by Penelope Scambly Schott

These delightful and conversational poems explore the concept of gOD, with a sense of humor, a childlike wonder, a reverence for the natural world, and a look in the mirror.

Enjoy a Video of Penelope Reading from the Book:

Penelope Scambly Schott — A Featured Poet on The Poetry Box LIVE (Jan 2024)

Early Praise for gOD: A Respectfully Divergent Testament:

Penelope Scambly Schott has captured a marvelously witty glimpse of the divinity that resides within us all: a self-awareness creating universes and loving every tiniest bit, laughing and crying over our human foibles and destructive tendencies. With brilliant use of poetic form and license, the author invites us to really examine our understanding of the Source of all and the consequences of our own actions. This is a must-read for anyone who is at one of those points of asking, “What’s it all about, anyway?”

—Reverend Dr. Ruth L. Miller, author of Unveiling your Hidden Power and Uncommon Prayer

Penelope Scambly Schott spins out a powerful picture of the Deity in gOD: A respectfully Divergent Testament. The “whole other” mystery who creates the universe turns out to be totally relatable, showing up in a series of conversational poems, revealing a deep caring about all of creation and its creatures. Schott’s testimony is indeed respectful and not so divergent that I can’t give it my own respectful “Amen!”

—Karl Vercouteren, United Church of Christ pastor, retired

About the Author

Penelope Scambly Schott lives in the small town of Dufur, Oregon (population: 635). She has published several books of poems and is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Penelope was raised to believe that every religion is a folk custom and that each one should be respected. Her own faith practice is climbing Dufur hill where, from the top on clear days, she can see five mountains. She and the dog do this daily; on Sundays her husband accompanies them.

Previous chapbooks published by The Poetry Box include Sophia and Mister Walter Whitman and November Quilt.

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by Sue Fagalde Lick

The aging woman playing the piano at church may look saintly, but her mind is busy wondering things like what’s under the priest’s robes and why Jesus didn’t invite the women to join him. Also, when someone faints in the Communion line, should she keep playing? All the while, she is playing, singing, and directing the choir, hoping that she’s on the same verse as everyone else. The Widow at the Piano takes readers on a journey through the distracted mind of the music minister who has recently lost her husband to Alzheimer’s disease and whose only nearby family is the church family at Sacred Heart Church in Newport, Oregon. These poems look at the challenges of leading small church choirs, traditional vs. modern church music, the role of women ministers in the male-dominated Catholic Church, faith vs. practical concerns, and life behind the scenes at Mass, with an honest blend of reverence and irreverence from a writer who has always felt not quite Catholic enough.

Enjoy a video of Sue reading from the book:

Sue Fagalde Lick — A Featured Poet on The Poetry Box LIVE (June 2021)

About the Author

Having escaped the newspaper business in Silicon Valley, Sue Fagalde Lick now lives on the Oregon coast, where she writes, does the singer-songwriter thing, walks her dog, and talks to herself. Her day job—until her pastor reads this book and excommunicates her—is directing the church choir at Sacred Heart Church in Newport. This job requires her to play the piano, sing, and direct the choir at the same time, so God should forgive a few wrong notes.

A native San Josean who earned a degree in journalism so she could make a living, she earned her MFA in creative writing at Antioch University at the age of 51. Sue has published her poetry and prose in various literary journals and come in second in more contests than she can count. Her previous books of prose include Stories Grandma Never Told: Portuguese Women in California, Childless by Marriage, and Up Beaver Creek. Last year, she published her first poetry chapbook, Gravel Road Ahead, which tells the story of her journey with her late husband Fred through Alzheimer’s disease. She blogs at www.childlessbymarriage.com and www.unleashedinoregon.com. Visit her website at www.suelick.com.

Advance Praise

This beautiful, searching collection brims with charm and honesty, with humor and heartache and heart. I’d listen to any song The Widow at the Piano wants to play.

~ Gayle Brandeis, author of Many Restless Concerns
and The Selfless Bliss of the Body

There is both genuine faith and wrestling with faith in this book. The vivid description of the interior of a formal Catholic church, the homeliness of its details and the description of the interaction with the other congregants shows that for Sue Lick the church is a home and family, a home which allows her to open and practice her most devotional channel, music. And the music can lead to the feeling of God flowing through her hands.

