“Cantatrice” poem about a toddler published in Encore

My poem “Cantatrice” just got published in Encore (January 2025 issue) on page 28. This poem is about my friend’s daughter when she was a toddler and was acting up a bit in a restaurant. My friend is a choral conductor, so that is why I use musical imagery in the poem. I wrote it in 1979. The poetry editor of Encore is Margaret DeRitter. I’m happy to have this poem published after so many years of sending it out. #poetry #lyricpoetry #children #music

Photo of Janet Ruth Heller by Darrin Goodman

Janet Ruth Heller

I am the past president of the Michigan College English Association. I have a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. I have published four poetry books: Nature's Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus (WordTech Communications, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012) and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011). My scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama, was published in 1990 by the University of Missouri Press. My fiction picture book about bullying for children, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edn. 2022), has won four national awards. My play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed twice at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival on June 24-25, 2011 in Fenton, Michigan. Triton College produced another play, Pledging, as part of its Tritonysia Play Festival in May 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (2022).