This.
Just this, to consider with warmth, incisive thinking and a brave willingness towards uncertainty, to remember that "as wardens of our species most dangerous technology, [the English language], to treat our materials seriously. Embrace the mystery of earnest, mellifluous language."
Worth your 49 minutes, friends.
Thanks for rounding us up, Karen Edmisten!
Everything is connected, as they say, and so any small thing we can do contributes to the bigger everything that we absolutely cannot do--not alone, anyway.
As you know, my two small things are teaching poetry to kids, almost always with a nature connection, and communicating about climate & planet, whether through organizations, poems, or right here on the blog. Today Katharine Hayhoe is helping me expand on the May theme for my daily drafts, ❣️love on fire.🔥
Katharine is a climate scientist who writes a Substack called "Talking Climate." I like it because it's brief and friendly: it starts with Good News; lays the Not-So-Good News on us, and ends with What You Can Do. Here are excerpts from her Mother's Day edition:
The data is clear: “across every country, love for the next generation is the dominant reason for action on climate change.” And when we look at who’s particularly in support, mothers immediately rise to the top. In the U.S., 81% of mothers surveyed are worried about climate change. Even more, 93%, agreed with the statement that “we have a moral responsibility to create a safe and healthy climate for ourselves and our children.” We all want a safe and secure future for our children and their children. Women in general are more likely to list climate and environment issues as a top voting priority, according to new findings that 62% of “climate voters” are women.
One of the most effective climate actions any of us can take is to join a group. Together, our voices are amplified and become even more powerful. In the U.S., I’m a big fan of Moms Clean Air Force, a group of more than 1.5 million parents, and Mothers Out Front, that includes over 35,000 mothers and other caregivers advocating for climate action and a resilient future. I’m also a founding member of Science Moms, a nonpartisan climate advocacy group of climate scientists and moms whose website provides all kinds of resources you can use to talk about climate change with your kids, regardless of where you live.
My grown offspring have their own approaches to climate issues and action, but I'm a Climate Poetry Mom to all the kids I teach. The current afterschool program is THIS PRETTY PLANET, which involves collecting spring nature treasures, arranging them into mandalas, and then writing about them--with love. Yesterday 3rd-grader Benicio brought in a single tall stalk of grass grown to seedhead and said, "Look at my new pen!" I remarked that that would be a great poem title; he ended up writing something different so I asked if I could write the new pen poem. Here it is.
Thanks for passing through today, and thanks to Ramona at Pleasures from the Page for hosting us today. May ❣️love on fire🔥 fuel whatever tough work you have to do this week!
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| buchananwbc.org |
Whitney Hanson (https://www.whitneyhansonpoetry.com/) is a young poet who has caught my interest. She shares primarily on TikTok and that’s why I didn’t know of her until I caught up with her on Meta. Hanson offers poems that begin with, “in poetry we say…” In these poems, Hanson takes a common phrase we know in English and translates it poetically.
Here's my response; my post is brief while I go consider what might be the benefits of becoming a TikTok poet...
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| DC's May Day Rally & March |
Thanks to Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading for taking over hosting duties for our friend Molly, who had an emergency, and you'll find more poetic translations here:
Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche
*P.S. I just love the triple conglomeration of metaphor in "May Day." Who knew?
