Dear Trisha,
Congratulations, this is just a quick notice to let you know that your poem
The Blues is one of the poems being featured on the PoetrySoup home page this week. Poems are rotated each day in groups of 14-16 to give each poem an equal opportunity to be displayed.
Thanks again and congratulations.
Sincerely,
PoetrySoup.com
Yes, I have at least one family member (who will remain unnamed) who is a 
‘Forever Trumper’. I know this, but I never give up. Periodically asking her if she’s seen the news lately, and what she thought after the latest gaff out of Trump’s mouth.
So here’s how it went the other day:
I asked my relative if she had seen the news in the last few days. She is a very independent woman and I was curious to see 
what she thought about her candidate, after Trump’s position on banning abortion and his comments that day on (His words) “Women will no longer be lonely, afraid and sad. You will be happy. You will be protected. I will be your Protector.”
Personally, my stomach flipped; at Trump’s words. I was physically sickened for a second.
So, I opened the conversation with my relative like this, “Did you watch the news?”
She replied: “No I don’t watch the news, I don’t have time.”
I next asked, “Are you still voting for Trump?”
My sweet, agreeable relative went from 0 to 60 in a nanosecond. She replied, raising her voice: “ABSOLUTELY! I would NEVER vote for that BITCH! She’s a COMMIE! She doesn’t know anything!”
The conversation that I’d hope to have (I never got a word in) devolved into her snapping and snarling at me. I was talking to a cult-member. She’d already drunk the Kool aide. It was too late.
I quickly and politely said I had to go, said goodbye and hung up.
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My Silence has Ended! I cannot be silent any longer!
Silence is Complicity! I am not complicit!
Love and hope,
Trisha
Childless Cat Lady
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Trump said that it will be easy to round up foreign criminals and illegal immigrants, in America, because the local police know of them and know ‘their serial numbers.’”
SERIAL NUMBERS??
What is he talking about ??
Has Trump been reading Mein Kompf again? The last time anyone put ‘serial number’ and ‘human being’ in the same sentence was Hitler and the Jews and we all know how that 
turned out.
I’ve seen a handful of reports suggesting that Trump opened the door to assigning serial numbers to immigrants, but as I’ve watched the full context of his speech, that’s not quite right. Trump suggested that immigrants already have serial numbers.
What’s more, Trump is under the impression that law enforcement officials at the local level have access to some kind of lists that include both the immigrants’ names and “their serial numbers.”
It’s not a big jump from immigrants ‘being assigned numbers’ to tattooing
their numbers on their arms before they join “the mass deportation” that Trump promises and put them on buses, trains, planes, and trains to where…? Interment camps? Who knows?
My Silence has Ended! I cannot be silent any longer!
(or at least not for the next 42 days)
Silence is Complicity! I am not complicit!
Love and hope,
Trisha
Childless Cat Lady
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My Silence has Ended! I cannot be silent any longer!
(or at least not for the next 37 days)
To all you ‘undecided’ VOTERS out there. Don’t look at Donald as a
prospective candidate as President. You’d be wiser to consider if you want
James David Vance as YOUR PRESIDENT. Donald is the
oldest candidate we have ever
had for this most powerful position; he’s 78 years old and has demonstrated that he is diminishing daily. The proof is there whenever he opens his mouth and parrots something someone has told him.
Donald is not healthy. He eats a diet of cheeseburgers and SIX Diet Coke a day, at least. He’s obese (morbidly overweight) and won’t/can’t walk the golf course for a little exercise. He drives a golf cart.
And if he dies, (he’ll be 80 in two years)
JD Vance is Your President! Think about that!!
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My Silence has Ended! I cannot be silent any longer!
(or at least not for the next 44 days)
Silence is Complicity! I am not complicit!
Fact check #3: ‘ Sane washing’:
Sane-washing” is a term used to describe the act of presenting
someone’s radical or incoherent statements in a way that makes them seem more reasonable or normal than they actually are. This is often done by media outlets or individuals who downplay the extremity or irrationality of the statements to make them more palatable to the general public.
For example, this term has been used in the context of political figures, where their more outrageous or confusing remarks are reported in a way that makes them appear more coherent and sensible.
During the Presidential debates Donald J. Trump claimed, that “babies were being ABORTED after 9 months and natural birth.” He claimed that un-named (and unsubstantiated) doctors were quoted as saying, as they set aside the new born baby, that they would “decide what to do with the baby later.”
THIS IS UNTRUE. IF A BABY WAS BORN AND THEN KILLED? THAT IS NOT ABORTION, THAT IS MURDER!
Some media outlets try to ‘sane-wash’ the babbling rambling of a diminished, old, man to try and make sense of his words. Newsflash!
YOU CAN’T!!
Fact check #4: Does Donald even know James David Vance, met his wife, or met his mixed-race children?? James David Vance is married to a brown woman (India). Usha Vance, née Chilukuri, is the daughter of immigrant parents. Is Donald going to deport Vance’s in-laws and his children if elected President?
Poor Donald! In spite of all of his efforts, he just can’t seem to get AWAY from all these BLACK and BROWN WOMEN!
