Hello Bloomers! It’s been a long while since I’ve had the pleasure of conversing with one of our own, giving us all the opportunity to get to know them better. Please give Nolcha Fox (aka crazy4yarn2) a warm welcome!
Nolcha, thank you for allowing me to intrude in your world and pick your brain! If you would, please, let’s start by sharing your poems. Do you have a couple of favorites?
Nolcha: My favorites always change based on what I’m working on. Typically, I have at least two, one funny and one serious. My current favorites are from my book Writing Between the Lines, which released on September 30, 2025. The poems in this book came out of a 30-poems-in-30-days challenge to use two lines/phrases/sentences from published poems as the first and last lines of new poems. Of all my books, this one especially speaks to my heart.
Sport
I am a spectator at my own sport.
My sport is evading morphing decay.
I assume the pretzel posture in yoga.
In my mind, I am the instructor,
unjointed and surgically enhanced.
My underwear protests.
First and last lines from Sandra Cisneros’ poem, “At Fifty I Am Startled to Find I Am in My Splendor”
~~
Dog Days
It floods the forest with loud barks of light,
chases rabbits into shadow burrows,
laps coffee from my cup,
demands I change from robe to jeans
for walk through flowering fields.
It jumps into the muddy creek
and showers me with drops of sun,
the noon, a mystic dog with paws of fire.
First and last lines from Harindranath Chattopadhyaya’s poem, “Noon”
Marie Elena: It can be both inspiring and difficult to use lines from someone else’s poem. I’m sure these poets would be pleased with what you did with their lines!
Here is a very different style of poem that is one of my favorites of yours. It happens to be from Walt’s prompt #572, “I am _____ .”
ALL ME
I am the one you left without a goodbye.
I am the one who cried for years and years.
I am the one who couldn’t let you go.
I am the one who thought that you would come back.
I am the one who wasted hours and hours
waiting for your promises to bloom.
I am the one who
heard you’re doing poorly.
I am the one who visited your room.
I am the one who saw that you were drooling,
I am the one who saw your eyes were vacant.
I am the one you didn’t know at all.
I am the one who knew I could start over.
I am the one who pardoned all my grief.
Now, I am the one who says goodbye.
© Nolcha Fox, 2025
This small, poignant poem is filled with well-penned emotional bits that weave the story. “I am the one who wasted hours and hours waiting for your promises to bloom,” is the point where my eyes misted. And then, I lost it at, “I am the one who saw your eyes were vacant.” My goodness. And that ending …
So, what got you interested in writing poetry?
Nolcha: A friend of mine is an amazing poet. I love her work, and I wish I could write like her. She encouraged me to try poetry. I did, and my first poems were quickly published. I occasionally write flash fiction. But poetry is my first love.
Marie Elena: That’s impressive! What is your process for finding publication “fits” for your poems? That’s something I’m totally inept at.
Nolcha: I’m totally inept at it, too! When I find magazines that seem to fit my poetry, I’m wrong at least 90% of the time. Over time, I’ve found editors who want to regularly publish what I write. I’ve developed relationships with them. It’s a win-win for both of us.
Frankly, as an editor of two literary magazines, I barely have time to write, and I don’t have time to research journals. Call me lazy or call me practical. Or just send coffee and chocolate.
Marie Elena: All the more reason to be thankful we at Poetic Bloomings have the pleasure of enjoying your poems. Thank you for taking the time to write and share with us. And love that sense of humor of yours!
Nolcha: My father gifted me my quirky sense of humor. I refined it through reading MAD magazine (when I was a kid, my aunt gave us a box full of MAD magazines from the 50s, and I read every single one of them), reading the Harvard Lampoon and National Lampoon, and watching really awful horror movies (remember Elivira?)
Marie Elena: Elvira! Yep, I sure do remember her! Late night cheesy horror.
Do you (or did you) have a career?
Nolcha: I was a technical writer in the software and finance industries. I created documents nobody read, and was paid very well for it. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but the money was good, and it honed my writing skills.
Marie Elena: “I created documents nobody read, and was paid very well for it” Chuckle, chuckle …
Can you please explain in what ways technical writing helped hone your writing skills?
Nolcha: I learned to write like Hemingway – clearly, and with as few words as possible. If it was necessary to write about the past, I used simple past tense. For many of my readers, English was their second or third language.
