Community members of all ages, with a connection to two sister-towns,
share poetry in the H-W Newspaper's Poetry section created, launched and curated weekly exclusively by Ashley for the enjoyment by more than 12,000 local residents.
Ashley’s internship with the island's Farewell Nantucket Poetry Festival is enabling her to help spread appreciation for poetry on Nantucket among its 80,000+ person August-population. The poems and poets feature a range from free verse to haiku, amateur to published, across generations and subjects.
Ashley hopes to build an international Poetry Club to further empower and support Ukrainians amidst the uncertainty and devastation of the ongoing war. Ashley holds the belief that poetry works as a powerful healing tool in the treatment of stress, anxiety, and depression caused by trauma. Her Poetry Club exceeds a community of more than ___ total members.
[[Ashley's blog builds community worldide ... add content and link.]]
POETRY CURATED BY ASHLEY LAUBINGER
H-W Newspaper is a printed weekly newspaper that arrives in all residents' mailboxes in an effort to share community news, opinions and the arts the old-fashioned way!
From her Editor
Eric Convey
"Ashley is the driving force behind H-W News's efforts to feature the work of poets who live or attend school in Hamilton or Wenham."
"... she reached out - we've never met - and proposed the idea" for a poetry section in our two-town, and volunteers as its curator. She is wonderful to work with!
I sing and talk to
my dog about the stuff no
one else wants to hear.
Dogs know pockets hold
treats - not incidentals like
car keys and iPhones.
Walking your dog in
woods takes conversation to
another level.
Where will the two pugs,
asleep on the front porch swing,
go when their house sells?
Most of what matters
to us humans doesn’t much
matter to a dog.
Relativity:
what might stink to you and me
smells good to a dog.
Cont'd.
TGIF! I’ve been counting down,
Licking my lips for the scoop in town.
Delicious opinions and stories to share,
Unsure what morsels this week may be there.
I head down the driveway, get off my rump.
The mail has arrived! Secret fist pump.
Scrolling stops, old school pages turn.
Savoring articles, I expand and learn.
Local sports! Which team has won?
Classifieds? Someone selling their Peloton.
Real estate next, sales are slow to come.
Couple photographs of the setting sun. Cont'd.
Snowflakes, snowflakes, in the air
you don't know how much I care
To have you falling on the ground
keeps the happiness spreading all around
It's always nice to see you here I get so excited when you appear
It'll be next year when you come again but never forget how much fun it's been
Candace won a beauty contest
on Salisbury Beach in 1952.
Now, Bill takes her
out on summer nights
to the gazebo in Patton park.
One July night is like
the summer night she won
the beauty contest.
Now her hair is thick and white
and sticking out.
She doesn’t know
who she is.
She doesn’t know
who Bill is, like it was
before she met him
the summer she won
the beauty contest.
Her granddaughter won
the same contest in 2002,
the same square jaw.
Candace doesn’t know
her granddaughter anymore.
Cont'd
Night snow dusts the slope before dawn
and deer cross into the woods
Each day
they promenade silently before my waking.
sole witness to their passage is a spectral owl
nestled high in its blue spruce citadel
From a window
hoof-print tracery of their ballet is seen:
a lyrical vision can be conjured of lithe arabesques
against azure monitoring light
How do we learn their soft dance across the earth?
Leaving tracks that melt instead of burn.
After a surprise or two—
a startling April snowfall,
an uninvited north wind—
like a delayed guest spring has arrived,
nature has answered the clarion call,
ice and snow trickling away,
trees hinting at first-bud,
warmth at last, though faint and fickle.
So why is there a patch of snow
beneath the apple tree?
An ugly patch of snow, brown and sullied,
refusing to give ground,
holding fast against all odds.
Cont'd.
The maiden glows under the silver moon light. Laughter and joyous serenity, the maiden calls to me.
The mother is here. Warm and tender, with love comes surrender. The mother holds me near.
Welcome the crone. Warmed by the hearth within her home. The wisdom flows.
Sit by the fire with me, I will share what I know.
Walking along a sugar-coated stone wall,
limbs loosening,
dots of orange berries interspersed among dead leaves,
I climb up over a rise,
and to my right, in a neat valley,
something brown, someone’s lost jacket in the snow?
Wait, no, it’s a buck,
belly down, spindly legs folded under him, nose in his chest,
He’s dead, frozen there. Cont'd.
Emotions
They flow like the sea
They’re motions
They’re the key
They can be smooth
With gentle waves
They can be the truth
That behaves
They can be lonely
With the rain
It can make you moody
Trying to hide the pain
They can be harsh
With a huge storm
They can be large
They might just be starting to form
They can be home
Filled with love
They can be a protective dome
With warmth above
Tiny buds in our neighbor’s garden
The wet dew drops that cover the grass
Tulips blooming as winter says “farewell”
The first beam of sunshine and birds tweeting happily
Packing away our snow pants and puffy coats
A rainbow peeking out from gray clouds
Leaves coming back on bare trees
Greeting neighbors on the road as we shake off the cold
Splashing in puddles after the first shower
Kind blue skies in the early morning
As summer grows closer, we plan our lemonade stand!
When I go to my house I am bored
When I am bored I watch TV
When I watch TV I get tired
When I get tired I have to walk outside
I walk outside I go to my friend's house
I played with my friend and I'm happy now.