Love and hope,
Trisha
Childless Cat Lady
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The other night Trump was speaking at a Combat Anti-Semitism Event in Washington, DC, 
BOY! THAT’S RICH!!
where he told his audience of Jewish folks that if he lost the election it would “be their fault” and that the Jewish people “had never treated him fairly”. (He just can’t help himself.)
Donald J. Trump has disparaged the Jewish community on so many levels over the years:
In December 2015, Trump gave a speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition, saying, “I’m a negotiator like you folks, we are negotiators … Is there anybody that doesn’t renegotiate deals in this room? This room negotiates them — perhaps more than any other room I’ve ever spoken in.”
Trump has focused particular ire on George Soros (Hungarian-American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. As of October 2023, he had a net worth of $6.7 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations) . He baselessly accused him of funding protesters of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and suggested Soros could be funding the refugee caravan — lending credence to the conspiracy theory that world Jewry is conspiring to bring immigrants into the United States to replace white people (thus the “Jews will not replace us” chant in Charlottesville).
It bears repeating that this kind of thing is very close to what you find in Mein Kompf, by Adolf Hitler.
He was heard to say: “I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”
Trump has repeatedly suggested that “Jews who vote for Democrats are disloyal to Israel and their faith.”
In 2019, he said, “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty”
Trump has also targeted prominent Jewish political figures. For example, he called Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro a “highly overrated Jewish Governor.”
Donald Trump hosted Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Hale-Cusanelli is a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer, who was heard to tell his coworkers (at a naval weapons station) that “Hitler should have finished the job” and “babies born with any deformities or disabilities should be shot in the forehead.”
Fact check #5: Does Donald know Laura Loomer, unashamed racist, 
xenophobe (fear and dislike of anyone from a different country/culture) and all around Looney Tune, his VERY ‘close’ friend and confidant, is a Jewish woman? Laura Loomer is of Jewish descent. She was raised in Arizona and identifies as ethnically, culturally, and politically Jewish. She is quoted as saying: “Roger Stone is one of my personal heroes.”
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Love and hope,
Trisha
Childless Cat Lady
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5 out of 5 stars ~~ Book Review
From the first page, the reader is captivated by the sultry afternoon in the deep South, the cotton fields, the red earth, and the narrative from one small girl.
Be prepared to be unable to put this magnificent story down. Sonny Creech and her family draw you in; sweating as they hoe the fields, worrying about where the next dollar is coming from, putting up with two crass brothers’ antics, and a sudden tragedy that rocks their family.
The characters are so beautifully drawn by this author; the reader feels they have known them their whole lives. Mr. Fowler was a superb villain. I loved to hate him and I was rooting for his downfall, which by the way, wasn’t assured at all.
I highly recommend this book to my readers.
Did you miss my interview with Donna Everhart?
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9/11 Memorial 2024 
We haven’t forgotten that day…we, each, know exactly where we were when that terrible thing happened. That horrific thing that we never imagined could happen here. I remember I turned on the TV at about 10 that morning, going to catch up on a little news…at first, I thought I was seeing a trailer for an action movie on the screen. Then I tuned my ears in and realized the disbelieving tone to the journalist’s voice, the horror at what we were all watching across our nation. And then the unbelievable on top of the unimaginable, another plane slammed into the second Tower.
Americans gathered today in NY City, at the Pentagon, D.C., and in Pennsylvania to pay respects to the heroes lost that day.
WE AMERICANS WILL NEVER FORGET!
9/11 Memorial (2014,) I’ve been watching those terrible days on TV, relived, from 9/11/2001. The release of new, sometimes grisly, information about that horrific, bright blue, autumn day when our beloved cou
ntry was invaded for the first time in our history, (if you don’t count the Brits). Over the years I have written some poetry of my reflections, my heartbreak as I visited ground zero and the firehouses [back in the early days], then observed the almost finished repair a few years back. It’s pretty for a cemetery. The building I’m not so fond of the architecture; for me, it resembles a middle finger thrusting into the same blue sky, daring them to try it again? I don’t know…………so here is my latest offering and a couple from other years on this anniversary of our souls weeping, forever changed.
the forever wound (Haiku)
A deep gaping hole
newly covered with scar flesh
a cemetery
the reflective pond
the bright thirteen year old trees
the lost souls still there
the money-men charge
fees to visit our worst time
Ah, America!
Anniversary 9.11.11
I wait to exhale
will terrorists celebrate
with their big loud bang?
walking among us
to celebrate what they did
murder innocence
today, a grief day
remember a bright, fall day
ten short years ago
Ground Zero 9.11.12
Heartache fills the chest
Terrorists murdered thousands
Pain is fresh and new
Haunts walk the gardens
Four hundred trees, firemen all
the fountain of tears
Green leafed trees stand tall
Names carved never to forget
Red, white, blue flies proud
(c) Trisha Sugarek
The question begs: Have we learned anything?
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Dear Readers and fellow-writers, I have received wonderful reviews
for Ain’t Nuthin’ Gonna Separate Us and I am so grateful for the support.
