Meet ALMA RICHIE-President of Dixie Poets

Alma loves magic as much as poetry.

Alma Richie was born in Wilford, Idaho. His mother loved words and was an English major.  She taught her son to love poetry at a very young age.  Alma supports the idea of Mary Oliver that poetry is not formal speech but like conversation or like time spent with a friend.   Alma believes the notion that life-affirming poems fired by belief in the human and spiritual needs reflect hope in a time when much of the world feels unreal and inhuman.   He loves what T. S. Elliot said about poetry:  Private experience and at its greatest intensity may become universal.  This is called Poetry and may be affirmed in verse. 

Alma currently is president of the Dixie Poets and helps direct the Redrock Writers Seminar in St. George.  Dixie Poets meets on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays  from 2-4 pm in the St. George Public Library and has about 20 members with a monthly lesson and critiques of poetry at each meeting. For activities, see dixiepoets.blogspot.com. Active in the community, Dixie Poets sponsors an annual YOUTH POETRY CONTEST with the Washington County School District, serves as judges for English Quest, participates in organizing POETRY in THE PARK (see poetry-in-the-park.com) and the St. George Book Festival, teaches in local schools, submits to the Mesquite Art and Poetry Contest, DSU's Southern Quill Magazine and claims many award winning poets.  Alma has published a book of poetry entitled: Hear the Whispers of the Ancient Ones. Available here. Below is a sample of Alma's poetry.

ALMOST by Alma Richie

A time for birds

to fly in southern skies

over glittering seas

like coins tossed towards a flowering

moon. A place where butterflies dance on

the edge after a long rainy afternoon.

Then within my reach I find the end

of the world.  Spiders and their

Italian looms turn gardens into

a reflection of rainbows.  Every bird

rises in a new breeze while nature’s pipes

release moisture on my withered skin.

The sap hides but knows rain

beating on wooden drums.  Each

shimmering leaf dances its last fall

to earth alone.  Again the stir of a breeze

across my face brushes my cheeks as if

to say— remember me when I am gone.