POETS' CORNER

In Poets’ Corner you can read our members’ original poems. Each member may, if they choose, post up to five poems at the beginning of each month. Click on the member’s photo below to see their poems.  Follow your favorite Winterville poet.

Jack is Professor Emeritus at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Although he wrote a few poems early in life, he began taking the art seriously at age 60. He is now 79. His poems have appeared in poetry journals and magazines.  He has one book credit:  Wandering Through Old Photographs.  Jack, along with seven of his poems, is featured in the current issue of Boom Magazine. To view the online version, visit Boom Magazine Athens. See article: 

The Art of Aging.

My name is Magdalene Collins Mobley. I was born in rural Winterville, Oglethorpe County.  

My first four years of school were in a small one-room building that taught only grades first through eighth.  By the end of fourth grade, in 1955, we had a new school in which grades kindergarten through twelfth were taught.

After graduating high school in 1963 at Oglethorpe Consolidated School, I attended Blayton Business School in Atlanta. I returned to work as clerk at the same school from which I graduated.

There I met and later married my late husband, Donald Mobley, who taught Business Education and worked part-time as Assistant Princilal.

I have always had a love for writing and reading poetry. I write in all genres and am inspired by life itself.

 Eleanor Pennington is 91. In her life she has been a nurse, high school teacher, and an art instructor at Greenville University.  She played viola for 35 years in the Greenville, Illinois symphony orchestra.   She is an avid reader. Eleanor has three children and seven grandchildren.  

Margaret Rinkel is a retired high school English teacher with a lifelong interest in ancient literatures of biblical and Roman times.  Her creative approach to classroom instruction earned her an Illinois Governor’s Master Teaching award.  Her most recent publication is The Plowshare and the Sword (2019), a collection of dramatic monologues introduced by the traveling storyteller of olden times who provides a background for each figure’s story.  With her husband Gene she co-authored The Picshuas of H. G. Wells: A Burlesque Diary (2006).  Her professional activities include editing The Association of Teachers of English Newsletter and the publication of several poems and articles in various journals.  She also served as Education chair in her church planning curriculum and creating posters.  She enjoys reading a variety of genres and writing story poems.

  Having been a writer of reports for my business endeavors, I always tried to liven these rather dull events with some literary license. I am a degreed accountant with many years of service to several businesses over my lifetime. I’ve risen to the financial controller position at several newspaper groups and finished my working years as an assistant corporate controller for a newspaper/magazine publishing company. 

My poetry writing began just twenty-six years ago. I began writing odes to my wonderful bride as a way to express my deep feelings for her. Doing this, I discovered that there is an emotional release in penning a poem that expresses your innermost thoughts and feelings. My family does not have any authors or poets that I know, but are pragmatic and logical career people such as engineers and accountants. My sister and I were musically inclined, and we played musical instruments, sang vocal solos, and sang in choirs. Ergo, I believe the impetus to write and then to pen poetry stemmed from this talent for music. I write from deeply felt experiences or emotions not simply by putting pen to paper. I cannot write on demand; I must be moved by experiences or emotions. I write exclusively for others and not for myself.  

  I was past the age of fifty.   Poetry was not a big interest of mine.  I heard from an old friend, I first knew  in the Navy, who told me someone I had known overseas had died, as well as her sister.  Sleep would not come until I wrote down the rhymes that would not slip away from my mind as things normally do. The depth of grief expressed surprised me almost thirty years removed from those times.  I learned something about myself.  Poetry for me is sometimes like putting a puzzle together.  The pieces make word picture. 

This and occasional poetry was not exactly great literary work, but were expressions of thoughts, feelings and experiences. I cherish the opportunity for poetic sharing, fellowship, learning, continued growth and enrichment that a poetry group can bring.