The Ugly Duckling by Hank Cotton

My Angel Wears a Helmet by Joe Nichols

and Myths & Monsters by Emma Steel

This competition serves as AN ADVERTISEMENT for Substack writerswho are willing to participate or whose work is nominatedANDto those Substack authors who agree for their books listed as possible reward for the winner to choose from.

Please SUBSCRIBE, RESTACK and VOTE!

Thank you!

https://awomansperspective.substack.com/s/womens-perspective-podcast

I followed someone here a year ago. Then soon I unfollowed her. Not because I didn’t agree, but because what she pushed wasn’t what I was focusing on. Wasn’t my way.

I arrived and got caught up in the labyrinth of words. The stories, the poems. I realized that we all have our own and none is less or more valuable than the other. Then what’s the point of pushing mine?

I shared what I wrote: My novella. My baby. My story. And stayed on. I got involved in this love affair with words and metaphors. With magic spells and thoughts. I looked at myself in the mirror. There I found distorted pictures and honest crows wearing their cloaks.

Literature (poetry and prose) and English were always a part of my life. One big love that I pushed aside for longer than I should have. It gave me peace, a foundation when it seemed my life was to collapse, when I didn’t see who I was.It’s still a sanctuary, where I feel truly alive, where I can be me when I write or when I relive feelings through reading. When someone’s words move me (to tears). Even the hurt. It hurts so good. I feel it because I am alive.

I once said I have two muses. Now I have more. You inspire me. You are the reason I fell in love again. I look up to you for your creativity, your knowledge, bravery, how you withstand what life throws at you. How you gather what’s left and fight some more. Never giving up. Fight for what matters. With dignity. With composure.

”She, with her silver hair, sparkling eyes and her earrings dangling happily, standing in her garden, amongst her flowers, while the circus passed down the street with elephants and monkeys and all of the sudden she was once again a little girl with wonder in her eyes and I stood beside her. She placed her hands on my shoulder and smiled.We were together, looking at those beautiful big creatures walking quietly and seeing their feet and eyes. Always the eyes.Keep. Keep her alive by being her. The world needs that spark.”- A spark and a smile April 5th, 2025.

I don’t identify as a writer or a poet, even if I’ve written both poetry and prose. There was a time when I wanted to become a teacher. Instead I became a student. Now I came to realize that I am not more than a tool and I am happy with this revelation. I see an opportunity and use it.

My goal was to speak to that girl in the distance. To tell her that if I could do it, so can she. To give hope.So that’s what I focus on now. To speak to her and to speak to him, too. That boy on the beach. And all the other girls and boys.

Thank you for the reminder that what we can do to change things for the better is to educate the youth and raise awareness. With our words. By being living examples, role models (whether we want or not). To make a difference one word, one post, one poem, one live at a time.

“I’ll leave you with the last sentence that became my motto and of which I try to live by:”It’s better to go the distance than not and then later regret not having the experience.””

So please join me in my efforts

at HC Tales (here) / Harriet Corvine Talesat https://harrietcorvine.comat Women’s Perspective andat Short Stories and Tales

Thank you.

Harriet

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A Dunánál (Hungarian)

1A rakodópart alsó kövén ültem,néztem, hogy úszik el a dinnyehéj.Alig hallottam, sorsomba merülten,hogy fecseg a felszín, hallgat a mély.Mintha szívemből folyt volna tova,zavaros, bölcs és nagy volt a Duna.

Mint az izmok, ha dolgozik az ember,reszel, kalapál, vályogot vet, ás,úgy pattant, úgy feszült, úgy ernyedett elminden hullám és minden mozdulás.S mint édesanyám, ringatott, mesélts mosta a város minden szennyesét.

És elkezdett az eső cseperészni,de mintha mindegy volna, el is állt.És mégis, mint aki barlangból nézia hosszú esőt - néztem a határt:egykedvű, örök eső módra hullt,színtelenül, mi tarka volt, a múlt.

