a poetry friday welcome to all

Greetings, and let's get this party started! 

Outside my early-morning seat in our "library lounge" is our patio, and next to our patio is a small, bushy tree that spent all winter holding on tight to a lovely little nest, invisible to us until fall came and blew the branches clean.

Now the tree has popped vibrant green leaflets, and there the nest waits.  I wrote this for Amy Ludwig Vanderwater's "small things" poetry challenge, made alongside her interview with Michelle Heidenrich Barnes at Today's Little Ditty, and in honor of her new book Everyday Birds.


hopefull    

 
in between the greening
      branches of a tree
an empty nest is nestled,
      waiting there to see

if again this season
      someone small may light,
line it full of fluff
      and hope for future flight

(c) Heidi Mordhorst 2016


Now surely all these bird poems flying around must put you in mind of this song:

posted to YouTube by machoflame

That's an example of a Poetry-Music Match-Up (and I hope it has you feeling as deeply copacetic as I do posting it).  This year, inspired by Tabatha's "Poem-Song Match-Up" project, I'm going to spend April posting such match-ups and I'd like to invite YOU to submit your pairings.

The airwaves are wiiiide open!  You can submit:

·         your own poem with music that you've realized goes with it, as above,

·         your own music with a poem that goes with it,

·         someone else's poem with someone else's music to match, 

·         song lyrics that you find particularly poetic,

·         poems written AS song lyrics

·         poems inspired by songs,

·         songs written about poems, 

·         poems written about songs, 

·         favorite nursery rhymes (which often have tunes),

·         and any other poetry-music combinations that make sense to you.

We'll all need to be very careful with attribution, of course.

I'll aim to have a daily posting, but I'll need to queue them up during Spring Break, so I would love to have your submissions starting any time now through Saturday, April 2.  (I'm sure I'll be willing to take them after that, too, but it will be harder to be organized!).  Send your ideas, texts, videos and links to me here.

And now, leave your links below and I'll be rounding up old-school style too (which for me means that I will actually have time to comment on each and every post), on either side of a delightful poets' birthday lunch with Tabatha and Laura S.  Thanks for stopping by, and I wish a flighty spring to all!

An InLinkz Link-up

invitation to sing (and eat ketchup)

To all my Poetry Friday and Other Friends--

At this time of year, we begin to feel a little tickled by the rising anticipation, don't we?  It's not just spring that's in the air, but the knowledge that spring brings....


NATIONAL POETRY MONTH!

Last year I was audience for the National Poetry Month projects of others, but in March I stretCHed myself with the "Forward...MarCH" project.  This year, inspired by Tabatha's "Poem-Song Match-Up" project, I'm going to spend April posting Poetry-Music Match-Ups, and I'd like to invite you to submit your pairings.

The airwaves are wiiiide open!  You can submit:

• your own poem with music that you've realized goes with it, 
• your own music with a poem that goes with it,
• someone else's poem with someone else's music to match, 
• song lyrics that you find particularly poetic,
• poems written AS song lyrics
• poems inspired by songs,
• songs written about poems, 
• poems written about songs, 
• favorite nursery rhymes (which often have tunes),
• and any other poetry-music combinations that make sense to you.

I ask only that we are all very careful with attribution.

I'll aim to have a daily posting, but I'll need to queue them up during Spring Break, so I would love to have your submissions starting any time now through Saturday, April 2.  (I'm sure I'll be willing to take them after that, too, but it will be harder to be organized!).  Send your ideas, texts, videos and links to me here.

Here's a Poetry-Music Match-Up to give you the idea--

Anticipation

There's no use pounding 
the bottle of March.
The ketchup of April--
concentrated cherry blossoms,
tulips, pink bunny noses, Poetry Month--
will take its time
and be worth it.
On the first day, finally,
all us fools for poetry
will watch it come
sliding out,
thick, sticky, sharp and sweet,
to dress the burger of spring with--

Shoot! why wait?
These are the good old days!
Pass me the ketchup and a spoon.

(c) HM 2016

 

 

 

the inside truth and the outside truth--and an invitation!

