A collection of poems to celebrate Half New Year and all things in the middle! The poets and poems include:
Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier / The Gathering
Mary-Marcia Casoly / Venus on the Half Year
Tobi Cogswell / Remembered on the Half Century
Barbara Eknoian / Happy Half Year
Mark Erickson / where the grass grows
Adelle Foley / Half New Year Haiku
Jack Foley / Year of the Horse (in two halves)
Shreyas Gokhale / A Happier Half Year
Deborah Herman / Though a Little Out of Fashion
Veronica Hosking / Rain Drops
Clara Hsu / Japanese Garden
Mathias Jansson / Vertical Descent
Jax NTP / if the value of a cup is the emptiest space inside of it
Wm. Todd King / Body Doubles
Roz Levine / Behind the Drapes
Tamara Madison / Midsummer
Adrian Manning / Half Way
Jocelyn Mosman / New Day
D.A. Pratt / Happy New Half Year!
Patrick T. Reardon / Sonnet 18/2
Sheikha A. / Halved Sanity
Rachael Stanford / marching towards the light
Jacque Stukowski / My “Middle” blue earth
Matthew M.C. Tapp / Half New Year’s Day
Dirk Velvet / celebrate half
Christopher P.P. White / Half a Year of Being Half a Man
While it’s customary to note the passage of one year to the next, people seldom stop to reflect on the day that marks the exact middle of the year—July 2nd—when 182 days have passed and 182 days remain. In 2014, Silver Birch Press decided to celebrate Half New Year with a call for poetry submissions that touched on the theme of half, middle, or center—or erasure poems created from page 72 (for 7/2) in any book.
The resulting poems ranged from the humorous to the heartfelt, from silly to serious, and from witty to whimsical—and much more. Half New Year reminds us to consider what has occurred during the year as well give thought to our hopes for the months ahead. As we ponder finished and unfinished business, opportunities taken and those missed, words spoken and those left unsaid, it’s reassuring to remember that we still have half a year to move closer to what brings us joy and fulfillment.
Silver Birch Press is an independent publisher located in Los Angeles, California. Visit us at silverbirchpress.com.
For this collection, we chose paintings by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)-an artist who left behind a range of what many considered "unfinished" canvases. Cézanne believed that "complete" was different from "finished"-writing in an 1874 letter to his mother: "I have to work constantly, not in order to arrive at the finish, which attracts the admiration of imbeciles. I must strive to complete only for the satisfaction of becoming truer and wiser." Cézanne inspires us to stop striving and driving ourselves, and to instead flow, follow our bliss, and enjoy the good things in life.
