N.L. Riviezzo's Blog

While leaving a review is one of the best ways to support an author, the greatest reviews I have ever received are in the form of silence….silence from one person – my Mémère [a Québécois term for Grandmother].

For a long time, I didn’t recognize this silence as reviews. In fact, the silence had me worried despite her frequent question of “When is your next book coming out?” and her constant refusal to let me gift her a copy in the format of her choice because she wanted to buy it herself.

Mémère passed recently. She had been constantly ill since the passing of Pépère [a Québécois term for Grandfather] in December 2021. They had been married for 44 years. Her grief was a very potent, powerful, and present thing. In many ways, her passing was a blessing.

A few days ago, we had a joint memorial service for them. Several of the stories were about Mémère in regards to her love of the written word and her intensity for proper sentence structure, grammar, research, and the like. She worked for a newspaper for a large part of her working life in various roles but predominately as an Editor. The newspaper is how she met Pépère – he was a sport writer. Mémère was an amazing Editor. She found immense joy in finding errors and then mentioning them at every possible moment. Truly, errors brought out this very childlike whimsical joy in her then she’d use the errors to unleash ‘terror’ upon their “owners” with a similar amount of unsettling whimsical joy.

One of my Dad’s stories was how he had written and publish several articles – all of which had been reviewed and edited prior to publishing – but, without fail, a few days after publication, he’d receive an email from Mémère with a list of all of the errors she found in the articles. My Uncle shared a similar story and how he found such amusing as he is a recently retired English teacher. Both of them are very skilled writers and yet, Mémère had zero qualms about letting them know what they had done wrong.

It dawned on me that Mémère never unleashed her Editorial wrath upon my books like she had with everyone else’s writings. She did once upon several poems 21 years ago – at my behest – but only found some very minor issues. Since those poems, only silence.

The absence of Mémère’s legendary Editorial wrath, her silence, is truly the greatest review any of my books have ever received.

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Holiday Artisan Market

Visit Patchwork Chicken Studio in person or visit our website – patchworkchickenstudio.com – where the shipping is free!

November often sneaks up on me but this year was especially bad. More than halfway through the month now and I still cannot believe it is November. I am happy that it more of a normal November than last year’s though Pandemic World still makes it weird. Setting up a craft show and then selling at said show while masked is weird. Doable but weird. Weird being among people too.

I’ve pretty much only left the house for essential errands, as I have an autoimmune condition and such, since March 2020 so I’m a little rusty on the social skills and being out amongst the people. I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve been fully vaccinated + booster for Covid, had my flu shot, and I’m masked. It is a change. I think I did okay for the first show of the season this past weekend. The show, Old Home Vintage Market, was one that Patchwork Chicken Studio hadn’t done before – we just visited it in 2019 – and we did well at it so I suspect we will try to return in the future. Normally, show season kicks off for us at the end of October but several of the shows opted not to have them this year which is entirely understandable. Pandemic World is a very uncertain, ever changing, tumultuous place.

Aside from the shows, I’ve been working through NaNoWriMo. Just journaling this year. Poetry hasn’t been very forthcoming lately. Haven’t felt overly creative in a few weeks due to a lot of emotional turmoil, stress, and the distractions of show prep. I’m hoping that I can get back to the creative side of things very soon. I miss it.

Today, two abstract mixed media art pieces – Pisces & Gemini – are on their way to their new home. I am always delighted when my works find their “people”.

Today is the release day for the 19th A-Z poetry book, Doll & Discarnate. It is available for Kindle and in Paperback via Amazon.

I will confess that this book was struggle. I wrote a few pieces for it at the end of 2018. The bulk of the poems were written intermittently through 2019 while I was also finishing up Written & Whim. Then 2020 happened, The first two and half months of 2020 were spent being ill with the flu and a cold. The pandemic arrived and grief, worry, and concern became the overwhelming themes to my day and sucked the life out of my creativity (and myself). But thanks to the occasional brief spurt of creativity energy, I managed to come close to finishing Doll & Discarnate. The last few pieces were written in early 2021.

Despite the struggle, I adore the finished product and I am very proud of it. To have this “light”, after so much grief-filled and depressing darkness, is so wonderful and soothing.

Shadows

Grab a phantom
I do not know because
I know too damn well
That I will need safe passage
As I travel through shadows
Sharpening their teeth
Against my reality
Twisted up in
The ruins of my energy
Leaving me shredding apart
As I travel through shadows
Wanting me for their very own
Not ready to go home after all
Hope strung on delicate threads
I wove from my hair cascading
Like dew over the lands
While I seek a phantom
I do not know

Carve

Carve out a soul
Of your own despise
While the rain pours
Crimson and cold
Into snow it swirls
Aching with its lust
For another day
Everlasting on whiskey’s
Inhale to hide secrets
In the ruins of bones
Charred and broken
Waiting to carve more
Than a comatose memory
Of revisions incompletely
Carve out a soul
Of your own demise

Priceless

Drown in the black holes
Circling your priceless counsel
Lock down and lick poison
Friendlier than this passage
Where we hold hands to keep
Our heads above water
Water we cannot tread
Nor quench our growing thirst
As we silently give way to
Drown in black holes
Circling your priceless counsel

Brink

The lengths I will go to
Keep you on the brink
Of absolute demise brings
My utter delight in the night
Think I thought I saw
You cry out at the injustice
Of all my ministrations
And I just laughed
Never consider the hows
The paths that converged
To bring you here to my
Cliff side as I push harder
Still to the brink
Then down, down you
Must go after all
Once we lost grip on
What is truth and what
Might be your lies
To keep you alive

The Light

Break above my knees
Higher up, Your Highness
For I am the light again
Coursing through my veins
Keeping me cold in the
Dead of summertime
Where I lose in revulsion
Broken above the knees
Bones given over to
Your Black Sabbath
How my mortal heart
Refused to bleed out
As I traveled down
Drawing out life beneath
Skin burned in pallor
For I am the light again