I’ll Be There: Civil War Encampment

On Saturday, June 1, two weeks from today, I’ll be manning a table at the School of the Soldier Civil War Ecampment at Allaire State Park in Wall Township, NJ. I’ll be signing and selling copies of my book Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War. Hopefully, I’ll also have copies of my second book, The Journals of Lt. Kendall Everly: a Story of the American Civil War. It’s being printed now.

The encampment will also feature all types of Civil War attractions. Visitors will be able to stroll regimental camp sites, talk to soldiers, listen to period music, see battles, and perhaps even talk to President Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States.

Come on out, by a book, and have some fun.

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A Civil War Soldier Writes to Mom: Mother’s Day 2013

Here is a transcript of a letter written by Y.J. Culbertson, a Union soldier, during the Civil War to his mother. Although it was written before Mother’s Day was an officially recognized day, I though it appropriate to share today, Mother’s Day.

Sadly, Culbertson died while fighting during the Battle of Gettysburg.

I offer my prayers and thanks to all mothers who have lost sons and daughters to war.

Columbia, South Carolina
May the 7, 1861

Dear Mother,

I take my pen in hand to inform you I am well at this time, hoping this letter will find you all enjoying the same blessing. I have had a bowel complaint since I wrote you last but I have got well nearly again. There are some of the boys sick but not very sick. Mother, I want you and Eliza to send me some eggs and light corn bread. Henry Fuller has written Sealy and Hannah. Henry and me are messing together. I want you all to get a box and put my things and Fullers together and send to Columbia, S.C. in the care of Captain W.J.M. Jones.

Mother, I am going to have my likeness taken and send it to you all and let you see me one more time. Tell Eliza I want her to keep my likeness when I send it home. Eliza, I want to see you a little of the worst. Eliza, I want you to take good care of yourself and my little children. I will tell you and the rest about my dream the other night. I dreamed I was at home, I went in the house and Eliza and the children would not look at me hardly. I thought I got right mad, but if it had been so I don’t think it would have been like my dream.

I remain yours truly until death,
Y.J. Culbertson

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Weekly Writing Challenge: A Manner of Speaking

I’ve decided to take part in the writing challenge offered this week by WordPress. It tasks writers to connect with their “our geographical, generational, and cultural affiliations” and produce a piece of writing. I (kinda) did just that. The poem posted below is from my book Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War. The poem’s speaker, Hercules, is a Confederate soldier. I hope, I think, the poem illustrates a Confederate voice.

Seasons

It’s like a season passed in the blink
of an afternoon. This morning
I smiled at tall shoots of lavender
reaching above the grass and clover.
Bees hummed from bloom to bloom
like politicians knocking on doors,
mustering votes. Breeze carried scents
of earth and honey – sweetest spring day|
that ever filled my lungs. Made me wanna
touch something soft, something special –
maybe the hand of a Tennessee beauty.

But after a day of trading spit and smoke
with a regiment of Billies, this pretty spot
done shed all its pretty. Blood has a queer smell,
like a bog choked with sour fish,
but it don’t mud a patch of ground
like water does. Blood turns dirt
into syrup – walk in it too long
and you’ll get all gummed up.
And the dead are leaking blood all about.
From here it looks like a herd of fellas
decided to nap, but they ain’t waking up
no time soon. You can see their last thought
carved on each of their faces. It’s never fear or anger.
Mostly it seems like sorrow to me, like they know
they just lost memory and hope all at once.

Don’t seem like spring no more.
What season is it? It’s a season for breathing –
at least while you still can.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Change

Venturing forth with my new camera, I’ve confronted this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge with vim and vigor – well, at least I think I have.

The challenge is to present photos that somehow exhibit, personally or universally, some form of change. Let’s see what I came up with.

1. This first photo is of my son’s scooters. Walking our of my garage, the scooter’s were arranged just as they are pictured. I thought the arrangement made for a fine photo. Why change? My boy is growing up. He doesn’t use these scooters much anymore.

photo by S. Thomas Summers

2. My second photo is of a tree in my backyard. The photo was captured a day or so before Hurricane Sandy visited the Northeast. After Sandy struck, the trees leaves, all that gold, was gone.

photo by S. Thomas Summers

3. My third offering represents a more universal change. I write about the American Civil War. My first book, Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War, was released in 2012. My second, The Journals of Lt. Kendall Everly, should be released soon. The photo presented here is of a Union Cavalry Guidon. Flags of this type flew 150 years ago. The flag pictured here, flies in my yard.

photo by S. Thomas Summers

4. Finally, I present a photo of the English department’s book storage room at Wayne Hills High School where I teach literature and writing. Education has changed quite a bit in my 20 years as a teacher. Unfortunately, many recent changes are hurting education. This photo reminds me days gone by and why I became a teacher. I love books. I love a good story.

photo by S. Thomas Summers

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Into the Backyard

Before I started to write about history (the Civil War and currently the life and times of Jesse James), I often would sit near a window that overlooks my backyard. Backyards often provide a writer/poet with inspiration. Well, my backyard often inspired me.

