Pat Shannon Leonard

Transfiguration Pat Shannon Leonard

Pat Leonard?s poems have been published in two anthologies, Carolina Voices and 75, The Poetry Society of South Carolina, 1921-1996. Her poems have also been published in several Journals of The Poetry Society of South Carolina, Author of Seashells and Laughing Gulls, Songs of a Sea Island, she has also published in The Chronicle, The Pen Woman and Nature Photographer. She was a regular contributor of poetry to Ashley Cooper?s column, ?Doing the Charleston? in the Charleston News and Courier and The Lesser Squawk, the journal of the Charleston Audubon Society during the 80?s and 90?s. During that time she studied photography and obtained a Certificate of Graduation in Professional Photography from The New York Institute of Photography. She was known throughout the South Carolina Lowountry for her slideshows where she combined her poetry and photography.

In 1979 the coincidence of moving to a South Carolina barrier island with its sub-tropical flora and fauna after completing a course in parapsychology, emphasizing reaching the meditative state through self-hypnosis, awakened the dormant muse. The poems so inspired became Seashells and Laughing Gulls published by Winston-Derek in December of 1983.

Transfigurations is a distillation Pat?s experiences, memories and inner landscapes. Woven throughout the collection is a story of 61 years of married love. She shares with candor the years she suffered manic depression and Bill endured debilitating dementia along with the joys, frustrations, sorrows and, above all, deepening love that came with retirement.