welcome april! welcome national poetry month! welcome all!

Greetings and salutations! It is my distinct honor to be hosting Poetry Friday on this auspicious first Friday of National Poetry Month 2022, and I'm delighted to have you all here!

BIRTHDAY #1       

There's quite a bit to accomplish today, first of which is to wish my little April Fool the happiest of birthdays! My first-born is 23 today and finally celebrating a day of majority cautiously but not under total lockdown, which is how she passed 21 and 22. For her pains she is receiving the first Harry Styles single since early 2020 from his new album HARRY'S HOUSE.  Let's all share in her joy...

 

 

POEM #1

Second on the agenda is the April challenge for the critique group known as INKLINGS, consisting of  Margaret Simon, Linda Mitchell, me, Molly Hogan, Mary Lee Hahn and Catherine Flynn.  This month, thanks to Mary Lee we are writing with help from Ellen Bass and a heart-wrenching poem.

Use “The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass as a mentor text. Keep the title, but choose a theme/message either from your own life or from current events.

I also incorporated Metaphor Dice into my effort, with plans for entering Taylor Mali's Golden Dice contest.

<poem forthcoming in POETRY BY CHANCE: An Anthology of Poems Powered by Metaphor Dice>

This is why we keep at it, right, folks?  Because we cannot help ourselves, and because as bell hooks said, "The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is--it's to imagine what is possible."

 

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So now let's look at the poetry-art that's moving from possible into REAL over the next month. We have everything from new books to author chats, from poem-a-day projects to line-a-day collaborations!

Birthday #2

Today is also the book birthday of IMPERFECT II, an anthology of poems for middle-schoolers focused on PERSPECTIVE.  This is a follow-up to IMPERFECT I, published in 2018 and also edited by Tabatha Yeatts, and it's already trending on major book sale sites!  I'm thrilled to have two poems in this collection (alongside many Poetry Friday regulars), which offers poetry to answer this question:  

When we've lost sight of the big picture, how can we help ourselves put things back in perspective? 

Get it now at Indiebound, Barnes & Noble or Amazon, and follow the blog at https://imperfectii.blogspot.com/ 

NPM PROJECT #1

Mine!  Here you can find more information about my month of response to ALL WE CAN SAVE, the collection of essays and poems edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson.  I'm reading it and listening to it and learning soooo much.  I can't say I'll write a poem every day, but I'll try to write something every day, and I'm challenging myself to write outside my comfort zone. 

NPM PROJECT #2

Joining me in responding to ALL WE CAN SAVE is Mary Lee Hahn, who WILL be writing a poem each day and depositing them here at her Poetrepository (one of my all time favorite coinages).  She has some intriguing themes lined up. I'm enjoying the feeling that there could be some dialogue between our projects...

 

 

NPM Poetry Friday Tradition #1

Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup will once again provide us with the NPM Kidlitosphere Events Roundup. Her catalog of all the exciting bites on the National Poetry Month menu will make your mouth water, maybe even make you shout!

NPM Poetry Friday Tradition #2

It's the annual Progressive Poem, originated by Irene Latham (who kicks us off this year) and now hosted by Margaret Simon.  Over 30 days, 30 poets will attempt to (and succeed; we always do) cobble together a collaborative poem, line by precarious, unpredictable line. Check out the team in the sidebar to the right!

NPM PROJECT #3

Linda Mitchell's APRIL poetry project at A Word Edgewise is to read one letter per day written by her grandmother from decades before she was born, as an inspiration for a new poem.  Can you IMAGINE how wonderful this will be?

NPM PROJECT #4

Michelle Barnes has resurfaced from a long pause (oh, we missed her!) for NPM and will be repeating last year's NPM project at Today's Little Ditty—Filling the Well. Playing with the stuff that inspires poetry, she'll be creating daily "inspirational musings" that pair quotations with art, photography, poems, music, dance... anything that strikes her fancy and gives the words new life.

NPM POETRY CHAT: SCOOP!

