WHISPERshout Magazine Issue 1.25 out now! poems to light the dark nights

 

https://bit.ly/WHISPERshoutMag-CurrentIssue

This month’s issue features poems by 4th graders, all from the same class in a Title I school in Sacramento, CA. Each poem explores one or more kinds of light we humans use to light the dark, especially during the time of year when days are short and nights are long. In the Northern Hemisphere, that’s December.

Now that we’re halfway between the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year) and the Spring Equinox (when daylight hours equal nightdark hours) it’s nice to think that it’s getting brighter outside—even if it’s still cold! Enjoy....

(4th grade) poems to light the darkest nights

Greetings, Poetry People, from the squirmy seat of our nation's government. I left the first sessions of my Winter afterschool poetry workshops this week to find--hallelujah!--that it was not dark yet, and this tiny fact alone unleashed a bubble of optimism. Today I want to share a little story and some poems from a Teaching Artist project I did in December that, while related to those very longest, darkest nights of the year, is going to bring a bubble of optimistic light into your life right when you may be needing it the most!

Here's our poetry friend Patricia Franz and her niece, Anna Harris. (They look fancy and beautiful because they were at a family wedding last summer.) Anna is also Mrs. Harris, 4th grade teacher at a Title I school in Sacramento, CA. She was interested in doing more poetry with her students, and her Aunt Pat asked if I would be willing to talk with Anna. (As you know, Patricia is an accomplished poet herself, but wasn't sure about teaching poetry to kids. I believe she would have been QUITE helpful!)  I was willing, and in fact my first conversation with Anna turned into a whole 3-session workshop with Mrs. Harris and her class--my first over Zoom since I taught PreK on Zoom during the pandemic. (Yes, I was nervous; yes, there were glitches, and yes, we made it work across time zones.)

Anna's lovely, lively class of 20 kids includes many EMLs* and a number of kids still working towards 4th grade literacy skills, as you'd expect in a community challenged by low incomes. They were learning about winter holidays in many cultures and the role of lights, and to support their imagery, language and concept development, I asked Anna to prep for our sessions by having the kids make a related artwork of some kind. They did watercolor paintings featuring holiday lights, wintry weather (not necessarily Sacramento winter!) and night skies.

I brought in a collage and matching poem by me to establish that a poem is an artwork made of words; then we read bilingual poems by Francisco X. Alarcón to review how sensory details give a poem energy. We used Van Gogh's "Starry Night" for a collaborative writing warm-up, and as the workshop progressed, there was reading and sharing and acting out and a fire drill (all the classroom teachers say "OF COURSE!") and laughter and awkward breakout room tech and lightbulbs popping overhead and some magical moments like this one that Patricia described:  "I wish I had captured Ella’s DELIGHT when you read her poem. Her eyes were DANCING. She held her hands to her mouth as if in disbelief that this song coming from your mouth could be hers."

Oh, wait--did I mention that although Patricia does not live in Sacramento, she was actually THERE in Anna's classroom for one of the sessions? Yes! Aunt Pat visited her niece Mrs. Harris during the workshop week in December! It was just one of the many special things about this Teaching Artist project. I'm so grateful to Patricia, to Anna (whose own skilled art as a teacher was abundantly evident), and as always to the children, for being the reason I can muster resilience in a world that often feels too tough for tender me. All my bravery is on their behalf.

And without further ado...some poems and paintings by Mrs. Harris's 4th graders! (All will be featured in a WHISPERshout Magazine issue next week.)

Our host today is Tabatha the Brave, Tabatha the Broad, Tabatha the Deep, who shares her collection of poems by us about bravery for and in 2025. I'm always so grateful for her presence here and in the world. I didn't get my poem from a few years ago sent off in time, so I'll include it below and hope that's okay with everyone.  Be well and be bright!

