live from chautauqua

Greetings, fellow poetry fans! Here at the Chautauqua Institution, which I call a "faith-flavored culture camp for adults," there's too much going on for a lengthy post, so I'm putting up an Instadraft™ and promising no kind of commenting this weekend as I reenter real life from this rarefied atmosphere. Thanks to a guy I know from home with whom I had coffee here and who gave me this poem--a dog poem of all things!

Dog Talk

Despite the surgery,
she grew weaker
and I grew stronger:
five times a day and night
I picked up that crippled old collie,
love of our lives,
the one I hear folks
calling a fur baby,
and carried her outside
to do her business.

For 9 months, like a father
holds and diapers a baby,
over and over
I carried all 70 pounds of her
down the narrow stairs,
across the porch and down
the wide stairs to the lawn
and back up when she was done.

Not long after she left us,
Valora came to me in the night,
speaking in her collie voice,

telling me how now
I'd have to go to the gym
to stay so strong.

Instadraft™ © HM 2023

Thanks to the tremendously creative Linda at A Word Edgewise for hosting us this week!

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!

ode in the style of neruda

Greetings, all, and hoping you are blessed by continued energies for this end of National Poetry Month! April is a glory, and also, for those of us who are Poeting and Earthing to the utmost, kind of a long haul. Luckily, we have poetry to get us through Poetry Month. ; )

My NPM project continues over at WHISPERshout Magazine, where "we" are publishing 4-5 poems each Wednesday, from a deep stock of children's work that lurks in my photos, files and blog posts from the last 25 years.  I'm announcing on social media the opportunity for poetry appreciators of all ages to comment on the work, and for young poets to submit their poems and accompanying artwork.  As far as I know it's the only online outlet for kids ages 4-12 to publish, so I do hope you'll share with families, classrooms and programs (homeschool? library? festival?) where young poets may lurk.  Thanks!

I'm joining in the Poetry Sisters' challenge this month again because they are writing in the style of one of my favorite favorite poets--Pablo Neruda.  I love him because he manages always to draw out of solidly concrete and even childlike images the most soul-shaking revelations.  In his odes he speaks directly to dictionaries, bees and artichokes, to sadness, numbers and bicycles. He is extravagant in his choice of vocabulary but spare in line length, giving us the most delicious and demanding bite-sized mouthfuls. He is playful, and wore hats with aplomb. You can learn more about this grand and humble human by reading THE DREAMER by Pam Munoz Ryan. I hope my ode in the style of Pablo serves as an ode to the poet himself.

unexpected grass poem

Greetings from the south coast of England, Poetry People. It's a pleasure to have not written for quite a few days, so that when one finally has a moment, a sunny moment for a walk by oneself, the impulse arises and lines are tried and, well, one still has it. One's identity, I mean.

And then there's Poem-a-Day, just to keep one in mind of all the possible poems there are out there.

Ordinary Grass Grows Where It Must

We all own mowers.

The grass is lowly, struggling always up but
not far, blades bent down by feet and paws
and wheels but standing high enough to cast
a sunrise shadow on its downslope self.

It always comes back,

surges up through sidewalk or churns of mud,
tenacity outsizing its minute green tips.
It feeds a passing cat needing a tonic, or a kid
needing a slice of whistle or chlorophyll juice,
or in some places actual sheep who crop it as
soon as it can stand on its own one foot. 

Not to notice is normal,

but grass takes that personally, threatens to
strike, stop growing, but doesn't really mean it.
Do grass a favor and lie down, accept its edge
of itch and its inhabitant insects, the histamine tickle
that has cushioned centuries of outdoor couplings.

Submit to the sky,  

which is all grass can see save the forest of siblings
surrounding it. The damp skin of the earth is a
platform for viewing the wind at work, and if
it's dry instead, let green go and lie down golden-
grained, brown meeting the granulated ground,

and grass will weave 

a dying nest for you to leave in, but only until
the next rain, the next worming invigoration
that commences its endless sunlit revival.

instadraft ©HM 2023

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

And here's my Poetry Project for National Poetry Month...I'll finally be getting WHISPERshout Magazine up and running.  Check it out here!  And if you have class or kid or grandkid poems to submit, send them to WHISPERshoutMagazine@gmail.com!

