Royalston poet Sharon Ann Harmon’s poem, “A Moment in Time,” has a jazzy, devil-may-care attitude.
“Went up the staircase/ with a jar of sweet mash/ like wishbone in a lightning jar,” the poem begins.
The sounds and rhythms of the poem jangle together in a pleasing way that echoes what’s happening.
“Made me feel like/ I had cat scratch fever,/ felt like I had landed/ at a skid row of a cathouse farm,” the poem continues.
“You know how some poems, you’ve got an idea and you work on it a lot?” Harmon asks. “This poem came all in one swoop.”
“A Moment of Time” is one of 27 poems gathered in Harmon’s new chapbook, “Wishbone in a Lightning Jar,” published by Flutter Press, a micro poetry press that produces print-on-demand chapbooks.
A lightning jar is one of those older canning jars that have glass lids, rubber rings and wire clamps that effect what jar manufacturers called a “lightning seal.”
But a quick look online reveals references to Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite experiment, in which he captured electricity from lightning in a jar. Franklin’s feat gave rise to the expression, “Like trying to catch lightning in a bottle,” meaning that something is highly unlikely, or only a fleeting success. “Bottled lightning” is also sometimes used idiomatically to mean liquor.
All of these meanings are at work in Harmon’s poem, and in the enigmatic photo by Natasha Hanna on the book’s cover. The photo shows three large, lit sparklers leaning in a lightning jar that’s set on one of the rails of a train track.
Harmon laughs as she recounts going to a location in Orange with Hanna to create the photo.
“Sparklers are illegal in Massachusetts, and we were just a little ways away from the fire department,” Harmon says.
“Luckily the train didn’t come,” she adds.
Harmon is a member of Cathouse Women Writers, a critique group currently comprised of Harmon and Warwick poets BG Thurston and Elaine Reardon.
“BG’s house (where the group often meets) actually was a cathouse, a ‘house of ill repute,’” Harmon says. “So we’re always talking about it. And she’s writing a book about it.”
The group meets once a month to read each other’s work and offer comments. They’ll also sometimes organize outings and share ideas about where to submit work. Having a group that you’re responsible to, “Forces you to write something,” Harmon says.
Another larger group that Harmon belongs to, the Write From the Heart North Central Writer’s Group, focuses more on marketing non-fiction stories and essays.
Harmon has been writing seriously since she was 12, when she and a friend would give each other titles and topics for stories to write. She’s since had work published in myriad magazines and journals, including “Highlights for Children,” “Woman’s World,” “Birds and Blooms,” and one of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books.
Harmon also writes regularly for “Uniquely Quabbin” magazine, a periodical with a readership of about 10,000 that aims to bring attention and tourism to the Quabbin towns.
“Orange and Athol are kind of hurting,” Harmon says. “They could use some people coming to the towns.”
Harmon is always studying the magazine rack at grocery stores, on the lookout for new publications that might need freelance writers. And she’s submitted her poems to journals, both print and online. A poem of Harmon’s appears in a recent issue of the Paterson Literary Review, and some poems were accepted for a web page called Nature Writing. Neither place paid her but Harmon was pleased nonetheless.
“Writing is my passion,” Harmon says. “I have fun and sometimes I make some money.”
Where to find it
Sharon Ann Harmon’s chapbook, “Wishbone in a Lightning Jar” is available on Amazon, or at venues where Harmon will be reading such as the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival in Orange on Sept. 23 and 24, and at the Royalston Library Spoken Word series. Find out more about Harmon and read more of her work at http://sharonannharmon.weebly.com.