*Emergent Multilingual Learners

tossing them out like confetti

Greetings, poetry people. Here's today's poem. I'm not holding myself to a new poem every single day--my one great wisdom as a writer over time has been understanding that, as an all-or-nothing type of person, demanding of myself that I do anything Every Single Day would lead eventually and directly to doing it not at all (including brushing my teeth; do not judge; I still have them all).    

Back to the poems, which I have been writing almost every day and posting--nay, tossing out like confetti onto the internet, usually on Instagram, sometimes on Facebook and sometimes on Bluesky (I left TwittX some time ago).  There's a certain madness in this--if I want to publish any of these in a journal, they are now "used goods" and not usually eligible for submission, but I've decided I don't care.  I'm sharing my wealth and celebrating with (biodegradable) confetti, like at a wedding, the marriage of my creative impulse and this day, neither of which are special or spectacular but which are what I have, what I am and what I can.  And since Nov. 6 in particular, I have trying to live according to this mashed-up advice from a reknowned UU minister and the tennis great Arthur Ashe:

~ love what you have, be who you are, do what you can ~

So here you go: have today's poem, in response to the Day 27 prompt from the MoSt New Year's Poetry Challenge which has been going on since mid-December. Coincidentally it is entitled "Purpose".

Do you follow me on IG? https://www.instagram.com/heidi_mordhorst_whispershout/

Are we friends on Facebook? https://www.facebook.com/heidi.mordhorst

Have you flown over to Bluesky? https://bsky.app/profile/heidimordhorst.bsky.social

And have you clicked to the right to follow me on Blogger after all these years? 🌞

Thanks to Kat Apel (well, hey there, friend!) for rounding us up today, and here's one last note of deep gratitude to the great Jimmy Carter, who with dignity and foresight chose the perfect moment to depart this mortal coil, reminding us all what public service in politics can look like.

age, trial, experience

Guys, I am really leaning into this "being enough" thing.

You can tell because I am the prompter of the Inklings monthly challenge again this January (we really should change that up), and I am recycling my prompt from last January! In some ways it's fair: I gave a choice of TWELVE prompts and most of us used just one, leaving plenty-eleven to choose from this year.

I myself, in keeping with this "being enough" thing, have selected the prompt that goes with our Yuletide gift of the human spirit for December 30, wisdom. We light the 10th candle, dark blue, and say, "Midnight blue is for wisdom, the understanding that comes with age, trial and experience."

I've gone for a golden shovel, and I guess I'm hoping that Himself won't read the blog this week. (If you do, DD, forgive me as I forgive you for making me the person I am today. **hugs!**)

Aging in Place


Long after midnight 

flashing red burns blaring over his blue. 

This is panic, not peace; it is 

no substitute for 

wisdom. 

His edges are blurred but not soft. The 

lengthy predawn texts bring understanding: 

that 

for some, more of the same comes 

with 

age, 

that what was always a trial is still a trial, 

and 

that some of us--bless--can't learn much from experience.

draft (c) HM 2025

Thanks to Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading for hosting us today, and go see what other gifts of the human spirit might be celebrated by our fellow Inklings this month!

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core, who needs a bye this month 

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

AND TO ALL A

playing poetry

Hey hi hello! Come in! I've got Daisy's new game all set up--it takes up practically the whole dining room table! What are you drinking?  Have a candy cane cookie--Duncan made them.

So, the way it works is, as the first Cue Giver, I choose a color from the first card in the deck. I eye it up and then meaningfully pronounce a single word that I hope will guide you all to place your markers on the exact same color on the massive matrix of hues on the board.  After the first round, I give a second,  two-word cue that hopefully gets you even closer to the color on my card--or I may need to CORRECT because my first cue sent you in the wrong direction.

You score points for guessing close to the actual hue, and I score points for giving cues that help you guess.

Are y'all ready? Oh, and you can't say any regular color words, of course.

SLICKER..........

Oh! Look what color you chose.  Hmmm.  Let me try this again.

GOLDENROD COPY..........

Whoohoo! You got so close this time!  My slicker was a few degrees more golden than yours, I guess. Next round; you give the cues.

