Christine Ullmann LFABI

Ft. Pierce, Florida, USA

Christine has lived in many part of the US and has written poetry ever since she can remember. She attended Hunter College and Northwestern University and graduated from IRCC in 1980. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Literature From the London Institute of Applied Research in 1994. She's received numerous poetry awards and has been in and edited several literary reviews. A Distinguished Lifetime Member of The International Society of Poets, she has also received the 20th Century Award for Achievement and the world Lifetime Achievement Award. Also the Summit Award for 1994. She retired from teaching reading for 13 years, is active in her church, does volunteer work and writes poetry and is working on novel.

On Poetry

Poetry is the one place.
Where Good and Evil make happy, bedfellow,
Where what matters
Isn't so much,
is it right or moral or true ... as....
Is it beautifully said.
And poetry aims the heart to please.
And not so much the head.

Saplings

I see young saplings in a field,
Standing in a row.
Their branches reach to heaven,
In perpetual prayer.
They are so slum and tender,
That no one would harm them,
O cut them down for wood,
They'll grow there for quite some time,
As all living things should.
Like saplings, I would have my children grow.
When hard winds come.
They bend and bend
and do not break,
And lean and lean,
but do not fall.

My Hope

When I go forth to meet my God,
As I must do some day,
There's little that I'll have to bring.
And even less to say.
"I've laughed, I've cried,
I've sinned, I've died.
And you've been always by my side.
But You know better than I...
I've failed at much and some things made,
But I have these poems, some sad, some sweet,
And then I'll lay them at His feet.
No better words could I then hear,
It would be music to my ear,
If he would,
"You've always been,
A holder of my Golden Pen,
And where you've walked, I too have trod.
You were a pen in the hand of God."