Laura Shovan's annual poetry chat at the Nerdy Book Club Facebook page is Sunday, April 10 at 6 pm. This year's topic is "Staying Out Past Dark: Saying Hard Things Through Poetry." It's a roundtable discussion with MG author/poets Chris Baron, Rebecca Balcarcel, and Rajani LaRocca about reading and writing poetry as a resource for kids during tough times.

 

 

 

Isn't it all heady and exciting!?  And now, finally, YOU get your say!  

Leave your link below and LET'S PARTY!

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You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

as muCH AS My

Good morning and welcome to a nerdy, rambling post in which I start with a simple (albeit stunning) photo and end with, perhaps, a colonoscopy.  There will be a poem, too.

I'm the family social secretary, and twice recently I've made confused errors with events on our family calendar. I saw a haircut scheduled on Feb. 14 that I was sure wasn't right, and took some time texting with my stylist to establish that no, I didn't make an appointment on Valentine's Day, but wasn't it a coincidence that my spouse ALSO had a haircut on Valentine's Day?! Turned out that was a real appointment, that the one I was seeing on the calendar WAS my spouse's, never mine, but for two days I thought there were two concurrent appointments! And then I sat right at the Sunday evening family meeting, reported my teacher training event located miles away, and then planned to pick my son up on that day--which, by the time the day arrived, I realized I couldn't possibly do.  (The reason that I'm the social secretary is that both spouse and son sat in that meeting and neither one questioned my flawed plan as I was making it.)

These incidents, and certain other signs of aging, have me questioning my own ability to do what I've always been especially good at: to remember verbatim what has passed in a conversation, to observe keenly and take detailed note of what is happening when and how.  My own precision in this is noticeable because of how I've heard my spouse recount conversations I've witnessed, using language that is at best in the same hemisphere as the conversation--but not nearly in the same neighborhood, never mind the same house. (She also says that no one wants to hear this much detail, for example at a cocktail party; they want to get to the punchline faster.  I say there are plenty of people I know--hello writers--for whom the detail IS the cocktail, the party and the punchline.)

I keep thinking about what psychology research tells us about the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, and how our brains use all kinds of unconscious bias to build memories which we then treat as objective fact, and I begin to wonder if I have ever been as good at reporting my own observations as I think.  Am I, at nearly 56, losing a skill I really had, or did I never have it, because no one does?  This is very concerning for someone who relies on being right about stuff for their mental health.  Okay, maybe for their mental unhealth.

So, the poetry. I'm participating in Laura Shovan's 8th Annual February Poetry Project.  There are about 35 participants and someone provides a prompt for every day with a water theme this year.  It has taken up a good part of my poetry attention, which is why I didn't see Cheriee Weichel's host post last week until Linda Mitchell wrote a poem based on a form created by Avis Harley, the subject of Cheriee's post and of one on Sylvia Vardell's Poetry for Children blog in 2011. (Are you with me?) "Wow!" said my puzzly wordnerd detail brain. "I too want to write an intravista! Two poems in one! Deep hidden meanings! Orthography!  Let's go!"

That day's prompt was this photo by Catherine Flynn, of a particular piece of the Grand Canyon called Elves Chasm.  What better image to inspire a poem with a canyon full of more to see inside?  So I started writing.  And here's the thing:  I don't know how I did it.  I know I found the word "knives" with the little word "I've" hiding in it, which indicated a first person voice, and I knew I wanted the elves in the poem, and then I realized that I would have to choose the embedded words first and write around them somehow.  And then a thing happened where a) I was in full Csíkszentmihályiesue flow and b) the needs of the embedded poem and the needs of the outer poem were talking to each other in a conversation which I could observe and record, but not exactly control until the poem finished itself.  This mental state, for a person who overthinks and overcontrols and relies on being right, is a very very very great relief--joy, even.  Kind of like that "twilight" feeling you get with the light anaesthesia of a colonoscopy. (Don't say I didn't warn you.)

