Shelby Orten Published By International Society—

Local Poet Shares Her Inspiration With Others Through A New-Found Outlet

By Jan Howard

A Newtown woman’s poem has garnered awards from the International Society of Poets and appears in its newest annual volume, Wind in the Meadow.Shelby Orten received the International Society of Poets’ Poet of Merit Award and Editor’s Choice Award for outstanding achievement in poetry for her poem “Leave The Rest Behind.”

She received a medallion and a plaque at the three-day Poetry Convention and Symposium in Washington, DC last August that was attended by about 3,000 people. Last summer’s was the tenth anniversary of the event, which is annually one of the single largest gatherings of poets in the world. The symposium offered seminars, workshops, discussion groups, lectures and rap rooms.

Mrs  recently received the book containing her poem. The poem also appears on the poetry group’s Web page.

“I’m thrilled they chose one of mine to go on the Internet,” Mrs Orten said last week.

“I think God has a message for me to give to other people,” she continued. “He gives me the words, and I think they will touch somebody.”

Mrs Orten’s daughter, Sheila Nolder, submitted the poem for consideration after Mrs Orten saw the poetry group’s Web site on the Internet.

Mrs Orten, a resident of Newtown for 45 years, wrote this particular poem because of how she felt following the death of her husband in 1998. She was returning home after the burial in Tennessee, when she began thinking about what is important in life to her.

“I decided to enjoy my family and friends and not worry about things, and leave the past behind,” she said. “Things are not important. What is important is family, friends, and nature, and most of all God.”

Mrs Orten said she writes every day, noting, “This is my outlet from the day’s stress.”

When her husband was undergoing chemotherapy at Danbury Hospital, she often wrote poems for other patients to help raise their spirits during a stressful time in their lives.

Mrs Orten now has enough poems for an entire book and is currently working with Wine Press in California, a religious publisher. She hopes to publish her book, which is tentatively titled Poetry for Hurting Hearts, before the end of the year.

Leave The Rest Behind

By Shelby Orten

Where does the sunshine go as the day begins to close?

Does it shine somewhere else? I guess that no one knows.

Where do the birds go when it’s dark?

To trees, or on the ground?

I just know you’ll find them singing

When the sun again comes ‘round.

The answers to these questions are not easy ones to find,

So enjoy the sunshine and the birds and leave the rest behind.

A little child may ask you, “where does the water flow?

Does it just turn to nothing, or to the ocean go?”

I know these seem like mysteries

And sometimes bog our minds;

Enjoy the beauty that you see

And leave the rest behind.

The road of life we travel will one day come to an end,

So enjoy every day you have, around each curve and bend.

And when our Savior calls for us,

The straight road we will find.

Walk with Him down the road ‘til then,

And leave the rest behind.