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About me...

 

I am a published poet and retired creative writing teacher. Recently relocated from southwest Minnesota to Florida, I have now moved to Northfield, Minnesota, where I practice the art of grandparenting and reconnect with my Minnesota roots and friends. 

 

My most recent poetry writing project was a series of poems about the west coast of Ireland, specifically, the  village of Kilfenora in County Clare, where I have spent some weeks the past three summers.

 

During my thirty-year career as a teaching-artist, I led  hundreds of creative writing workshops and residencies in schools, nursing homes, recovery programs and community centers throughout Minnesota.

 

It has been my work and my purpose to encourage the writing of poetry, journals, and life stories as both the deep expression of self and a vital way to connect  across generations and human differences.

 

Much of my recent teaching and writing has focused on our place within the natural world and especially our relationship to water.

 

When not devoting time and energy to my family, friends,  and writing, I enjoy reading, music, supporting environmental and women's causes, and visits to water.

 

Florence Chard

         Dacey

Between the Worlds

 

Ireland so beautiful

in your tree on the hillside,

your black  lichen, black crows.

Your stone faces do not fall.

Your green seeps into damaged fingers.

It seals up the heart's broken valves.

Even the memory of chains

can be turned into music

and the old ones' stories hauled up

from the hidden well.

Coming home to your thorns,

your rain and rocky worn face,

coming into the body of the sea,

the body inside everything

and the great silence rising

from the graves of paupers and kings,

I touch the thin veil between worlds.

 

                                         Ireland, 2011

 

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