overheard in Sunday School

This year at my Unitarian Universalist congregation we're using a new (to us) approach to religious education known as the WRM or Workshop Rotation Model.  Rather than sending same-grade groups of kids to the same class with the same teachers each Sunday, the kids are divided into several multiage groups and each month a handful of different types of lessons are taught around a theme.  The groups rotate through each lesson over the course of the month, with new volunteers teaching each month. 

In February, when our theme was Truth, I offered a poetry workshop.  I worked with three groups of  3rd-5th graders, and our RE Director worked with our one group of K-2nd graders.  As I had hoped, UU kids were especially receptive to poetry and dove in, producing some really first-rate work in our one hour together.  (Someday I'll write a post about what I mean about UU's and poetry.)

I used a poem from my collection Squeeze about a special rock to introduce the idea of an "outside truth" (the sensory, scientific facts about a thing) and an "inside truth"--the personal experiences and imaginations about a thing that are equally meaningful and true.  We provided some interesting nature objects as inspiration, and challenged the children to be aware, as they wrote, about whether they were expressing the outside truth or the inside truth about their subject.  Even the adult guides for each group wrote, and one of them, Danie Smallwood, a photographer, took really striking photos of the objects for an illustrated anthology of the poems, which we'll copy for the congregation to enjoy.

Here are the first two poems in the series, each of them first and only drafts.  Enjoy!













Starfish 

With five points sticking out

Pops of white bursting out

Light brown spots

Hard to see

Like the bottom with a honey-colored line that seems to be

Pouring out

Woven under

With small holes

That to me look as if they are going to break open

Unlike the ocean

Harsh, never stopping, never having an opening

 

~Katie, 5th grade

 Light Wing

Light wing, bumpy wing,

Light wing, colorful, and bumpy.

Yellow dots, black dots,

Light wing in my hands.  

 

~ Zachary, 2nd grade

 

The roundup for this week's Poetry Friday is over at GottaBook with Greg. Go gear up for National Poetry Month!

 

process; product

It's Madness indeed--the March Madness Poetry Tournament hosted by Ed DeCaria!   On Monday evening I received my 10-seeded word--HYPOCRISY-- which in 36 hours I had to develop into a poem worthy of competition.  The word gave me pause, certainly; I worried that I would, like many with even more challenging, abstract words, have to spend my eight allowed lines defining it.  But my 10-year-old easily demonstrated his understanding of "hypocrite," so I forged ahead....

and wrote a rather serious, instructive piece that just didn't seem to be the right thing for the competition:

A Little Light Lying 

Your parents teach you social graces:

“Really—you look good in braces!” 

We say what we don’t really mean;

The edge of truth’s a touch too keen. 

But falseness leaves an ashy trace

A lasting mask tough to erase

Face the mirror, fail to see—

That’s genuine hypocrisy.

 

~Heidi Mordhorst 2013

(draft)

 

So I decided to start completely over, with something involving a hippo.  Obvious, right?  And naturally comical.  And then--now that I review my Tuesday night train of thought, I can barely discern how I got there, but it had to do with reading a lot about hippos and watching a lot of amateur YouTube videos of hippos and crocodiles--a line of poetry came into my head:  "How doth the little crocodile..."  That was all I had at first.

 

Luckily, Google rarely lets me down, and soon I had the voice of Alice (yeah, the Disney Alice) reciting her whole poem from Chapter Two of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. 

 

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale! 

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in

With gently smiling jaws!

 

Wikipedia similarly rarely lets me be, so there I discovered something I had forgotten--that Alice's crocodile recitation is her garbled version of a serious, instructive poem of the 18th century poet Isaac Watts.  His poem is about a bee and is usually titled

 

Against Idleness and Mischief

 

How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower! 
 

How skilfully she builds her cell!

How neat she spreads the wax!

And labors hard to store it well

With the sweet food she makes. 
 

In works of labor or of skill,

I would be busy too;

For Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do. 
 

In books, or work, or healthful play,

Let my first years be passed,

That I may give for every day

Some good account at last.

 

Et voila!  A concept.  By only a couple of hours past my bedtime, I had borrowed Isaac's form and diction along with Lews's parodic twist and submitted this to the MMPT competition:

 

Against Falsity and Pretense


How doth the chubby hippo
Improve his shining hide
And bob the waters of the Nile
On every muddy side!
 

How lazily he opens wide!
How jolly seems to be!
Then crushes skulls of crocodiles
With sweet hippo-crisy.