A Duna csak folyt. És mint a termékeny,másra gondoló anyának öléna kisgyermek, úgy játszadoztak szépenés nevetgéltek a habok felém.Az idő árján úgy remegtek ők,mint sírköves, dülöngő temetők.

2Én úgy vagyok, hogy már százezer évenézem, amit meglátok hirtelen.Egy pillanat s kész az idő egésze,mit százezer ős szemlélget velem.

Látom, mit ők nem láttak, mert kapáltak,öltek, öleltek, tették, ami kell.S ők látják azt, az anyagba leszálltak,mit én nem látok, ha vallani kell.

Tudunk egymásról, mint öröm és bánat.Enyém a múlt és övék a jelen.Verset írunk - ők fogják ceruzámats én érzem őket és emlékezem.

3Anyám kun volt, az apám félig székely,félig román, vagy tán egészen az.Anyám szájából édes volt az étel,apám szájából szép volt az igaz.Mikor mozdulok, ők ölelik egymást.Elszomorodom néha emiatt -ez az elmúlás. Ebből vagyok. “Meglásd,ha majd nem leszünk!...” - megszólítanak.

Megszólítanak, mert ők én vagyok már;gyenge létemre így vagyok erős,ki emlékszem, hogy több vagyok a soknál,mert az őssejtig vagyok minden ős -az Ős vagyok, mely sokasodni foszlik:apám- s anyámmá válok boldogon,s apám, anyám maga is ketté oszliks én lelkes Eggyé így szaporodom!

A világ vagyok - minden, ami volt, van:a sok nemzedék, mely egymásra tör.A honfoglalók győznek velem holtans a meghódoltak kínja meggyötör.Árpád és Zalán, Werbőczi és Dózsa -török, tatár, tót, román kavaroge szívben, mely e múltnak már adósaszelíd jövővel - mai magyarok!

... Én dolgozni akarok. Elegendőharc, hogy a múltat be kell vallani.A Dunának, mely múlt, jelen s jövendő,egymást ölelik lágy hullámai.A harcot, amelyet őseink vívtak,békévé oldja az emlékezéss rendezni végre közös dolgainkat,ez a mi munkánk; és nem is kevés.Source of the quotation

http://mek.oszk.hu

By the Danube (English)

1On the bottom step that from the wharf descendsI sat, and watched a melon-rind float by.I hardly heard, wrapped in my destined ends,To surface chat the silent depth reply.As if it flowed from my own heart in spate,Wise was the Danube, turbulent and great.

Like a man’s muscles bending at his toil,Hammering, pitching, leaning on the spade,So bulged and then contracted in recoilEach wave that rippling in the current played.It rocked me like my mother, told me a wealthOf tales, and washed out all the city’s filth.

And drops of rain began to fall, but then,As though their fall had no effect, they stopped.Yet still, like one who stayed at the long rainOut of a cave, my gaze I never droppedBelow the horizon. Endlessly to waste,Drably like rain fell all bright things, the past.

The Danube just flowed on. And playfullyThe ripples laughed at me as I reclined,A child on his prolific mother’s kneeResting, while other thoughts engaged her mind.They trembled in time’s flow and in its wakeAs tottering tombstones in a graveyard shake.

2.I am he who has gazed a hundred thousand yearsOn that which he now sees for the first time.One moment, and fulfilled all time appearsIn a hundred thousand forbears’ eyes and mine.

I see what they could not because they mustDrag hoes, kill and embrace, for this enrolled,And they, who have descended into dustSee what I do not, if the truth be told.

We know each other as sorrow and delight.I, in the past, they in the present live.They hold the pencil in the poem I write.I feel them and evoke what they now give.

3.My mother was Cumanian, and half SzeklerMy father half Rumanian or entire.The nurture from my mother’s mouth was nectarAnd from my father’s lips the truth was pure.When I stir, they embrace. Then, soon or late,This makes me sad. This is mortality.Of this I am made. Such words as these: Just waitUntil we are no more - they speak to me.