"MINT................"

Oh, now, are you thinking the color of the actual mint that grows in my yard, or the "mint" that would be used on a website to describe a candle or a tablecloth?  Hmmmm. And which mint? Spearmint?  Peppermint? Catmint?  I'll place my marker here.  Give your second cue now.

"JERSEY SEAFOAM....."

That's a whole different mint-game, now! My next marker goes way over here into the murkier hues, I think...

What's that you say?

You think this is really a POETRY game?  Oh! Well, now that you mention it, it does scratch that itch some of us have when we say "Who chooses the names of these lipsticks and nail polishes and interior paint colors?!  Brazilian Rumba, Peach Melba, Dolphin Splash?  I could do that job."  Yes,  you definitely could!

Next let's play Poetry for Neanderthals!

I take card.
Make you from this team guess word by give clues.
My words all have just one sound.
No cheat, or one from that team bop me with blow-up club!
Go!

Big plant in my cave.
Light light light.
Small shapes hang on it.
Give drink each day.

Guess, team, guess!

Thanks for celebrating the Yuletide Day of Laughter with me and family, Poetry Friday Friends, and thanks to Michelle at More Art 4 All for hosting us on this 

    Happy Poetry Friday, Happy Holidays, & Happy Year’s End!

Adieu false profit & false prophets alike! Blessings of all hues be upon you friends, as you are upon me.

tiny stitches, enormous quilt

I  hope it's Nikki Giovanni Day.  Forgive me for ringing and running after dropping my offering; it's been a big week for me and WHISPERshout. (More soon on my visits via Zoom to a 4th grade classroom in Sacramento, facilitated by our friend Patricia Franz!)

This is the one book I have, from 2002, of the many poems that have come by and struck me. It's signed, which is a treasure. But you know from reading the stories and looking at the photos online that while many were struck from afar, it seems many more were touched closely by Nikki's--

I know what I sense but don't find my words, so I'll use hers.

apologies for poor image - click for a better one

Thanks to Linda at A Word Edgewise for hosting today--you know you'll find something lovely there! And it goes without saying that it would be good...to hold on to Nikki, just one so wonderful part of our chain.

not quite drawn and quartered

Greetings from Maryland, where it's 27* this Thursday night, with a "feels like" temperature of ELEVEN DEGREES---so I'm very glad that I tackled Molly's monthly Inklings challenge before all my senses froze over!  Molly's been reading Unlocking the Heart (a book whose cover does not seem to know that WINTER HAS ARRIVED), and she gave us this very open-ended prompt therefrom:

“Begin with a specific sensory experience (of taste, sight, smell, sound or touch), and see where that leads you.” 

 

This prompt is not what I was thinking of as I tucked myself into bed one night this week, adjusting for everything from plantar fasciitis to a tendency to clench my jaw, but I woke up in the middle of the night (another repercussion of passing through the middle of one's life) with this very specific and not especially welcome sensory experience in mind.

Still, I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the way that my gray-pink matter is still working away under my gray-brown hair and can cough up this gray-green memory of a smell, a time, a place, a revulsion strong enough that I can hang onto it until morning and want to write about it. That's something, right?

Check out the further sensory experiences of the Inklings below, and many thanks to Carol at The Apples in My Orchard for hosting us after waaaaay too long a drive!

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core, who may need a bye this month 

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

beyond fomo

 

NCTE24 is happening and I am beyond FOMO, friends; 

I simply am missing out, 

and it was my choice; I made my bed and now

I am lying in it, the same bed as always,

not an enormous one in a hotel in Boston, 

perhaps with a good friend across the room, 

painting amid the white sheets.

I'm here in my wee house 

watching Bluesky blow up

with announcements of 

panels and keynotes 

signing and meetups

while Google Photos helpfully encourages me 

to "revisit the moment,"

and I do, and I remember I chose this

instead of wincing at the cost, wondering what to pack, 

getting to the airport, navigating the convention site, 

and tolerating the overload of .... delight!