Is that cheating?  I decided not (and it was, after all, AT LEAST a couple of hours past my bedtime).  While not wholly original, I reckoned that I had done enough creative reworking to justify calling it mine, and part of the work was a new appreciation for the historical antecedents of our modern poetry for kids. 

 

At this writing the competition is fierce!  I'm up against Alvaro Salinas Jr. (aka M.M. Socks) and his funny "LeeAnn's Farm," and after an early lead I find that the the voting is EXACTLY EQUAL!  Stay tuned to find out if my hypocritical bee/crocodile/hippo can garner enough votes to get me to Round Two!

 

And now we must give a bit of Poetry Friday attention to the PF Anthology for Middle Schools, edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong.  I'm wondering what would have happened if those clever editors had told us what the weekly themes in the book would be, so that all us poets could have written to assignment, as we're doing in the Tournament or may have done for the poetry tag e-books?  Would our pieces have been any better? Worse? More risky and edgy as we ventured outside our own comfort zones, as we're doing with these crazy words Ed has given us?  Process is soooooo interesting!

 

The Poetry Friday round-up is with Jone today at Check It Out!  See you there!

 

 

molecular, bedeviled

Welcome, all, to Poetry Friday!  It's March 8, a date which has been International Women's Day since 1911.  If you've never explored the history, get it here.

I had planned to go broadly international for you today with a few poems from women around the world, but then something less exotic yet somehow more universal caught my eye.  It's in the title; it's in the way we all comb our hair and dreams sift out; it's in the way nothing is very serious and yet we all worry about forgetting the way home. 

Bon Courage | Amy Gerstler

Why are the woods so alluring? A forest appears

to a young girl one morning as she combs

the dreams out of   her hair. The trees rustle

and whisper, shimmer and hiss. The forest

opens and closes, a door loose on its hinges,

banging in a strong wind. Everything in the dim

kitchen: the basin, the jug, the skillet, the churn,

snickers scornfully. In this way a maiden

is driven toward the dangers of a forest,

but the forest is our subject, not this young girl.

 

She’s glad to lie down with trees towering all around.

A certain euphoria sets in. She feels molecular,

bedeviled, senses someone gently pulling her hair,

tingles with kisses she won’t receive for years.

Three felled trees, a sort of chorus, narrate

her thoughts, or rather channel theirs through her,

or rather subject her to their peculiar verbal

restlessness ...    our deepening need for non-being intones

the largest and most decayed tree, mid-sentence.

I’m not one of you squeaks the shattered sapling,

 

blackened by lightning. Their words become metallic

spangles shivering the air. Will I forget the way home?

 

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

Find the rest here, and meet me in the woods at dusk.

 

In case it's possible that anyone has missed the March 1 launch of the new Poetry Friday Anthology, Middle School edition, please visit the blog to learn more. I'm delighted to be included in yet another stellar collection of work for children and teachers to enjoy together.

I'll be rounding up in three waves today and look forward to seeing what everybody's been up to while I was "resting." Please leave your links in the comments (since me and Mr. Linky have yet to get it on).

 ************

Margaret is doing the Slice of Life Challenge at the Two Writing Teachers, and her students are, too.  Her post is a little haiku inspired by "I Haiku You" by Betsy Snider and the comment exchange with one of her students.

Laura Shovan concludes her fascinating postcard project today with a truly international post at Author Amok, coming to us from AWP in Boston.  Congratulations on finishing your 44-poem project, Laura!

Bridget has an original triolet up this week at Wee Words for Wee Ones, called Doll Making.

Laura Salas shares "Ordinary," a cinquain about a pencil which, I believe, was one of the very first poems I ever wrote in 2nd grade.  I'm sure Laura's is much better, and it comes with a video poem-starter, which we never had in 1971.

Joy joins in with a spring poem (lucky Arizona duck) and a PFAMS t-shirt!  Must get one of those for sure....

Robyn celebrates International Women's Day with her mother, her daughter, and Anne Bradstreet--by way of Buzz Lightyear!

Charles shares a sample poem from his new YA novel-in-verse, FIRST KISS, at Father Goose.

Linda at TeacherDance brings us a poem for children, or perhaps teachers, and then children again.

Our friend at Books4Learning shares an interesting review of Blue Lipstick, a book of concrete poems by John Grandits.

Myra is in with some love for ee cummings, a feeling which I carry with me wherenever I travel!  It's  at Gathering Books.

