a ghazal for the youngest among us

Greetings, Poetry Friday Fans! I missed last week and look forward to making some rounds this long weekend.  It being the last Friday of the month, the Seven Poetry Sisters are sharing their challenge, which is simply to write a ghazal.  Ha.

I've tackled this challenge before with the Inklings critique group and it was challenging indeed, but I came up with something that I was proud of (and which therefore is redacted from the post so I can submit it elsewhere). But luckily for busy me, I found another attempt in my notes which also looks pretty good.  It even touches on the Sisters' theme of transformation.

So here, in cheater-pants fashion because I have a MANUSCRIPT to finish, is a ghazal I wrote during the last trying days of PreK before the COVID-19 shutdown. The group of kids I had were unlike any group of 4's I've known, and in a way, the break in the routine of distress behavior and the switch to online school was a good thing.  It certainly saved my psychological bacon!

And how are you doing with that, folks? I'm realizing that this might be at the heart of what we keep calling "self-care"--not to take care of ourselves in addition to everything else we are doing and which leads to the distress in the first place, but to ASK FOR WHAT WE NEED, giving others the responsibility and the opportunity to carry some of the load in a way that actually helps. (As a teacher, for me that's never treats in my mailbox but a note acknowledging something hard or helpful that I'm doing.)

Ghazal-wise, this poem doesn't exactly follow the rules.  Each stanza is not "structurally, thematically, and emotionally autonomous," and I did get a little carried away with the rhyme scheme...but I'm sticking with this beyond-the-bandaid poem.

Thanks to our host today, Patricia at Reverie--go guzzle all the ghazals!

the #climatepoemproject, and multiform poetry

'Twas the night before April and in poets' houses

the creatures were stirring, including our mouses...

Greetings to all who are vibrating with excitement for the opening of National Poetry Month!

 

First up:

I'm participating in a project of the Authors Take Action group! Many of us are joining in suggesting prompts for a climate-themed poem, open to writers K-5 and up. You can find all the prompts at this Authors Take Action page.  Here's mine...

 

Some people are taking recycling to a whole new level! Watch this video about schools built out of plastic bottles, and then imagine sitting inside a school like that.  Write a poem describing what you see, hear, and feel around you. How is it different than a regular school?

 

 

Or... imagine building a school out of something else that usually gets thrown away, like tires or old washing machines or cardboard boxes.  Maybe your poem will sound like an engineer's structural drawing or an architect's blueprint or a TV commercial advertising your new recycled school!

 

Thanks to Laura Shovan and the other members of Authors Take Action for inviting us all to play along!

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And now, I'm playing along with the Poetry Sisters, who are writing etherees this month.  I've combined the 1-10 syllable etheree with my own creation, the definito.  Enjoy the layers of form; I certainly had fun with them, and came up with something that is kind of the opposite of a school built out of plastic bottles!

 

barely there

     a definito

air.

either

fog or mist.

a ghost. a hint

of something that fleets

         away as you reach it.

           disappearing atmosphere.

                transparent. neither solid nor stiff.

                   something here and yet not here. feels as 

                      real as air, as ether. ethereal.

 

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Finally, next Wednesday I'll start my National Poetry Month project. Assuming that I can get to grips with Squarespace's blogging platform, I'll be adding kids' poems weekly on Wednesdays to the new WHISPERshout Magazine, publishing poetry and art by kids ages 4-12.  The link is here: https://whispershoutpoetry414.blogspot.com/

 Let the wild rumpus begin!!!*

And THANKS to Mary Lee for hosting us today at A(nother) Year of Reading, where she'll also be kicking off this year's Progressive Poem.  She's one of my favorite trailblazers! 

*Yes, I know Maurice wrote "start," but the rhythm is so much better with "begin," don't you think? 😊

in bed with metaphor

The Poetry Sisters are writing ekphrastic poems today, with a wide-open option to select their artwork and write about it in any way, phrasing out their interpretation thereof as artfully as the sculpture or painting or photo was made. I'm joining in with this wee contribution. Photo by me from a walk I took on Monday in my new neighborhood.

*Mets-nous au lit

It's a bed!--

well, not a literal bed--

although in a manner of speaking

that's exactly what it is, a bed,

a garden bed garnished 

with a brass head and foot--

which are not a literal head and foot--

although in a manner of speaking 

that's exactly what they are, your head

at that end and your foot at this end--

although for most of us 

it would be two feet, about six feet 

from the brass head (not a literal head)

to the foot (not a literal foot)

of the bed (not a literal bed).

 

There lies a bed, both literal and not,

and who among us--seed or bulb or start--

wouldn't want to lie down in style,

nestled in the literal soil of sleep and wake?

*Put us to bed, and let us grow wise

resting in metaphor.

draft ©HM 2023

I'm looking forward to finding out what artworks the Sisters and their passel of kinfolk wrote about this month! Our host today is dear Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference, which kind of rhymes with "joy as resistance."  Let the small things--a joke on the front lawn of a neighbor, for example--feed the joy which resists the crappy unlovely apartments across the street which house the folks who mow that lawn.