Poet at a workshop

Hello

Here I am, practicing giving a poetry reading. I have my book of poetry entitled Metamorphosis. The Seahorse Tavern is a hot spot for poets! David Rimmington gets a group of poets together to recite their poetic musings. Despite the noise, we trod onward, marching.

Maritime Writers Workshop 2006

I attended the wonderful Maritime Writers Workshop last year. I studied Cyberpunk fiction with Biff Mitchell. i wil remember the
mall spying and ghost hunting. I probably did my best writing at the workshop. It was a week to remember.

The one with the blond hair is Anne Rice. No, I mean, i like to write vampire novels. This is me at the desk at the Cyberpunk
class with Biff Mitchell and the other writers. I enjoyed the classes, forced me to think new things. I wrote a scary flash fiction story about a guy who has to outsmart a computer to escape the room alive.

Matrix anyone?

Summer writing

This is George Elliott Clarke's review of my book of poetry, Metamorphosis

THE NOVA SCOTIAN BOOKS SUNDAY SEPT. 24, 2006

GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE’S REVIEW OF MY BOOK OF POETRY, METAMORPHOSIS

Heddy M Johannesen’s first poetry text is Metamorphosis, a self-published work, (for copies, contact goddess_heddy@yahoo.ca). A Haligonian freelance writer, Johannesen’s approach to verse is spontaneous as Davies is deliberate.

Both writers exhibit the ideal qualities of contemporary East Coast poetry: vernacular freshness plus sculpted articulation.

Johannesen’s Metamorphosis is slimmer and simpler than Davies’ work, for it is an amateur’s artless art. Her lyricism is, frankly, reckless, but beauty is wreaked, nevertheless.

Flight of the Butterfly tells us, sprightly, “Hope is the hue / of my monarch’s wings / in flight. / A silken angel lingers / on perfumed heavenly / petals.” Then, the clichés begin: “gossamer wings,” “lightness of a breeze” and “sips ambrosia”.

Despite an anachronistic term, the poem ends with a sign of poetic promise: “Alas, I dreamed my wings / were held in your / hands. / / you were here, forever. “ Suddenly, the butterfly is no longer an abstract symbol, but the embodiment of a dashed love.

Johannesen’s temptation is to turn things into symbols: a difficult act for even long-practiced poets. But she wins some success where her diction is tactile: “Eros / I want to be a black mare / trot over sandy beaches / feel your dark glistening coat. // I want…/ your eyes (to) peel to my soul…”

With its realized (not only imagined) details, The Wet Poem demonstrates Johannesen’s clear talent: “A blues song plays / faintly / on the radio, / shaking / desk, / my nose is so / stuffed up, / like a false gift / filled with Kleenex, / crinkling, my / head is so pounding. “

Metamorphosis has many such moments, and it is really splendid when verbs are fresh and nouns are firm: “Under leaves crown a massive / ample tree, leaves trickle / to gray earth…”
Johannesen’s book marks the arrival of a gifted voice. Welcome her “rage at bare pages.”

The wet poem

My name is Heddy Johannesen. i am a Halifax-based freelance writer. I write ina cozy attic room which in the past, would have been the servants' quarters. This is a Victorian style house. I like it here. Quiet.

My other website to check out is www.bookLoversInk.piczo.com. The website is a marketing tool of my writing and a way for interested people to sense what type of writer I am and what writing I do. I have published a book of poetry entitled Metamorphosis. I have 3 published magazine articles. I love to write and tinker with words all day.