Renee gets us all whipped up for this year's March Madness Poetry Tournament by featuring Stephen Cahill, last year's winner, in a video of "Girlzilla Gorilla". Find it all at No Water River.

I'm laughing already at the title of Greg's original this week, "Sequester the Tester."  Get your giggle at GottaBook.

Julie at The Drift Record offers a short but dramatic poem by Walter de la Mare with musings on March.

Mary Lee is currently consumed by the "bracketology" of the MMPT and the 5th Grade Battle of the Books at her school, and shares a nice bit of student bracketology to go with it!

Tabatha's in with a poetic smorgasbord today at The Opposite of Indifference.  Sounds tasty...and I apologize for the mislink!

Mandy comes to us from Enjoy and Embrace Learning with poetry already from THIS morning's walk!  Thanks for sharing your slice of life.

Travis joins in with a short but extremely effective book spine poem at 100 Scope Notes.  He'll be posting them all month and invites us to join in.  I just might try it today...

Donna from Mainely Write prepares for the MMPT 2013 by asking "May I Have a Word?"

Cathy is also participating in the Slice of Life writing challenge with an original called "The Writer." Her blog is Merely Day by Day.  Glad you're joining us, Cathy!

Andi has haiku today with a flower story--I didn't know about Clivia--and photos at a wrung sponge.

Tara at A Teaching Life has a poem about daughters and hugs.  I thought I was prepared to be quick enough, but I see now how I've been slow...

Tamera Will Wissinger is in today with a poem that didn't make it into her newly released Gone Fishing, a novel in verse--entitled (hee) "The One That Got Away."  Find it here.

Linda at Write Time has an original poem about friendship. 

Diane has her usual multiple musings up at Random Noodling (haiku), at Kurious Kitty (Elizabeth Barrett Browning) and KK's Kwotes (Browning again, as part of a month of quotes from women).  Again, apologies for the mislink, Diane.

Catherine from Reading to the Core shares a view out her window today.

From Jama comes a poem by Frances Kakugawa of Hawai'i--most fitting for International Women's Day!  Find it at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Join Matt on "A Search" at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme today!

Amy's poem today started with a drawing; she shares the book that inspired it all.  Go to The Poem Farm for "Shell Teeth."

Violet is in today with a bit of doggerel (yip-yippee!) that crosses MMPT with an episode of the Food Network's "Chopped."  Gosh, I love poets.

That's the Morning Edition done....check in after lunch for more, and thanks again for stopping by!

Siesta time for sensible people, but for us at Poetry Friday, it's more, more, more (how do you like it? but I warn you, the video is a terrible letdown).

Liz says hai -- ku from Growing Wild with poems about late winter, or is it early spring?

Dori has March Madness Poetry Tournament jitters today at Dori Reads.  Don't worry, Dori; we're all wondering why we signed up for this crazy challenge, in some cases, AGAIN.

Mother Reader shares a poetry collection today called A Poem of Her Own.  Sounds like what I was thinking of--thanks, MotherReader!

Janet has "Mailboxes in Late Winter" at Across the Page.  It's by Jeffrey Harrison, which has me hoping I'll finally get in touch with my oh-so-important DeadHead 9th grade English teacher!

Congratulations to Kerry who's posting some poems from this month's Ladybug Magazine, including one of hers!

Little Willow shares lyrics from "Sail On" by the Good Mad at Bildungsroman.  It's not a good Poetry Friday without song lyrics, I reckon.  Thanks, Little Willow.

Sylvia has stopped by to let everyone know that there's a contest to win a free book at the PFAMS blog as well as wordplay by J. Patrick Lewis at the Poetry Friday Anthology (K-5), too.

Welcome to Keri, who posts today for the first time with her own poem about feeding the reptiles at Keri Recommends.

Ruth has a very fresh--even raw--draft to share today.  Bon courage, Ruth and son.

At Check It Out, Ms.Mac has student poetry postcards and at DeoWriter she shares haiku.

Joe points us to his site and his e-book, 101 Secrets.

Anastasia shares Do You Have a Dog? by Eileen Spinelli at Booktalking.  Hooray for women poets indeed!

From Lorie Ann we have a new haiku at Winged Words, and at Readertotz a video moment with Paul Simon at Julio down at the schoolyard on Sesame Street!

Lorie Ann's good friend Dia joins us this afternoon with a Lightning Dance , which is just perfect since I'm rearranging furniture for a seriously moonlit dance party tomorrow evening.  49 is the new 21, says the birthday girl.