I will take delight in your delight, friends who attend,

from the comfort of my own home, and, 

preparing in leisurely fashion

for the holiday of gratitude I will give gratitude for the many years I did attend, how I learned to decide that I could go as teacher or as poet but probably not as both in that compacted weekend of four days; for the many people I met, "famous" and not famous, doing the sacred work of passing the word; grat-itude for the conversations, for the simple immersion in the practice of literature, and maybe,

just maybe, I will reconsider my idea that NCTE 

does not hold enough for me anymore and 

plan to go next year after all because 

this MO is FOrkin' painful!

******************

WHISPERshout Magazine has been on a little hiatus while I worked out some kinks in my attitude (sooo many kinks in my attitude, friends; discernment is not for sissies, as they say), but the Editorial We is BACK!  Please enjoy work by kids ages 4-12 in this  November issue full of 

tiny ENORMOUS poems.

https://bit.ly/WHISPERshoutMag-Nov24

Thanking Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town for hosting us today--she always brings warm wisdom and a worldly view to our community.

a poem for the morning after

 Just this, from 6 am on 11/6:

Be, my friends. Be well if you can, be strong, be sanctuary if possible; be yourself.

simple songs

How-do, fellow poets.  Earlier this week I was sitting on my porch in the unseasonable weather doing something demandingly complex when I heard, from my high-up, leaf-screened position, a whistled tune coming up the block. The whistler never came as far as my house, so I couldn't identify them, but I so appreciated the pause, the familiar melody: "'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free, 'tis a gift to come down where we ought to be..."

And then, the next evening, scrolling, scrolling as we do, I came across Yo-Yo Ma sitting on the edge of his sofa, playing the same tune on his cello. The caption was "A #songofcomfort for anyone who needs it." Interesting, right? I mean, it's kind of a jig tune, full of uplift to my ear, not cradling, and yet it IS comforting to think of simplicity as the freedom and of coming DOWN as the comfort, right? I have more thoughts on this song and how my perception of it has changed over the years, but for now: thanks, Shakers. Thanks, Aaron Copland. Thanks, Yo-Yo Ma. Thanks, Disembodied Whistler.

The reason I'm thinking these simple thoughts is that our Inklings Challenge for November--yes! it is November!--is a simple one from Linda Mitchell: 

Use this poem by Joy Harjo as a mentor text in any way that makes your heart happy.

Fall Song

It is a dark fall day.
The earth is slightly damp with rain.
I hear a jay.
The cry is blue.
I have found you in the story again.
Is there another word for ‘‘divine’’?
I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind.
If I think behind me, I might break.
If I think forward, I lose now.
Forever will be a day like this
Strung perfectly on the necklace of days.
Slightly overcast
Yellow leaves
Your jacket hanging in the hallway
Next to mine.

It seems to me the height of simplicity, this poem. Not too long. No fancy words. Some rhymed lines, but nothing too obvious or spectacular; rhythms irregular but pleasing, repetition present but light. And the moment, the emotion--simple but deeply abiding. I decided I wanted to recreate all this in the voice of a kid. I think she's around 9. I tried to stay close to the structure of Joy's* poem.

Thanks for this simple gift, Joy, and Linda for pointing it out to us. You can see what the other Inklings have done with the challenge below, and Patricia has our All Souls' Day roundup at Reverie. Also, I'd like to apologize for doing a substandard job on my commenting lately, friends. I'm working on some new kinds of projects lately and having trouble judging how long things will take and how tired it will make me! And don't you find that everything feels a little harder these last few weeks?

#manifestblue

#manifestgreen

#manifestpeace

#standonthesideoflove

and I'll see you on the other side...

