Spice of Life: Meet Nacona

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nekot
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Spice of Life: Meet Nacona

Post by nekot » Sat Nov 03, 2007 9:40 pm

I enjoy variety and truly believe it is the spice of life. People come in the most varieties of all; no two are exactly the same. I believe each person has a significant gift to share and a unique journey to live.

The Pages are not lacking in these givers and journeyers who share their insights, joys, traumas, imaginations, hopes, despairs, fantasies, fictions, beliefs, and doubts via the written word in prose, poetry, stories, and quips.

I have laughed many a time and cried many a time, as I have sat with mouse in hand reading these Pages and sharing my own heart. Folks here are an inspiration to my soul and have been a catalyst for significant growth in my own life. I have witnessed a mutual respect among this variety of souls that if duplicated in our world, would make it a better place. :bow:

Scroll down for some spice from nacona ..... :grin:

:hello:

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Re: Still more spice: Meet nacona

Post by nekot » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:06 pm

Nacona joined Poetry Pages in August, 2006.

From Shawn, Poetry Pages' nacona:

Shawn Nacona Stroud: I am a 30 year old native of Florida who lives and works in Charlotte, NC, where I currently work as a graphic artist. I’ve been painting and recording my thoughts in journals ever since I was a young boy living in Orlando, but it has only been in the past three years that I have been molding my thoughts and ideas into poetry. I enjoy movies, music, books, art, painting, writing, and travel among other things. My work has appeared in Poetry Pages Volume 4, the Mississippi Crow Magazine, the Loch Raven Review, Here and Now, and the Crescent Moon Journal. A collection of my work will appear in the upcoming book Poetry from the Dark Side Volume 2, and my poem “Shadows” has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for 2008.

Many different things inspire me to write: people I know, places I knew when I grew up, parts of books that I am reading that peak my interest, artwork, and music. Sometimes poems come out of the present and sometimes I have to reach deep within myself to find those childhood memories that are almost too painful to write about, and sometimes the poem comes just from listening to the sound of rain beat down on my rooftop. I have learned that there is a whole world full of inspiration for poetry that surrounds us every second of everyday, the poet’s job is to open his/her eyes and see the imagery. Being an artist it’s like painting a picture to me; you record what you see, feel, or have known, and then you sculpt the poem.

If I had to pick one favorite poem that I have written so far (and this is really a hard one for me), I think that it would be a poem that I wrote and published called “Mary”. I am not sure how this piece came to me, it was one of those rare pieces that just seemed to write itself out, and it needed very few revisions. I like it because it takes a story that everyone is familiar with, the story of Jesus’ mother, and it shows her as the human that she is. It also is a fresh take on a very old and well told story and that is not so easy to do as a writer. The poem is rich with imagery and is heartbreaking in its ambiguous conclusion.



Mary

It is simple for her to steal
off into the night
and leave her sleeping family
to their snores on the straw-tossed floor.

She slips free of the links
that fasten her to life—
her mother, father, and Joseph,
all dwindle in her mind
like a haze of memory,
she can hardly see
them in the distance behind her.

There is only Nazareth,
the white washed dwellings
that crown the hilltop
tapering down the sides;
only the crickets
bawling their buzz to the moonlight
and the sound of two lovers—
concealed by winds whistle and lost
among olive branches.

His is the face of love,
shadowed in darkness,
eclipsing the bulbil-
moon as she looks up
to the gleam of his nimbus.

For three months his chiseled body
shrouds her own, and then her
swelling belly
forces her to stay home.

When Joseph rubs a warm hand over her
lumped mound, conjured stones strike her skin
and she recalls that angel.

*****************************************************
Congratulations Shawn on the Pushcart Prize nomination! What a wonderful and distinguished honor! :bow: Do let us know the outcome.