Now, is 5:00 too early for a cocktail?  Not, I think, on Poetry Friday, especially when I've had a visit from M.M. Socks, also known as Alvaro Salinas, Jr.....AGAINST WHOM I AM PITTED in Round 1 of the MMPT!!!  Nice to hear from you, MM--I'm gonna knock your socks right off, my friend. 

I'll check back in one more time this evening, folks.  For now, it's time to make my own proper rounds to all your intriguing posts. 

Closing us down this evening are Betsy from a beautiful day in Michigan who shares a dandelion poem at Teaching Young Writers, and Janet with a review of Words, Wit and Wonder, a kids' guide to writing your own poem at All About the Books.

hey ho up she rises

So here I am, back just in time to host Poetry Friday on International Women's Day and then compete in the March Madness Poetry Tournament.  Was the hiatus the right thing to do?  Yes.  Is that a way to move forward in the long term?  No. 

It was easy enough and even pleasurable to know that for two months I was off the hook for blog posts, OIK poems, etc., but (Note to Self) it turns out that writing is really rather important to me--you know, like a life-giving elixir.  So I have disengaged from other things (with pangs and regrets) and am trying to Live Local: my family, my class, my schools.  No Big Picture Save the World Fight the Power stuff for now. 

Thanks to those who thought of me when I was gone--it mattered.  I'll be celebrating International Women's Day on Friday and I invite you to post something fitting if you're so moved.  See you Friday!

P.S.  Duncan's doing well, even with the broken arm.

new year's note to self: short and long versions

New Year's Note to Self, short version:  

Put first things first and take a writing/blogging sabbatical for a couple of months.

New Year's Note to Self, long version:
Yes, Heidi, you are a poet & teacher who practices her arts blah blah blah, but you are also a parent--the parent of a kid who has distinct executive function challenges that keep getting more pronounced as life gets more complex.  But just like you told said kid, when you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, you don't sit back and say, "Oh, these things are hard for me so don't expect me to do them well."

Instead, top to bottom ed/psych testing is an opportunity for everyone to practice using their strengths to develop their weaknesses.  Right?  So you the parent need to model this.

Weakness:  responding flexibly when things don't go smoothly, efficiently and according to schedule.
Strengths: "goal-directed persistence,"  organizational and time-management skills.

You the parent need to temporarily clear the decks and free up some time and attention to focus on this child who needs extra frontal lobe in order to cope with the demands of 4th grade.  If you keep doing everything you're doing all at once, there's no frontal lobe to spare for him. 

The poetry will still be there in 60 days. (Heck, it holed up and hibernated circa 1985 and then popped out full of spring sap 15 years later.  Not to worry.).  But two months is a long time in the life of a 10-year-old who needs more patient reminders and less frantic screeching about missing homework and undone chores.

So, give it two months and see where the family gets.  Check back in around March 1.  "Everything will be all right in the end.  If it's not all right, it's not the end."

Love,
Heidi

Poetry Friday: light the darkest night

 

 

Poetry Friday is here and now, on the Winter Solstice, when the sun stands briefly still at its lowest point on the horizon.  All day shadows are long, and the night, when it comes, is the longest night of the year.  But take heart, diurnal creatures:  poetry has the power to light the dark! 

 

Susan Cooper (yes, that Susan Cooper, of the The Dark Is Rising series) leads the procession of those who call the sun to return.

 

The Shortest Day | Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!

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

A couple of folks who don't blog sent me poems to light the dark ahead of time.  This one, by the woods-whisperer Joyce Sidman, reminds us that furred and feathered creatures also eat and drink of the light.

 

Winter Solstice, At the Feeder | Joyce Sidman

In your burrows under the snow

all you will hear

is the dry swirl of frozen breath,

the rasp of bare limbs,

the slow stamp of some large creature. 

On this coldest of mornings,

when all is either stone or dust
and the shadows reach blue fingers

into the splintered air,

I am planting flowers of the sun. 

Each seed drops into the powder,

a striped case holding its secret map

of burning velvet yellow.

Can you smell it, this promise,

this nugget of unconsumed heat? 

I can see by your footprints

that you have been here before.

Pheasant hen, finch and mouse:

when I am gone, come and eat.

Turn your faces toward the light. 
 

from Like the Air, Finishing Line Press, 1999.  Reprinted with permission.

