Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Meet PAM TUCKER of Dixie Poets and Redrock Writers


Pam Tucker spent much of her childhood in Kemmerer, Wyoming. She graduated from Bountiful High School and subsequently BYU with a degree in English.  She and her husband spent the next 33 years in Washington state and considers herself a Northwesterner and small town girl. She performed as a storyteller in the schools for many years while her 5 kids were growing up. She started writing at about age 50 when a group of friends decided to form a writing group, Left to Write.  “We tried our hand at everything, but poetry is the genre that comes most naturally to me.  Those friends gave me the encouragement and direction that got me started. We had a marvelous time together.”  

“One of my earliest joyful memories is listening to my dad read poetry to me.  I have always loved the music of language.  I find tinkering with words to be both satisfying and challenging.  I am a member of Dixie Poets and Redrock Writers in St. George and have been thrilled to find these two groups of wonderful writers.”  Her poems have appeared online at Prairie Poetry and Literary Mama, and have been published in Plainsongs, Trestle Creek Review, and Gatherings: A Collection of Women’s Writings.  She is also the author of the picture book Paper Monsters.

Carrying Tools to the Garden in Late October

Plunder, bees, these blooms.
Raid the stamen’s stores of gold doubloons 
and squander coins on aging wenches
as you swagger room to room.

Take while you can, buzzing buccaneers,
for I have come to upend the cosmos.
We are both marauders of the season.

Although in dangerous league we loot, 
you with rapiers drawn, I with slashing
shears, November soon will sally out
to raze the garden, stem and root.
Winter looms before us all,

and though we cut and parry,
winter’s sure riposte will end us—pierced
smack-dab through our awe-struck, blustering hearts.