playing poetry

Hey hi hello! Come in! I've got Daisy's new game all set up--it takes up practically the whole dining room table! What are you drinking?  Have a candy cane cookie--Duncan made them.

So, the way it works is, as the first Cue Giver, I choose a color from the first card in the deck. I eye it up and then meaningfully pronounce a single word that I hope will guide you all to place your markers on the exact same color on the massive matrix of hues on the board.  After the first round, I give a second,  two-word cue that hopefully gets you even closer to the color on my card--or I may need to CORRECT because my first cue sent you in the wrong direction.

You score points for guessing close to the actual hue, and I score points for giving cues that help you guess.

Are y'all ready? Oh, and you can't say any regular color words, of course.

SLICKER..........

Oh! Look what color you chose.  Hmmm.  Let me try this again.

GOLDENROD COPY..........

Whoohoo! You got so close this time!  My slicker was a few degrees more golden than yours, I guess. Next round; you give the cues.

"MINT................"

Oh, now, are you thinking the color of the actual mint that grows in my yard, or the "mint" that would be used on a website to describe a candle or a tablecloth?  Hmmmm. And which mint? Spearmint?  Peppermint? Catmint?  I'll place my marker here.  Give your second cue now.

"JERSEY SEAFOAM....."

That's a whole different mint-game, now! My next marker goes way over here into the murkier hues, I think...

What's that you say?

You think this is really a POETRY game?  Oh! Well, now that you mention it, it does scratch that itch some of us have when we say "Who chooses the names of these lipsticks and nail polishes and interior paint colors?!  Brazilian Rumba, Peach Melba, Dolphin Splash?  I could do that job."  Yes,  you definitely could!

Next let's play Poetry for Neanderthals!

I take card.
Make you from this team guess word by give clues.
My words all have just one sound.
No cheat, or one from that team bop me with blow-up club!
Go!

Big plant in my cave.
Light light light.
Small shapes hang on it.
Give drink each day.

Guess, team, guess!

Thanks for celebrating the Yuletide Day of Laughter with me and family, Poetry Friday Friends, and thanks to Michelle at More Art 4 All for hosting us on this 

    Happy Poetry Friday, Happy Holidays, & Happy Year’s End!

Adieu false profit & false prophets alike! Blessings of all hues be upon you friends, as you are upon me.

tiny stitches, enormous quilt

I  hope it's Nikki Giovanni Day.  Forgive me for ringing and running after dropping my offering; it's been a big week for me and WHISPERshout. (More soon on my visits via Zoom to a 4th grade classroom in Sacramento, facilitated by our friend Patricia Franz!)

This is the one book I have, from 2002, of the many poems that have come by and struck me. It's signed, which is a treasure. But you know from reading the stories and looking at the photos online that while many were struck from afar, it seems many more were touched closely by Nikki's--

I know what I sense but don't find my words, so I'll use hers.

apologies for poor image - click for a better one

Thanks to Linda at A Word Edgewise for hosting today--you know you'll find something lovely there! And it goes without saying that it would be good...to hold on to Nikki, just one so wonderful part of our chain.

not quite drawn and quartered

Greetings from Maryland, where it's 27* this Thursday night, with a "feels like" temperature of ELEVEN DEGREES---so I'm very glad that I tackled Molly's monthly Inklings challenge before all my senses froze over!  Molly's been reading Unlocking the Heart (a book whose cover does not seem to know that WINTER HAS ARRIVED), and she gave us this very open-ended prompt therefrom:

“Begin with a specific sensory experience (of taste, sight, smell, sound or touch), and see where that leads you.” 

 

This prompt is not what I was thinking of as I tucked myself into bed one night this week, adjusting for everything from plantar fasciitis to a tendency to clench my jaw, but I woke up in the middle of the night (another repercussion of passing through the middle of one's life) with this very specific and not especially welcome sensory experience in mind.

Still, I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the way that my gray-pink matter is still working away under my gray-brown hair and can cough up this gray-green memory of a smell, a time, a place, a revulsion strong enough that I can hang onto it until morning and want to write about it. That's something, right?

Check out the further sensory experiences of the Inklings below, and many thanks to Carol at The Apples in My Orchard for hosting us after waaaaay too long a drive!

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core, who may need a bye this month 

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

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