npm 25: poetry friday roundup and kidlit progressive poem l

Welcome, welcome! It's the last Friday of National Poetry Month already, and I'm honored to be gathering y'all here as host. I've been away in France and England for a good part of April for family celebrations and haven't been able to focus on the festivities as usual--least of all my own not-quite-a-project--so I'm looking forward to focusing on YOURS!

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And now I will throw myself with gusto at Line 25 of our annual Kidlit Progressive Poem. As most of you know, this 13-year-old tradition was begun by Irene Latham and is now shepherded by Margaret Simon of Reflections on the Teche  and carried forward each day by one of our number. Some of us have participated in all the variations nearly every year, and some of us are brand new to the community or to the practice--but whoever we are, this year in particular, it is meet, right and salutary to create in community. (That early religious language really sticks, doesn't it?)

This week on Earth Day--yes, it was still Earth Day this week--I rode my bike down to the Supreme Court to show up for the cause of diverse books in curriculum that represent the reality of ALL of us, including LGBTQ+ people and families, and against the slippery slope of opting out of public school instruction that does not align with parents' beliefs.* Then I sat in a DC cafe and typed up some 3rd grade poems about maps and exploration, including this one: 

Seriously, one kid's contributed word was "anxiety" (thank you Doechi)!

Then I attended a gathering of Arts & Humanities folks--artists, educators, administrators, funders--where someone said, "It's VUCA out there, people: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous." But, she said, creatives are equipped to respond in these times, and it's easier to respond in joy when we get together, in community. 

That's what I've loved about this year's poem, the idea that there's a WE opening the April window, a WE racing to the garden, a WE setting up easels, dabbling in paints and communing without constraints. I want to bring that WE back to the forefront in my line, to include us humans among the other species of flora and fauna, not as benevolent overlords but as coequal beings with the dogwoods and daffodils, the woodpeckers and whip-poor-wills, the goldendoodles and the grasshoppers.

So here comes my line to follow Linda Kulp Trout's...

Open an April window

let sunlight paint the air

stippling every dogwood

dappling daffodils with flair

Race to the garden
where woodpeckers drum
as hummingbirds thrum
in the blossoming sweetgum

Sing as you set up the easels
dabble in the paints
echo the colors of lilac and phlox
commune without constraints

Breathe deeply the gifts of lilacs
rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings
feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end
remember long-ago springs

Bask in a royal spring meadow
romp like a golden-doodle pup!
startle the sleeping grasshoppers
delight in each flowering shrub…

Drinking in orange-blossom twilight
relax to the rhythm of stars dotting sky

as a passing whip-poor-will gulps bugs

We follow a moonlit path that calls us:

Grab your dripping brushes!

_____________________________________________________

Michelle Kogan is the perfect person to take us down that moonlit path, paintbrushes in hand!

• 
  
• April 26 Michelle Kogan 
• April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
• April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
• April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
• April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors

And now, your exciting last-Friday-of-National-Poetry-Month doings! Thanks for being part of This Shared World.

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*Here was my sign at the rally, where I stood with Laura Shovan, Robin G. and some other 

Authors Against Book Bans:

It's lengthy and full of big words but some topics require a little more reading, a little more thinking. (My other sign idea was "IT'S COMPLICATED.")