deconstructivism

Greetings from grantland--I'm writing like a fiend in support of tax-supported Poetry and Justice For All (and cross your fingers for success), but I have to pause long enough to join in the Poetry Sisters' Challenge for the first time in a while.  Here it is:

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of October! Here’s the scoop: We’re building! Our prompt comes from p. 139 of The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, and we’re writing a poem in which we literally build and/or take apart something – large or small. Our focus will be on constructing or deconstructing, taking into account technical terms, instructions, and perhaps even material sources. A great mentor poem would be something like this, or this. Are you in? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on October 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

It turns out I wrote an adjacent poem this week, without knowing what the challenge was. See what you think, and I'll try to make some rounds late Saturday to see what everyone has posted...I'm one of those people who likes factory tours and floor plans and detailed cooking and art TikToks.

Not my most uplifting poem, but even death must be deconstructed now and then....

Thanks to our host today, Carol at Beyond Literacy Link, where autumn abounds! Enjoy all the toasty orange and spooky scents of October. I wish I was a Varsalona grandgirl!

16th bloggiversary: holding steady, looking forward

Greetings, Poetry People!  I'm joining you here on the 3rd Friday of the month with a little boost for thriving-not-surviving through the climate crisis, and also what is now the official bloggiversary poem of my juicy little universe.  I originally posted it on Friday, October 14, 2016, when mjlu was in its middle childhood, aged 8.  I've posted it in the same form since then, but this year, being a sensitive and cantankerous teenager, the poem demanded a later curfew a few adjustments--a fair request.

So raise your glass/mug/cup/fist and let us celebrate longevity, tradition and novelty, and the feeling of still having something to say!

 (Y'all will let me know if ever that's not true, right?)

Bloggiversary Poem, Twice as Old

All threads and trains, 

no rules, restraints;

No due dates, deadlines, or demands.

I get to choose. It's in my hands:

       voice, vocabulary,

       venom or valentine--

Each and every muse is mine.

Dive in deep or reach out wide;

noisy soapbox, soft aside;

Sampling the past or hewing the new,

I talk to myself, I write to you.

      Revels, relations, 

      revelations live here

Year after year after year.

draft HM 2016; redraft 2024

And now for the climate portion of our program: you may recall my deep dive in April 2022 into ALL WE CAN SAVE, a collection of essays and poetry edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson.   Dr. Ayana has a new book out that I'm just starting to dip into, but all you need to know right now (okay, all *I* needed to know) is that this book comes with an Anti-Apocalypse Mixtape playlist. People, we are going to be Dancing for the Planet together (but that's a project for another post).

Check this out:

"Getting it right is all about collective wisdom.

This book is an anthology of sorts, a mosaic — 20 interviews, 5 poems, 3 co-authored chapters, 2 artists’ new works, a note from my dad, and a quote from my mom.

It includes visionary farmers and financiers, architects and advocates, producers and policy wonks. Mega brains. All stars."




On possibility and transformation with:

Abigail Dillen • Adam McKay • Archibald Frederick Johnson • Ayisha Siddiqa • Bill McKibben • Bren Smith • Brian Donahue • Bryan C. Lee Jr. • Colette Pichon Battle • Erica Deeman • Franklin Leonard • Jacqueline Woodson • Jade Begay • Jean Flemma • Jigar Shah • Judith D. Schwartz • K. Corley Kenna • Kate Marvel • Kate Orff • Kelly Sims Gallagher • Kendra Pierre-Louis • Leah Penniman • Marge Piercy • Mustafa Suleyman • Oana Stănescu • Olalekan Jeyifous • Paola Antonelli • Régine Clément • Rhiana Gunn-Wright • Samantha Montano • Steve Connell • Wendell Berry • Xiye Bastida

I'm girding myself with joy for the coming challenging months, friends. 

Thanks to Matt over at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme for hosting us today, and let's imagine that that little tractor runs on solar power as well as hoedown music!

math hurts

Howdy. Briefly, it's the First Friday and time for an Inklings Challenge...

From Margret, via Laura Shovan, invented by new-to-me author Shari Green--A Pythagorean Poem!

Here's the math background: Pythagoras's theorem is a2 + b2 = c2.
One possible set of numbers is 3, 4, 5:
3x3 + 4x4 = 5x5
9 + 16 = 25

Using this triple, the poem will be

1st stanza: 3 lines of 3 words each
2nd stanza: 4 lines of 4 words each
3rd stanza: 5 lines of 5 words each*

KICKER! The third stanza must be composed of all the words found in stanzas one and two (in any order; variations okay). The third stanza should be a progression of sorts, a product of the first two in thought or theme or meaning.

Lordy.

Here goes, from a magnetic poem I made yesterday:


helene | a pythagorean poem


above early fall
a hot blossom
of rain opens,

tears morning– field– road–
shivers house– harvest– bark–
melts roof– night– our
very breath– to water

rain-opened road. roof blossom.
house fall. our tears shiver
above hot barks of breath.
fields harvested too early. night
waters morning. verily, a melting.


© HM 2024






Check out the rest of the Pythagorean Poems by

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

and thanks to Tabatha for hosting today!