Read about the Pushcart Prize here:
http://www.theamericandissident.org/LitPushcart2.htm
http://www.pushcartprize.com/

Read Shawn's nomination poem here: Shadows


*********************************************

Thank you Shawn for taking time to share. 'Tis always a pleasure to read your beautful pennings and your encouraging comments. :grin:
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Re: Still more spice: Meet nacona

Post by nekot » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:56 pm

A few of my favorites from nacona include "Mary" in the previous post and the following:


Elijah
(For LJ Cohen)

I spread my arms
over him, like Moses
addressing Israel from the mount,
pray above a toppled idol—
he blanches to ivory

at my feet. His mother; the worn
widow, sits humped as a rubbed-round stone.
Her cries fill the house,
blend with the sorrow of the winds
that batter her walls.

Serpent tongue wicks spit
smoke that coils
searing blindness around the room,
each flame-flicker thickens it. I blink back
tears that feign

my mourning. I blink back time
to Gilead— the sun stares
like God’s scrutinizing eye. Plains of wheat bow
beneath its glare, and mother’s prayers
as I grasp the raven’s body

in my palms. We stand
surrounded by grove capped hilltops
that churn, brew like storm clouds,
and then her Oh! when wings flap. Open
like his eyes dither, widen—

they rise up.


View it here: Elijah

**************************************************
The Abandoned Poem

This newborn poem
is merely partially formed,
my white-womb page
only reaches five blue lines.
Even now I etch out
each red-inked image,
and cramps grip my hand
at that damn ampersand
and words abort.

Nouns and adjectives gush
like blood from my mind
as the inkwell of birth
tapers off, then runs dry.
I listen from my desk
to the shrieking wails
of my paper-bundled babe
rise from the wastebasket
pleading to be saved.

I murder them silently from my chair.

View it here: The Abandoned Poem

****************************************************
1:00 am on Lake Harney

The night sky is scratch art,
a million bright white specs
are stylus scratched
on that flat black plane,
and carbon-copied neatly
into the rippling water.

With feet shoveled in sand
I manipulate grains with my toes.
The dark blusters with life
around me, a chorus of horny frog’s
blares over the squeal of the cicadas,
nearly drowning the cricket’s frail rings.
The song of life musters constantly
from natures vast band-stand.

A warm Florida breeze plays
gently across my face,
and Spanish moss sways
as I watch the moon jump
back and forth in the lake.

Behind me the house is dark,
silently concealing its conked-out contents,
they are eluded by my fresh-stirred Sominex sleep—
no one can tell whom they lack.

Meanwhile, I exuviate mortality—
that flesh-cocoon has ensnared me
ten years too long and it knows it, it is ready
to give as I step onto the tide-slapped pier
with fishy air-tainted nostrils.
The brittle boards stretch out before me—
a plank that destiny blades my back to walk,
silly pirate, I creak those slats willingly.

As I step forward a Heron bursts
into the sky from the water,
its glowing white feathers spread
wide like an Angels.

O’ if only such beauty could change me.

View it here: 1:00 am on Lake Harney

************************************************
Since nacona doesn't have an archive (yet :wink:), I have listed links to a sampling of his poems. (Shawn if you do have an archive and for some reason I missed it, please let me know and I'll link it. :hello:)
I Recall
Catatonic
Adrift
Elijah and the Ravens
Late Spring Rain
The Corner of Elysian Fields
Hardcastle Crags

*****************************************

Thanks again nacona!!! :hello:
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Re: Spice of Life: Meet Nacona

Post by nacona » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:38 pm

Thank you very much, I am honored! I am sorry I have been away a while and late in responding to this. My mother passed and I just took about a year to myself. I am honored though, thanks so much!

Cheers!

Shawn Nacona
"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." —Greater Nashua, N.H., Jan. 27, 2000 -George W. Bush

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Re: Spice of Life: Meet Nacona

Post by nekot » Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:47 am

nacona wrote:Thank you very much, I am honored! I am sorry I have been away a while and late in responding to this. My mother passed and I just took about a year to myself. I am honored though, thanks so much!

Cheers!

Shawn Nacona
Shawn...good to see you!!!

So sorry to hear about your mom. I wish continued healing to your heart and that the year ahead is filled with goodness... :hugs:

:hello:
Carol
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