winter poem swap & the lost lagoon challenge

Greetings once again, Poetry Friday people. As promised I'm extending the pleasure of joining the Winter Poem Swap and getting to know Tanita better by sharing it with you today, well into January!  Below this you'll find January's Inklings poem challenge as well.

Tanita knows that my family starts our winter holiday with a celebration of the Shortest Day, the Longest Night, on the Winter Solstice. She also knows that I've often and recently used the acrostic to get a draft off the ground. Her poem is truly tailor-made for me, and incorporates all her gorgeous command of rhyme, rhythm and a slightly formal, archaic diction which fits the observance of the Solstice, a practice that reaches us from deep prehistory (and yet which happens right now too, every year!).

See how it's a little wrinkled?  I keep carrying it from room to room with me.

 Now if I could beg your indulgence:  please read this poem aloud while playing the following sound clip from the equally gorgeous handmade titanium wind chime that accompanied the poem.  You see it above in a photo which shows it hanging  before the sliding doors in my Library Lounge; it is both cozy inside and snowy outside at the same time!

<titanium-wind-chime-winter-rising>

I'm so delighted with every part of this gift--"Now wakes the wind.  It whisks the barren ground/Verdant beneath, as sprightly seedlings sleep"--which is always my greatest hope at this time of year. Sunlight is indeed unconquered, no matter what we may do to Earth; let 2022 be the year when each and all begin truly to conquer our misuse of her riches. Thank you, Tanita!

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 It's the first Friday of the month, so we Inklings are again undertaking a challenge, this time set by me.  Despite my swoon over Tanita's gorgeously "old-fashioned" poetry it's not often I go for that, but every now & then something strikes my fancy, and this poem by Emily Pauline Johnson (who also published under her Mohawk name Tekahionwake and was born 1861 on the Six Nations Reserve, Canada West) captivated me.

 

The Lost Lagoon

It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon, 

And we two dreaming the dusk away, 

Beneath the drift of a twilight grey— 

Beneath the drowse of an ending day 

And the curve of a golden moon.

It is dark on the Lost Lagoon,
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and—you,
And gone is the golden moon.

O lure of the Lost Lagoon—
I dream to-night that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs—
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon.

 

My challenge: "Use the form of this poem to build your own poem FOR CHILDREN about a treasured place that you return to again and again (geographical or metaphorical)." 

 

It seemed simple enough, but the form proved deceptive--and I counted wrong! I noted that the first four lines had 4 stressed beats each and that the last line of the stanza had 3...but in fact both L1 and L5 of each stanza have three beats. 

 

So my poem, like some of the others, departs from the form a bit, and doesn't quite have the same water-paddling rhythm--but there may be other pleasures lurking instead. See what you think.

 

 I bet I'm not the only one whose treasured place is the library, eh? I will say it worked better when I didn't have to keep an eye on the clock!

 

My school district has just announced a delayed opening tomorrow due to predicted snow that they have cancelled school***, so maybe by the time you read this, an 811 stanza will have been written! Here's where to find everyone else's treasured places.

 

-Catherine at Reading to the Core

-Linda at A Word Edgewise  -Margaret at Reflections on the Teche

-Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading  -Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone

 

 Thanks to Carol at Beyond Literacy Link who hosts us this week with a few One Little Words to get 2022 rolling, hopefully in a far more peaceful, prudent way.

 

***I am not one of my district's 10,000 students and staff currently infected with COVID. Woot. However, the closure today, while the district continues to say it's due to the max 2 inches of further snow, is really because they don't have enough staff to open the buildings. Here's a laugh:

 

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-note-of-reassurance-from-your-school-district-regarding-our-updated-omicron-policies?fbclid=IwAR3Bs0fQ9yTtPunCh12jvglUdrCm-njGrFxnvq5DrK7vMkuN-3IKrhZvZw0

 

  

 

 

happy friday the 13th

That's Poetry Friday and THE 13TH ANNIVERSARY of my juicy little universe!  Yes, the earliest post you can see on this blog was posted on this day thirteen years ago in 2008.  

Yes, that time now seems blurry & far-off...

Before that I blogged at LiveJournal about our year in France when the kids were 5 and 8, and I am pleasantly surprised to discover that the Internet indeed never forgets and that you can read approximately 20 photoillustrated posts from that year here.

A couple of years ago I used BlogBooker to download my entire juicy little universe as both Word doc and PDF, so that I could cull all the poems I've published here over the years.  It was definitely worth the $20 I spent and it resulted in a document--a book--of about 2100 pages!  That's an oeuvre to be proud of for its sheer volume, and you all helped to write some of it, since comments were included in this tome.

Not every post has been earth-shatteringly brilliant, but occasionally I find one that I only barely remember writing and which seems to me to be notable.  These Big Idea posts usually include a poem, but having culled the poems, they aren't surprising; the "essays" are, however.

Shall I share them with you, as a way of cataloguing them for myself?* Or shall I resort to the tried-and-true acrostic commemoration of this part of my poetic life online?

Oh wait--I already did that in 2016 on the 8th anniversary.  Here's the acrostic, and it still holds true.

So I'm absolved from writing an anniversary poem this year, and instead I'll just drop a few links for those fans of my writing who have time on their hands--but not before repeating that none of this--just about none of my later writing life--would have happened if I hadn't had a Poetry Friday audience to share it with. 

For a performative person (I think performative has not entirely become a dirty word, has it?), knowing that someone might read, comment, appreciate, critique has made an enormous difference to my motivation and commitment to write just about weekly.  And equally important is the knowledge that, even when I have skipped a week or stepped back for a time, I'd be welcomed back. Thanks to all of you who make this forum, this community.  I'm grateful to know you all--some of you even in person!!

Our host today is Bridget over at Wee Words for Wee Ones, and although TEN is technically a wee word, it is a very big deal because Bridget's 10*10 anthology has become a reality!!!   

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*Here are a few I think are worth rereading.

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2009/10/party-poopers.html  

On this one, my first bloggiversary, Tabatha is the sole commenter--some while before we realized that we were neighbors and that our kids went to the same middle and then high school magnet programs! 

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-dishwasher-of-my-mind.html 

Some science, some psychology, some education policy, plenty of connections. 

 

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2016/11/november-kaboom-take-2.html

I consider identity and visibility.

 

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2018/03/pre-progressive-poem-pre-poetry-month.html

This is the one where I interviewed Irene Latham and Liz Steinglass about the history, trajectory and themes of the Progressive Poem.

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2019/03/poetry-friday-youthclimatestrike.html

My first dedicated climate action post, I think, and I'm proud of the list near the bottom of what we as communicators (writers, poets, teachers) can do to make change.

split personality post

 Hello, Poetry Friday!  On the one hand:

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/astronauts-planets-construction-materials/2021/09/17/543a8390-164a-11ec-a5e5-ceecb895922f_story.html

On the other hand: tomorrow's #FridaysForFuture global climate 

[poem]

Thanks for being here with me and our host Laura Purdie Salas at Writing the World for Kids, where she and the Poetry Sisters are tank(a)ing away inspired by each other's previous works. I love the collaborative circular iterations this creates!