LatinosUSA

Barbara Harris Leonhard is a phenomenal writer and also editor of MasticadoresUSA.

Let me say that Barbara Leonhard’s poetry is curated in various literary magazines and anthologies. She has also written a best-selling poetry collection Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir (Experiments in Fiction, (2022), which is about her relationship with her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease. Barbara’s poetry has received awards and honours from Well-Versed 2021 and Spillwords Press. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Trending Poets named her Poet of the Year 2023. This year, Barbara and Nolcha Fox have launched a new book: Too Much Fun to Be Legal, with The Garden of Neuro Institute. Barbara lives in Mid-Missouri with her husband and their cat Jasper, who refuses to go on drives to count deer.

BARBARA IN HER OWN WORDS

LatinosUSA: Who are your major literary/artistic references?

Barbara: It’s difficult to pinpoint all those who have influenced my thinking and writing. It’s interesting that I’ve returned to those whose works I was introduced to in my undergraduate and graduate years. I was profoundly influenced by Carl Jung. His Red Book taught me to journey inside, to go deep into the self. Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces taught me about archetypes and mythic figures, all of whom are at the soul of all my writing. Aristotle and Plato have also influenced how I interpret symbols and organize my thoughts.

Many poets have taught me over the years. Emily Dickinson, her mystical lines and slant rhyme. Anne Sexton, her clever, dark, and crafted works. Robert Frost, his attention to format, rhythm, and rhyme. Elizabeth Bishop, her attention to detail and craft. I envy all those who were able to write ancient and modern epics. I’m drawn to humor and noir, so today, Nolcha Fox and John Yamrus influence me. Of course, Shakespeare, Blake, Burns, Herbert, Wordsworth, and other classic poets influence me. I also love poetry from other countries and cultures. Lately, l have been reading Palestinian poets. I’m drawn to study those who become poet laureates, such as Joy Harjo, Ada Limón, Ted Kooser, and Walter Bargen. I have also been influenced by Robert Bly, David Whyte, John O’Donahue, and the contemporary wisdom teacher and philosopher Michael Meade, who writes of the powerful interplay of our archetypes and mythic figures in our current lives.

LatinosUSA: What makes you a writer? What do you like to write about? What is your plan for the next five years?

Barbara: I’m a writer because I’m compelled to explore feelings and tell stories. I started writing poems and stories at age 8. School and work always competed, but I had some publications in college. After I retired in 2017, I’ve had much more time to write, and having learned a great deal in my life, I had more to say, as well.

Currently, I’m the Editor for MasticadoresUSA, which I donate time to, and it’s so much fun. Having also published Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir, (EIF- Experiments in Fiction, 2022), I’m looking for a new project. Nolcha Fox and I have a book releasing sometime this year with Garden of Neuro Publishing. It’s called Too Much Fun to Be Legal, a collection of collaborative noir poems about aging, grief, and loss. (This last book Barbara mentions has already been published).

LatinosUSA: Do you write about your life, your feelings/emotions, yourself?

Barbara: I tend to write memoir poetry, but I also write articles about topics that matter to me, such as measles encephalitis, which almost killed me when I was six going on seven before the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine was available. The year I caught measles was the worst outbreak in the U.S. Encephalitis is dangerous brain swelling, which causes paralysis, coma, and death. Surviving measles encephalitis without disability and brain damage is rare. Miraculously, at age 7, I taught myself how to walk again.

I’ve also written about the dangerous effects of diethylstilboestrol (DES), a drug prescribed to pregnant women from 1938 to 1971. This drug harmed the fetuses’ reproductive systems and created cancers later in life. Fortunately, I found a DES specialist who prevented many cancers from developing in my body.

I’ve written about other health topics, such as Alzheimer’s, from the viewpoint of caregiving. My debut poetry collection, Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir, is about my caregiving for my mother, who had Alzheimer’s. It also covers my DES wounding and her care of me when I had measles encephalitis.

I’ve written some poems about my husband and me which are not sentimental love poems, mostly ironic and humorous with a story line involving events in our lives.

I am also inspired to write poetry about current events, such as the war in Ukraine, the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S Capital, the death of George Floyd, the development of artificial intelligence, and other current topics.

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I would like to thank Barbara for such a wonderful interview and for her time and her magnificent efforts editing MasticadoresUSA, a phenomenal magazine in which I am also a contributor. And in closing I would like to delight one and all with one of Barbara’s poems.

This sample poem is in my book Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir. In a rogue dream poem, the poet reimagines a tragic outcome. In my case, I reimagined my mother’s death in mythic terms.

Mermother: A Rogue Dream Poem
-After Melanie Figg

I.
Mother sits, her back to me.
How can I see into her eyes,
into her maelstrom of memories,

tossing and turning thoughts,
clouds reflected in vertiginous waves.
Watching for mishaps,

I guide her onto a lifeboat.
“Where do you want me, Hon? Here?”
“Sit there, please.”

She sits elsewhere.
I salvage the bills and pills,
her CPAP for clear and calm dreams.

“Whatever you want, Hon.”
“Not what I want. What you need.”
She removes the mask when I leave.

II.
She slips away into tumbling waves.
Mermother, her stories of elusive coral treasure.
Her travails in Kulilu and Melusina. Rescues

of sailors who solved her riddles. Her songs
with her lover, Trewhella. Her battle with Hecate
to retrieve her pearls.

Suddenly I am her octopus friend.
I gather her in my arms
and swim up for air.

III.
The good days at the mall,
shopping for rings, new handbags,
Alfred Dunner outfits.

Lunch at Panera’s, ice cream
at Café Court and a movie. At Hallmark,
we shop for sympathy cards.

I am spending too much money.
My husband says, “You have to.
She’s your mother.”

IV.
When the storm waves recede,
I find my mermother laid to rest on the shore,
her string of pearls broken.

Her eyes meet mine. I wipe her gills.
Her lips turn blue
and pulse to stillness.

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CHEERS