(SEE BELOW FOR THE INVTATION!)

Last month I taught a poetry workshop as part of the Religious Education program at my congregation (are you a UU and don't know it, poet?).  The theme for the month--for adults and children--was truth, and particularly the unavoidable experience that "the truth" is not static, not often engraved in stone, but is more often mutable, a matter of perspective and situation, even when objective facts can be established.

That's how we looked at nature objects in our poetry workshop.  We compared a poem that expressed the "outside truth" or objective qualities of an object with a poem that included feelings, experiences and imaginations about the object to express an "inside truth."  The children, ages 5-11, were then challenged to choose an object and write about it in either way, with heightened awareness of where their ideas were coming from.

I wrote about a rather mysterious object which turned out to be an avocado stone:

Outside Truth

brown seed, round seed
heavy, brown and round
light veins, dark veins
rolling in my hand

Inside Truth

you round, brown seed--
what's hiding inside you?
where is the green we think we have seen?
are you dead or alive?
do we need magicado
to grow an avocado?

~ Ms. Heidi


Here are just a few examples of poems written-- fast--on a Sunday morning.  The authors' names are aliases for now.

 is a egg

Is this egg good to eat.
I can't even crack it!
Is there a bird in there?
Is it a robin why are there no spots?

~ Madalie L.



Hard, solid bird egg
don't hide your yellow
the bird nest is a
place to hold you until
you leave soon.

~Nadia O.





 Miraculous Egg

eggs are all around us but did you ever stop and wonder where do eggs come from do they ride a bus?  do they form from themselves?  is it something that we can't see?  what happens to the animal inside when you crack it open and cook it with fire

~ Matt H.

What are you?
You are a sticks
You are rough
You have acorns on you
You are hiding something
You look like a heavy but small torch
Are you hiding fire?

~ Ken S.

This poem by Zoe P. has to be seen to be fully appreciated! 

The Family on the Tree

All connecting from one

Perfect--

Even with their bumps and cracks

Intertwined--

Staying in the same place,

Doing the same thing,

But some will crack off--

Following their own path,

Going to a place that they--

And maybe we--

Don't know--

But they will always be love,

They are all connecting from one--

Family.

~ Ari E.

There are many more, and they'll become a book eventually, for circulation in the congregation.  I hope it will eventually become a weekly poetry workshop, too, with so many poetic voices rising up!

The Round-up today is with Irene at Live Your Poem, where she's celebrating lots that is Fresh Delicious!

AND NOW FOR THE INVITATION...

Inspired by Tabatha's "Poem-Song Match-Up" project, I'm going to spend April posting Poetry-Music Match-Ups, and I'd like to invite you to submit your pairings.   The airwaves are wiiiide open!  You can submit your own poem with music you think goes with it, someone else's poem with a music match, poems written AS song lyrics, poems written FROM songs, songs written about poems, poems written about songs, favorite nursery rhymes (which often have tunes).  I'll aim to have a daily posting, but I'll need to queue them up during Spring Break, so if you have an idea you can send it to me right away!  heidi dot mordhorst dot poet @t g  mail dot etc.

52 divisible by 13

I'm a fan of prime numbers.  They feel edgy and interesting to me, instead of predictable, compliant and orderly like, say, 24, with all its evenness and multiple factors.  2 always feels like an impostor here, but there are so many numbers to love in this list!  I'm particularly partial to 7, 11, and 13.

2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37,41,43,47,53

And "prime"--an interesting choice of word for these numbers of quirk and independence. Now I find that in mathematical terms, these numbers are "first" and most basic, rather than particularly complex and interesting like their surrounding composite numbers.  Shows how mathematical my thinking tends to be.

I muse on this because my daughter mentioned, along with her Happy Birthday wish, that 52 is a good number, being divisible by 13.  I flipped that and began to think of my years divided into 4 even quarters:

01-13 childhood
13-26 youth
26-39 adulthood
39-52 parenthood

Those don't line up quite evenly with the actual periods or stages of my life, but close enough to want to come back and explore it.  

But....on to Poetry Friday!