Thanks to Rose at Imagine the Possibilities for hosting us today.  Go see everybody else exercising their identities!

quotable: all we can save

Greetings, all!  It's the first Friday of the month, the world is watching with anxious eyes as both a war and a shift in global politics takes place, and just to keep our hearts full, the Inklings are writing to a challenge set by Margaret Simon:

"Choose a quote that speaks to you. Write a poem that responds to the quote. The words can be used as a golden shovel or throughout the poem or as an epigraph."

It just so happens I have a little something I prepared earlier to answer this challenge. I participated again this year in Laura Shovan's February Poetry Project, where a group of about 40 write to a daily prompt on a theme and share and respond to each others' poems. It's a great experience in so many ways and I always come away with a pile of drafts I wouldn't have written otherwise. This year the theme was TIME.

It was a prompt from Lisa Vihos on February 11 that reminded me I owned the climate-feminist anthology ALL WE CAN SAVE: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, the book I posted about a couple of weeks ago (here's the website/newsletter/ community). 

She shared an excerpt from an essay by Sherri Mitchell, "Indigenous Prophecy and Mother Earth," included in the book.  This essay comes from the first of eight sections in the book, called "Root". I chose a different striking line and wrote this golden shovel.

 

Here's Sherri Mitchell reminding us how the body keeps the score.

 

That's the whole post for today [EDIT: NO IT ISN"T!  I have neglected to link to my fellow Inklings posts!]  Check out whom and how the rest of the Inklings quoted and wrote!

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

Kat Apel is rounding us up today at Kat's Whiskers, and sharing her newly released book!  See you there.

with bells on

Santorini -photo by Yuri Lev

 

Greetings to all who land here as we ring out the old year and ring in the new.  The Seven+One Poetry Sisters aka Poetry Pals have invited us to feature bells today.  In the spirit of collabellation, here's my blitz:

 

 

if a clod be washed away by the sea

 

coral bells

coral reef

reef or island

reef or atoll

toll the bells

toll the road

road to ruin

road to nowhere

nowhere else

nowhere man

man no island

woman be

be the bell

be the ring

ring me up

ring a rosie

rosy glasses

rosy future

futures stocks

future shock

shocking data

shocking news

Alexander Graham Bell

calling on the Batphone

phone me up

phone it in

in a minute

just a second

second thoughts

second chances

chance encounter

chance of rain

rain of ashes

rain of fire

fire alarm

fire fall

all fall down

all wrung out

out of luck

just in time

time's a-wastin'

time’s a ship

a sinking ship

a sinking feeling

a feel for it

it takes a toll

atoll an island

rings it tolls

for

thee

draft ©HM 2021

Many will notice that I'm leaning heavily on John Donne here, his famous you-can-call-it-a-sonnet-but-really-I-wrote-it-just-the-way-I-wanted "No man is an island." Like John, I had a hard time following the rules of the blitz this time and finally I've just had to give in and ring this bell my own way. Thanks to the sisters, among them Tanita Davis, for the opening the challenge.

In other news, Tanita was my Winter Poem Swap partner, and in the spirit of pacing myself and making that holiday feeling last as long as possible, I'll be posting all about the lovely gifts she sent next time, when also the Inklings will be posting our first challenge of *gulp* 2022. I'm glad to leave 2021 behind, yes, but also not expecting too much better of 2022.  

Apparently that's a way to go, according to this deeply radical and honest blessing that passed to me on Facebook, by Nadia Bolz-Weber:

A blessing for the new year:

As you enter this new year, as you pack away the Christmas decorations and get out your stretchy pants

as you face the onslaught of false promises offered you through new disciplines and elimination diets

as you grasp for control of yourself and your life and this chaotic world

May you remember that there is no resolution that, if kept, will make you more worthy of love.

There is no resolution that, if kept, will make life less uncertain and allow you to control a pandemic and your children and the way other people act.  

So this year,

May you just skip the part where you resolve to be better do better and look better this time.

May you give yourself the gift of really, really low expectations.

May you expect so little of yourself that you can be super proud of the smallest of accomplishments.

May you expect so little of the people in your life that you actually notice and cherish every small lovely thing about them.

May you expect so little of the supply chain and the service industry that you notice more of what you do get and less of what you don't and then just tip really well anyhow.