Et voila, the poem.

           ©Heidi Mordhorst 2020

So, thanks to Cheriee and Avis and Sylvia and Linda and Laura and Catherine, who all had a role in my blissful elfin chasmic flow of joy, and thanks to Karen, who's hosting today at her shockingly clever blog. May you ride or escape the flow today, as you choose.

npm19: progressive poems lands here

Welcome to all, especially those who are following this year's Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem, an annual April tradition begun in 2012 by Irene Latham of Live Your Poem.  One by one we bring a new line, developing the idea of the poem and spinning it in new directions. This year we're challenging ourselves to build a found poem out of song lines, as suggested on April 1 by our kickoff poet Matt Forrest Esenwine.  Read about this project and enjoy data on previous progressive poems HERE.

Well.  I had been planning to pump up the action with some B-52's beachiness here, but by the time the poem reached me, Amy and Linda had suddenly, interestingly, taken a different tack:

                                    "it's not easy to know
                                     less than one minute old"

"WHO, WHO, WHO?!" I shouted inwardly.  We've had an I, we've had a we, we've had a you, then another we, then an I, then a you again. But I wanted a line with we, you AND I together to the end, and I wanted a line with how--my thought was to find a line that would show that the relationship between these deep divers was new and untried (less than one minute old!), that it wouldn't be easy to know how the waltzing would go...

and the B-52's let me down!  I tried "Rock Lobster," "Nude Beach" and "Dry County," "Roam" and "Song for a Future Generation,"  "Dirty Back Roads" and "Deadbeat Club," and none of them produced exactly what I was looking for (although I did spend a tremendous hour or so reliving the extreme lunatical lyrical glory that is the B-52's).  Here's one I'd forgotten about, making me heartily wish I could work some cake into the scenario (you only need the middle 2-3 minutes of this 6-minute song to get the idea)...

So next I tried Natalie Merchant and the lovely "Milly and Molly and Maggie and May," which is an E.E. Cummings poem set to music, involves the ocean, and which also offers an ending assonance:

as small as a world and as large as alone

--which was cool, except that the emphasis was on small and alone, and still nothing happened. So then I tried Natalie's first outfit, 10,000 Maniacs, and an all-time favorite, "These Are Days," which gave me this line:

to be part of the miracles you see in every hour

--nice, but a little cheesy without its abundant context, and which again did not feel as active or forward-moving as I wanted. So I turned to that other great export of Athens, Georgia: R.E.M.  When you can figure out what Michael Stipe is singing (and sometimes even when you can't), you know it's definitely poetry.

I looked for some watery songs and and fell upon "Find the River," which is a folkier number of theirs and offered a line that didn't include its delicious "bergamot and vetiver" but which finally cements that WE and whizzes us along to the brink of something fabulous-- plus a rhyme. Plus "minute" and "years." Plus a light at the bottom of the deep? Please listen to this whole gorgeous song to get the full effect of the line!

KIDLITOSPHERE
PROGRESSIVE POEM 2019 - DAY 19

Endless summer; I can see for miles...
Fun, fun, fun - and the whole world smiles.
No time for school - just time to play,
we swim the laughin' sea each and every day.

You had only to rise, lean from your window,
the curtain opens on a portrait of today.
Kodachrome greens, dazzling blue,
It's the chance of a lifetime,

make it last forever-ready? Set? Let's Go!
Come, we'll take a walk, the sun is shining down,
Not a cloud in the sky got the sun in my eyes.
Tomorrow's here. It's called today.

Gonna get me a piece o' the sky.
I wanna fly like an eagle, to the sea
and there's a tiger in my veins.
Oh, won't you come with me waltzing the waves,
                                                                        diving the deep?
It's not easy to know
less than one minute old  
we're closer now than light years to go

************************************************

Gosh, I hope that gives Buffy something to go on! Below is the complete list of contributors and lines, and I close with mighty thanks to Irene for making this thang happen every year, and to Amy for hosting today at The Poem Farm.  Happy spring holy days to all to celebrate!

