Pegasus. Boulder City NV. Quarterly. M.E. Hildebrand.
27.  “In the Undergrowth.” ----------------------------------------------------------------.
28.  “River Music.” Dog River Review. Parkdale OR. Nr. 28. Laurence F. Hawkins
29.  “Greek Skin.” Trestle Creek Review. Coeur d'Alene ID. Annual. Chad Klinger, et al. 1996.
30.  “The Eyes of the Pumpkin.” -----------------------------------------------------------------.
31.  “A Bright Charm.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------.
32.  “The Starry Night on his T-Shirt.” RATTLE: Poetry for the 21st Century. Spring 1996. Alan Fox. Semiannual.
33.  “The Divine Gardener.” Rites of Spring. Spring 1996. Chapbook. Pecan Grove Press.  H. Palmer Hall, ed.
34.  “Lovers in The Poet's Garden, Arles 1888.” Interim. Fall 1996. Jim Hazen, ed.
35.  “August.” Java Snob Review. Spring 1997. Bellevue MI. Denise Foley, ed.
36.  “My Onions, My Opinions. The Brownstone Review. Brooklyn NY. Aaron Scharf, ed.
37.  “In Light of The Potato Eaters.” The Comstock Review. Syracuse NY. Jennifer B. MacPherson. Spring 1997.
38.  “if my words could rise.”  Free Zone Quarterly: A Poetry E-zine.  Winter 1999.  Linda Leavitt.
39.  “Water.” The Salt River Review.  Spring 1999.  James Cervantes.
40.  “Listening to the Oldies Stations on a Saturday Afternoon.”  (this) poetry site.  Spring 1999.  Mark Everett.
41.  “Our Table at the Cafe Terrace at Night.”  Moonshade Magazine.  Spring 1999.  Tom Fitzgerald.
42.  “Dust of a Baptist.”  RATTLE: Poetry for the 21st Century.  Winter 1999.  Stellasue Lee.
43.  “The Starry Night on his T-Shirt.” ONTHEBUS.  Fall/Winter 1999. Alan Fox. Semiannual.
44.  “I Envy.”  Fairfield Review.  Winter 2000.  Edward Granger-Happ and Janet Granger-Happ, eds.
45.  “River God.”  FZQ.  Spring 2000.  Linda Everett. (Renamed "River Spirit")
46.  “This Salt Sea.”  FZQ.  Spring. 2000.  Linda Everett.
47.  “Good Poetry/Bad Poetry.”  The Salt River Review.  Spring 2000.  James Cervantes.
48.  “My Son, My Dissident.”  The Salt River Review.  Spring 2000.  James Cervantes.
49.  “Listening to the Oldies Stations.”  Radio! Radio!  2000.  Pecan Grove Press Chapbook. H. Palmer Hall, ed.
50.  “Beauty of the Bones.”  Eclectica Magazine.  July/August 2003.  Tom Dooley and Julie King, editors.
 
Essays / Prose
1.  Emerson's “Days.”  The Explicator Fall 1986
2.  D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love.   The Explicator Winter 1988
3.  Dickinson's “There's been a death in the opposite house.”  The Explicator Summer 1992
4.  “Spirituality in the Workplace.” Effective Executive.  September 2005.
5.  “My Soul Is Marching On.” Self-Realization Fellowship Magazine.  Winter 2005.
6.  “How to Read a Poem.”  Belly Full E-Newsletter.  July 2006.
 
Online Weekly Feature Articles
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Republican Party at BellaOnline.com

 

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updated July 11, 2008