sudoku (the numbers must remain single)

Greetings, all, and I hope you had a sparkling* Interdependence Day. I have unilaterally decided that we Americans have taken the idea of Independence too far in an ugly direction, and that Interdependence is a lot more realistic and useful an ideal to celebrate.  Join my movement! (video diversion)

It's the first Friday of the month and time for an Inklings challenge.  I was so taken with Mary Lee's sudoku poem post last month that I passed the challenge on to all of us: "SUDOKU POEM! YES! Make yourself a grid at least 4x4. Reread Mary Lee’s sudoku poem post from June 1 for information and inspiration and create your own sudoku poem. If you need help with word choice, you could use some of the words in the poem “Numbers” by Mary Cornish."

I myself was very interested in the way the numeric content of a traditional sudoku puzzle could translate into words, so I offered the Mary Cornish poem as a starting point, but I don't think any of us used it, not even me! But I did find out that the name of the puzzle originates in the year 2000 and is from the Japanese, short for sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru "the numbers must remain single" (or "the digits can occur only once").  These words, along with the syllables su, do and ku, show up in my 5x5 grid poem below, which is homage to and curse against kudzu.

See, kudzu is that ugly version of independence in vine form--it just runs up and over everything else, unsubtly and selfishly "maximizing its photosynthetic productivity, by making sure its leaves have optimal exposure to the sun — even if it means smothering other plants in a kind of structural parasitism." It can grow a foot in one day. 

But also, you can eat it! I think our task here is clear, people.

Go see what my fellow Inklings have come up with, and thanks to our host for today, Marcie Flinchum Atkins, for rounding us up.  I'm off to Chautauqua with my folks for a week and plan to do a SHEDLOAD of writing and submitting....send focus my way!

*Speaking of fireworks: my Pride Poem was posted on June 21 and you can scroll down and see the video here. It's called "Federal Hill 4th of July".

Catherine @ Reading to the Core
Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

WHISPERshout Magazine is live! and inklings challenge too

click to visit!

Greetings, Poetry People!  I know I've been hinting at this development for a while, and in fact the idea has been percolating since 2017--but this week, finally, the first modest weekly issue of WHISPERshout Poetry Magazine has appeared!  

Why this project? I'm hoping it will meet a simple need that most writers have--to share their work publicly. I suppose there are writers who are content to write and then tuck their work away (looking at you, Emily Dickinson), but most writers I know are COMMUNICATORS, and it's not communication if your writing isn't seen by, well, the community!

I began writing poems early on, while growing up with a dad whom I watched speaking from the pulpit every Sunday morning to an audience (looking at you, Bob Mordhorst). I learned early on the power of connecting with others through sharing your words--but for poetry writers especially, and for young poets even more especially, opportunities to publish their work are few and far between. (After all, they're competing with all of us adults trying to publish OUR poetry for young people!)

So I hope WHISPERshout Magazine helps to scratch that itch to be seen and acknowledged by the community, and I hope it opens visibility to a very wide range of young poets, whose voices may not easily find a platform otherwise. To my knowledge, WHISPERshout Magazine is the only U.S. online site publishing poetry by kids 4-12, and I'm asking you, if you're willing, to help it...

TAKE OFF!!!

First, please visit Issue 1.1 and enjoy the featured work. Your comments, as always, will thrill and encourage the young writers.

Second, come back here and offer any constructive criticism about format, style, content, in the knowledge that I intended to attach it to my WHISPERshout website and was somewhat defeated by the Squarespace blog platform. (If you know a young person with Squarespace chops who would be willing to teach me, let me know!) 

Third, please share!  If you are a teacher, think of this opportunity for your students to see their poems (with accompanying artwork and photo) published on the World Wide Web!  If you are an author who does school visits, let those schools know that this opportunity exists!  If you are a parent or grandparent sharing poetry with your young ones, encourage them to consider submitting!

Thanks for supporting WHISPERshout Magazine, and thanks to Margaret of Reflections on the Teche, who has already been an enthusiastic facilitator and sharer of her students' work--I hope to be publishing some of it soon...BUT WAIT!  There's more!

It's also the first Friday of the month, and time for an Inklings challenge, this time set by Mary Lee of A(nother) Year of Reading.  In an edgy and daring kind of move, Mary Lee just gave us four random words to work with (knuckle, denial, turn, cautious) and opened the gate.  Luckily a poet can turn any group of words in any direction, right?  I commemorate the establishment of WHISPERshout Magazine thus:

The Challenge

There's no denying a poet who wants to be heard.

