#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!

ncte19: the real deal and climate action psa

I'm coming to Poetry Friday this week from the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English!  Here is a link to the whole of my presentation on inquiring into the poetic intent of our beginningest beginner writers by offering concrete choices.

https://bit.ly/2XXFfZD

Clicking should take you to a Google Slides doc which you should be able to view, download and print as you need to.  We had a great time presenting together!  Here's the team:

And now, your #Climate Action PSA poem for GREEN FRIDAY, Nov. 29

Use the Power of Your Purse, Yes, Follow the Money

Stay Home, Eat Food that You Already Cooked, 

with Your Loved Ones Play a Game

that You Already Own 

Make an Impact Take a Stand

WIN/WIN/WIN

"This year, on November 29th we are calling on you to take a stand for the planet and support your local community businesses by refusing to give any of your hard earned money to this corrupt financial system. Each year we are sold products built to break or fade out of fashion, making us feel forced to keep perpetually consuming and extracting new resources. By taking part we will be affecting these companies where it hurts them the most, in their profit margins."



Thanks to Rebecca at Sloth Reads for hosting, and Happy Thanksgiving to all!

national author's day challenge

The Sunday Poetry Swaggers group challenge is on again, set this month by Linda Mitchell.  Our challenge this month is to celebrate National Author's Day (as it is styled in most places online; I prefer Authors' Day) by "finding prose text or poetry you love from a published author and use it as a mentor text to write your poem. The poem doesn't have to be about an author or authorship...but it could."

I am lucky to be friends with an Irish resident of DC, Andrew Clarke, whose beautiful cottage on the family farm in County Roscommon we visited two summers ago.  We met his mum, who still lives in the farm house that has been in the Clarke family for generations, his brother Charles, who still raises cattle there, and on two other occasions now I have met Andrew's sister Jane, who is a an acclaimed poet!

Most recently I attended a reading here in DC on Monday evening; one of her 2019 books is WHEN THE TREE FALLS (Bloodaxe Books).  It includes many poems sited at the same family farm that we visited and mainly addresses the long decline of Andrew and Jane's father, but a poem that really struck me at the reading is the one titled "Polling Station [May 25th, 2018]."  Some of you may know that on that date, the Irish people voted--rather breathtakingly:

That’s it then: as those two shock exit polls predicted last night, by a margin of 66.4% for yes to 33.6% for no and on a record turnout of 64.51%, Ireland has voted to repeal the eighth amendment of its constitution, which since 1983 has effectively prohibited abortion in all bar exceptional circumstances.

Here’s is Guardian Ireland correspondent Henry McDonald’s full story on the events of a historic day, what led up to them, and what they might mean.

Here is Harriet Sherwood’s explanation of what will happen to Ireland’s abortion legislation now, and how the government’s planned new regime compares with the rest of the world.

The Guardian

Here's the poem:

Polling Station | Jane Clarke

May 25th 2018

In the queue up to the door of the schoolhouse

neighbours welcome sunshine after the wettest

of wet winters; spirits lift at the sight of fields

drying out, grass thickening, calves thriving,

unstoppable growth.  There's talk of young ones

speeding home to vote, swallows back to the barn.

No one asks anyone where they'll place their X--

every family has stories, left like ploughs

and harrows among thistles behind the sheds.

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

Wow--do I admire this poem.  Rooted in the shared natural rhythms and routines of farm life, Jane deftly, deeply conveys the powerful emotion of this referendum for Ireland's women (and the men who also voted), and the way that public policy can be  quietly, momentously changed by very private stories.

I love the extended metaphor, of the wet winter giving way to grass thickening, unstoppable growth, swallows back to the barn, of great and ordinary change.  But the soaring moment here is the lowdown gut punch of the last two lines:

"every family has stories, left like ploughs

and harrows among thistles behind the sheds."

What a simple simile in the first line, which then turns, with the addition of harrows left among the gorgeous, thorny pink-purple thistles, out of sight behind the outbuildings, to hulkingly painful, prickly secrets, shames, sadnesses.  What can I take from this mentor text?

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

Lyft Driver

October 11, 2019

He's bearded, black, a little older than I,

gracious. Reminds me of Barack, somehow.

He's wearing earbuds--doesn't need, like 

some of them do, to chat.  And at the end

of a long week, I don't think I need to chat either.  

Except--"I'm going to an extraordinary event," I say.

William takes out his earbuds, finds me in

the rear view mirror. "What kind?" he says.

"It's a celebration of the investiture of a friend,

after years of waiting, as an immigration judge.

And it's extra special because my friend is a 

cigar-smoking Cuban immigrant butch lesbian

little person. Her approval as a judge feels like 

a move forward at a time when most things feel 

like they're moving backwards."

My driver turns off the main road towards downtown,

heads into a neighborhood I've never driven through.  

Will this detour make me late, or does he know 

where he's going?

