welcome to npm 2023 & progressive poem line 2

WHY NOT

combine an illustration by Marc Brown of ARTHUR fame with a line from the current adult poet laureate Ada Limon?

WHY NOT 

open a colorful vista and suggest that each of us, however small in the landscape, has an essential role to play?

WHY NOT

(if you can't center poetry every day of every month of every year) make April the epicenter of poetry in the nation's calendar?

As for me, I'm certain that this opening page from the book that taught me to read also taught me what I was meant for...

"a poet writing poems" in her garret

This makes it look like poeting is a solitary activity done with eyes lifted to the heavens, but we all know that poetry happens in community.  First of all, poets write to communicate, and the moment anyone reads our words--even if we don't know them--community begins to develop.  Secondly, poets help and support each other as they change and experiment and learn and grow.  Thirdly, poets play and collaborate, as we are doing again this year with the Progressive Poem!

Irene Latham began this tradition in 2012 and hosted our month-long collaboration through 2019, when Margaret Simon took over. (Early archives here; recent archives are tabs at the top of Margaret's page.)

Mary Lee Hahn kicks us off this year, following these few rules:

• Each poet-blogger adds a line, creating a poem for children
• by copying the previous lines exactly as written (unless permission from the previous poet is obtained).
• Commentary on the process is welcome but optional.

Here is Mary Lee's opening line, which is gloriously "opening" by any definition of the word despite having a happy-ending sound to it.

                                        Suddenly everything fell into place.

At first I thought I wanted that place to be a crossroads of some kind, to lead in many directions, but I spent time yesterday gardening and watching little spring storms come and go, showers of wind and hail between stretches of sun. I thought about what it's like when rain lands in its best destination, when we find we've landed just where we're meant to be. And so...

                                        Suddenly everything fell into place

                                      like raindrops hitting soil and sinking in.

But think also of all those raindrops that hit rooftops or pavement or other hard places far from soil or stream...they have a ways to go, a more strenuous journey. Do they all get there in the end?  Do we?  As Mary Lee says, "I love stories that start at the end...Write me a story that ends with sudden clarity."

Our poem will continue tomorrow with Tabatha's line, which you'll find at The Opposite of Indifference.

April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading
April 2 Heidi Mordhorst, My Juicy Little Universe
April 3 Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference
April 4 Buffy Silverman
April 5 Rose Cappelli, Imagine the Possibilities
April 6 Donna Smith, Mainely Write
April 7 Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche
April 8 Leigh Anne, A Day in the Life
April 9 Linda Mitchell, A Word Edgewise
April 10 Denise Krebs, Dare to Care
April 11 Emma Roller, Penguins and Poems
April 12 Dave Roller, Leap Of Dave
April 13 Irene Latham Live You Poem
April 14 Janice Scully, Salt City Verse
April 15 Jone Rush MacCulloch
April 16 Linda Baie TeacherDance
April 17 Carol Varsalona, Beyond Literacy Link
April 18 Marcie Atkins
April 19 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in My Orchard
April 20 Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes
April 21 Sarah Grace Tuttle at Sarah Grace Tuttle’s Blog,
April 22 Marilyn Garcia
April 23 Catherine at Reading to the Core
April 24 Janet Fagal, hosted by Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference
April 25 Ruth, There is no Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town
April 26 Patricia J. Franz, Reverie
April 27 Theresa Gaughan, Theresa’s Teaching Tidbits
April 28 Karin Fisher-Golton, Still in Awe Blog
April 29 Karen Eastlund, Karen’s Got a Blog
April 30 Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, and Writing

#knowwhenenoughisenough

Cranking along, enjoying the mini challenge of one haiku per day, I addressed everything from our ill-behaved President to the 200th anniversary of THE Christmas carol.

Dec. 22

hope a lump of coal
in your stocking ruins the golf
naughty selfish boy

Dec. 23

smoke of wood fire
smells like home to primal noses
as Silent Night to ears


Oh, yes--I was having a lot of satisfying creativity and community writing #haikuforhope, and then on top of my injured foot, which wasn't getting better, came this:

Dec. 24

high holiday
laid low by fondue and flu
gentle morning joy

I'm blaming the flu shot I got last Saturday, which I did only to pass the time more productively while I waited in an urgent care center for an x-ray which might show why my injured foot wasn't getting better.  I haven't been terribly ill--but it does feel like every single 2nd grade germ of 2018 has just been waiting for an entryway, and the little hole where the flu shot went in was it.  My Killer Immune System, of which I am still very proud, has been working overtime, but suddenly I needed NOTHING on the horizon.

Dec. 25

music of the season
jangles, twitterjabber jars
now for long quiet

And I also came to realize that all that hanging around on Twitter liking things was getting in the way of my real intent for this break, which was to read some books.  So I just decided to stop.  Just like that.  So today, here are the last of my #haikuforhope and me experimenting with a challenging philosophical conundrum: quitting shit.  [Pardon my rhyming.]

The question I'm wrestling with is: Where is the line between dependability and flakiness?  What is the ratio of external appearances to internal integrity in that calculation?  When is it compulsion and when is it commitment?  Can you be a good person (and I think I know what that means, having watched all of THE GOOD PLACE so far) if you quit something you promised, or even just intended--to yourself or others--that you would do?  Is it okay to not do things because you don't feel like it?  What kind of lesson is that to teach your children? And most fundamentally,

When is enough enough, and why would this be so hard for me to figure out?