As Sergeant Joe Friday said in a Dragnet episode, “All we want are the facts, ma’am.”
Marie Elena: Writing for pleasure, and writing for a living. You must get much enjoyment in it.
Nolcha: I’m happiest when I’m writing. And when I’m working on my two literary magazines (Chewers by Masticadores and LatinosUSA). As an editor, helping writers to get recognition is a blessing, something I can do to pay forward my love of writing. Writing is a very solitary, isolating life, and getting published is a great spirit-booster.
Marie Elena: Such a generous and encouraging soul! Besides writing, do you have other interests and talents?
Nolcha: I enjoy crocheting, taking walks, spending time with my rescue dogs, and getting a good night’s sleep. Arthritis in my hands slowed down my crocheting. I still indulge once in a while.
Marie Elena: Aww! Rescue dogs! How many do you have?
Nolcha: We currently have two very spoiled rescue dogs, who came to us from Tender Loving Crested Rescue in Houston, Texas. Kiki is a tiny, partially Naked Chinese Crested. She is the alpha dog, and rules the house. Or she tries to.
We think Penny is a Powderpuff, a Chinese Crested with a full body of hair. She was rescued from a woman who hoarded 247 animals. After 8 years of living with us, she is now a sweet, loving dog. But she is utterly frightened when people drop by. Even people she sees regularly.
Then there was Audrey, our Mexican Hairless who passed in October of 2024. She was our old girl. I still miss her.
Marie Elena: 247 animals. Oh my. So sad. I’m glad Kiki and Penny now have a wonderful, loving, stable home. Your pups are adorable!
You mentioned arthritis. I’m sorry to hear that, and that it interferes with your crocheting.
Nolcha: I inherited osteoarthritis. It may have started in my late 40s or early 50s. Both my grandmothers had it, as did my mother later in life. I wouldn’t be surprised if both grandfathers had it, as they worked with their hands. My hands and wrists are a mess, but with careful diet and arthritis medication that I take for my migraines, it rarely bothers me.
Marie Elena: Migraines?
Nolcha: I inherited my mother’s migraines, which she got from her father. My grandfather’s sister had migraines, as did her daughter. One of my uncles had migraines (which surprised my mother), and so did his daughter and her children. There are probably more migraineurs in the family, but nobody ever talked about them.
Marie Elena: That is no fun at all.
May I ask where you are from, and where you live now?
Nolcha: I was born in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where my father was an officer in the Marines. My parents didn’t like living there. At all. As soon as he was discharged, my parents packed up and left. In front of a hurricane. I always remember that when I think back to all the times my father said I was impulsive.
Marie Elena: Sorry to interrupt with my chuckling. Please, continue …
Nolcha: My husband and I retired to Buffalo, a small town in Wyoming, from Los Angeles, California, where I spent most of my life, and hated every minute of it. I’m a small-town girl, but we couldn’t leave because of jobs and family.
Marie Elena: I’m glad you were able to settle somewhere more suitable for you. I’m a small-town girl as well, so I can relate. Also, I’m thankful for your father’s service.
Nolcha, what would you say is the best thing that has ever happened to you?
Nolcha: My first published piece was a short story in a new horror magazine. I was paid $75, more than I’ve ever received for any single piece, and more than I’ve received in royalties for any of my books.
The magazine folded after the first issue. So much for fame.
Marie Elena: What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you?
The worst was the deaths of my baby brother (from suicide), my father, and my mother. My baby brother and I never developed a close relationship, which saddens me even today.
Marie Elena: Oh, no! I’m so, so sorry. May I ask how old your brother was? I can’t even imagine how hard life must be to decide there is no real choice but to end it. And I can’t even say I understand what that is like for the family, as I have no experience to draw from. I’m just sorry you had to endure this.
Nolcha: The details of my brother’s death are foggier and foggier as time passes. He was about 32 when he killed himself, and I believe it was a combination of depression and losing his girlfriend. He died before my parents. If anything good (and difficult) came out of it for me, it was realizing how we all lived in denial, and how broken our relationships were. We were a family in name only.
My father and I had a difficult relationship, but the last couple of years of his life, we were able to enjoy a friendly (and shallow) relationship. I forgave my father, and myself, for all the bad times, so I had no regrets lingering after his death.
Marie Elena: Such a wise woman you are. Forgiveness can of course sometimes (oftentimes?) be easier to speak of than act on. May I ask what your own personal definition of forgiveness is?
