ditty challenges

 

The delightfully ambitious Michelle at Today's Little Ditty is our Poetry Friday host today, and she has offered two challenges that I'm about to tackle.  First is Nikki Grimes's wordplay challenge which concludes the fascinating interview she gave Michelle last week:

"When I talk about wordplay, I'm talking about studying a word from top to bottom, and inside out, considering every aspect of the word:  What it looks like, sounds like, feels like.  What it does, how it's used, etc.  The idea is to bring all of your senses into the act.  The poem you create may end up being complex and sophisticated, or very simple."

Second is the Five for Friday challenge periodically set by Michelle, which is an exercise in minimalism, a ditty of five words only (although I note that many poets endow theirs with expository titles, a practice which I wholly condone).

So--for Nikki's challenge I do not choose the word "bell" or "lemon" (done that one!), "blanket,"  "leaf" or "sun," as I might usually.  Instead the news lately takes me to "bullet" and I'm a little afraid of it, but here's my Draftless Luck* effort.  The title is both expository and five words long, if you allow me a hyphenated word, so that's my Five for Friday, too.

Thank you, Michelle; thank you, Nikki; and thank you, Poetry Friday people, for reading the raw and unpolished with interest and respect.  We do each other a great favor in that.

May I also point you to this quote from George Eliot and this recording by Elvis Costello?

*With apologies to Erica Jong, this refers to my time-challenged technique of writing a poem right now, once, with the revision allowed by one hour, publishing it on the blog as though it were finished--and hoping for the best.

deeper wisdom: what the knife knows

Illness precluded a Friday post, but a visit to the doctor (combined with 72 hours forced rest) has led to a slight improvement and a Saturday post.  In response to the Ditty of the Month Club challenge hosted by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes and inspired by Joyce Sidman's work in Winter Bees, I offer the following.  Like Liz Steinglass, I opted to explore the wisdom of an everyday object rather than of nature, and I took a little liberty with the form as well.


What Does the Knife Know?

What does the knife know?
    Red tautness of tomato's skin.
        Onion's shallot's garlic's kin.
    Juicy slick of vitamin.   
        Jolt of pit or stone within.

What does the knife know?
    Tender coarseness of the crumb.
        Whack of steel on boarden drum.
    Whorl and loop don't armor thumb.
        Better bleeding cut than numb.

Heidi Mordhorst 2015
all rights reserved
  
I have only just realized that knife goes with spoon.  I guess a fork poem is on its way...and is anyone else having trouble, as they read these deeper wisdom poems, screening out repeated mental blarings of "What does the fox say?"