Greetings, all! It's the first Friday of the month, the world is watching with anxious eyes as both a war and a shift in global politics takes place, and just to keep our hearts full, the Inklings are writing to a challenge set by Margaret Simon:
"Choose a quote that speaks to you. Write a poem that responds to the quote. The words can be used as a golden shovel or throughout the poem or as an epigraph."
It just so happens I have a little something I prepared earlier to answer this challenge. I participated again this year in Laura Shovan's February Poetry Project, where a group of about 40 write to a daily prompt on a theme and share and respond to each others' poems. It's a great experience in so many ways and I always come away with a pile of drafts I wouldn't have written otherwise. This year the theme was TIME.
It was a prompt from Lisa Vihos on February 11 that reminded me I owned the climate-feminist anthology ALL WE CAN SAVE: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, the book I posted about a couple of weeks ago (here's the website/newsletter/ community).
She shared an excerpt from an essay by Sherri Mitchell, "Indigenous Prophecy and Mother Earth," included in the book. This essay comes from the first of eight sections in the book, called "Root". I chose a different striking line and wrote this golden shovel.
Here's Sherri Mitchell reminding us how the body keeps the score.
That's the whole post for today [EDIT: NO IT ISN"T! I have neglected to link to my fellow Inklings posts!] Check out whom and how the rest of the Inklings quoted and wrote!
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche
Kat Apel is rounding us up today at Kat's Whiskers, and sharing her newly released book! See you there.
It's fascinating how science, cells, molecules direct the history of the world. "The Body clocks the generation." How unwise for humanity to forget our connections with the natural world.
ReplyDeleteI just finished listening to that essay today! Makes your poem even more poignant and true. Love that last line...
ReplyDeleteYou blend scientific language, sustained imagery and creativity so deftly. Beautiful, Heidi.
ReplyDeleteOh my, your poem is at once already becoming part of me. I am so intrigued how this format allows for yet another layer to mine from a quote. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHeidi, As usual you've given us much to think about as well as a beautiful written piece of poetry that incorporates so much science! Thank you for sharing this today. I love the format, too.
ReplyDeleteWell, that was weird. Trying again. Hopefully, it puts in my name not the URL. Sorry.
ReplyDelete~ Carol Labuzzetta ~
Every line of your poem carries so much beauty and so much truth. I've read it several times and find more to love, especially "the music of our ancestors" and "the mandatory, fragile faith of/those who will pass on." That faith feels more fragile by the day.
ReplyDeleteWhat a powerful strike line and what a powerful response to the quote! I especially love the ending and how we keep on planting that "helix of seeds/with the mandatory, fragile faith."
ReplyDelete