We’ve failed to explain the difference in the three names. Silver Boomer Books which is the name of our company and where we publish our mainstay, memoir and nostalgia, apropos of our name which actually means, “baby boomers with silver hair.” But why do we have two imprints? Because they are not specifically memoir and nostalgia, of course.
Laughing Cactus Press describes itself:
Look at a cactus. Do you see thorns, ugliness? A source of lifesaving water? A funny-looking plant? Laughing Cactus Press provides different sets of eyes to channel the world. Our editors may be in the desert, but our authors provide eyes to see the whole spectrum — cactus to bagpipes to cautionary tales! This Poetry and Fiction imprint of Silver Boomer Books offers you a new pair of glasses to see the world.
Now, for some familiar with Twelve-Step Recovery as well as with the mission of Eagle Wings Press might believe the “new pair of glasses” attribute more fitting to the spiritual and recovery imprint. Eagle Wings Press is:
AA speaker Clint H describes a person’s mission as “located at the point where the talent we most love using meets the needs of the world around us.” We, the partners of Silver Boomer Books, love to gather, polish, and disseminate the written word. We hope to offer that service through our publishing. We’re aware the fun and meaningful books like Silver Boomers and Freckles to Wrinkles may deal with issues less life-changing than others. For that reason – and because we do wish to provide meaningful service in essential areas – we’ve established the Eagle Wings Press imprint for recovery and spiritual books and cards. All of us have direct or indirect experience with Twelve-Step programs and recognize the powerful message of that simple program. We also come with strong individual spiritual awareness and wish to provide a forum for the dissemination of good, meaningful spiritual and recovery writing. We stand ready to understand the will of the Spirit of the Universe whom we call God and humbly seek the power to carry that out.
Click on the cover to buy the new Kindle version of THREE THOUSAND DOORS published March 18, 2015.
A more vivid explanation of the difference of the two imprints, however, occurred to me in the last few days. I’ve been working on putting Three Thousand Doors into Kindle format, and that will be published in all probability before this blog post sees the light of day. At the same time, though, I was getting ready to be out of easy computer range for seven days next week and building up an inventory of poems to publish on the Eagle Wings Press Recovery Daily Dose blog. Needing inspiration quickly, it occurred to me to borrow titles from Karen Elaine Greene’s work. I know her well, know the titles come last to her whereas I start with the titles. And while I’ve been working with her book this week, I have been seeing it as blocks of text, some words of which need to be highlighted to be titles and others need to be italicized, but none of them are content, just strings of words. I have not read Karen’s poems since we published them in print in 2010.
The result, then, are poems with the same titles but with the emphasis of the different imprints. I thought you might enjoy the comparison and contrast.
| The Laughing Cactus Press poem from Three Thousand Doors by Karen Elaine Greene |
The Eagle Wings Press poem from Recovery Daily Dose blog by Barbara B. Rollins and OAStepper |
|
Safe Deposit Box Perhaps I should lock happiness away |
Safe Deposit BoxAre your valuables protected? What’s most important to you? Is your program there, your sobriety, your sanity? Is it REALLY? Do you find yourself giving lip service to the importance of the program but being willing to lay it aside “just once” when you want to do something, when you’re feeling left out, when you’re afraid of what others will say? Is this valuable possession something you take with you when it’s convenient but easily leave behind? But really, a safe deposit box? How can that fit with abstract things, with ideas, behaviors, my life? Have you ever heard of a God box? Can that be your safety deposit box, where you write it down on paper, turn it over to God, and know it… and you…are protected? |
| Ragged Edges
borders |
Ragged EdgesI can hold it together, put my best face forward, make it in this world until I can’t. I can convince people I know what I’m doing, hold the lead, be a star until I can’t. I can fit into society, manage life, exercise power, hold on to sanity until I can’t. But it’s okay when I can’t which actually is more often than the times I can… I know that when I’m honest with me, with you. And I can be honest with you, my family of choice, because you get me, you understand, you’ve been there and admit it. You’ve seen all my ragged edges and you love me for them. |
| Severe Storm WarningShadowy clouds drip despondently cymbals crashing in the atmosphere fat drops thrash against hot pavement break open like overripe fruit oozing rancid flesh lying dead and blackened against gnarled branches left untended and forgotten long past their prime. |
Severe Storm WarningSometimes trouble comes out of the blue but not usually, not in life, not in the sky, not in recovery. We know what to do when the weather broadcast tells of storms, of cancel-it-now events to be affected. We understand palliative care, bucket lists, diagnoses with no option we’d choose. We know when fears, resentments, emotions loom before us because of the place, the people, the expectations. Why do we fail to prepare for the storm warnings in recovery as we would were they delivered on the newscast? Why do we fail to gather our resources and prepare to weather the storm? |
Do you get it? Then get the books! The poems of Recovery Daily Dose are on the Internet site only but the books by the same authors are all available in Kindle format or in print. These links will take you to the Kindle versions.
 Click the cover to buy A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes as an Kindle book. Normal price, $5.25 |
 Click the cover to buy A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes as an Kindle book. Normal price, $5.25 |
 Click the cover to buy Slender Steps to Sanity – Twelve-Step Notes of Hope as an Kindle book. Normal price, $5.19 |
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