They speak to me, for not I am they, robustDespite whatever weakness made me frail,And I think back that I am more than most:Each ancestor am I, to the first cell.I am the Forbear split and multipliedTo make my father and my mother whole;My father and mother then in turn divide,and so I am made one, a single soul.

I am the world; all that is past exists;Where nations hurl themselves against each other,With me in death the conqueror’s victory lasts,In me the anguish gnaws of those they smother.Árpád, Zalán, Werbőczy, Dózsa, Turks,Tartars, Rumanians, Slovaks, storm this heart.If in great depths a quiet future lurks,It owes the past, to-day’s Hungarians, part.

I want to work. Enough of conflict goesInto that need which must confess the past.The Danube’s tender ripples which composePast, present, future, hold each other fast.The battle which our ancestors once foughtThrough recollection is resolved in peace,And settling at long last the price of thought,This is our task, and none too short its lease.

Watkins, Vernon

Source of the quotation1976, Hundred Hungarian Poems, Albion Editions, Manchester

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Thanks for reading HC Tales! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This morning I read AsukaHotaru ’s beautiful poem, titled Salt on Our hands (please click on the title to read it. You can listen to me reading it in this voice recording from around the fifth minute.

Please, if you have a beautiful poem that you’d like to share or nominate, you can do that by copying the link under the nomination post (deadline is midnight tonight 12am Eastern Time)

The websites I mentioned during this live were:

* the Women’s Perspective website, where you can find fantastic articles, poems, live recordings and where the upcoming live is also going to be streamed (hosted by Michelle Ried and co-hosted by Annette Sharp)

* my handle and website: substack.com/@hcwriter and https://hcwriter.substack.com aka HC Tales, which is my main domain here on Substack and where under the different tabs you can find podcast recordings, poems with voiceover, poems, essays, my novella (the initial reason why I came to Substack last year) and articles related to Women’s Perspective

* the link to Short Stories and Tales, which is a new publication to bring other writer’s voices to the spotlight and the motor behind this week’s Lunchtime readings with Harriet - in fact this is the space where those videos are stored

Please check these places out, and join in the conversations, the nominations, the lives, read, like, share and enjoy the adventures!

Please join the next live at WP, which is coming up in less than a half an hour! :)To do so just click on this link:

Have a lovely day and weekend!Until next time:

Harriet

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Istvan Markan is a poet and short prose writer from Waterloo, Ontario. His work explores the extraordinary within the everyday, using spare language and evocative imagery to reveal emotional undercurrents. His writing can be found at imarkanx.substack.com

You can find the poem I read below:

Unfortunately the last 4 or so minutes of the live got cut off (not sure what happened there), but I am going to video-record my next ones simultaneously , so in case anything goes wrong, I can share that recording with you.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Pease, join me for my next live at 12:30pm today for the Short Stories and Tales Lunchtime readings with Harriet https://open.substack.com/live-stream/130550?utm_source=live-stream-scheduled-upsell and for the next and last poem reading before the WP Poem contest nomination deadline, tomorrow at 10:00am ET (scheduling will be done later today).- Please nominate your favorite poem by copying the link into the nomination post’s comments section - thank you!

Thank you again for your attention!See you at 12:30am today and tomorrow at 10am, before the WP live with Michelle Ried and Annette Sharp at noon ET!

LIVE SOON: Women's Perspective Live

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Please watch the full length of the video, like and subscribe!Thank you!

Thanks for reading HC Tales! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Good morning,

Today I read a poem by Kaia. She titled it: To My Sons. Please find it below and check out her other poems, too!

Also, perhaps you can pick a poem that you like and maybe nominate it to the Women’s Perspective March Poetry Contest. Link to the nomination post can be also found below.

Thank you for joining and listening this morning.Have a beautiful day and maybe see you at 12:30pm ET for another Lunchtime story.Harriet

Thanks for reading HC Tales! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

See you tomorrow at 8:30am ET for the next poem reading in the morning and at 12:30pm ET for the next story!

