1) Visual poetry…these are among my favorites.

2) Some artwork…I love the way she deals with light, and also there’s a great photo of Ruth’s beautiful smile

3) Another gallery of art…”Sister Ann, Sister Ann” is my favorite!

4) Poetry at “The Barefoot Review”

5) Poet of the month – February 2012.

6) More of the visual poetry, and a great site for female artists.

7) “Let There Always Be”…I love this poem – one of my favorites!

Congratulations, Ruth, for the accolades! You deserve it, and I’m so very happy for you. If there are any pertinent links that I missed, please forward them to me and I’ll do a supplement post.

It stood on a cliff above the sea,
its grey, scarred face staring
into the long shimmering lines
of surf. My grandmother,
who lived alone with her crutches
and her thoughts of my long-gone
unfaithful grandfather,
went there to watch
the seals on the rocks below.
And the cliff was high
and the waves surged and broke.

Ruth Bavetta’s poetry has been published in Rattle, Nimrod, Tar River Review, North American Review, Rhino, Poetry East, Atlanta Review, Poetry New Zealand and many others. Her poems appear in the anthologies Twelve Los Angeles Poets and Wait a Minute; I Have to Take Off My Bra. She has degrees from the University of Southern California, California State University San Bernardino, and Claremont Graduate University.

Fifty years I worked
the sewing machines.
Kept on even after I married
the salesman with the curly hair
and wide smile. I was past marrying age
by then and glad enough of him.

The vacuum cleaners didn’t sell,
so when I got home from work
he was always there, smiling. It was a year
before I found the bottles hidden
behind the radio. I never learned
to drive, took the bus to work,
but I paid for the house,
and the new car when his broke down.

After they cut off his cogliones
because of the cancer
I divorced him so the State would pay
the hospital and the doctors.
He died anyway.
I’d do it again, though, marry
a man who smiles.

Ruth Bavetta’s poetry has been published in Rattle, Nimrod, Tar River Review, North American Review, Rhino, Poetry East, Atlanta Review, Poetry New Zealand and many others. Her poems appear in the anthologies Twelve Los Angeles Poets and Wait a Minute; I Have to Take Off My Bra. She has degrees from the University of Southern California, California State University San Bernardino, and Claremont Graduate University.

...Punica granatum - November 2011

Autumn Sacrifice

~ By Ruth Bavetta

When I bring the pomegranates into the kitchen,
already my hands are stained with red.

The bruised globes, with their gaping wounds,
ooze crimson onto the white tiles.

The hard dry skins resist my knife.
A slip, and my blood mingles with the fruit’s.

Cooked with sugar, thickened, poured into jars,
the jelly is both sweet and bitter.

(Previously published in Spillway)

...A plate of rubies

...The Muir Woods - California - September 25, 2011

and so still much to do—
the bending over the bowl
of dough, the mending
of socks worn through the toe,
the paring of peaches, lovely
in their waning.

Statice beyond the glass, lusterless,
like fog against a window, fading
purple blossoms dry
as paper. Dusk is brittle
on my shoulders. I will leave
as I came in, already falling.

~ by Ruth Bavetta

Previously published in Verse Wisconsin Online

...The Muir Woods - California - September 25, 2011