~ Barbara LaMorticella, co-editor of Portland Lights
host of Talking Earth poetry show (KBOO FM)

The Widow at the Piano had me at the lines, “If Jesus Came To My Door/I’d say Excuse the mess/and He would.” This is a book of poetry formed with multitudes of just the right touch. A touch of humor, a touch of grief. A touch of bawdy, a touch of intimate. A touch of religious, a touch of reverent. Put all of these together and you get one wonderful and satisfying read.

~ Kathie Giorgio, author of If You Tame Me

“Lead us not into temptation,” goes the prayer, but the mind does what it does, despite the church pianist’s attempts to rein hers in. Sassy, yearning, and bittersweet, Sue Fagalde Lick’s oh-so-human conversations with God and with herself—part prayer, part challenge, part confession–offer a refreshing new take on the theme of the spiritual quest, in which the pilgrim could be any one of us whose minds struggle to hear the voice of God, with nothing “in between.”

~ Ingrid Wendt, Oregon Book Award recipient, author of Evensong

In The Widow at the Piano, Sue Fagalde Lick sits the reader not just in the front pew but on the bench of the organist/choir director, which is even farther forward, to examine her own faith and humanity. Reminiscent of Jan Karon’s Mitford Series, this collection of poetry highlights the goodness and foibles of a committed woman of faith with humor and steadfastness; no matter her difficulties or perceived shortcomings, she is always in the house of worship–this is a comfort.

~ Rachel Barton, Editor, Willawaw Journal

In many of the poems in The Widow at the Piano, Sue Fagalde Lick places her narrator in church—whether at the piano, directing a choir, joining a bereavement group, making a cup of tea in the church hall, or getting splashed by an unexpectedly exuberant shower of holy water—where the easily distracted speaker prays to (or argues with) God as she tackles grief, loneliness, and questions of faith. But the key word here is “distracted.” Too many other things are going on. Her dog has to pee, her pantyhose are migrating, and Jesus might be trying to sell her a vacuum cleaner. Lick’s strength as a poet comes from her courageous honesty and her ability to go from raw emotion to the perfect funny detail on a dime. She will make you laugh. Read this book.

~ ~Nancy Vieira Couto, poetry editor of Epoch
author of The Face in the Water and Carlisle & the Common Accident,
recipient of two NEA fellowships and Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize (1989)

“God do you see me?” so begins Sue Fagalde Lick’s poetry collection, The Widow at the Piano. Her personal narrative takes place from her perspective as pianist and choir director at Sacred Heart Church where she reflects on life, God, and the Catholic church. We feel her loss as a new widow in poems like “The Widow’s Dinner.” “I sit alone.” Jesus is always nearby, and the poet’s wit humanizes her religion as in her poem “If Jesus Came to My Door.” “I’d say, Excuse the mess.” Finding the funnier sides of things can reduce grief, and the humor in this collection is well placed.

~ Lara Gularte, author of Kissing the Bee

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by Stanford Searl

Mary Dyer’s Hymn and Other Quaker Poems constructs poetic songs which open-up multiple dimensions of an embodied sensibility of the conflicts between Puritans and Quakers in 17th century Massachusetts. There are a number of themes as presented in these poems, including:

• Many of the poems sing about how in 17th century Massachusetts, the embodied soul matters in Quaker writing, action and thinking.
• Some of the poems enter into a visionary consciousness of 17th century Quaker men and one Quaker woman (Mary Dyer) who demonstrate what it meant to be a prophet and then a martyr as well.
• At times, the poems present a satirical critique of key Puritan assumptions about how they thought that Quakers were dangerous heretics, aligned with Satanic impulses and thought that Quakers were possessed by error and sin.
• Some of the poems illustrate how many of the Quaker prophets felt the immediate presence of the Divine or God through the experience of the indwelling Christ.
• A few of the poems explore the imaginative, visionary relevance my 9th great-grandfather, a contemporary figure and his friend Roger Williams, both dissidents and founders of Rhode Island.
• The poems offer visionary, expressive and expansive language drawn from the types and shadows of Old Testament prophets.
• The poems illustrate the importance of Roger Williams and his vigorous dissent from the Puritan orthodoxy and his sympathy for the Narragansett native people.