However, one well-known author, who will remain unnamed here, chose not to support her fellow writer (me) after, literally, years of my supporting her work. She cited the reason was, she objected to the language I used when relating to black folk. She seemed to forget my historical novel takes place in the early 1950’s. When language was far different than what is acceptable and respectful today.
Trust me, I researched it heavily and then asked some of my African-American friends to be beta readers and their feedback was favorable. In the end, I tried my best to write a thoughtful and true depiction of the deep South in the 50’s.
Here’s what others thought of my new story:
“What a wonderful coming-of-age story. In Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Separate Us both Hannah Mae and Jerry will grab hold of your heart and not let go, long after their story has ended.” Kathleen Grissom, author of The Kitchen House
“Sugarek’s outstanding, realistic portrait of the 1950s South and the forces that buffet two children reaching for more than rote safety creates a memorable tale. It will reach a wide audience, from those interested in Southern settings and portraits to readers of coming-of-age stories and sagas of survival, musical growth, and foster care struggles.” ~ Diane Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“The story is very well written, including the poetic moments in the language that gives the narrator a meaningful and convincing voice.” An Educator, Pace University
“Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Separate Us is a vivid and powerful coming-of-age story that is both compelling and uplifting. I loved it – I couldn’t put it down – I love Sugarek’s writing.” ~~ Donna Ashcroft, author of Christmas in the Scottish Highlands
“A yummy read.” Atia, about Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Separate Us
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D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review~~
(Warning! Spoiler alert)
Hannah Mae stepped past the gunny sack that acted as a door to their shack
and walked into the yard. A heavy-set woman in a hideous polyester suit struggled up the dirt path. “Can I hep’ y’all? Ya lost?”
“I’m looking for the guardian for the children of Daisy McAllister. Name’s Betty Jones. I’m from the St. Charles Home’s Ladies Auxiliary, St. Vincent De Paul Society.”
When almost adult Hannah Mae and her younger brother are left orphaned upon their mother’s death, they find themselves at the mercy of the St. Vincent De Paul Society. With her brother young enough to be considered for adoption, Hannah Mae faces the reality that, at sixteen-nearing-seventeen, she is likely to remain under the care of the Catholic Children’s Home until she comes of age to make her own way in the world.
Hannah Mae clings to one mandate—remain at her brother’s side against all odds. And so Ain’t Nuthin’ Gonna Separate Us traverses the rocky world of older siblings raising younger ones sans any family support system, fueled by Hannah Mae’s determination to not let outsiders tear them apart.
Readers who anticipate that the story will revolve around this struggle alone will be pleasantly surprised to find more depth in these still waters, because Jerry is actually a musical prodigy. Hannah Mae finds herself fostering his talent as much as she reinforces his connections to her.
Despite the focus on Hannah Mae in the beginning, the limelight edges over to Jerry’s talents, achievements, and the many changes they portend as the two stand against a world that would divide, repress, or misunderstand them.
Trisha Sugarek cultivates the environment, feel, and culture of the South, setting her story in the small Mississippi town of Laurel in the 1950s. She reviews a lifestyle that opens with siblings threatened by separation, then grows the story to fully embrace the Southern milieu.
Early descriptions cement the story with a sense of place and purpose. This creates a compelling, thought-provoking examination of influences, both personal and cultural, that drive Hannah Mae’s determination to search for remaining family roots despite the risks she takes by evading the foster care system:
Hannah Mae’s reluctance to give anyone their last name and her fear of the foster care system was outweighed by her deep desire to have access to all these lovely books. She whispered, “Hannah Mae and Gerald McAllister.”Jerry, too, grows in unexpected directions as he receives musical instruction on the harmonica that allows his innate genius to blossom. As the tale evolves, its focus shifts between Hannah Mae and Jerry’s growth as each field both new opportunities and adversity.
Whether she’s navigating the foster care system or responding to racial inequalities, Hannah Mae keeps her eyes on the ultimate goal of not just survival, but family connections and growth.
Sugarek’s outstanding, realistic portrait of the 1950s South and the forces that buffet two children reaching for more than rote safety creates a memorable tale. It will reach a wide audience, from those interested in Southern settings and portraits to readers of coming-of-age stories and sagas of survival, musical growth, and foster care struggles.
Sugarek’s attention to probing the underlying responsibilities, choices, and consequences of not just individual action, but systems geared to provide support, is especially notable:
Now a white man, unknown to all of them, was threatening to take her baby brother away from this safe home they’d made for Jerry. Hannah Mae wasn’t certain she could make the right decision for anyone.
Sugarek’s research into blues music (Muddy Waters, in particular) lends realistic background and observation into this world as she spices her own memories of the times with intensive research. This reinforces both the atmosphere and facts about the entertainment industry which dovetail over the social issues of a changing South.
All these facets are why Ain’t Nuthin’ Gonna Separate Us is a thoroughly compelling read that’s highly recommended not just for library collections interested in powerful portraits of young lives under siege, but book clubs. These audiences will find plenty of fodder for discussion in the many ways Hannah Mae and Jerry cement their relationships, values, and life connections.
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