Thanks for your patience!H.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Regardless, I read this poem, to which you can find the link below. I also have created a voice recording of this poem during last summer, which can be found in under Harriet’s Voice on my HC Tales website.This recording however is talking not only about today’s (technical) challenges and how our voices in fact can come back unexpectedly (the reason I read this poem), but about the goal or purpose of these readings (morning poem readings and lunchtime stories). So please do listen and join us for both the ongoing WP poetry competition and for the Short Stories and Tales page/publication to get more flavors of wonderful stories brought into our attention, where you are the star, you are in the spotlight and we are all winners by being able to see/read your beautiful work!See you at 12:30am ET today?https://open.substack.com/live-stream/127962?utm_source=live-stream-scheduled-upsell

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live videos: Jacob Mascarenhas John Rinaldo ©️ Nicole - Antara Mastery Poetry by Ben Bruges and others. Join me for my next live video in the app at 12:30pm ET today for a reading for approximately 15 minutes.See you soon! :)H.

This morning I drove to a parking lot again (same as yesterday) to read a poem live. The original idea was to demonstrate how they can be beautiful and moving and reminiscent of the past, metaphorical or plain speaking, but talk about our humanity.Yesterday’s poem speaks of the love of the land and those who live there, written by an innocent poet, who later died as a result of WWII. Nearly 80 years later and half a world away, Theresa’s poem speaks of times that left a mark not only on countries but on the humans who were affected by it. And while one is hopeful for the future during dark times, keeping innocence and“tiny babies in whom intellect will flourish;it shines in them and they guard it, hiding in dark cellarsuntil the finger of peace once again marks our nation”,the other is speaking of finding the same hope for a better future, for love and peace in the then present, in music, in fellow humans’ work, lifting up all who’s willing to listen.

Please don’t forget to nominate your favorite poem to the ongoing Women’s Perspective Poetry contest (link below). :)

A poem by Theresa Greene (March 3, 2026):

Here Comes The Sun !

I wasn’t happy in ‘ 69Vietnam was in the newsOnly beginning to know what’s mineAnd finding the right to chooseA personal fight for meWanting more than I hadAnother world was to beBut then came the death of my dadMy world fell apartI was broken in spirit and heartBut the Beatles helped meWith Here Comes The Sun and Let It BeThey were always thereTo show that sometime and somewhere,Love would come and stayAnd life would be bright some dayMy first loves, I love them stillI’m sure that I always willWhen there was no sun in my depressionThey gave me life and love from the first impressionMusic is vital for a soulThey came along on a rollAnd gave to AMERICA a LiftAfter JFK’s assassination set us adrift.Thank you , MJ and primalbeet !

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

The link where Radnoti’s poem titled Nem tudhatom / ‘I cannot know’ can be found both in Hungarian and English is below:

https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/hu/Radn%C3%B3ti_Mikl%C3%B3s/Nem_tudhatom%E2%80%A6/en/18929-I_cannot_know%E2%80%A6

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app: 12:30pm ET today - click on the link below for the 1st of 5 short story readings of some incredible pieces!

https://open.substack.com/live-stream/126266

See you at my Lunchtime reading next!

Enjoy your day!Harriet

So here it is:

The tale of the mouse and the manThe big wool winter coat

There is a hole in my chestYou can’t see it, but it’s thereInvisibleIt’s dark in there, but don’t be scaredThis is a place of warmth and care

Like that big, black winter coatWool, hanging somewhereEnticing a tiny 🐭 mouseTo climb up,right into the pocketThat’d lay over the heart

And slowly, as the morning rays of sun approachthe coat gets lifted up, and worn,then smoothed down on the frontBy a couple of caring, wrinkled hands

The mouse wakes up, tiny, scared,feels the warmth of the handsAs they say:Don’t worry, little friend!

The mouse’s heart slowsMatching that of the man’sHe goes right back to sleepIn the depth, safety and warmthof the inner pocket of the man’s coat.

