2011 Hawaii Senior Poet Laureate
Calamity Jane Goodin

Calamity Jane Goodin, 50something, Guest Senior Poet Laureate, shown celebrating a New Year, is this contest’s co-founder, aka poetess, writing teacher, photographer Vera Jane Goodin Schultz. The poem was entered from Hawaii because no other entries were received from this state in 2011. VJ believes Hawaii is too beautiful not to have an entry and decided to share this poem on that state’s behalf. It is not a contender for the National Senior Poet Laureate Award. Both Calamity Jane Goodin and Vera Jane are Aries.

THE MYSTERY OF GRANDDAD

On the wall in my office
hangs a fading photograph
of my granddad framed
by my dad with loving hands.

Knee-high boots,
cowboy hat
and a brace of pistols
are my granddad I never met.

This man intrigues me,
handed down in stories of
how he fled the revenuers
and refused to pay poll tax.

This sometime cowboy
and horse trader
and general hell-raiser
of my genetic past.