Joyce Brinkman

Joyce Brinkman, Indiana Poet Laureate 2002-2008, believes in poetry as public art. She creates public-poetry projects involving her poetry and the poetry of others. Her poetry is on permanent display in a twenty-five-foot stained glass window in an airport, in lighted glass artwork at a library, and on a wall in the town square of Quezaltepeque, El Salvador. Joyce has received fellowships from the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio, and the Indianapolis Arts Council.

She is a graduate of Hanover College and lives in Zionsville, Indiana, with her husband and a cantankerous cat. She is a founding board member of Brick Street Poetry Inc, the producer of the poetry podcast "Off the Bricks" which can be heard on Spotify and other podcast platforms through the Bricks Street Poetry website https://www.brickstreetpoetry.org/

•

► Joyce's microchap & selected poems are available below. Download the single-page microchap by clicking the title.

Origami Microchap
Love Lines
Click title & open/save PDF Cover from piqsel.com - public domain •	Be My Valentine Take my heart. Break it. Not from inside like the hatchling splits a porous egg. No, shatter it with your words. Penetrate the shell sheltering a heart accustom to silence. Broken Heart In silence, white snow covers dark ground, comforts my diminishing heart. Closeted Love A woman cherishes only one man but she loves a full closet of purses!	Original Sin Temptress in a teapot, mischievous Eve prepares to weave a buxom tale of a pair or an apple. Whatever the fruit, the brew, it promises to taste divine. The Land That Loved The Sky They will tell you the glaciers shaped you. Ironed you out like a newly-pressed, gray sheet. Chewed you up and left you a pile of pulverized pip. I will tell you differently. You, spread yourself flat to be touched more broadly by the splendid, blue sky. This poem was featured on “Through the Sycamores: Exploring the Hoosier Landscape With Indiana’s Poet Laureate” Spelling Love Love flows On us, in us; Verifying, testifying, Eternal connection. • Joyce Brinkman © 2021
Birthday Wishes
Click title & save PDF to your files. Cover collage by JanKeough -	Your Birthday The day you were born like the time of a sunrise matters not because of when, but because of how cold the world would be without such warmth. • Published under different title in Airmail from the Airpoets, San Francisco Bay Press 2011 Birthday Beginning of life Inhaling of air Remembered fondly Time to hold dear Honored by loved ones Day to enjoy Always special Yours to revere New Dawn Magenta morning swirls across the waiting sky painting your new day	Birthday Blues Sing to me the birthday blues. Send a tickle to my toes right through my shoes. Make those toes to tap. Wrap me in music like a mama cat wraps her kittens in her fur and fat. Music's better than a frosted cake Or any other thing I eat or use. Sing to me the birthday blues. My Present If I brought you lots of presents If I found the perfect size, If I picked the perfect color to match exactly with your eyes. My gift would never be as great It would never be as true As the gift you gave to me Simply being you. Celebrate As moon fills the sky celebrate the day's retreat tether joy inside • Joyce Brinkman © 2020
Moon Prints
Click title to download PDF microchap. Cover collage by JanKeough - Every microchap may be downloaded for free from this website. (Set printer for landscape)	Secret en Papier I wrapped our yellowed secret in a paper moon. Caught a ship to Tunis to throw it in the sea. But that buoyant moon knew how to float. Back on shore, moonlight filled with whispers. Singing Moon If I could hear the moonlight beat upon the window glass. Hear its pitter-patter in the brown dust of your eyes, then I could know the sound the moon makes when it sings for you.	Moon Angels I remember that night~ the dew felt like buttermilk, thick and slippery, yet looked clear and sparkling as the night’s sky while, in the wet bluegrass, we feigned making snow angels, climbed the Devil’s Backbone, threw rocks at the moon. For Chelito Freedom is a bird that roosts where trees retain their language. She calls to them this night before the sickle moon. Her words expand with hope. She feeds the starving beggar, but cheats the white-faced monkey beside the lemon tree. Read on PBS video "A Universal Language" • Joyce Brinkman © 2019

Poets