May you expect to get so little out of 2022 that you can celebrate every single thing it offers you, however small.

Because you deserve joy and not disappointment

So, I wish you a Happy as possible New Year.

As do I, and especially to our host today, Carol at Carol's Corner, who is gamely rounding us up with the antidote, which is always poetry, to the sudden fiery devastation of very nearby territory in Boulder, CO.  May you all feel just a little bit safer by being here.

art of losing: 109 earrings

I've attempted to continue my art of losing PoPerDayMo project, but temporarily lost control of my time and a number of opportunities to write this week.  I'm not losing heart, thought--will try to catch up while you try to count the earrings in the collage below...

Dec. 8
So Many Earrings, 1976 -

lost  lost and found  lost again lost in a pocket lost in a bag lost one then the other
lost and kept the mate kept the mate kept the mate kept the mate until it
was time to make an artwork out of them  lost the same

pair of silver hoops over and over again  lost getting 

into the car lost getting out of the car lost pushed

out by a scarf  luckily never lost in a cat fight 

lost in the classroom  found at the end 

of the year  lost on the dresser  lost
in the bathroom  blown off 

the sink by the hair dryer 

lost in the wastebasket 
lost so regular            ly
that my Villa               ge
Voice person               al 

ad noted                      my
collecti                         on
of 10                                    9

earrings.
I wonder
how many
I've lost in a
lifetime of 
ea

rr
in
gs
 ?

draft (c) HM 2017

The round-up this week is hosted by Diane at Random Noodling.  Which reminds me that I discovered at age 26 that you could dye dry pasta with food coloring and peroxide for some very intense hues, and then string those bad boys into some really great-looking earrings!  Seems like alcohol is recommended now...

celebrating ***Poems Are Teachers*** and a giveaway!

We all enjoy getting a party invitation. Knowing that we have been thought of, that we are considered fun to have around, is a good feeling.  This is how I felt when Amy Ludwig VanDerwater asked if I would provide a poem for her new book about using poetry as a model for writing across the genres.  I didn't realize what a work of depth and breadth I would become one small part of!

Poems Are Teachers: How Studying Poetry Strengthens Writing in All Genres (Heinemann, born yesterday!) is both comprehensive and compact, a highly accessible, digestible guidebook for busy teachers.  Its six chapters, ranging from "Writers Find Ideas" to "Writers Select Titles" (and I love that this is the last section, for how do you know what you've written until after you've written it?) consist of 4-page sections that follow a predictable and highly useful structure:

i. a  model poem written for this very book by a currently practicing and publishing children's writer;
ii. words from the poet, tips for considering the technique, and ways to TRY IT;
iii. student poems which show the technique in action, which are infinitely encouraging to young writers!

Most striking (and, I admit, unexpected) is the way that Amy lightly weaves in references to many, many other models and mentors.  For example, in the section Form a List in the "Writers Structure Texts" chapter, Amy follows up the model poem by Kwame Alexander with information that draws on everything from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to picture books by Judi K. Beach and Todd Parr, from dissertations to poetry classics like Falling Down the Page (Georgia Heard) and the newer Things to Do (Elaine Magliaro).

Other sections help teachers and students link writing work to genres outside writing, with references to movies and music, like the song "Summer Nights" from the musical Grease, mentioned in the section Weave Back and Forth to Compare and Contrast.  This approach makes Poems Are Teachers reach up and down the age range, supporting teachers in using the intense, time-wise power of poetry to show students engaging, relevant ways to improve their writing from beginning to end, from surface to depth and from top to bottom.

I'm delighted, of course, to have been invited to this party, but I'm even more delighted to see what kind of event it has turned out to be--a rich practical resource for teachers who know what the particular qualities of poetry are and want to apply them effectively in the classroom. Congratulations to Amy on this achievement!  And now, here's my little contribution--the model poem for the section mentioned above about comparing and contrasting.

To celebrate the publication of this book, I'm offering a copy (provided by the publisher, Heinemann--thank you!) to one winner from the staff of my excellent Montgomery County Public School here in Maryland.  To enter, teachers should comment on this post, mentioning any poem they have used in their classroom in the last year.  Bonus points for including how it strengthened a student's writing! A name will be drawn Monday the 23rd at 12 noon.