Throw caution away at this crossroads.

Turn to face each direction, seeking ears and eyes.

Knuckle down and work it; whisper it, shout it, show all your work!

You see I messed with a couple of the words--poets are rule-breakers, don't you know. Make sure to visit the rest of the Inklings to see how they messed with the words!

Catherine @ Reading to the Core

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche , again our host today, with the Progressive Poem as well! Whoo-hoo National Poetry Month!

anaphora carries back

Greetings to all and Happy March!  It's time again for the Inklings to respond to a challenge, this time from Margaret Simon: "Explore the use of anaphora in a poem, how the repetition of a line or phrase can add depth to the theme. For a mentor text, look at Jericho Brown’s poem “Crossing” ."

I went to Annapolis on Wednesday, to the State House in Maryland's capital where our General Assembly is meeting to consider and enact new legislation.  I was there with a coalition of social justice groups from around the state to ask our representatives for their support of two bills related to clean energy for all, aka climate justice.  

You can learn more here if you're interested, but in brief, the two bills call for a much more coordinated and climate-friendly system of incentives and means to move MD away from fossil fuel use in homes, INCLUDING in "affordable-housing" rental communities where low-income families live.  Two of our small group were mothers who live in apartment buildings where the methane and nitrous dioxide leaking from their gas stoves and heating is 4 times higher than safe OUTDOOR levels.  They don't have the power or the means to replace these dirty and inefficient appliances and systems, so their children have asthma and every now and then someone's apartment blows up.  They presented their comments in Spanish (which takes some cojones) and two of the community organizers with us then translated.  Here we are (and can I just wish you an honored Women's History Month?).

I got to thinking about legislative language and how we "resolve" things in our communal life, and I looked up the word "whereas".  I LOVE IT that the first thing that popped up in my Ecosia search was A POEM by Layli Longsoldier, which you must go and read when you're done here.

 

 

Our host today is Tanita at {fiction, instead of lies} where the hope and anticipation and may I add RELIABILITY of a garden are reasons to get up and at it once again.  Find the anaphora experiments of the other Inklings here:

Catherine @ Reading to the Core

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche 

all hail csikszentmihalyi

Greetings, Poetry People. Good heavens,it's the first Friday of the month again and the Inklings are working to a challenge--no, the gentlest of invitations--from Catherine Flynn: 

Somewhere, someone recommended the book How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. It includes "reflective pauses" and invitations for "writing and reflection." After the poem "Work," by Sally Bliumis-Dunn, the invitation reads: "Can you remember a time when you felt so consumed with the act of making something that you lost all sense of time and your mind seemed to clear? What allowed you to enter this mindful creative space?"

This state of being, which I hope we have all experienced often, is now called FLOW, and the "father of flow" was the Hungarian-born psychologist who eventually made his home in the US at the University of Chicago. Read more about his very interesting life and work here.

I first became interested in his ideas when I was trying to explain in a public charter school application about how school should be "fun."  Many readers resisted the idea that school should be fun, should offer everyone opportunities to experience that "state of being in which people become so immersed in the joy of their work or activity 'that nothing else seems to matter.'"  Most young children, given the right freedom, easily become little bundles of flow as they draw, build with Lego, dig in the sand or repeat a chasing game over and over, and it's my assertion that that's when the broadly applicable skills of focus and persistence are learned. I quoted Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Chick-SENT-Me-High) liberally in the charter school application.  It was denied--because apparently school is NOT supposed to be fun and full of flow; it's supposed to teach us how to manage when our need for joy in our work is denied. (Thanks for listening to my TEDTalk; you'll probably get more out of Mike C's famous 2004 one!)

I worked with Catherine's poetic invitation two ways, but having read Linda's response before starting, all my efforts feel pale and flabbily human in comparison to her wiry and intense animal metaphor.  Don't miss it. 

 

I seek this feeling every day, and if I get there, I have to hope it hasn't made me late or derelict in my duties! You can see the responses of the other Inklings at these linklings:

Catherine @ Reading to the Core

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche 

Our hostess-with-the-mostess this week is Laura Shovan, and she's highlighting the "other Laura" Purdie Salas's new book FINDING FAMILY.  Paddle on over and find all the members of your poetry family!