#haikuforjustice dec 2019

  

Once again at the end of November came the suggestion to share daily haiku, this year from Jone MacCulloch, with the hashtag #haikuforkindness. But then I was very affected by an article from the magazine Teaching Tolerance I read in the loo at my Thanksgiving hosts' house. "The harm done by long-term exposure to injustice—to the kind of imagery found in racist books, microaggressions and discrimination—calls for more than a simple understanding of kindness. It demands that kindness be interwoven with substantial notions of true justice," writes primary teacher Bret Turner. This made me want to take a step beyond kindness into the territory of #haikuforjustice.

Here's what I have come up with this month, often in response to news items.

December 28 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice 

yuletide richness inside 

bare brown scarcity outside 

sunny 60* evens things out


December 27 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice 

#FireDrillFriday #ClimateActionNow 

it's called a school strike

to stand with a striking sign

schooling passers-by


December 23 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice

https://n.pr/2EKPtDG #longformhaiku
1/ 2

to you my British kin

who still buy proper Christmas cards and

then --love--actually send them

2/2 

to Florence and her dad

who found a message in their Tesco card

then--love--actually heard


December 22 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice

#GeorgetownGlow @GeorgetownGlow

all hanging in the same

dark sky prickly and bright

ziptied ziplined light


December 21 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice
#haikuforsickness

longest night broken

the throwing off of last year's

acid  excess   bile


December 18 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice

https://n.pr/35C32kI #StarWars 
@museumofnaz #indigenousgenius

Hopi R2 codetalking

decolonized rebels

force of indigenous genius


December 16 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice
@RepSlotkin #principled

represent them yes

but also oath of office

head and shoulders above


December 14 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice
#PublicEdForum #AllOurChildren

they all arrive

without a price tag  some

can’t see their value

December 12 #twitterku #haikuforkindness

#haikuforjustice

Greta girl of the globe

person of the year

unable to kid herself


December 11 #twitterku #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice

12:12 12/12

silent sky clock

counts out equal shine for all

cold moon justice

December 10  #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice
#HumanRightsDay2019  https://youthforhumanrights.org

stand strong use your rights

to lift theirs till no one's left

defenseless alone

[no wait this is better]

everyone EVERY

one everyone everyone

EVERY one and ALL

December 9 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice
http://anticorruptionday.org

1/ richly corrupt from

cheeto feet to rotten crotch

to his hoggish head

2/ richly corrupt from

the start sometimes I think

about little Donnie


December 8 #haikuforjustice #haikuforkindness
#BigBird @KCHonors
Carroll, we won't forget

how to get, how to

get to Sesame Street


December 7  #haikuforkindness

#haikuforjustice #longformhaiku on film

washington and lee

belafonte harrier their

blackkklansman arrests me


December 5  #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice

who sees what they need

who senses  who sounds  who speaks

we do   the teachers


December 4  #haikuforjustice #longformhaiku
#haikuforkindness

we had never met when the

birthday girl mailed me a tiny encouragement

I keep it in my wallet


December 3 #haikuforjustice #haikuforkindness

#simoncowellisoverparty racism sexism homophobia

one voice is too little

northsoutheastwest try a fifth direction

true harmony is a mix

December 2 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice

#AbolishModernSlavery

her dad tells me "trabajo

lunes a sabado. no puedo

llevarla al doctor"


December 1 #haikuforkindness #haikuforjustice #WorldAIDSDay

kindness wears a rainbow

of ribbons, red yellow pink

justice acts up

 

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I'm not sure I've pulled it off, and certainly I have broken that cardinal rule of haiku and failed to include nature images in most of them...but I guess that comes with the territory.  Thanks, Poetic License!

Thanks also to the crew who are sharing their #haikuforkindness (also essential) and #haikufor justice on various platforms, and to Michelle Kogan who is hosting our last round-up of 2019 and blasting into a 2020 full of climate action--which is always for #justice.  See you in the new year!

summer sweetness and homage to 9th grade English teachers

I do realize that on this eve of the Winter Solstice few of us are considering that universe of sweetness known as the watermelon.  But because in our household the boy band One Direction has played a significant role over the last just about 10 years (ie half of my daughter's life) and because former member Harry Styles has just released an album called FINE LINES with a really great song (enjoy below) called "Watermelon Sugar," I have gone to my shelf of forever books to pull out IN WATERMELON SUGAR by Richard Brautigan (1968).


This book was given to me as a present by my 9th grade English teacher at Trinity Episcopal High School (Richmond, VA) in 1978.  He was a bearded corduroyed Earth-shoed Deadhead, and it was he who taught me to write (mostly by having us write, a LOT, and then commenting with radical candor), and he who made me feel seen and heard as a writer.  I hope we all have such a teacher to look back on with fondness and gratitude. [The Internet has rarely failed me, but I have searched this Jeff Harrison many times without any leads.  Let me know if he's your neighbor.]


