By Jo Anne Mitchum:
This beautifully crafted collection of poetic memoirs reflects everyday events in technicolor.
Just as the common caterpillar transforms into a magnificent butterfly, Nancy’s writing transforms the humdrum into a poetic masterpiece.
With each stroke of her poetic brush, Nancy’s prose tickled my own memories, inviting me to enter her world through memories of my very own.
Nancy’s style demonstrated a perfect match, a marriage between short story and poem where the best of these literary worlds blend to create a charming poetic memoir.
As a dancer myself, I loved “A Butterfly Dancer,” a gritty short story full of wonderful prose portraying “Mama” sewing her
precious little girls dance costumes and butterfly wings.
When you read “Night Child” you can feel the fear of a child who believes she is left alone in the house with only a night light to help her find her way out.
Nancy goes from talking to her Mother when she was alive and young, to talking to her after her death – with ease and compassion.
In this book Nancy uses universal themes which are felt by all of us; life, death, love, agony, and separation.
She does this through a keen picture in her mind, as I said, her own canvas with her poetic brush.
I recommend this book to other readers, as I know it certainly added a splash of color to my day.
Edition #3 – June 17, 2012
WHAT BROUGHT YOU HERE?
By Nancy Denofio
“What Brought You Here,” is a collection of true stories told in poetic memoirs. Each story brings you closer to life you hear, see, feel each word as if you were there, and become part of each story. I have chosen one I enjoy reading to others.
If you read this with emotion, let it flow – you should be there, watching.
YOU ASKED ME TO DANCE
A white butterfly –
You – have come home to dance
on my shoulder – high above
daisies – to spin in circles
casting our shadows on a pond
a rendezvous of seasons, and
a landscape covered in snow.
You fooled me.
Your sisters. . . sister?
No one noticed when she fell
through ice.
A white picket fence keeps
me away.
I feel your wings.
You flutter toward the barn
passing the statue of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.
We dash to skip over holes
in the floor of the barn.
You grab my hand
we skip over light -reflections
sparkle on a wide plank floor.
We pass a broken lantern –
red glass shimmers,
and Grandmother’s wedding
dress is hanging near our
homemade stage.
You grab my hand, and together
we run to the hillside –
we roll into a ball and tumble
“head over heals,” Grandmother
said – “On over grown grass.”
We roll over clover and our toes
tangle in weeds, we roll near
apples left beneath the apple tree.
In winter, I hear you laugh –
your tears roll down your face
you are laughing so hard
you bend to catch your breath.
Your chin captures yellow – a
buttercup, again – the wings
of a white butterfly leads me
to the white picket fence.
The slope disappears.
The apple tree, a twig –
Your face appears in murky water.
Your laughter still surrounds me.
A stone is tossed, and circles
swirl over – and over.
My eyes close as if captured by
swirling water,
and you were gone.
Forgive me.
A yellow eye – inside a white daisy
asked me to dance.
We are leaping across summer
grass near tall weeds – wild flowers.
Our dance ends – so,
I snap your stem to take you home.
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Author – Ghost Writer – Editor – Advocate – Public Speaker – Seminars on Writing – invited guest reader and Radio Host on Page Turners. She is also a Series Editor of “Poetry is Life”.
She won “Woman Writer of the Year” at Notre Dame College in 1994. Nancy writes in several genres – her love is memoir, and non-fiction. Her writing of memoir has given a new way of telling your life story with “Poetic Memoir.”
Her long time project, a book spanning four generations, based on a true story from 1897 to the present day, from the mountains of Sicily, to America. This summer two books will be released “Yesterday’s Child” and, “Did You Ever Want to Fly?” Her first in Poetic Memoir “What Brought You Here?” was published by Dystenium LLC in 2010.
Nancy wrote and spoke on health care from Boston to the White House. Her goal, to interview all Presidential Candidates one on one, which she did, some as long as two hours. She was Honored by President William Jefferson Clinton, for her work on “American’s for Disability Act.”
She spoke side by side with the late, Senator Edward Kennedy for “Save Our Security,” at
Faneuil Hall in Boston.
When Nancy returned to N.Y. she began working on the first Senate Campaign, for Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her district.
A fighter for Health Care for All, brought a recent opportunity, she was asked to serve on the advisory board for the “Broderick Brain Foundation.”
Born in Schenectady, NY, she now resides with her husband in Saratoga Springs, NY.