This blog is an experiment in cyberspace by a seasoned citizen born too soon to have built a casual, confident relationship with computers but willing to try.
I intend this as a kind of poetic journal—of whatever I rescue from the compost heap of my daily writing—and to post a poem several times each month.
I hope there will be readers who enjoy and will honor me with a comment now and then, as “littleoldladywho” (say it quickly and with a lilting musical voice!) adds its yodel to the universal din.
I have created a page of “Miscellany” (click above) should anyone be curious about “vitae,”, personal opinions, photos, and other stuff. 🙂
Thank you so much for visiting my blog!
Cynthia Jobin
littleoldladywho.net 
Likeitlikeitlikeit!
Great to talk with you!
Marta
…et de parler avec toi aussi!
This is so beautifully written, like everything else I have read so far on your blog. I’m looking forward to reading more!
It seems you’re a very busy young lady–with that master’s degree just ahead–but I plan to keep stopping by your postings.Thank you for stopping here and for your most kind comment!
Please keep yodelling! The poems I’ve just come across are a delight: warm, witty and beautifully crafted.
Thank you so much, John, for your kind, appreciative comments. I will visit your blog soon, to read and say hello.
Cynthia
Hello Cynthia,
I delight in what I’ve read so far of your poems – and shall be popping over every so often.
Peace and blessings,
Eric
Thank you, Eric, and backatcha!
Your poems make a rewarding read, Cynthia – and I’ve read them all now at least once and many several times. On starting a poem, the reader has that comfortable feeling of being in good hands: we know the verses are going to be impeccably crafted but we can’t predict what path they’ll take.
They can be be funny (Percy Beast Sheltie for example!), touching (Twelve Twelve), deeply moving (such as Patient Belongings), thought provoking (New Year’s Day), beautiful (A Lustrous Robe and Wings), whimsical (Resentful Housecleani …) … oh, that’s enough of a list. Mostly a single poem is more than one of these things anyway.
You said somewhere recently that you might have had an idea for a theme for several poems. There are several themes in these of course, arising naturally I presume, but I certainly look forward to future poems from you.
Do I detect that you spent significant time in Europe (Italy, maybe or France)?
Unaccustomed as I am to attention, nevermind appreciation, for my poetry, I receive your words with great embarrassment and deep pleasure. To answer your question, I did travel in Europe and the UK many years ago but did not stay “significantly.” The influences you detect probably stem from early bilingual education with French Canadian nuns (I thought God spoke only French since I learned to pray in that language!), and from overexposure in later life to an exuberant, extended, Sicilian-American family that “adopted” me.
I am off now to make my weekly poem posting. The scribbling is inveterate but the blogging is still new and so far I enjoy it. It provides an excuse to finish things, but best of all it allows me to meet and share this funny work of ours with a lovely fellow poet like you.
Thank you for responding to my rather direct questions, Cynthia. The poems make their way on their own two feet without any help from biography, but I couldn’t help being curious. I love the story of those nuns! My own school was a boys only grammar school here in England where DH Lawrence had once taught – but they hushed that up!
I have just found your blog via Ina who is a dear friend. So I rhought Id pay you a friendly visit. 🙂
You mention above that blogging can possibly tend to fictionalise and I thought that’s what I
would do. But it turned out just the opposite! I have a progressive form of MS and started writing on a friend’s suggestion that it may help me come to terms with/manage my condition. I had never written anything till 2011 and never successfully kept a journal. There were many promises to myself so to do, but they were always snapped in two after about a month.
So I write some therapeutic ones relating to disability and have even had a request this week to submit a few for an MS anthology! I am only just branching out beyond the illness to write other stuff and Im enjoying it. I dont really know what constitutes talent for writing, but I just become brave and stick it out there! I know nothing!!
Its good to “meet” you and I will follow 🙂
Christine 🙂
Nice to meet you, Christine……
I guess we’re opposites in one sense—I’ve been writing poetry all my life. But writing is good therapy, I think, for anyone. Maybe I’ve been doing self-therapy all my life! I wish you courage with your physical challenges. I’ll be stopping by your blog to say hello.
I think the public eye on our work you have highlighted above only prompts us to strive for the best work we can produce. I consider myself an amateur, but viewing the work of others in this way challenges me to try and match their professionalism.
I think what you say is true. I am also an amateur…..a word I like because it means “a lover of” and poetry is mostly written not for money, but for love.
Indeed it is!
I like the variety of your topics. Amazing.
Thank you! And I shall return the compliment by coming over to visit your site very soon…
Most welcome! 🙂
Hi Cynthia–just stopped by to thank you for your interest in my blog, which is currently in Private status while I figure out which end is up. I’m not posting, or reading blogs–hope to return in some form, and if I do, will contact you again then. Take good care of you, God bless.