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

Another echo, unclad of the mists of time, came to my inbox via the Academy of American Poets.  In it, Jake Adam York (go to the obituary of this suddenly, recently departed poet to wish for More Time) addresses not the literal sun, but a musician who knew himself to be of the "Angel Race" of Saturn. Reading this poem, I felt the longing many of us have, as we rush around the shopping malls and freeway interchanges, to connect with the ebb and flow of the cosmos.  To see, "To get it dark enough," we "have to fold back/into the hills, into the trees."

Letter Already Broadcast into Space | Jake Adam York

                         -To Sun Ra, from Earth

You are not here,

you are not here
in Birmingham,
        where they keep your name,

not in Elmwood's famous plots
                or the monuments
of bronze or steel or the strew

        of change in the fountain
where the firehoses sprayed.

                In the furnaces, in the interchange sprawl
        that covers Tuxedo Junction,

in the shopping malls, I think,
                they've forgotten you,

the broadcast towers, the barbecues,

        the statue of the Roman god,
spiculum blotting out
                part of the stars.

To get it dark enough,
        I have to fold back
into the hills, into the trees

                where my parents
planted me, where the TV
        barely reaches and I drift

with my hand on the dial
                of my father's radio,

spinning, too, the tall antenna
        he raised above the pines.

I have to stand at the base

                of the galvanized
pole I can use as an azimuth
        and plot you in.

The hunter's belt is slung again,
                and you are there

in the pulse, in the light of
        Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka,

all your different names,

                you are there
in all the rearrangements
        of the stars.

                        Come down now,
come down again,

                like the late fall light
into the mounds along the creek,

        light that soaks like a flood
to show the Cherokee sitting upright
                underground, light

like the fire they imply.

        Come down now
into the crease the freight train
                hits like a piano's hammer

and make the granite hum
        beneath.

                        Come down now

as my hand slips from the dial,
                tired again of looking
for the sound of another way

        to say everything.

Come down now with your diction
                and your dictionary.

Come down, Uncle, come down
        and help me rise.

I have forgot my wings.

 

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

Some remember their wings through a rather famous book of poetry.  This piece is contributed by my father, a Lutheran pastor.  The poet is John (yes, that John, of the New Testament).

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."

 

Gospel of John, selected verses 1-14

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

And how does a nice Lutheran girl, a PK, become a pagan-tinted Unitarian Universalist who tracks the sun's journey around the wheel of the year?  I can only say that it's there in my cells (and in Pumpkin Butterfly).

 

 

Solar-Powered Sun Puppet | Heidi Mordhorst

 

the dark side of me

glowers inside

drags at the tips of my toes

 

it feeds on clouds

on rainy skies

and only my shadow knows:

 

how heavy

the day is

how low the horizon

how sodden

and sad

I am

 

then sweet sun punches a hole in the clouds

sizzles and swims in my eyes

my shadow spills out through a hole in my sole

my darker side hung out to dry

 

howbrilliantthedayis!  

howhighthebluesky!

how sudden and mad I am!

 

I’m sunny side up

I’m pumped full of light 

my silhouette dances on walls

 

Now I can see clearly:

my dark doppelganger

freed by the sun's high call

 

my demon cast out, my shadow of doubt

is the shadow that proves that I am!

 

 

I hope that you and yours will find living light--outer and inner--on this shortest day, this darkest night and all through the season.  Now for the Round-Up!

April Halprin Wayland led us to the archway of the Solstice with an original poem she posted last week at Teaching Authors, her last post for 2012.  It's called "Winter Solstice: Girl Talking to the Sun."

Irene Latham leads on with an original poem "First Day of Winter" that appears in her book WHAT CAME BEFORE.

More ways to see winter come from Laura Purdie Salas, who gives us a triolet of icicles to catch the glancing light.

Bridget Magee joins us from Wee Words for Wee Ones with a "Solstice Song." 

Diane Mayr shares a slew of seasonal selections.  At Random Noodling she has 2 original poems with two very different views of St. Lucy's Day.  St. Lucy's Day originally coincided with the winter solstice.  At KK's Kwotes there's a quote by A. E. Housman and at Kurious Kitty a Housman poem.  It's not a celebration of the solstice, but echoes her feelings this week. And finally, at The Write Sisters, Diane has an original solstice tanka in an illustrated form.

Nonfiction expert and poet Buffy Silverman has done us the honor of writing her very first blog post ever for today's Winter Solstice celebration.  She brings us the "Colored Candles" of Chanukah.  Welcome, Buffy!

Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference takes us back to the beginning with a poem about the Norse goddess Freya, and, coincidentally...

Robyn Hood Black celebrates the Winter Solstice with Tabatha's "In the Great Book of Winter" at Read, Write, Howl.

Mary Lee Hahn shares an original from the Winter Poem Swap organized by the very busy Tabatha, called "Sensing the Solstice."

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater joins in with "A Candle No One Else Can See" at The Poem Farm.

Laura Shovan writes, "My post is in response to the Sandy Hook shootings. After 9-11, I heard a Wendell Berry poem that begins, 'Now you know the worst we humans have to know about ourselves.' It has always stuck with me, and came to mind last week. It is about combating darkness with the light of love."

 

From Liz Steinglass at Growing Wild, a piquant mouthful called "Seasonal Feasts."

Marjorie brings some Caribbean sunshine to our northerly darkness with a post on John Agard at Paper Tigers.

 

Linda Kulp shares granchildren rhymes at Write Time.

Tara's offering is Mary Oliver's "The Gardener," from her new collection.

 

Matt Forrest Esenwine has cookies over at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme.  Yum!

Margaret Simon is lighting the dark with some reflections.

Renee LaTulippe is playing with homophones today at No Water River, and my apologies for an oversight...Renee also has a Grinchy Christmas poem and poetry video by guest poet Penny Klostermann called "Max Mostly Moves On":

Matt Goodfellow has a poem inspired by information on the Solstice.

Iza has "Christmas Memories" from New York from us on her blog.

Violet shares a two-part poem that riffs on various aspects of Christmas.

Today Linda at TeacherDance hones in on the important things in life--a good exercise at any time of year.

More music for us at Mother Reader:  Peace Love and Understanding!

Ruth is in with "Winter Stars" by Sara Teasdale.  It's killing me that I don't have time to go and read these until tomorrow!

Little Willow has posted Last Answers by Carl Sandburg at Bildungsroman.

Kate's "darkness into light" poem is here at Book Aunt.

Charles Ghignawould like to help light the dark with "Present Light" at The FATHER GOOSE Blog.

Fats Suela is in today at Gathering Books with Jack Prelutsky's "I'm Wrestling with an Octopus." It's far from being a solstice poem, but definitely in keeping with the bimonthly theme "Stream of Stories and Whispering Water Tales."
Sheri Doyle is in with a poem and a song about light and dreams.

Joy has not only ornaments but poetry crafts at Poetry for Kids Joy!

Gregory K has surprised himself by posting an original poem today:  Oh, Well

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

Thanks to all who are brightening a grey and rainy morning here in Bethesda, and who helped me ready this post along with the gingerbread men, chestnut pate and parsnip roulade.  I'll be rounding up again at 1:30 or so, but by evening my family will be lighting the 12 candles on our Yule tree and speaking our Winter Solstice words:  "On this dark night we celebrate light and power of the human spirit to brighten and warm the season of cold and dark..."  Thanks for visiting, and I look forward to making my way to all your postings during the weekend!
 

SPARK 18

Once again I have participated in a round of SPARK, which randomly matches artists and writers who exchange inspiration pieces and then produce response pieces over a ten-day period.  I always look forward to the challenge and to "meeting" a fellow artiste, and I've found that many of them are writers as well as painters or photographers or sculptors.  Some people just gotta express themselves!

This time I was working from two inspirations, really.  Recently my friend Charles Waters sent me perhaps the best compliment I will ever receive.  Charles wrote that he liked my poems in The Poetry Friday Anthology (nice enough in itself!) and then, "I do believe if e.e. cummings and Emily Dickinson had a baby it would be you."

Oh my.  If ever there was a compliment worth living up to, that's it.  I even began to hope it might somehow actually be true (no offense to my actual earthly parents), and I went and double-checked birth and death dates to see if Emily and Edward might ever have met.  (No.  Emily died eight years before e.e. was born.)  Still, I was wearing Charles's lovely speculation on my head like a crown (that's how good it made me feel) when I received a photo from Jules Rolfe (see it here), and so my response poem is all metaphysical and punctuated.


[poem]

 

Many thanks to Jules for her wonderful Nebraska landscape and to Charles for his generous challenge!

The Round-Up today is with Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup--always a tasty smorgasbord of treats. And next week I'll be your host right here; if you're planning to participate in my Solstice-themed edition of Poetry Friday, feel free to send me your links as early as you like!