Susanne Griepp
Susanne Griepp, raised in southern California, has made eastern Washington home since 1977. She’s been a singer and voice teacher, a waitress, secretary, florist, nurseryman, shopkeeper, landlady and Para-Educator.
In both student and adult life, Susanne trained in university settings as a singer and was a member of the Spokane Symphony Chorale for over a decade. She taught singing in our community and K-5 Music at Valley School for several years. Susanne has been a community Arts and Humanities Advocate for over twenty years. In the late 1990s, as a member of Community Celebrations, Susanne was in charge of Chataqua's Center Stage entertainment for three years. She’s a founding member of the Chewelah Arts Guild and the Brown’s Lake Recreation Association. Susanne stated, "I believe we are all creative beings and that a vibrant Arts community supports economic development, and enhances community health and quality of life. The Arts inspire and have the power to bring people together." Her need to create, recycle and re-purpose, means that she enjoys making collages. Susanne has written poetry for over fifty-three years and some of her poems and essays have been published. She’s honored to be a member of a local group that formed in 2009, the Creekside Writers. She lives with her husband, Winston, of 44 years in Chewelah. Blessed with four sons, a step-son and step-daughter, Susanne and Winston are also blessed with nine grandchildren and two great-grandsons. The Marrow is her first book of poems. She is currently working on her next collection. |
Brown’s Lake Ladies
The women sit, a bouquet of blue swim suits on brightly-colored towels in green grass. One Brown’s Lake lady sums up conversation, saying, “Life IS a slippery slope.” “And we’re all carrying such full plates!”, another lake lady in blue agrees, to which a third Brown’s Lake lady leaning forward holding her imaginary plate, peers over her glasses and declares through a sneaking smile, “And this, definitely, is NOT what I ordered!” Like tea cups and small spoons clinking on saucers, their chirps and chuckles rise and fade into surrounding firs and pines, a sheer scarf of sound adrift on summer’s breeze. 7/28/01 I think we can at least agree that… growing old isn’t for the meek truth is fire, and to speak it means to shine and burn certainty surrenders its territory in our minds, we sometimes live dumbstruck in the enormous space of unknowing our hearts are deciduous as trees none of us is exempt from trouble, and we keep going even when we don’t know the destination sadness lives forever just below the skin maturity is a journey inward no matter how small we are, we must never underestimate our ability to help others it’s good to be joyful even though we’ve considered all the facts the secret is starting from scratch |
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