Thank you for responding; I was worried about you, but I understand. Do keep in touch. All my good wishes. 🙂
Thank you for caring enough to worry–I’m in a ridiculously deep dark ditch. Love to you.
Backatcha!
Hi Cynthia, I saw you on someone else Blog and thought I just have to come and say hello, you amaze me, I’m still Computer illiterate and encounter problems from time to time, I’m so pleased things are going well for you, I very much appreciate your life wisdom.
Christian Love – Anne
Hello Anne—It’s very nice of you to stop by and leave a greeting. I appreciate it and will be over to visit soon!
Stumbled onto your glorious site at the suggestion of another LOL. Your poems are quite wonderful and I look forward to reading more.
Thank you so much! I will be over to your blog soon to return this lovely gesture!
Count me in please. I am really excited about discovering your blog Cynthia. What an adventure. 🙂
I see you’ve been about the blog today, and am pleased you found it to your liking. Yes, we will keep a connection….welcome!
Thank you kindly. 🙂
Nice to find you on IPM 2015 and to discover that we use the same theme for our poetry blog, the happiest one!
How nice to find your comment here, Anna. I was just over to visit your blog and I know I will return to read again. My studies and training, like yours, are also in the arts, and I have a great love for Italian culture, though I do not speak the language. Very often, I can follow written Italian because my French and Spanish helps!
Amazing that we have the same wordpress theme. You know what they say: great minds think alike!
Thanks for the visit and the “likes”.
Just arrived from Margaret-Rose’s place and as I told her, too exhausted to linger tonight, but very impressed and pleased with what I sampled. Will be back for a longer visit in a couple of days when I can linger. Thank you so much. Your poems I read tonight are smart, clever, and wise.
Perhaps all your others are totally lame.
But I doubt it.
So nice to read your comment here…and I’ve been enjoying your comments at M-R’s salon too.
Thanks for reading some poems I try not to post the really lame ones, but a few may have slipped through! The blind eye to one’s own…. 🙂
You know full well I was merely cracking half-wise, as I do. I’ve been enjoying your salon contributions, as well–straight out “damn the torpedos”. Great : )
I am snooping around in your blog. I saw your name/avatar often at M-R’s post. We both belong to her salon and I thought it might be nice to finally meet 🙂 I have no idea if you can delete the other comment…I will try to figure out what just happened.
Hello to you, too…I’m not sure what you mean about another comment…I haven’t found it
yet….but I’ll be over to visit your blog soon! 🙂
Greetings Cynthia. Taking a moment to stop in from M-R’s link and I am delighting in your writing. I look forward to digesting more of your site and truly savouring the flavours. Back soon. ❤
Glad you found your way to my blog, because I’m charmed by what I’ve read so far of yours. I’ll be looking forward to reading more of your lovely work. All the best, and happy writing.
Your blog is lovely. I look forward to following!
Thanks for your follow Cynthia. I have been enjoying your lovely poems.
Hi Cynthia – have just seen the notification of your follow! Thank you! Apologies for not responding before – not sure what happened! Great to know you are still on board! 😁
I’ve been following you for a long time, Rob, only last week I had some computer problems and had to re-set everything. 🙂
Yes, I thought you may have done a reset (I had to do one with Christine’s site last week) – hence the thanks for staying aboard! 🙂
Cynthia – I nominated you for an award: the Sunshine Award. I don’t know if you do awards, but anyway it’s a bit of a free advert.
Is there any money in it?
Heaps.
In that case, (but mostly because it’s you nominating, and I’ve taken a fancy to you) I will be happy to accept….as long as I don’t have to answer a lot of personal questions or put any garish displays on my home page. (I have a “Miscellany” page for that.)
You’re a sweetie. Thanks for thinking of me. If I can’t fulfill the requirements, then I will understand perfectly your rescinding the award. It’s always the thought that counts. And I will assume the check is in the mail.
You have probably said enough about yourself already on your blog without adding further. I would very much like to pop over to Maine to present the award myself. If I were to be re-incarnated I would like to live in Jackman, Maine. For no reason at all it was the town in the whole world that most appealed to me.
Jackman is a couple hundred miles due north of where I live. I’ve never been there, except to travel thru on the way to or from Sherbrooke, when I was very young. My grandparents knew the place, though; I often heard the word “Jackman” when they reminisced about their Quebecois ancestors….which they often did, always in French— the language you use when you don’t want the kids to know what you are talking about….heh…heh..heh..
I used to pass through Jackman when on the way from Portland to where I live in Saint-Victor, Quebec. It was the last English-speaking town before crossing the border. My French was/is so bad that I used to stop in Jackman for a final Anglais-natter.
Hi Cynthia,
I saw that you liked my About post on my old Secret is Wags blog … I’d forgotten that was still there. LOL Thank you for visiting! I have moved on from that blog … I tend to use blogs as stepping stones to move across the flow of life and emotion and expansion.
