Spirits In Peace Blog

Late last evening, I, and many others in the literary community, learned of the passing of poet and publisher Sondra Ball. This is a great loss, and one need only type her name into a web search to gain an inkling of this woman’s remarkable accomplishments.

In a world too often replete with pretension and elitism, Sondra was one of the genuine ones who cared for literature and poets as opposed to mere person gain and advancement.

Sondra lived in New Jersey with her husband, Mario Cavallini, and she and I often exchanged notes about the weather - especially signs of spring and the beauty of autumn, relative  to the nature poetry we both so loved.  Since its inception in 1997, her e-zine, “Autumn Leaves” was an excellent forum wherein aspiring poets could be published. It was published twice monthly and apparently received 300,000 hits monthly, which shows both the magnitude and the quality of this remarkable woman’s undertaking. One might wish to peruse the following link:One final edition of Autumn Leaves will be posted at that site.

http://www.sondra.net/al/

One final edition of Autumn Leaves will be posted at that site.

Recently, Sondra’s breast cancer, which had been in remission for many years, returned, and notes from Sondra became less frequent. Unfortunately, the cancer was found to have metastisized. In the early morning hours of in the first hours of Tuesday, March 16th, Sondra passed away after a difficult illness.

I have written the following piece in memory of Sondra:

Like almost everyone else, I spent much of the past couple of weeks glued to coverage of the Olympic Games. And like everyone else, I found myself entranced by tales of personal triumphs and tragedies, the stories behind the stories. And like every other Canadian, I was delighted to see Crosby’s gold-medal winning goal  in overtime in the Canada-U.S. hockey game.

But when I think of the monies involved in such an undertaking, I cannot help but think not only of Vancouver’s homeless population, but of those who live in poverty and misery, hunger and disenfranchisement, around the world. That thought inspired the following poem:

Ever The Medallist: A Reverse Double Etherée

Reflecting on the hoopla surrounding
the Olympics and endless tales of
triumphs and defeats, personal
bests and tragedies, I still
cannot help noting the
numbers living in
squalor, sadly
common in
cities,
and
yet
oddly,
I feel some
national pride
despite advocating
full justice and equal
occasion for advancement
for each and every person. So
I pause to sift through priorities,
humankind ever the gold medallist.

© Carol Knepper