Friday, August 26, 2016

Welcome Michael Escoubas! Our New Activity Editor

Dear Whispers’ Friends,

Michael Escoubas has graciously accepted my offer to be our ongoing Whispers’ Activity Editor.  Activities are an important part of our journal and a staff member will ensure a variety of different challenges and that we have an activity each month.  I am so excited about having Michael in this new role.  We are now a staff of two!

Michael will be responsible for our activities.  Please email everything else to me.  I hope you will be as encouraging to Michael as you have been to me.  I will leave you with Michael’s first poem published at Whispers and his bio.

Blessings and best wishes,

Karen O’Leary
Whispers’ Editor

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Moment of Winter Twilight

Spread your arms mighty oak,
like my father and his before him.

In you, I’m in their arms wrapped
warm in a shawl of blue-cream

fringed in white powder. Amber-glow
softens the rough-edged tree-line.

In the seam of time between night
and day, this twilight moment unveils

a vacancy long denied: the embrace
I never knew, like a puzzle-piece

put in place by nature’s sleight-of-hand,
a timely fit; this grown man now complete.
 
Ekphrastic poem read at Lemont Art Center, March 2015

After retiring from a 48-year career in the printing industry in 2013, Michael Escoubas began writing poetry for publication. His study of and interest in poetry goes back some 30 years. During this time he studied classical and modern poets learning from their works and from critics who comment about them. Michael writes poetry in part because his mother once said, “You have a gift for words; you should do something with that gift.”

20 comments:

  1. Welcome Michael Escoubas! Our New Activity Editor

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    1. Thank you Elizabeth,
      Humbling just to be asked--I expect to learn and grow because this will stretch me I'm sure.
      The Whispers' family is full of gracious and good writers, like you.
      Blessings,
      Michael

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  2. :) I love the message of Michael's mother. Thanks for sharing! Grand welcome to Michael :)

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    1. Dear Niranjan,
      Thank you for noticing my mother within the bio. She is deceased but had she lived on to this moment, would have enjoyed reading poems from the Whispers' family.
      Hope to hear from you when we do activities here at Whispers.
      Blessings,
      Michael

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  3. No doubt Micheal is blessed with a gifts of words that helped me learning a new genre of Poetry I.e. "Fibonacci Sequence".
    I welcome him in the WHISPERS team.

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    1. Dear Dr. Srivastava,
      So nice hearing from you. Enjoyed your Fibonacci poems: "Walk" and "Garden" sent in during the last activity. It was also a blessing exchanging notes on the genre several times.
      Michael

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  4. such a lovely poem! welcome to Whispers, Michael!

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    1. Dear sheikha,
      Appreciate so much your gracious welcome.
      Hope you will have time to take part in some of the writing activities going forward.
      Blessings,
      Michael

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  5. Welcome Dear Michael:
    We are sure to benefit from your passion with words.
    Thanks for giving us your time.
    Suzanne

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    1. Dear Suzanne,
      I've had a passion for words from my youth--Whispers' offers a wonderful destination for communicating ideas and values into a text that can be read in seconds but affect one for a lifetime.
      Blessings,
      Michael

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  6. Great news Michael! Great start with the Fibonacci style-challenge. Wishing you all the best, ralph. Enjoyed your poem.

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    1. Dear Ralph,
      I remember well your two poems from the recent activity, "Wayside Story" and "Outback Packer." Thank you for sending--so pleased that you enjoyed the Fibonacci activity,
      Blessing,
      Michael

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  7. Yes you do have a gift of words as beautifully expressed in this lovely poem.

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    1. Dear J T,
      Appreciate your gracious comment; what a wonderful outlet Whispers' has become for some many wordsmiths worldwide.
      Michael

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  8. congratulations! best of luck to you and your poetic endeavors. . .

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    1. Dear daryl,
      Thank you for sending an "extended" Fibonacci during the last activity and for your well-wishes going forward.
      It is a privilege being shaped by all the talented poets who contribute to Whispers'.
      Michael

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  9. Lovely poem and congratulations on the new appointment!

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  10. Dear Peggy,
    Such a blessing hearing from you.
    Feel great about a new step for me -- one for which I will need constant prayer and help.
    Blessings,
    Michael

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  11. Thank you, Renee', for the following--

    Congratulations Author/Activity Editor Michael Escoubas, on your latest accomplishment joining the Whispers' staff.
    The poet/poetess society is elated that you have come aboard!!!
    Thanking you in advance for sharing your gifts/talents with the world of poets.

    Pittsburgh Author Renee' Drummond-Brown

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  12. Dear Michael,

    I'm so grateful to you for accepting this position. Thank to all of you for your warm welcome of Michael in his new role. I'm looking forward to working with you more in the coming months.

    Blessings,
    Karen

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