As an elementary teacher, my world revolved around words and language, but I came to writing poetry at a much later age. After the passing of my father I found that words, images, emotions crowded my mind, often spilling over with intensity. I had a strong need to “write” and not just teach. I found myself carrying pencil and paper in my pocket, so I wouldn’t lose the words that seemed to be thrown my way. From this came some form of poetry, rough and juvenile at first, but I found myself wanting, needing to continue to explore and refine what I would jot down. In high school I had not enjoyed poetry, but now I had found a new love and my eyes opened to the wonders of poetics. My writing has been influenced by such poets as Lucy Maud Montgomery, W.H. Auden, P.K. Page and contemporary poet John B. Lee.

My poetry embraces my world and environment – exploring the past, delving into the future and living in the present. I explore the relationships of man and nature, reflecting on the spirituality of my life. A great deal of my writing reflects on family relationships and stories. Nature, its beauty as well as its destructive forces, plays a major role in my work. I enjoy the challenge of painting a picture or creating “music” expressed through words. I find inspiration in everyday things – a fierce storm, baking cookies, the song of a bird on a summer day or sometimes even a documentary on TV. My poetry tends to be very visual, trying to explore the many facets of everyday life, something everyone can understand and enjoy.

photo courtesy of Stella Mazur Preda

Biography of Stella Mazur Preda

                  photo courtesy of Stella Mazur Preda

The plane effortlessly noses through
sheets of billowing white canopy
invisibly suspended over city greyness
The brilliance of the solar flare
painfully pierces my eyes
Fields of white clouds scored by
rivers of iridescent blue sky
a game of X’s and O’s for the deities
A speeding shadow streaks the horizon
skims the milky white terrain
like a pebble jumping lake waters
Measured breaths silently explode
I am swept on a solitary journey
have crossed the threshold to Shangri-la

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Row houses, scrunched shoulder to shoulder,
beady little windows eye the sleepy dead-end street
as early light intrudes on the mute ebony night.
A young girl sits cocooned in the arched stairwell
of the porch; book in hand she is spirited
to worlds beyond her existence.

She is Nancy Drew, stuck knee-deep in a sloppy mystery,
leaping through the pages in pursuit of a criminal.
She is Scarlett O’Hara, passionate, exquisite, loved by all.
She is Miss Marple, sedately riding the rails on
the Orient Express; quiet resolve, keen observation
and the scallywag murderer is eventually exposed.

She breakfasts on luscious fruits in the French Riviera;
lunches amid ruins at a century villa in old Tuscany;
dines on colours and flavours of New Orleans Mardi Gras;
holds court with the Goddess Athena in antiquated Parthenon.
Like the shifting grains of sand on Egypt’s desert,
aged words bear witness, mummify moments in time.

Doors slam abruptly; girlish shrieks slice the blushing dawn
as giddy neighbourhood friends swarm the stairwell.
The milkman’s wagon plods the street, the horse barely awake;
the coal man rumbles his bins to the house next door.
The little dead-end street is reincarnated with new life.
She snaps the book closed on her secret world.

Born in Germany, to parents of Polish heritage, Stella immigrated to Canada with her parents in 1948 at the age of two. After high school, she entered Toronto Teachers’ College and began a teaching career, her life-long dream. She began writing poetry in 1992, but for several years did not pursue publication of her work. After she retired from teaching, she became much more serious about her writing. She also found a latent interest in photography and gardening.

In 1999 Stella discovered the Tower Poetry Society. Since then TPS has played a major role in her life and in the development of her poetry. Her poetry has since appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. Her first book of poetry, Butterfly Dreams, was published in March 2003. Her poem My Mother’s Kitchen was purchased by Penguin Books, New York and published in an anthology entitled In My Mother’s Kitchen, in May 2006. She has been a featured reader at Hamilton’s LiT LiVe reading series and The Raven’s Calling reading series in Cambridge; she is an active member of several poetry organizations.

In 2003, Stella opened a small press publishing company, Serengeti Press. In 2003-2004, she served as President of the Rendezvous Club, an organization of retired women teachers in Toronto.

Her second book of poetry, The Fourth Dimension, has just been released in June 2012.