About the Author

Stanford Searl lives in Culver City, California with his wife, Rebecca Warren Searl and is a member of the non-pastoral Santa Monica Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Santa Monica, California. For nearly twenty-five years, Searl was a Core Professor in an interdisciplinary doctoral program at Union Institute & University until the program closed in 2012. He has published two books about Quaker silent worship, including Voices from the Silence and The Meanings of Silence in Quaker Worship, both published in 2005 and a book of poems, Quaker Poems: The Heart Opened in 2014.

In 2016, Foothills Press published his poetry book, Homage to the Lady with the Dirty Feet and other Vermont Poems and in early 2019, Kelsay Books published a poetry chapbook, the autobiographical Songs for Diana, poems that explore the life and death of his severely handicapped child.

He is working on a new full-length book of poems, The Cider-Press Man and other poems of Long Island’s North Fork. Details about some of these poems appear on his website, stansearl.com and he is on Facebook as well.

Advance Praise:

This, for me, is Stanford Searl at his strongest, blending the themes of space, place, and memory, with the theme of Mary Dyer’s martyrdom, part of his faith heritage. The collection is poignant and lyrical and yet also apocalyptic in the ways it continually lifts the veil and pulls it aside to reveal another layer of a still more subtle sensibility. This is a collection that for all the Quaker silent prayer is musical and melodic in the way it calls to us. Searl engages past and present, roots and routes, to offer us fresh visions of how we can relate to the confusion of the human condition in our everyday context.

—Ben Pink Dandelion, Professor of Quaker Studies, Woodbrooke

Stanford Searl’s tender, lyrical poetry leads us into a past time, arrested, yet brought to life, with mystery and nuance. The harsh receptivity of the Northeast Colonies to anyone not Puritan is laid bare, accompanied by strains of music, sounds of the living marshes, prophecies of my ancient Quaker Mothers of Israel. These courageous souls, neither male nor female in Christ, faithful in the face of hideous persecution challenge my complacency and sometimes tepid engagement with the Spirit. The cruel realities of that fear driven time and place, sadly familiar to our condition today, are juxtaposed with the messages of God’s sure presence. The compelling narrative contained in this delicate collection leaves me buoyed up and inspired by the joy and certitude to which these early Friends gave witness. “I am already in Paradise.”

—Deborah L. Shaw, Recorded Minister,
Director Emeritus of Guilford College’s Quaker Leadership Scholars Program

In 1880, John Greenleaf Whittier poetically evoked the sacrifice of Quaker martyrs to the fears and prejudice of the Puritans in “The King’s Missive.” His verse also captured the continued resilience of those whose “lives preached” in the face of persecution and death. Contemporary Quaker poet Stanford Searl similarly expresses in Mary Dyer’s Hymn and Other Quaker Poems the poignancy of that time (including Searl’s own dissenter ancestry); the witness borne by willing martyrs for a greater cause; and the emotion still experienced by witnesses to such courage and faith. Beyond the stirring poetry and important history, however, are lessons that are still important to learn as latter-day Puritans seek in their own way to take cherished values to the scaffold. Are we willing, like Dyer, Leddra, Stephenson, and Robinson, to face the ultimate sacrifice for a good greater than ourselves? Or are we fated, as another poet (James Russell Lowell in “The Present Crisis”) once penned, to see “Truth forever on the scaffold, / Wrong forever on the throne?”

—Max L. Carter, William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center
and Quaker Studies at Guilford College (emeritus)

Stan Searl’s exquisite poems give us the powerful feeling of being present with Mary Dyer and the other Quakers, whom the Puritans hanged on Boston Common.He has created a collection of voices, and throughout we feel the beauty of Stan’s own singing voice.In this way, these poems are like his other recent book, Songs for Diana, a beautiful book of life and love for his daughter.

—Mike Heller, Professor of English Emeritus, Roanoke College,
author of the Pendle Hill Pamphlet From West Point to Quakerism

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