NEW!!! You asked for it and now it exists--THE PLAYLIST!

************************************************
Found Lines:
L1 The Who, 'I Can See for Miles' / The Beach Boys, 'Endless Summer'
L2 The Beach Boys, 'Fun, Fun, Fun'/Dean Martin, "When You're Smiling"
L3 The Jamies, "Summertime, Summertime'
L4 The Doors, 'Summer's Almost Gone' / Led Zeppelin, 'Good Times, Bad Times'
L5 Ray Bradbury, 'Dandelion Wine'
L6 Joni Mitchell, "Chelsea Morning"
L7 Paul Simon, "Kodachrome," "Dazzling Blue"
L8 Dan Fogelberg, "Run for the Roses"
L9 Spice Girls, "Wannabe"/Will Smith, "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It"
L10 The Beatles, "Good Day Sunshine"
L11 The Carpenters, "Top of the World"
L12 Lin-Manuel Miranda, "Underneath the Lovely London Sky" from MARY POPPINS
L13 Carole King, "Hi-de-ho (That Sweet Roll)"
L14 Steve Miller, "Fly Like An Eagle"
L15 Don Felder, "Wild Life"
L16 Nowlenn Leroy, "Song of the Sea" (lullaby)
L17 Sara Bareilles, "She Used to Be Mine" from WAITRESS
L18 Stevie Wonder, "Isn't She Lovely"
L19 R.E.M., "Find the River"

And you can see the list of Poem Line Contributors in the right sidebar!

progressive poem line 14 is here!

What a journey--and we're only halfway along! I'll start today by thanking everyone for reading my host post interview with Irene and Liz way back on March 30, and for playing along with our request to note where you thought we might go with Liz's first line.

Now it's my turn to reveal my initial expectations....

"I'm picturing a garden, and while we could spend 30 lines chronicling the growth of this one seed--who is she?!--I see the stories of many awakenings taking place in our garden setting, twining together in the way that spring growth happens, burgeoningly!"

I was imagining the sprouting, budding and blooming of many plants and maybe some minibeasts, all thoroughly grounded, so the introduction of Jasmine (not just jasmine), a thousand stars and the Moon as a character required a total reboot.  And then Owl! And now Lee and his party!  I won't think of myself as "wronger and wronger with every line," but you poets, you really know how to turn a ship with a well-chosen word!

Here's something funny: for a couple days this week I got confused and thought that I had the line on the same day as the surprise party for Lee Bennett Hopkins.  I had already begun to think how I could slip in that other definition of "lee" (shelter from wind or weather given by a neighboring object, especially nearby land), or some hopping, or some little reference--but then I realized that was Linda's job...

and boy, did she do it! She has sent Jasmine and Owl and maybe Moon directly to Lee's party!  Why equivocate?  No symbolic sleight of word here!  Linda, you are now officially a braver poet than I.

But let me move forward, with curiosity if not courage:

  

Nestled in her cozy bed, a seed stretched.
Oh, What wonderful dreams she had! 
Blooming in midnight moonlight, dancing with
the pulse of a thousand stars, sweet Jasmine
invented a game.

"Moon?" she called across warm honeyed air.
"I'm sad you're alone, come join Owl and me.   
We're feasting on stardrops, we'll share them with you."   
"Come find me, Moon called," hiding behind a cloud.

Secure in talons' embrace, Jasmine rose
and set. She split, twining up Owl's toes, pale   
moonbeams sliding in between, Whoosh, Jasmine goes.
Owl flew Jasmine between clouds and moon to Lee's party!

Moon, that wily bright balloon, was NOT alone.

********************
I hope that puts my friend Donna in an intriguing and challenging position for Line 15!

I'll sign off, wishing a glorious National Poetry Month to all, and inviting you to scroll down for the latest development in the progressive poem project of my 2nd graders.  They really do appreciate and learn from your comments. Thank you!