Poetry for the People! (Paperback or Softback)

"Can I change hearts and minds? I'm trying."

From "Day 82: Can I Change?"

Sandra de Helen's newest poetry collection is all about changing hearts and minds. This collection of poems, gleaned from many decades of keen observation, show the poet to be insightful and clear-headed yet displaying a sly wit at times. Her musings on justice, politics, women in society, war and peace, racism, the 2020 pandemic, and more will be enjoyed by anyone with a heart.

"This is the day I go for it. Full out, full

stop, no holding back. Plan A all the

way. I'm straightening my shoulders,

pulling in my chin, leading with my

attitude . . ."

From "Today's The Day"

The poems here go all out with attitude and with skillful creation by a poet at the top of her game. As the Rainbow Awards judges said:

"The author wrote with lyrical, beautiful sentences that painted pictures in my mind. Her choices in style and presentation were fabulous."

Sandra de Helen published her first poem at the age of fourteen. Her English teacher, Janice Wallace, submitted the poem to a teacher's magazine and surprised Sandra with a copy in print. The poem was about abortion, which was illegal at the time. In her twenties, Sandra published a few poems in newspapers, which spurred her to take a Creative Writing Class at the local community college. The [male] professor professed she would never make a good poet because she didn't "write like a man." The next year she joined the women's movement and turned to writing plays. Forty years later, she picked up Sage Cohen's book, Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry, and resumed writing poems like a woman. A long-time resident of Portland, Oregon, Sandra recently relocated to sunny California where she lives with her daughter and a very special cat.