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Other live recordings for Women’s Perspective can be found here:https://awomansperspective.substack.com/s/womens-perspective-podcastand here: https://awomansperspective.substack.com/s/live-recordingsalso here: https://hcwriter.substack.com/s/womens-perspective

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My poem from Monday:

Today as I drove by rows of trees,I thought of a tale I read as a kid…

Sun and trees play hide and seek

I feel this, I feel thatI just don’t know howto pour all this what I feel into wordsLike water, from the pitcher of my mindinto the bucket of the world.

Is it really bad, if I tryto find the good things, the nice in lifeEspecially when it is so dark?To try and balance it out?I don’t say turning my backBut to look for hope somewhere, gather strength.

Noticing the trees, the Sun playing with the cloudsPeeking out, playing hide and seek.I see how big it is, unusually bigAnd I think it’s just my eyes playing a trickwhen I sayThe light comes from behind it - so strange.

But then I pass the trees.A row and the next, standing there motionless,watching me daily stepping on the gas.And the Sun is now behind me,I don’t see how it peeks or hidesbehind the trees or behind the clouds.

Today the Sun greeted me with its gold again as I drove down that winding road. I was amazed by seeing that light making space for itself in the pastel of the blue sky.

I got enlightened. Not by the sunshine that since has disappeared, but I realized I cannot feel intimidated. I cannot allow anyone to make me collapse, shut down or disappear. Not now, not here. Especially not here!

I remembered my cousin telling me years ago for something I wrote that it sounded poetic. I waved it off then with a thank you. I still don’t think of myself as a writer or a poet. Even if I write articles, opinion pieces or poems…Now I think of Emma Steel, who when I asked what she thought the job title would be for the person who manages and/or writes for a magazine, she said editor and/or writer. And now I think of Anne J Sharp, who called Women’s Perspective an online magazine yesterday and called me a friend. Unknown sender Patricia, too.I guess now I write for and manage an online magazine with my friends. And I love that!

I didn’t expect praise however I feel honored and happy for being seen as a friend.By them and others whom I haven’t mention here. I see you and I haven’t forgotten your goodness toward me.We are all here for the connections and today it seems it’s worth more than gold.

This post was originally written to show an internal switch. The power of words, poems, metaphors. How beauty can become inspiration.That seeing you stand up for what you believe in gives hope.

Picture is from last week: January 8th. I wish I stopped on the side of the road on Monday to snap a picture. The sky looked spectacular! Something like this below, only a hundred times better. This morning, too. Powerful enough to make me reclaim and keep my space in this world.

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The book opened on a page, that I haven’t seen yet,but her lines spoke to me,and when when she said how her tears followed one another,I swallowed mine back.

It’s such a beautiful poem. So full of feelings and descriptions, telling a story from a woman’s point of view, how she sees the small things like his laughing, or his worry lines on his forehead, his look, height, hands… catching herself, running away to keep it all to herself, then remembers through metaphors as the young golden moon kisses the water like she used to kiss him in her memories…

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Look at it! It’s sharp, it’s precise,it cuts through paper like a knife.Just one touch of ittravels through space and time.

Its shape shifts like nothing else,you can’t see but the letters on the page,while with every breath it becomes a hand,reaching out, touching your face.

Every spill, every moment spent stillis a note of how the heart overflowsfor yours to do the same.

Just look at how it dances on paper like parquet floors.Lines are wood, shiny,listening to the feetpit-patting through the night under the stars.

A silhouette of moves,laughing quietly as music plays,lingering near your ears.

A whoosh of sudden slip of fingers reaching your hipswith words to look for purchase, a stable stance.A hug, to hold you, to keep you like nothing else.Attention, heart, presence.

You don’t know what has just happenedbut you feel it moved you.

Your face, your head tilting just a little,your breath, calm exhaling,your heartbeat takes the rhythm of words in the poemas your arms wrap around yourself, while you aren’t alone.

That’s the pen, that’s the ink on your hands,that’s a shadow breathing with you through those curled blue lines of fountain pen.

You are the pen and I am the ink within,so let’s do this dance once again.

December 23rd, 2025.

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