Today, looking out that same window, I was inspired – not to write, but to click, to click my camera. Here’s what I saw.

What Butterflies Count

Yes, this blog was created to discuss all things literature and writing; however, I recently discovered photography. My last post consisted of three photos I took, three wolves. Today, I’ve captured a few butterflies. One of the photos is of a butterfly that landed on my son’s hands. Each butterfly – a poem in its own way.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. ” I believe he’s quite right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shiloh: A Blaze of Glory

I have a difficult time reading text-book accounts of military operations. As a Civil War enthusiast, that poses a problem. It’s not that I don’t understand those text-book accounts. Truth is, I simply find them boring. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

However, I very much enjoy reading dramatic accounts of historical events. Guess that’s one of the reasons why I’m a literature teacher/professor. I love a good story.

Earlier today, I finished reading Jeff Shaara’s novel A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh. Loved it.

Book reviewer David N. Kinchen wrote “I particularly like how Shaara toggles between the actions of the generals on both sides, and the ghastly events of the war as experienced by the “grunts,”making the historical novel (with the emphasis on historical) well-rounded. Even though Shaara advises the reader in his “To The Reader” to read historians Shelby Foote and Jim McPherson if you want a detailed history of the Battle of Shiloh, I think even those eminent historians would recommend A Blaze of Glory to the general reader.”

Even before I finished reading the novel, I started researching the battle it speaks of: the generals, the places, the causes, the strategies, the triumph, the tragedy…and yes, the glory. Yes, I must admit, I read several “text-book” accounts. You see, once I get the story in me, once the story lights that fire of discovery within me, I’ll read anything to make that fire burn and burn hot.

Over the next few days, I’d liked to share my thoughts regarding Shiloh. Hopefully, some of my Civil War compatriots will join in the discussion.

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A Triumphant Yawp!!

I did it. It’s done. Save for a few minor edits and revisions, my second manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War, is done and should be on book shelves later this year.

It was tough nut to crack, much darker than my first book, but it’s done and I’m happy.

Here’s the book’s first poem, the first entry in Kendal Everly’s journal. Everly is a teacher and a pacifist. He writes this not long before the Civil War begins.

English: Gen. Charles Griffin (1825 – 1867) (as Captain), career officer in the United States Army and a Union general in the American Civil War. He rose to command a corps in the Army of the Potomac and fought in many of the key campaigns in the Eastern Theater. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is the Place

April 1, 1861

Here, beneath these trees –
oak and ash – shadows lay
like blankets spread
for a community of picnics.
I feast on a moment’s song:

breezes, still laced
with March’s chill, weave
as ribbons about these limbs,
Giggling children dart
behind stalwart trunks

hiding from each other and me –
children teasing me, their teacher,
as I walked to school.

But this spring rumbles.
Men who drape themselves
in the dark robes of politics

brandish words as warriors
brandish swords –
and I am afraid.

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Everly Gets a Book Blurb

Sorry, folks. I’ve been busy. My high school students have
just finished a week of mid-term exams and I’ve been grading
them, all 125 of them. Additionally, the Spring semester has
started at Passaic County Community College. I’m a
writing professor once again.

Today, I’ve a bit of time to share a smidge of good news. My book
manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War, is now officially a fothcoming book. The contract is in my hands. Additionally, historian and author Scott Mingus has agreed to provide the book with its first back cover blurb. Scott Mingus is the author of several books concerning the American Civi War and I’m very excited to have him be a part of my second book.

Here’s a link to Mr. Mingus’s website: http://www.scottmingus.com/Books_by_Scott_Mingus.html

A Civil War Apocalypse

New Jersey poet Adele Kenny has challenged me again. Via her blog, Kenny recently tasked her readers to write an “Apocalypse” poem. You can read Kenny’s challenge here. My effort is posted below. It’s a poem from my new manuscript,
The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War. My protagonist, Lt. Kendal Everly, a school teacher, a pacifist, is about to be brutally enveloped by war. To a degree, he is about to face a personal
Apocalypse. Everly, wrapped in rage, has already stabbed his adversary, a young Confederate soldier (detailed in a earlier poem); now, Everly straddles his foe, bends over him, and wraps hisfingers around the boy’s neck.

Lost

August 4, 1861 – Entry IV

His neck was thin. My fingers
slid around it as they might caress
your neck, Elizabeth. Yet, it was slicked

with blood so it felt as if I tightened
my grip around a fish. Hunched over
like Notre Dame’s bell ringer, I pulled his head

closer to mine. He might have thought
I meant to kiss him. My heart, my mind,
both bubbled with some foul Satanic froth,

both marvelled at the deepening color
of his face, a deep purple, a fine wine.
I gulped the dying gasps of this boy

as if his death would envelop me
with the silken filaments of salvation.
My fingers tightened. His neck grew thinner,

a wet string. His mouth, like a gate, opened,
dark and wide, attempting to conjure breath.
His limbs flailed attempting to embrace the air.

His eyes, opened wide like globes.
Damn you, I screamed. DAMN YOU. And then, there was
death. He was still and I was lost. Dear God, I am lost.

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