Andria Warmflash Rosenbaum

Thick liquid limbs

Sentry the Serengeti

Like great, gray ghosts

Hosting family

Gatherings.



Andria W. Rosenbaum/all rights reserved

Ivory on indigo

Trembles with a temperate glow.

Windy, winter midnight show.



Andria W. Rosenbaum/ all rights reserved

Today

would have been your eighty-sixth

if your years hadn’t been cut

short.

My heart is a candle,

forever burning,

keeping you part of me,

guarding your gifts,

going forward, bearing,

sharing all the joy that was

You.



AWR/ all rights reserved

We dare to be different

in hues of blue.

But we begin in green,

growing white as lambs wool, pink as dawn, or

shifting shades of plum.



Then we whisper

with the chance

of changing into smomething new.


When Sun is done

warming the earth

we welcome drying

into something permanent,

something to be savored inside;

a souvenir

of summer.


Andria W. Rosenbaum/ all rights reserved  Read More 

I’m a practical person.
I don’t like to waste anything. I recycle. I nag my kids to turn off the lights and the TV. I go food shopping frequently, rather than buy in bulk to avoid throwing away perishables. And when I do waste time, I feel as if I’ve squandered an opportunity.

My practical compulsion can be problematic at times, especially if I go on vacation.
I must be productive in some way, even when I’m supposed to be relaxing. Sometimes that’s as simple as observing people, or absorbing the atmosphere of new surroundings.

Being practical has also carried over into my writing poetry and picture books. I think you have to practice an economy of words in both genres. Here’s where my compulsion to avoid waste is an asset. No matter what I’m writing, poetry has taught me to make every word count. Each word is selected for:

A feeling it evokes
Adding dimension to the setting
Shading emotions
Coloring my characters

Every Thursday morning I visit Laura Purdie Salas’s blog called “15 Words or less”
http://www.laurasalas.com/blog/. She posts a photo and invites others to write poems in 15 words or less about it. It’s fun. It’s challenging. And it makes me think. Of course, it appeals to my practical side too! I always come away with something …and nothing goes to waste.  Read More 

I like the thought

of you still painted

head to toe

in thick, medicinal mud--

buoyant

boundless

contently floating free

in the warm salty sea.


Andria W. Rosenbaum/ all rights reserved

Anyone who calls themselves a writer has to be a re-writer because most stories aren’t born perfect. They have to be carved, coaxed, layered, shaded and sometimes shredded into shape. Especially, if we’re talking about picture books. Don’t count on an editor discovering a diamond in the rough. Your work should  Read More 

If you call yourself a Writer, you’re also a waiter.
You wait while crafting ideas with promise, hoping to coax them to bloom.
You wait, sweating out that first full draft.
There’s more waiting as you revise and revise and revise, carving your manuscripts into something you
hope others find tasty and satisfying as a three course meal.
Then you wait a bit more as you share your work with other like-minded waiters-- trying to remain open to their feedback.
Your wait continues as you revise and revise and revise a whole lot more.
Then you must add patience to the mix, making sure your manuscript is the best it can be before
submitting to agents and editors.
After that… well, you know the routine.

Sometimes, waiting can box you in. It’s like you turned your back for one second and in that moment
your words locked themselves in a secret room. You’re pretty sure you had the Key, made of
craft, imagination and confidence-- in your pocket . But suddenly it’s gone. If you try to pry your words
free they come out sounding forced, or worse like a poor imitation of another writer you admire. That’s
when your troubles really begin. You start wondering if you ever had that elusive writer’s Key in the
first place.

Waiting is never easy and it certainly isn’t fun. For me, the only way to find The Key is to step away from
what I’ve written.

I take a walk with my dog.
I visit the library or a book store.
I sign up for a writer’s workshop.
I try writing something in a different genre.
Perhaps, I begin a blog.
I bake. I cook. I plant a garden.
I take interesting photos.
I do something for someone else.
And when things are really, really bad-- I clean.
Thankfully, my house is not so clean right now.
How do you hold on to the Key?
 Read More