Featured Radio Poet!
World Poetry Cafe Hosts Ariadne Sawyer and Israel Mota, tech Medhi and observer Ryan welcomed Wilma Seville in a phone interview and Kagan Goh (featured poet for the UBC World Poetry Youth Team on Saturday Dec. 15th) TO HEAR THE SHOW CLICK HERE!
Wilma Seville writes poetry, short stories, magazine and newspaper articles. She originally is from Lachine, Quebec and now resides in Hamilton, Ontario. She sits on the Literary Arts Committee of the Hamilton Arts Council and has done so for more than six years. She is a member of Tower Poetry Society, Poetry Center and World Poetry.
In her work, particularly in poetry, she writes about nature, human behaviour, people with special needs, and on the lighter side, she writes about her beloved cats, Boots and Tiger.
Her interests include music – classical and semi-classical, operetta, reading, walking at the waterfront and attending literary functions.
She is the proud mother of two grown up children and a wonderful son-in-law.
SUSAN’S MOTHER
Sixteen years old
That’s all she was
When pain and sorrow
Came to call
No more than a child herself
Caught up in uncertain times
Nazi Germany gobbling Europe
England threatened, our boys gone.
Moments of passion
Tingled with anxiety, grief
Fear of separation, death
Life changed, a seed was sown.
Long months without a word
Slender body changed
Morning sickness
Shock, anger amongst family.
In shame, she was sent away
To hide from folks around
Until her time would come
She would be with Aunt Jayne.
The day of reckoning came
When the child was born
No friends, relatives gathering
To welcome the little one
Instead, the new Mom left
Bereft of newborn child
Sorrowing heart, aching void
Scarred for life- always wondering
©2010WilmaSeville
“Times have changed in Canada since that time, but it reflects the
period of time in the early 1940’s when having a baby without being
married caused great shame on families and the young moms were usually
sent away to visit an aunt or to a home for Unwed Mothers until the
time of the delivery, then the poor Mom went home empty handed always
wondering what happened to her baby. It also was a time when very few records were kept about the birth parents and thus adopted children
never knew about any medical problems that would be in the family. It not only left a void in the young mom’s life, but in the life of the child who might always search for their “roots”.
Wilma Seville (C)
Kagan Goh was born in Singapore in 1969. After years of traveling, he migrated to Canada in 1986 and now resides in Vancouver. He is an award winning documentary filmmaker, a spoken word poet, novelist, journalist and mental health activist. His work has been published in anthologies such as “Strike the Wok”: an Asian Canadian anthology of short fiction (TSAR Publications); “Henry Chow and Other Stories from the Asian Canadian Writer’s Workshop” (Tradewinds Books) and the Writer’s Studio 2010 emerge (Simon Fraser University). “Who Let In the Sky?” is his first book.”
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