Nolcha: It is dropping the burden of anger and disappointment, and reaching out to say, “I’m sorry,” no matter what the initial circumstances were. Ultimately, it’s opening my eyes and accepting what is, not what I want it to be.
After my father died, nobody wanted his ashes. His second wife was falling into dementia, and said she didn’t want to be buried with my father. (I always wondered why her children thought to ask her, given her condition). Eventually, I received his ashes. It was winter, and the ground was frozen, so we couldn’t bury him until spring. I kept him in the middle of our dining room table for 3 months. I asked the mortuary if we could bury my father there. Burials are free if a person lived in town for 3 months. My father qualified as a resident!
Marie Elena: There is something about humor amid trial, isn’t there? So, how did the mortuary respond?
Nolcha: We got a smile or three out of the mortician. Then I asked for a grave marker with a cigar on it. He sent me some samples, and eventually the marker was installed.
Another funny thing: My mother came to visit during the time my father was sitting on the dining room table. They had some peaceful meals together after an emotionally bitter divorce, although my mother was annoyed when I told her later what was in the box.
Marie Elena: Full-out belly laugh!
Nolcha: I visit him a couple of times a year. He is buried in the plot next to the plot of my husband and me. I always imagine him sitting on his grave marker, smoking a cigar, and laughing at my poetry. I won’t lie. I inherited my sense of humor from him.
Marie Elena: I bet that mental image makes you smile.
Nolcha: Yes, it still does. I’d like to catch him at it, but so far, I’ve visited at the wrong times.
Marie Elena: Ha! I let my husband in on all this, and we got to chuckle together. You make me feel like I almost know your father in a way. May I ask about your mother?
Nolcha: My mother and I were close when I was growing up. We drifted apart when I moved away from home, and our relationship was not always easy. We grew closer again when I became an author. She was so proud of me, and so supportive. If it wasn’t for my mother, I would have published only one book (the whole book business makes me crazy). But she was so happy, I soldiered on to publishing more books.
After she died of stage 4 cancer, I put together everything I wrote from the time she went into the hospital until she died into a book, “Cancer Isn’t Just a Constellation.” My publisher released it a month after my mother died. I’m sorry I never had a chance to show it to her.
I miss her a great deal. “Writing Between the Lines” is the last book I put together while she was still alive. Unfortunately, the book languished in publishers’ queues for two years, so she never had a chance to see it.
Marie Elena: How sad that she never had a chance to see it. It warms my heart that you received firm support from your mother for your passion.
You’ve been through so much relationship hardship and loss. I’m sorry, friend. But it is encouraging that you were able to make amends with your parents. May I ask what that looked like? Were you the initiator with both?
Nolcha: My parents were the initiators of both the break-ups and the reconciliations. When my mother broke off contact, I was startled and sad. As time went on, I realized I was no longer a child who needed her to survive.
When my father broke off contact, I was relieved. I didn’t have to please him and his second wife.
I’m grateful to my parents for those break-ups. They grew me up.
I don’t know what made either of my parents decide to call and reconcile. I do know that our relationships became more distant. I still loved them, but I no longer completely trusted them. I saw them as adults with strengths and faults, so I was less reactive.
Marie Elena: May I ask, are you a person of faith? If so, is it something you hold as very private, or are you open about it?
Nolcha: I’ve always been driven to find that Something More, a reason for existence, an answer to pain and suffering. For me, it’s very private. I don’t advertise it. But I wouldn’t know what to do without religion.
Marie Elena: I’m curious how you would define religion.
Nolcha: Different people have different ways of looking at that. Religion gives meaning to life, provides a moral compass, and supports us in times of overwhelming pain and loss.
Marie Elena: Absolutely. I pray God continues to help you mend and strengthen.
And now, my final question: If we could know only one thing about you, what would you want it to be?
Nolcha: The older I get, the happier I am. I refuse to lose my smile, even with chronic illnesses.
Marie Elena: You inspire me. Thank you for your willingness to share your thoughts and life with us.
Below are links to Nolcha’s work:
Editor Chewers by Masticadores
https://chewersmasticadores.wordpress.com/
Editor LatinosUSA
https://latinosenglishedition.wordpress.com/
Blogs:
https://writingaddiction2.wordpress.com/
POETIC BLOOMINGS 