Have you ever felt like a bird in the wind?
Or a hawk, free in your own way?
As you feel like you are free, you are happy in life.
You feel like you just won the lottery.
It sounds like a bird chirping.
It tastes like sunshine on my skin.
If it were a color, it would be pink in the yellow sun, shining bright.
It shines like Taylor Swift at the Grammys.
As the sun goes down, my happiness is still inside my heart.
It shines and shines brighter than ever before…shine…shine…shine…
An onion meta/for a layered soul?
Oh wilted trope! Poor limp rhizomic noodle.
Why not a slippery nipple, shiki bowl?
Baklava, lasagna, or a strudel?
Or yet a cabbage! Cruciferous swaddle!
Chlorophyllic brassicaceous wonder!
What to your complex leafy intermuddle
Is a mere allium peeled asunder?
Better bloat than tears, and more nutritious,
Dense and tightly structured as a sonnet,
Tangy kimchi; spicy and delicious
like a midway frank with coleslaw on it.
Said the Zen poet to the hot dog man:
"Make me Cont'd
When the clasp opens,
the silver spills out,
wrapping itself around my head,
I absorb the fantasies of the
past, present and future,
The colors that form before my eyes are priceless,
The rich feeling
stays with me through the day,
Like a necklace I wear around my neck.
I’ve heard that a gold bar
weighs twelve point four kilos
Diving down on your head
You would be crushed senseless
Brass Sacajawea
Has all the momentum
to fracture your skull when
screaming on high from
the John Hancock tower.
So Grace it must fall in
small denominations
Insignificant shekel
Widow’s mite now comes down
A tap on your head
then hits the concrete
king
ding
plink
will you notice
bother to bend
and
pick it up?
Air, crisp and beautiful, freezing my lungs and a perfect match for the blanket of white which burns my eyes as I wonder: aren’t your paws cold? This is not your thought, I presume, as one must with those they love.
The tender pads of your fleshy feet spring your lithe body up and catch you on the way down. You are an undulating river of joy, a leaping dolphin through the Alban ocean of our yard.
Has it ever occurred to me to leap, trusting my body in the air, my own fleshy feet to land. Cont'd.
I sit on your bedroom shelf
In my girly blue dress and sparkly tiara
With a plastered smile on my face
And a shiny gleam in my eyes
Wondering when - if - you’ll press my snowflake button again.
I want to light up for you like I did when you were four.
I want to express again to you: “I’m so glad we’re friends;”
“We’ll be friends forevermore.”
But you walk into your room and never reach for me,
Never even glance my way.
You do not know what my heart feels:
My glassy eyes remain tearless, my Cont'd.
Bright yellow forsythia wake me from deep sleep.
While multicolor crocus make a bed around my feet.
Rainbows of azalea form half circles all around.
As bouquets of daffodil are erupting from the ground.
Numerous shades of purple on lilac shrubs now say,
Inhale my sweet perfume, throughout the month of May.
Surrounding you with joy it is new life I bring,
A lady in a floral dress they simply call me spring. Cont'd.
Winter, winter, it's finally here
Winter, winter, the best time of the year!
Snow is failing to the ground
Without making any sound
As you sit by the fire,
The snow is piling higher
Lots and lots of snow
Watch it fly and watch it go!
The death of every moment that
passes by uncontrolled-
delivered to the finite morgue of memory.
Each breath tossed into the grave of time,
carries our impressions,
devolving into crippling perceptions.
Sometimes it stretches-endlessly.
Other times it nicks us barely seen,
yet felt for a lifetime.
For most, the 11th hour arrives
a recollection of lows-
as a pouch of regrets
filled with fleeting desperations. Cont'd.
The Gould Clan gathers around once more,
To pay honor to Sallie the aunt of the four,
She may have her faults, and boss the bunch,
But we'll put up with anything to get this lunch,
She flew around all morning, with bosom slipping,
Making everyone jump, and doing her bidding.
As we watch her now at the head of the table,
We ponder with awe, how she ever was able,
To concoct this lunch, to serve to us,
And get us to eat it without any fuss.
Cont'd
First light reveals poppies in brilliant array
Each perfect copy coloring May
Crepe paper petals gladly unfold
Free from confinement in velvet cocoons
Brief gift of Heaven all orange bold
They dance with the breeze like birthday balloons
Beckoned as lovers if just for a day
Bumble bees hover near blossoms display
Indulging each mistress from morning to night
Assuring the promise of next year's delight
Petals fall softly as evening surrounds
Committed now wholly to painting the ground
Cont'd
ASHLEY LAUNBINGER: 2025 INTERN
Ashley is responsible for providing creative, administrative and organizational support to Nantucket's annual poetry festival for community members of all ages and various backgrounds.
ASHLEY LAUNBINGER: FOUNDER + VOLUNTEER
Through weekly video sessions, Ashley offers conversation, friendship, poetry and emotional support. As a volunteer with an English-learner impacted by the war in Ukraine, Ashley endeavors to build an authentic connection across borders and change the life of a peer. Ashley is working to start ENGin's Poetry Club to expand the organization's reach and positively impact more community members.
BUILDING COMMUNITY THRU POETRY
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