We NEED YOUR HELP

           THANKS to all those members who support our UTSPS organization by paying their yearly dues $30 and attending a local or online chapter for lessons, critiques and fellowshipping. You are appreciated and more new members are needed to increase our effectiveness in carrying out our resolve to further poetry in the state of the Utah. We get our financial support from grants from the Utah Division of Arts and Museums which is funded by National Endowment for the Arts as well as donations from past and current poets. In addition, UTSPS is conducting an ONLINE FUNDRAISER in June. Minimum donation is only $15 and in return, you will receive a donation confirmation email with directions on how to register for your 12-month membership in a discount network with many money-saving local and national merchant offers (eg, 20% off your bill at participating Dennys). The fundraiser page is: https://wefundthem.com/donate/utsps-2017-annual-fundraiser

Meet LORRAINE JEFFERY of Word Weavers Chapter

Lorraine Jeffery earned her bachelor’s degree in English and her MLIS in library science, and has managed public libraries in Texas, Ohio and Utah for over twenty years. She tells us how she got interested in poetry:  "I began writing poetry in grade school, quit totally in college, and resumed a few years later. As a child, I loved the sounds of words, and poetry helped me to understand my myself and my world. But when I went to college, I encountered a different kind of poetry (modernism, new criticism, Ezra Pound etc.). This was poetry I didn’t understand and didn’t want to write. Of course, a writer cannot stop writing, so a few years later, I was writing again—but not publishing. Then I had the privilege of listening to Ted Kooser when he was Poet Laureate, and that changed everything. He wrote poems I could understand, and opened the door once again, for me." Lorraine has won poetry prizes in state and national contests and has published over fifty poems in various publications, including Clockhouse, Kindred, Calliope, Ibbetson Street, and Rockhurst Review. "Osprey"was published in Waterways in 2008.

Osprey

He fell like God’s hammer,
and slapped the water
            with a sound that snapped
            all heads to the lake.

A shiny black gargoyle of parts and angles
wrestled in the circling water.

Then, the great ebony wings
            pushed the air down
            in one stroke,
and rose high above us.

The silver dash of the fish
            hanging from his
            comma beak.