I discovered you because my friend, Paz, of NYMinute, shared with me her exchange with you about poetry. I LOVE what you told her about jumping in and writing what you feel. I have been writing poetry off and on for 30 years. It’s not the focus of my published writing, although I had a couple poems published in small journals many years ago. I use poetry as a way to get past the “gatekeeper” in my brain and discover the deeper truths hidden within.
I am looking forward to following your work from this point forward.
Just catching up on my reading today….I’ve been to your Gravatar profile, but when I click to go to your blog, the site comes up Japanese….or Chinese…I can’t tell which! Anyway, I thank you for all your kind words here and look forward to further encounters in blogsville.
Cynthia, I can tell already that I am going to enjoy your blog very much. Thank you for doing this I look forward to visiting you online often. hugs 🙂
Thanks, Heather. I’ll be over to visit soon.
I must admit I decided to visit because I get a kick out of reading your comments on Bruce Goodman’s blog. Nice to say hello and take a look around your ‘house.’ It’s furnished quite nicely with some fine poetry. Not being a poet myself, I’m always impressed with those able to not only make a rhyme but, in the doing, also tell a compelling tale.
Hello Kate—Bruce’s blog is so much fun; sometimes it brings out the idiot in me! And he’s very tolerant of that—in fact likes to join in the foolishness. I’ve been to visit your blog and find it very interesting. I admire people with the ability to spin a good yarn, and I’ll be back, I am sure. Thank you for stopping by and commenting here!
Bruce makes everything fun… and your comments go well with his. It was a pleasure to stop by and say hello. I’m sure I’ll see you at Bruce’s ‘joint.’ 😀 😀
I did it! My first recording. Thanks for your help! http://randomstoryteller.com/2015/02/26/on-language-when-whales-become-wells/
Yes you did! And it is a treat to hear your voice…especially on this piece about language and regional accent. Bravo!
Thanks, Cynthia! I plan to record the short pieces–“poems” such that they are. I also recorded my “welcome” and my “about moi.” It’s fun, but it takes time. I had to try 3 times on the “whale” piece. I figure it will get easier.
Yes, it does get easier with time. You will be a pioneer in some sense. Not many folks are doing this with their writing, though visual images proliferate. You go, girl!
Okay, Cynthia–try this one. On my home page (sticky post Welcome), you will find my 5-second farewell–in the voice of Elly Mae Clampett (“The Bevery Hillbillies”) saying goodbye. Too bad my oral interp prof did not live to see this. Finally–a purpose.
I have only two poets I follow – so I will make it three now!
Thank you, Noelle!
Your poetry is beautiful and sophisticated and grounded, full of deep imagery and rich references. It is August…and I read what you wrote about August…I hope that you are finding comfort and solace this month.
Thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, time heals to a certain degree, and I have had fun re-posting this month, to give myself time and space. I have always thought poems deserve more than one reading, anyway! I’m happy you came to visit and read. I’ll be over to your site soon! Thanks again.
Hello Cynthia!
I know that you don’t care for these blog awards, but I’ve nominated you anyway. Please visit my site for details. Go on have a laugh.
You’re a dear, Oscar. I have responded at length on your site.
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I didn’t think (bad preconception) that anyone on a blog could write worthy poems, my bad. So talented.
What an encouraging comment to find here, today. I am pleased you find the poems worthy, and also humbled….if they are the music, I am as often the instrument, as the player, and I thank you!
I saw your name and thought it clever, but now I hear it and think you brilliant. Yours is a lovely spot.
Hello Julie…I am honored that you stopped by and encouraged by your kind words. I shall be over to visit your spot, too, very soon!
Hello. This is great blog! And I llove how You read Your poems too – it is great for those who do not see so well anymore + for learning English. +I wish my mum was so adveturous with computers (and she is much younger). I LOVE it here 🙂
Thank you so much. And welcome!
Sitting quietly with the sun not yet risen, I think of Cynthia, whose poetry and friendship have meant so much to me since discovering her blog two-and-a-half years ago.
With her wide vocabulary and mastery of form, her humanity, humour and skill in painting pictures in the mind, Cynthia was a most amazing and versatile poet. Her finely-wrought work was not only entertaining but deeply moving and thought-provoking too, playful and profound by turns, even sometimes inviting contemplation of the great mysteries.
We have to be thankful for the beautiful poetry Cynthia left behind for us to treasure; thankful for her friendship too, the warm, lively friendship she showed towards each of us individually who made up her online community. Our world is surely the richer because of her.
In quiet moments like this, when I might have been responding to her latest poem or replying to one of her wonderful comments on my own blog, I will remember “littleoldladywho”.
My sincere condolences to her family.
Paul Beech