Book Giveaway News:

We’re delighted to announce that Jodi Gleason won our March Book Giveaway – a copy of Teaching with Heart autographed by Parker J. Palmer, Taylor Mali and Sarah Brown Wessling. Congratulations Jodi!

Next up: An autographed copy of Simple Gifts by Judy Brown!

Subscribe to our blog and be entered to win!  Subscribers will be automatically enrolled in all of the drawings for our Book Giveaways. Subscribe by April 14th to be entered to win Simple Gifts.

Simple Gifts by Judy Brown

In celebration of National Poetry Month, our next Book Giveaway will be Judy Brown’s Simple Gifts.  The poems are drawn from her many poetry books and are sweet morsels to start or end your day — or be nibbled as satisfying snacks in between.

Here are Judy’s words about the book and below are two poems from the book.

This collection of poetry is a sharing of simple gifts. Almost twenty years ago, when the first of my poems popped up on a journal page-that odd shift from prose to poetry – I thought it an aberration. But in the years since, poems jotted on journal pages, grocery slips, post-its, and Amtrak napkins, have come to serve as a presence, a guide, a way for me to pay attention to life. And the poems have become increasingly a part of my work in the world.

So I share these personal poems, these reflections, with you in hopes that you might find support, comfort, insight and connection in their words, recognizing the way our human joys and struggles link us across time and distance. (And perhaps you might find the poet’s voice within yourself, as well.)

Some readers may recognize a poem here and there from collections published informally over the years and circulated among friends and colleagues. And you may see a familiar poem from an anthology or an earlier books of mine. This collection of “simple gifts” is meant to reflects the natural ups and downs of life, the joys and sorrows, the power of people, place and nature. It is also a testimony to the dedicated efforts of my husband David, without whose appreciation, stewardship, project management and determination, this collection would have remained simply a pile of loose poems on the office shelf.

This poem has long been a favorite of mine:

Lunch with Alice

‒ Judy Brown

He’s leaving
The Academy.
He told the Dean.

It seems
He wants
To linger longer
Over lunch
With Alice,
His beloved.

World-renowned
For his intellect,
The Nobel prize in hand,
He’s listening
To his heart.

 

This next one I found by just opening the book to a random page – one of my favorite ways to discover new poems.  Though the process is random, the poem always seems remarkably on target.

Watching geese

‒ Judy Brown

I’m watching
Geese a lot
These days ‒
The energy
It takes
For them
To get airborne
The burst of action
When they
Lift of off our creek,
No longer floating
But now flying ‒
Fighting their way
Toward the sky ‒
What causes them
To want
To give up floating
With its ease,
For flight?

Judy Brown is an educator, speaker, facilitator, poet and writer whose work in organizations revolves around themes of leadership, change, learning, dialogue and creativity. She helps organizations discover common ground even in the midst of dissension, turbulence and complexity and she characterizes herself as a “thinking partner” or “learning partner” although others think of her as a professor, public speaker, educator, and poet. In a sense, all of her work is about helping people recall deeper principles and their own essence in order to connect with the authentic in themselves and in others, and to uncover common ground within their work.  Much of her work takes the form of dialogue, enabling people to create thinking-based learning structures (often within the work environment) that allow them to deal comfortably and competently with matters of culture, feeling and spirit.

Her books include The Choice;  A Leader’s Guide to Reflective Practice;  The Art and Spirit of Leadership, and two collections of her poetry: The Sea Accepts All Rivers, Simple Gifts, and  Stepping Stones.

For more about her books and her work, check out her website and and be sure to sign up for her blog posts.