Most people know Julie Marie Swanson as a retired nurse. But there is another side, a poetic side. Swanson recently published her second book of poems. Her poetry is about people, the old and the young, the sick and the dying, and the fleeting moments she observed. It is about the beauty of nature and solace in walking among the trees and hills. There is an underlying sense of peace in the face of death and the struggles of life.
Swanson’s latest book of poetry, titled “Webs and Irises,” is 56 pages and includes dozens of poems written over her life. The work was published last year by Pegasus Publishers in Cambridge, England.
“I hope the poems bring about an awareness of the beauty in nature and relationships with other people,” said Swanson, 79.
For Swanson, the keyword is awareness. Awareness of someone else’s suffering to awareness of one’s connection with nature.
“From the simplicity of nature to the gravity of mourning, every one of these poems encapsulates and assigns significance to the most fleeting of moments,” the book’s introduction says.
Swanson started writing poetry when she was in her early 20s and wrote a book of poems, “Spirit Within,” which she self-published in her early 40s. She wrote another poetry book in her early 50s, “The Typewriter,” released by a now defunct publisher.
Swanson, whose pen name is Julie Marie, was born in Far Rockaway, New York, and moved to Oceanside in the early 1980s with her two sons. She worked as a nurse at a private practice and later at Elizabeth Hospice in Escondido. She lost her husband, Bruce, tragically, in her late 20s. There is a poem about him.
Some poems are about the people she met in hospice, like the poems about Alice and Gwendolyn.
“These poems give different perspectives of people who are approaching death,” Swanson said.
There is a peacefulness in the poems. Some start with Swanson’s observations of life around her and then take on a deeper meaning as she delves into deeper questions about life. A spider falling from its web, a crow by the freeway, a blade of grass pushing upward or three people staring ahead as they wait at a bus stop.
She’s always felt close to nature even as a child, she said. When she came back to the East Coast to visit, she felt solace walking in the woods. Now she walks by the ocean and through the hills of Oceanside.
“I have always been connected deeply in my awareness of nature,” Swanson said. “I hope that my book not only brings joy to its readers, but also opens a window for them to all that is around”
“I am going on 80 years old and find this time very peaceful as one moves closer to dying,” Swanson said.
The poems are not long and have different layers of meaning.
There is a spiritual side to the poems. “There is beauty in the spirit–one can’t understand it,” Swanson said. “I believe the spiritual life goes on afterward and is even better.”
The book is available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and other sites online.
