Greetings, all, and hoping you are blessed by continued energies for this end of National Poetry Month! April is a glory, and also, for those of us who are Poeting and Earthing to the utmost, kind of a long haul. Luckily, we have poetry to get us through Poetry Month. ; )
Greetings, poetry lovers and earth huggers! I know that poets come in all flavors, but honestly, is there a poet among us who is not dazzled by the daily marvels served up by our planet without any effort from ourselves? Simultaneously, is there a poet among us who is not touched by grief when we face the daily damage served upon our planet by our efforts to prosper, to profit?
Tomorrow at my congregation's annual retreat I'll conduct my annual poetry workshop, and it will be based on a book given to me by that dear friend V. It is HERE: Poems for the Planet, edited by Elizabeth J. Coleman (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), and like me, you might have missed its glorious variety of work by living poets. Part of its aim is to acknowledge our complicated emotions about our climate crisis through poetry. The entire collection emphasizes what W.H. Auden said about poetry:
“Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.”
"The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is--it's to imagine what is possible."
So in my little workshop, we'll read and write together to find spiritual grounding and resilience for the work at hand and ahead.
We'll start with my recent poem "Between Chapters of BRAIDING SWEETGRASS," published recently in The Bezine--the mother of all mixed-emotions poems. Then we'll read one poem each from four of the anthology's five sections. Participants will read to self, then out loud if they choose; we'll discuss, keeping always in mind the uncomfortable power that rises out of our mixed wonder and grief, despair and righteous anger; and then do a little drafting before moving to the next poem.
Where You’d Want to Come From: “Naming the Field” -David Hart
The Gentle Light That Vanishes: “First Verse”-Tim Seibles
As If They’d Never Been: “The Weighing”- Jane Hirshfield
Like You Are New to the World–”A Small Poem” - Vievee Francis
Three of these poets are new to me--always one of the attractions of an anthology to discover new voices and personalities, don't you agree? This one has an extra bonus feature which follows this last poem in the book:
A Small Poem | Vievee Francis
for Jen Chang and Martha
From a morning without expectations a surprise,
a word unanticipated and meant. Rare
and jarring. Syllables moving one to tears
when the winter sky is a simple blue, and nothing
is there to impede the dailyness of things. But
the word grows from a note a hello a salutation
and plants itself like a spring dandelion seed that by
afternoon is full grown and blowing more seeds,
lightly, sweetly, a coloratura of delight, and I
feel as if I were both the plucked and the child
plucking the stem and twirling. How a single word
can set the world turning from one moment into
the next in startlement.
What follows this poem "to set the world turning...in startlement" is an entire Guide to Activism by the Union of Concerned Scientists! It's a 30-page summary of actions we can take, from the simple and individual to the loud advocacy we can lead, that contribute to change.
[Don't forget, too, that our money talks. This week I heard a presentation from the author of this article about social impact investing for people and planet.]
Poetry can be a tool for navigating your feelings about our climate emergency and then getting on with our day, whether it’s a day of activism or a day of rest & process. So, I wish you a Mixed-Emotions Earth Day full of whatever you need to live by Jane Hirshfield's words:
"The world asks of us
 |
| "paper" by Jordy, age 7, MD |
 |
| click to visit! |
Greetings, Poetry People! I know I've been hinting at this development for a while, and in fact the idea has been percolating since 2017--but this week, finally, the first modest weekly issue of WHISPERshout Poetry Magazine has appeared!
Why this project? I'm hoping it will meet a simple need that most writers have--to share their work publicly. I suppose there are writers who are content to write and then tuck their work away (looking at you, Emily Dickinson), but most writers I know are COMMUNICATORS, and it's not communication if your writing isn't seen by, well, the community!
I began writing poems early on, while growing up with a dad whom I watched speaking from the pulpit every Sunday morning to an audience (looking at you, Bob Mordhorst). I learned early on the power of connecting with others through sharing your words--but for poetry writers especially, and for young poets even more especially, opportunities to publish their work are few and far between. (After all, they're competing with all of us adults trying to publish OUR poetry for young people!)
So I hope WHISPERshout Magazine helps to scratch that itch to be seen and acknowledged by the community, and I hope it opens visibility to a very wide range of young poets, whose voices may not easily find a platform otherwise. To my knowledge, WHISPERshout Magazine is the only U.S. online site publishing poetry by kids 4-12, and I'm asking you, if you're willing, to help it...
First, please visit Issue 1.1 and enjoy the featured work. Your comments, as always, will thrill and encourage the young writers.
Second, come back here and offer any constructive criticism about format, style, content, in the knowledge that I intended to attach it to my WHISPERshout website and was somewhat defeated by the Squarespace blog platform. (If you know a young person with Squarespace chops who would be willing to teach me, let me know!)
Third, please share! If you are a teacher, think of this opportunity for your students to see their poems (with accompanying artwork and photo) published on the World Wide Web! If you are an author who does school visits, let those schools know that this opportunity exists! If you are a parent or grandparent sharing poetry with your young ones, encourage them to consider submitting!
Thanks for supporting WHISPERshout Magazine, and thanks to Margaret of Reflections on the Teche, who has already been an enthusiastic facilitator and sharer of her students' work--I hope to be publishing some of it soon...BUT WAIT! There's more!
Catherine @ Reading to the Core
Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche , again our host today, with the Progressive Poem as well! Whoo-hoo National Poetry Month!
Some people are taking recycling to a whole new level! Watch this video about schools built out of plastic bottles, and then imagine sitting inside a school like that. Write a poem describing what you see, hear, and feel around you. How is it different than a regular school?
Or... imagine building a school out of something else that usually gets thrown away, like tires or old washing machines or cardboard boxes. Maybe your poem will sound like an engineer's structural drawing or an architect's blueprint or a TV commercial advertising your new recycled school!
Thanks to Laura Shovan and the other members of Authors Take Action for inviting us all to play along!
WHY NOT
combine an illustration by Marc Brown of ARTHUR fame with a line from the current adult poet laureate Ada Limon?
WHY NOT
open a colorful vista and suggest that each of us, however small in the landscape, has an essential role to play?
WHY NOT
(if you can't center poetry every day of every month of every year) make April the epicenter of poetry in the nation's calendar?
As for me, I'm certain that this opening page from the book that taught me to read also taught me what I was meant for...
 | |||
| "a poet writing poems" in her garret |
This makes it look like poeting is a solitary activity done with eyes lifted to the heavens, but we all know that poetry happens in community. First of all, poets write to communicate, and the moment anyone reads our words--even if we don't know them--community begins to develop. Secondly, poets help and support each other as they change and experiment and learn and grow. Thirdly, poets play and collaborate, as we are doing again this year with the Progressive Poem!
But think also of all those raindrops that hit rooftops or pavement or other hard places far from soil or stream...they have a ways to go, a more strenuous journey. Do they all get there in the end? Do we? As Mary Lee says, "I love stories that start at the end...Write me a story that ends with sudden clarity."
Our poem will continue tomorrow with Tabatha's line, which you'll find at The Opposite of Indifference.
April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading