Urban Lee Ridings: “The Joy of Words: Who Lives Alone?”

Flipping through the folder recently, looking for something to share with Mom when we visited in January to celebrate her retirement, Read more

Dec. 24, 2009: Winter family get-together

July 8, 1985: Ask and Receive

I still clearly remember the time, place, circumstances, and even the paper that I wrote on, when I penned the following short poem over 24 years ago. I was headed to Champaign, Illinois, to complete the technical school component of my initial U.S. Air Force training. It was my first real freedom since my last previous airplane rides had delivered me from Orlando into Houston into San Antonio, whereupon my basic training promptly began. I recall finding it odd that I was scheduled to arrive on a Friday afternoon… but it was worse than I could have imagined. Read more

October 3, 2009: Amelia, Eightish

Sweetness in the flesh, sunshine itself,
in feminine form, the essence of youth.
Deep of spirit, light of heart and touch…
her happy meditations are illuminating.
Her calm is radiant, her troubles tempests.
Stand in her way at great personal risk.
Anything might come to pass in her lifetime.
God loves Amelia… eight and growing.

August 14, 1997: Not Tonight

“Not Tonight”

by Roger Darnell

The things I find entertaining aren’t things I can write about.

I like to imagine stories about our cat, taming her world,

unafraid and attitudinal, eccentric and, well, beautiful. 

Our other cat inspires her own happy go lucky devil-may-care

cavalier and friendly tales… which are still just cat fancies.

Romantic stories from Europe, South America

and Pennsylvania Amish Country beginning to take pixel-life

in my imagination, are hopefully the right stuff and will someday

prove worthwhile things I will have written about.  For now

they’re still in the layer just above my vision, in a place I can’t see

because, looking, it rises above.  Yet I can imagine it and,

without looking, see it perfectly.  The work I’ll create, in a night

where the vein runs longer than this one.

Much longer….

 – August 14, 1997

June 18, 1988: clear blue light

Tomorrow it will be twenty-one years since I began writing the following poem. That’s another story, and perhaps, another post… maybe one for twenty-one years from tomorrow.

I selected the poem this evening after searching through the spreadsheet containing an archive of my poems with the date I wrote each one, collection information, and a column for me to track reviews underway with publications. The document was put together at another time in my life and career, when I was more diligent in submitting poetry to prestigious print publications and presses. Not sure if this one was ever submitted to magazines, but either way, I know the rights are mine :^). It’s part of my first collection, entitled “just.” Read more

April 27, 2009: Stage might from Daddy…

Read more

April 24, 2009: Daughter, son, play station….

Read more

Apr. 3, 1990: Paying Homage to April Fools

In the late summer of 1989, I had an idea to approach the University of Central Florida’s student newspaper, “The Future,” about writing a column. I wrote the first one and very humbly submitted it in person to the editor, Scott Altman. Without much fanfare, it was accepted, and so it went for the next fifteen months. Ultimately, many positive experiences grew from these efforts. One esteemed instructor made much of my work and was instrumental in my winning a Scripps-Howard Foundation Fellowship for the column that appeared July 25, 1990, under the headline, “Wishing for Chicago Life in the Heart of Orlando.” Thank you, Keith Fowles. Read more

March 14, 1996: Spring Creek

For a class project, my young cousin Allyssa Ridings recently shared some of her memories from a part of Southern Illinois widely known as Terrapin Ridge — the home for over 50 years to Beatrice Ridings, my grandmother. Many knew my Granny Bea as Aunt Bea or Miss Ridings, and at her home, just about everybody who was alive at the time on my mother’s and father’s sides of my family experienced things there that formed some of their warmest memories. Allyssa’s essay triggered my own recollections, and searching through some of my past writings, I found this poem, written about 13 years ago when I was wanting to cover a lot of ground in the fewest possible words, and recalling a time from even earlier in my life, when my brother and I had taken a common adventure from Granny Bea’s house one sunny spring day when we were boys, and ventured up Doris Creek. Granny Bea played a big part in that day’s full story, and so did my Uncle Jim… but it all began with being young, being out there on Terrapin Ridge, free to experience the natural world with my brother, and the phenomenon whereby things sometimes quickly go to hell. This poem is from a collection called “Order for Chaos.”