Highland Avenue Poets Release Second Anthology

“Highland Avenue Poets offer a world bursting with loves and losses, boats and baseball, and shining remnants of truth and beauty. In this anthology, nine Southern poets capture in verse their personal experiences and wisdom.”

I am very proud to be a part of this group of writers. We call ourselves the Highland Avenue Poets. Our second anthology of poetry, Poems for Hungry Minds, is now available on Amazon and at Barnes and Nobel.

Our first anthology, The Social Distance, was in response to the COVID pandemic which sent us from meeting in person to workshopping by Zoom.  Our new anthology speaks to a broad range of topics and life events from nature to family and personal connections, from community engagement to wartime, from early life stages to final goodbyes. 

From the Preface:

This anthology gathers the voices, wisdom, community, fellowship, and longing for a better world through awareness, deep examination, and the joy of poetry. The HIGHLAND AVENUE POETS are a long-standing community of southern poets meeting monthly to workshop, edit and collectively refine their work.

Poetry slows the urgent world and grants a focus on life within it. The discipline practiced by these authors has occasioned a kind of communal joy - poems that reflect a community of compassion for the world.

You are invited within.

Why We Write 

The Highland Avenue Poets share some thoughts on why they write poetry:

Poetry chooses each of us; the only question is how we choose to express it. Poetry connects me to this world through a song of honesty, joy, pain and appreciation that resonates and reverberates – because I need to sing it as much as I hope there are ears open to hearing it.

                                                                                                      – Mel Campbell

I write poems because they are not as long as novels or even short stories, but even so, allow the writer to share his perceptions of life.

                                                                                                      – Jim Ferguson

Sometimes, I have something to say, and poetry is a way for me to say it.

                                                                                                    – Tom Gordon

My writing of poetry through the years has been like a spiritual journal, tracking my thoughts and responses to loves, losses, friendships, politics, and life events.

                                                                                                   – Charles Kinnaird

Only metaphor gave Noah a place to land.

                                                                                                  – Shannon Webster

To release the power of imagery and idea from words

                                                                                                  – Steve Coleman

I write poetry to reconnect to myself, to decipher and unravel the conflicting voices in my head, to broaden and grow my self-awareness and my appreciation of life, to engage and love my family and friends, to nurture a poetry family and community, and to develop my spiritual vision. Full seeing seems to take most of our lifetime.

                                                                                                 – Roger Carlisle

I love the discipline of pushing words around in an effort to line them up to make lovely sounds and to express a thought in a succinct manner. 

                                                                                               – Chervis Isom

I’m not much for dancing, and it’s too windy to throw rocks.

                                                                                              – Anonymous

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To take a peek at the first pages of our volume, check out the site at Amazon here.

Books may also be purchased at Barnes and Noble here.

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