The Poetry Friday Round-Up is with Leigh Ann at A Day in the Life.  Enjoy the celebration!

happy bloggiversary to me

Read all about Poetry Friday here.

Yes, poetry fans, this weekend marks the 9th birthday of 

my juicy little universe!  

Next year, for the 10th anniversary, I will do some extravaganza of gratitude like making a lengthy found poem out of your--YOUR--comments over the years. But for 2017, at the end of a weighty and irregular week (and I mean that in the medical sense), I have only enough energy to point you in the direction of my very first post, made before I even learned that there was Poetry Friday.

It was about typing, and the sole commenter was my friend and critipue group partner Robin Galbraith (@RobinGalbraith), now the proud holder of a Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA!  (Speaking of typing, for no discernible reason the KUE key on my computer has stopped working. Now how will I type "kwakwaversal"?)

Speaking further of typing, I have held forever the position that writing by hand (including drafting and doodling and note-taking) has a different character than writing by typing, and my notebooks are very important to me.  But this has been the year that I had to admit that actually getting any writing done seemed to be related to abandoning my notebook and just typing on my laptop.

I'm still pondering why this is--is it a function of my fast-paced intense inside-the-DC-beltway microculture, which makes writing anything by hand feel inefficient?  Is it that my brain, fueled by a constant stream of think-too-much adrenalin, can't wait around for my handwriting to keep up?  Are those two things pretty much exactly the same, and should I try to relax?  Your views welcome.  : )

So here's my own poem about typing, a skill so very much more important now than it was when I took typing in high school in 1979.  (I have a second grader who has taught himself to type rather fast using two fingers on his right hand and his left thumb, and who will be therefore very well prepared for his computer-based assessments next year.)  I found this poem lurking in that very first post...


Keyboard Magic

I go around with 
letters dangling from the tip 
of each finger—

the h, j, and m jangling like charms
from my right index,
the c, d and e each occupying a joint

of the left middle,
the o ringing and ringing
my right ring finger,
a sparking a little flame from
that powerful pinky--

letters and numbers,
punc-punc-punctuation marks
trailing each move of my fingers
like the starry streaks 
that follow the sweep 
of a movie magic wand.

(c) draft HM 2017


The Poetry Friday round-up today is with Irene Thirteen--tippy-tap your way over and see what's popping at Live Your Poem!

#haiku (and book launches) for healing

My effort to respond creatively to the news of the world continues;  you can read about how Mary Lee started it all here.  You're invited to scroll down to the previous week's minimalist commentaries --and of course, you're invited to join in.  It wasn't clear to me at first, but the tiny discipline of slowing down to craft a response (rather than just banging the steering wheel and yelling at the radio) has been empowering.

12.9

first college news
we both prefer denial
to rejection

And from yesterday:

12.8

gold star winks out
leaving a long bright trail
holding in orbit


Joining in this project are all the brave women below; I hope they will pardon me when, during the week, all I can manage is to Like their Tweeted haiku.  It's good to work alongside you all!

          Mary Lee Hahn at Poetrepository
          Michelle Heidenrich Barnes at Today's Little Ditty
          Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
          Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
          Buffy Silverman at Buffy's Blog
          Jone Rush MacCulloch at DeoWriter
          Diane Mayr, posted on Thursdays at Random Noodling
          Julie Johnson at Raising Readers and Writers
          Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
          Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
          Carol Wilcox at Carol's Corner
          Julieanne Harmatz tweeting @jarhartz          Linda Baie at Teacher Dance


Our hostess with the postest is Jone at Check It Out.  She reminds us that haiku fits nicely on a postcard. And now, in other news...

I was delighted to join Jacqueline Jules, Marty Rhodes Figley and Laura Murray on Dec. 1st for a holiday book launch at One More Page in Arlington, VA (what a delightful place).  Here we are, festive and fierce with a bunch of fun books for holiday giving and receiving.  Each book you see earns its place on the bookshelf, but if I may reveal all my biases:  every home with children needs a copy of One Minute till Bedtime!

One Minute till Bedtime Blog Tour!

To help celebrate the release of this beautiful book, contributor Jackie Hoskings has organized a blog tour!  Please join the poets on December 1st as we share a one-minute poem that didn't quite make it into the book.

Find her round-up here, and enjoy!

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