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

*Yes, in my mind, I call all poets, even the great ones, by their first names. Or their first and last names. I call Kamala Kamala and Joe Joe. I hardly ever name you-know-who but in my mind I call him Donnie and try to remember that he was little once too. It excuses nothing but it's good human empathy training. I will admit that in the last week I've been calling that other guy Eff Bezos.

deconstructivism

Greetings from grantland--I'm writing like a fiend in support of tax-supported Poetry and Justice For All (and cross your fingers for success), but I have to pause long enough to join in the Poetry Sisters' Challenge for the first time in a while.  Here it is:

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of October! Here’s the scoop: We’re building! Our prompt comes from p. 139 of The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, and we’re writing a poem in which we literally build and/or take apart something – large or small. Our focus will be on constructing or deconstructing, taking into account technical terms, instructions, and perhaps even material sources. A great mentor poem would be something like this, or this. Are you in? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on October 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

It turns out I wrote an adjacent poem this week, without knowing what the challenge was. See what you think, and I'll try to make some rounds late Saturday to see what everyone has posted...I'm one of those people who likes factory tours and floor plans and detailed cooking and art TikToks.

Not my most uplifting poem, but even death must be deconstructed now and then....

Thanks to our host today, Carol at Beyond Literacy Link, where autumn abounds! Enjoy all the toasty orange and spooky scents of October. I wish I was a Varsalona grandgirl!

16th bloggiversary: holding steady, looking forward

Greetings, Poetry People!  I'm joining you here on the 3rd Friday of the month with a little boost for thriving-not-surviving through the climate crisis, and also what is now the official bloggiversary poem of my juicy little universe.  I originally posted it on Friday, October 14, 2016, when mjlu was in its middle childhood, aged 8.  I've posted it in the same form since then, but this year, being a sensitive and cantankerous teenager, the poem demanded a later curfew a few adjustments--a fair request.

So raise your glass/mug/cup/fist and let us celebrate longevity, tradition and novelty, and the feeling of still having something to say!

 (Y'all will let me know if ever that's not true, right?)

Bloggiversary Poem, Twice as Old

All threads and trains, 

no rules, restraints;

No due dates, deadlines, or demands.

I get to choose. It's in my hands:

       voice, vocabulary,

       venom or valentine--

Each and every muse is mine.

Dive in deep or reach out wide;

noisy soapbox, soft aside;

Sampling the past or hewing the new,

I talk to myself, I write to you.

      Revels, relations, 

      revelations live here

Year after year after year.

draft HM 2016; redraft 2024

And now for the climate portion of our program: you may recall my deep dive in April 2022 into ALL WE CAN SAVE, a collection of essays and poetry edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson.   Dr. Ayana has a new book out that I'm just starting to dip into, but all you need to know right now (okay, all *I* needed to know) is that this book comes with an Anti-Apocalypse Mixtape playlist. People, we are going to be Dancing for the Planet together (but that's a project for another post).

Check this out:

"Getting it right is all about collective wisdom.

This book is an anthology of sorts, a mosaic — 20 interviews, 5 poems, 3 co-authored chapters, 2 artists’ new works, a note from my dad, and a quote from my mom.

It includes visionary farmers and financiers, architects and advocates, producers and policy wonks. Mega brains. All stars."




On possibility and transformation with:

Abigail Dillen • Adam McKay • Archibald Frederick Johnson • Ayisha Siddiqa • Bill McKibben • Bren Smith • Brian Donahue • Bryan C. Lee Jr. • Colette Pichon Battle • Erica Deeman • Franklin Leonard • Jacqueline Woodson • Jade Begay • Jean Flemma • Jigar Shah • Judith D. Schwartz • K. Corley Kenna • Kate Marvel • Kate Orff • Kelly Sims Gallagher • Kendra Pierre-Louis • Leah Penniman • Marge Piercy • Mustafa Suleyman • Oana Stănescu • Olalekan Jeyifous • Paola Antonelli • Régine Clément • Rhiana Gunn-Wright • Samantha Montano • Steve Connell • Wendell Berry • Xiye Bastida

I'm girding myself with joy for the coming challenging months, friends. 

Thanks to Matt over at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme for hosting us today, and let's imagine that that little tractor runs on solar power as well as hoedown music!