So this was Thursday’s bizarre, abrupt twilight snowstorm. Look how beautiful and blue the sky was before snow and night fell together. Look at the size of the flakes!
Tag Archives: Roanoke
My mediocre mountain shots.
March 2018. One of the things that I love about Roanoke is how its mountains are obscured on overcast days by low-lying clouds. It’s the kind of thing that would have been unheard of where I grew up — on the uniformly flat Long Island. I doubt the novelty of it will ever fully erode.
They say Montana is “Big Sky Country,” but Roanoke could be a contender.
February 2018.
Roanoke’s first snow, January 2018
These are from the winter’s first snow on Wednesday. I believe those tracks you see were made by a raccoon.
Oh, Roanoke. *loose/lose
Yes, I do realize that only an approval-seeking pedant will broadcast the fact that he found an error in a newspaper headline. At least I’ve got that self-awareness thing going for me. And I make plenty of my own mistakes right here on this blog. Somebody called me on the unforgivable *your/you’re confusion just last week.
Hey, I spent a couple of years on the other side of the desk where this kind of nitpicking is concerned. When I was a reporter, there were people who positively loved to call us when they spotted a mistake.
If you’re ever inclined to do that yourself, then please bear two things in mind:
- You are almost never the first one to alert the paper’s staff that an error has slipped past them. It’s usually spotted by someone either in the newsroom or in the advertising department, before anybody calls it in; and
- Mistakes in headlines are rarely made by the reporter who wrote the story. They can usually be attributed to someone at the editorial level, who prepared the layout. (The editors read the stories’ content, and then draft an appropriate headline according to the amount of space allowed by the layout.)
Firewood and Christmas trees for sale in Roanoke, Virginia
It started snowing in Roanoke.
Even though you actually can’t tell from this picture, which I now realize. Dammit.
Use your imagination.
Autumn leaves, Roanoke, Virginia, November 2017
Not all of these shots are great — obviously. The last two, though, I’m kinda proud of.
Publication notice: Poetry Pacific features three poems by Eric Robert Nolan
I’m honored to share here that the Vancouver-based Poetry Pacific published three of my poems today in its biannual issue: “This Windy Morning,” “Redbud Leaves,” and “Delaware Sheets.” You can find all three at the link below.
“This Windy Morning” envisions a ghost story for my adopted city of Roanoke, Virginia. “Redbud Leaves” is a very short nature poem I wrote while I lived among the hills of Northern Virginia, and “Delaware Sheets” is a short love poem that wrote a few years back. This third piece was published previously by Every Day Poets, Dead Snakes and UFO Gigolo.
I’m quite grateful to Editor-In-Chief Yuan Changming for selecting my work for publication. The Autumn Issue features outstanding work from 73 poets and three visual artists.
http://poetrypacific.blogspot.com/2017/11/3-poems-by-eric-robert-nolan.html
Piper at the Gates of Nolan
Here’s one for my to-do list — I need to learn the flute, call upon my Irish heritage, and then lead all the skunks out of Roanoke, in the same manner as St. Patrick led the snakes out of Ireland. (He used a flute, right? And is this basically the same story as the Pied Piper? Is one derived from the other?)
Dear God, the smell of those skunks is categorically toxic. It is quite possibly the only downside of living here. That odor is one problem that my native New York does not have. Hell, I’m willing to bet even New Jersey doesn’t have it.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 