He says, "Well, I've been black my whole life, 

and to me this moment doesn't feel so terribly

backwards.  It only feels that way to people 

who thought everything was going fine before."

I roll down my window for more fresh air.

I have no idea where we are, but William's 

navigation app--full of redlined traffic jams

we can't really avoid--shows what time 

we'll arrive: just a little later than we hoped.

flashdraft ©Heidi Mordhorst 2019

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

You can tell it's a flashdraft because it's way longer than Jane's poem, which means it needs way more work.  I'm a little sad it's not a big nature metaphor because, you know, NATURE. But occasional Friday evening Lyft rides to downtown (so we can take the Metro home together) are part of the rhythm and routine of my real city life.  Thanks to Jane for the inspiration, and thanks to Linda for the challenge.  You can find the rest of the Sunday Poetry Swaggers' work here:

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

And our host today is Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference, who reminds us that indeed, spending a lot of time with people who challenge and inspire you will change your life!  (Or even a little time, in a Lyft.)

Inktober 2: catching up

I watched the debate last week and fell off the Inktober wagon in the process.  Last night I had some catching up to do, involving words 15-24.

I was half-asleep, and sometimes that helps--it didn't go too badly,  and it just about fit in a Tweet!



pretty oldenday

she has gone legend, draped 
and belled with wild green ornaments, 
misfit among the suits and seatbelts
slung over our shoulders. 
her tread itself is treasure, 
little ghosts of tiptoe 
disappearing, already ancient, 
dizzy over graveled avenues.

flashdraft  ©Heidi Mordhorst


I've just realized that Pretty Oldenday has a brother.  That poem will not be so light.

Our host for Poetry Friday today is Karen Edmisten.  Head on over for a fall of "crisp, crackling gifts."

OIPK: prereading

Before the poetry, a climate action PSA:  

Black Friday is your next opportunity to stand with youth and 

call for policy to recover our global climate.

I do plan to participate, but I have learned through my Drawdown.org workshop that we are likely to accomplish more through action at the level of our local organizations, and that governments can't pay for the scale of change that is required.  We have to press wealthy entities like corporations to make the change.  May I challenge you to research which is the most powerful corporate employer in your area?  What are they doing to reduce emissions and reverse climate warming?  Mine is Marriott, and they just decided NOT to provide a million little plastic bottles of shampoo.  So I'm thinking of asking them to do more and fund food composting in my county schools!

*********************************************************************************
This post represents my 11th bloggiversary.  Thanks to you, Dear Readers, for steadfastly sticking with me all this time, and for welcoming me into the Poetry Friday community.

And now, welcome to the next installment of Overheard in PreK.  Each of my kids has a laminated photo name card with a velcro dot on the back.  We use it on the Attendance Board and then they take it with them to stick on posters for each play center as a way of showing who's working where.  They often forget to retrieve them, meaning that PM kids will then find an AM card still stuck on a poster and vice versa.

My readingest AM kid is Kyng.  He found PM Francisco's card in which Francisco is smiling broadly in a coral-pink striped polo shirt.  "I found Flamingo's card in the Dollhouse!" said Kyng, handing it over.

It took me a few seconds to guess what had just happened.


How Reading is Like

I found a Flamingo at school, a Cassowary
and three Allisongators and a Bryonlyon,
plus a Nayanabanana and Nayelyjelly.
When I read I read with my whole head,
my eyes and my memory of every book I've read,
things I know and things I like.
When I see the color it helps me think.
Words are made of more than ink. 

flashdraft ©Heidi Mordhorst

BONUS MUSIC: "Flamingo" by Kero Kero Bonito 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY-FJvRqK0E

This poem is brought to you by Kyng, Francisco, Cassidy, all three Allisons (yes, three), Bryon, Nayana and Nayely, and also by the complexity that is the reading process.  The Poetry Friday round-up today is brought to you by Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Inktober

So it's really a challenge for illustrators, but as we learned last week, INK KNOWS NO BORDERS, so plenty of people whose inkstrokes look like letters are joining in.  Created by one Jake Parker, you can find Inktober work on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Inktober offers us a list of words, one for each day of October.  Me, I'm a Tweeter, so I'm posting there, which also limits my word count and therefore supports my regular participation.

In the spirit of our host and my CP Catherine Flynn's THANKU post, I'm really grateful to the organizers who put the challenge out there. And for all its warts (and warthogs) I'm grateful that Twitter exists as an instant publication platform for those of us who just need to see our compositions up on the noticeboard of the worldwide village. I'mma do some catching up today, too.

           

 

  

[CHEAT: not new work but too perfect an opportunity]

 






Thanks to @mrjakeparker for hosting #Inktober and thanks to Catherine for hosting #PoetryFriday, and thanks to the youth of the planet @Fridays4Future, for refusing to give up their persistent demands that the adults with the power do something to COOL IT. Are you still looking for a positive way into being part of the solution?  Drawdown has 100 solutions--you're sure to find one you can get behind!