This strange book, set in a post-apocalyptic commune called iDEATH where rivers run in widths from a half-an-inch to miles, where most things except the tigers may be made of watermelon sugar, where some people do and others don't have a regular name, is full of images and language that flavor all my poetry even 40 years later.  Here was my senior yearbook quote: "Our lives we have carefully constructed from watermelon sugar and then travelled to the length of our dreams, along roads lines with pines and stones."



On this cold dark morning I give thanks for watermelon music, for watermelon words, for watermelon sugar sweetness old and new. I don't know that I could ever go without.

The Poetry Friday round-up is brought to us today by Buffy at her blog. Let's murmurate together as one dark bird!

the best of mhb 2017-2018

cover & interior art by Miranda Barnes

In my hands I hold the third volume of THE BEST OF TODAY'S LITTLE DITTY, poems collected on the ambitious blog of Michelle Heidenrich Barnes from 2017-2018.  Many of our Poetry Friday regulars are represented in this book, including me, and we are all rhapsodizing over it, as well we should.

But today I'd just like to spotlight the creations of the creator of THE BEST OF 17-18, Michelle herself.  She has three poems in the book which serve to highlight her range of skills as a poet and the generosity that we have all experienced in working with her.


In this ode from March 2017 Michelle builds a beautiful mosaic of sensory images and then cements  them with a hanging, open question.

Ode to a Genocide Memorial | Michelle H. Barnes

The hammer sings the story
of ten thousand broken shards--
the stench of old bones
and hope's gritty aftertaste,
scrubbed clean by twenty thousand tears.
What question hasn't been asked
that has an answer?

Michelle's golden shovel poem is based on a line (the same one I chose!) from "blurred lines" by Lil Fijjii, shared in Nikki Grimes's post of March 2018.  In it Michelle deftly occupies the slippery brainspace of someone losing their memory but not their need for connection.

Forgetfully Yours | Michelle H. Barnes

There are only so many ways I can say I'm
sorry. I know that you're tired.
I am too.  Weary of
searching for words--names.
places, and all the everyday things I once
took for granted.  If only you
could read my mind! Say
what you will, I probably won't believe it.
Because unless you
can dip a net into my fishbowl world, you can't
imagine how slippery it is. Let them take
my memories, my dignity, my hope. None of it
matters as long as you come back.

And finally, Michelle playfully celebrates her fellow Floridian, our dear one Lee Bennett Hopkins, by casting him as a dino with a taste for poetry.  "Robust and unreserved" also describes Michelle's appetite for the work of sharing poetry, in which she always takes the lead. 

Don't Ask a Hopkinsaurus | Michelle H. Barnes
         for Lee Bennett Hopkins

The L.B. Hopkinsaurus
is a rare and noble breed--
a prince among the wordivores,
he always takes the lead.

At feasting "dino"ccasions
when poetry is served,
his taste for inky gobbling
is robust and unreserved.

He might appear well-mannered
but once he's on a roll,
he holds the Guinness record
for collections swallowed whole!

The L.B. Hopkinsaurus
wears a venerable crown.
Don't ask him to retire,
or even to slow down.

This Energizer Dino
with his charismatic roar
says when it comes to Poetry,
we all should eat much more!

I am so grateful to Michelle for relentlessly and graciously bringing us all together month after month to feed, learn from, be challenged by, and encourage each other. Raise your glass or mug or bowl...Here's to Michelle!

The roundup today is with Liz at Elizabeth SteinANDglass, who is appreciating duality this week.  See you there!

sunday swaggers challenge: the beauty in the ugly

Our critique partner Molly Hogan set this month's challenge, called “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” She writes, 'I participated several years ago in a photo challenge from Kim Douillard to “find beauty in the ugly.' This month, I invite you to reinvent the world around you (or one aspect of it) by shifting your lens to see the beauty in what at first seems to be ugly or unnoteworthy. My [original] post is here. Happy Writing!"

Thanks, Molly--this was a perfect one for me over the last couple of weeks.

punching balloons

I didn’t like to go to school.

I didn’t talk.

The teacher was nice, SO nice,

but some children were not.

They didn’t share.

They didn’t listen.

All around me ugly talk

and even sometimes punching.

Every day got worse

and I got scared.

The teacher got scared too.

And then one day she YELLED.

Not at me.  At them.

And they listened!

Especially about the tiny treats.

Everyone wanted a tiny treat.

The ugly went away, almost all

at once, and then we all won stars together,

one, two, three four FIVE!

Our balloon party was beautiful, 

just like we are beautiful 

punching all the colors gently up

in the cozy calm air of our classroom.

©Heidi Mordhorst 2019

Please gently punch your colorful way over to these Swaggers' blogs to enjoy more beauty out of ugly!

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core 

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone 
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise 
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

Our host this week is Tanita over at [fiction, instead of lies].  Thanks for rounding us up, Tanita!