Welcome to My New Blog

Welcome to my new blog, The Muses’ Refugia, a place for you to set aside your concerns, whether they be the Covid pandemic, climate change, racism, partisan politics, police brutality, sexism, ageism…and relax in company of the arts. 

Refugia? You mean refuge?

Not quite. Refugia is the plural of refugium, a noun coined in 1943, which, according to Miriam-Webster is: 

“An area of relatively unaltered climate that is inhabited by plants and animals during a period of continental climatic change (such as a glaciation) and remains as center of relict forms which a center of relict forms from which a new dispersion and speciation may take place after climatic readjustment.”

I learned the term in 2004 when I first camped at Torreya State Park, in northern Florida. (See: https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/torreya-state-park) The park is a refugium for the Torreya tree (Torreya torreya), a member of the yew family. Several trails lead you through the rugged terrain of the southernmost foothills of the Appalachian Mountains past widely scattered individual Torreyas, or you can see the modest research area where a small team of scientists are trying to cultivate the trees, which are notoriously difficult to propagate. The park is the only area on earth where the trees exist; it is their refugia, their home. 

The Torreya tree became the subject of a poem that was published in The Dire Elegies: 59 Poets on the Endangered Species of North America, which I co-edited with my late husband, Roger M. Weir, and was published by Foothills Publishing in 2006. (See: http://foothillspublishing.com/2006/id137.htm) Those fragile trees sprang to mind as I was plotting the course for this blog. I wanted to create a space—an ecosystem—where my imagination could thrive among the arts. Hence The Muses’ Refugia.

I also hope the blog will help your imagination thrive, too. 

In the offing will be:

• Musings about poetry
• Book reviews
• Interviews with poets, musicians and artists 
• New book alerts
• Photographs and music
• Special guest posts 
• Helpful writing resources
• Occasional foodie observations, including recipes (cooking is an art!)

You will not see posts about:

• Religion
• Politics
• Social activism/advocacy
• Cats, dogs and other furbabies

I hope you will join me in my refugia, and contribute to the conversation, whether as poet or writer, musician, dancer, photographer, or artist.  Please sign up to follow where the Muses lead. I look forward to talking with you.

May your imagination run free.