Dec. 28

it is my son who
"has trouble stopping," I thought
tyrant intentions


Donna JT Smith is our round-up host on this endingbeginning Poetry Friday of the year.  See you in 2019!

UPDATE 1 HOUR LATER: As always there is wisdom to be found at Tabatha's blog The Opposite of Indifference.  Here's a quote I just found in her Christmas Eve post, which seems to suggest starting from a position of NOT doing things:
Never compose anything unless the not composing of it becomes a positive nuisance to you.
~Gustav Holst

 

the rush

Thanks once again to Tabatha for making it happen!

Well, here it is...the rush of adrenaline that comes at this time of year: the calendreal limits of the summer, the moment when projects must be finished, first days to prepare for, new classrooms to discover the delights of.  With these also come that "oh no!" feeling of realizing that some plans have to be abandoned--such as my plan to properly round up today the riches I received from my Summer Poem Swap partners this year.  Instead I offer this instadraft in your plural honor:



Summery

This is how I sum it up,
full of gratitude:
Some were early,
some were late,
colored, plain and luscious.
Some are moving,
some are still,
folded, flat and precious. 


To know that you sat,
walked, shopped, thought,
scribbled, cobbled;
To know that you sought
to say something to me,
for me, of me--
that you made your words
a gift of art--
your gifts are greater than the
sum of all their parts.

[draft] Heidi Mordhorst 2015
all rights reserved 

The round-up is in the comments today at Reading to the Core, where Catherine is grieving and the rest of us are with her. Of all things, poetry may suffice.

haiku summer

Well, hello.  Long time no see...a VERY long time, and the glorious feeling of finally being on summer break (which really only came over me fully yesterday) is so consuming that I actually FORGOT that it was not just Friday but Poetry Friday until just now, as I was studying the Bare Bones School of Haiku, Lesson 6.

I found my way to these extremely helpful lessons via Robyn Hood Black's blog, where I knew I would find good resources.  Until Wednesday, I didn't know I would need them, but the moment I began entertaining the notion of a poem-a-day project this summer, a poem aspiring to be a haiku popped out.  I've known for a while that I was still laboring under the 5-7-5 oversimplified haiku form that I learned as a 3rd-grader, but I hadn't had a chance to learn a more authentic approach to haiku in English. 

Now I have the chance, and by Jane Reichold's Lesson 5 I was able to improve my initial Wednesday effort, and so I offer this welcome to my Haiku Summer (even as I begin a third major revision to my WIP).

yellow plastic frying pan
in the pool
the water sizzles

I'm also delighted to be participating this year in Tabatha's Summer Poem Swap. I received a doubly well-crafted spirit animal poem from Irene Latham, and I sent a double acrostic to close out the school year  to my first partner, fellow teacher Linda Baie.  What fun to get and send real mail!

                                        
                              <poem removed for submission>

Thanks for visiting my juicy little universe today.  Find more summer poetry goodness with Jone at Check It Out!

npm travel journal 11: progressive poem in rockville, md

I'm coming to you today from another geographically nearby destination, The Opposite of Indifference.  This is the blog of Tabatha Yeatts, and I stopped in to catch up with the progression of the 2014 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem.  This project invites one poet to add a line for each day in April, until a poem is completed on April 30.  The project is organized by Irene Latham and began this year with Charles Waters's line,
"Sitting on a rock, airing out my feelings to the universe..."

We're all very interested this year that the poem has gone rhyming!  In previous years I think perhaps no one thought that a "groupthink" poem could sustain that, but so far this year it's gone well--initiated by Joy Acey's second line,
"Acting like a peacock, only making matters that much worse..."

The poem continues:
"Should I trumpet like an elephant emoting to the moon,
Or just ignore the warnings written in the rune?
Those stars can’t seal my future; it’s not inscribed in stone.
The possibilities are endless! Who could have known?
Gathering courage, spiral like an eagle after prey
Then gird my wings for whirlwind gales in realms far, far away.
But, hold it! Let's get practical! What's needed before I go?"

Yesterday the poem came for its 10th line to Tabatha:
 "Time to be tactical--I'll ask my friends what I should stow."

She comments interestingly on some choices that lay before her.  I, too, would have had the urge to start a list of essentials for the proposed journey of self-discovery.  But her completion of the couplet includes not just the expected end rhyme (go/stow) but also a rather pleasing internal rhyme--practical/tactical!  Tabatha also introduces the existence of advising friends for the speaker, and that unleashes a LOT of possibilities going forward in the poem.


I also can't help thinking of the many unlikely and yet tactically practical items stowed in the knapsack of Elmer Elevator in My Father's Dragon--now there's an Imaginary Places poem calling to be written!  Tabatha's other project this month is The Directory of Imaginary Poems, a collection of poems about places that are real only in our imaginations, usually thanks to literature.

There's always something unexpected going on at Tabatha's blog, and you can follow the 2014 Progressive Poem again today at Write Time with Linda.  The general Poetry Friday roundup is with Michelle at Today's Little Ditty.