forward...launCH!

As announced on Friday, I'm embarking tomorrow on a birthday month poetry challenge inspired by fellow Piscean Laura Shovan's February Poetry Projects (if you haven't, check out three years' worth here, here and here).

I got to thinking about the word "MARCH"  and all the other great words that end in -CH.  I realized that I have a particular fondness for words that end in -ch; they show up in my poems again and again.  So I'll be stretCHing myself to post five -CH poems weekly throughout March.  I'm allowed one previously published per week, but most will be brand-new.

Please join me in this CHallenge, poetry friends!  If you can't write with me every day, maybe you'll share your one or two per week, or your five-in-a-row, or your favorite poem by another author including the -CH word of the day....I welcome your participation, however you choose to do it!

I'll post my poem each evening, and you can send me yours by email or by leaving it in the comments for that post.  I'll round up as we go and on Sunday mornings, and at the end of the month there will be a PRIZE for the "StretCHiest MarCHer" who contributes the most poems!

To get us started, here's a poem from my first book, Squeeze: Poems from a Juicy Universe (2005).  I'm hoping this will encourage the crocuses that I know are out there straining against two layers of frozen snow!


Launch

Crocuses are rocketing
            inch by inch
                   out of the crumbled earth

the yellows aim for the sun
the purples push          toward deep space

         and inside
little astronauts in orange suits
    cock their ruffled helmets
                                toward spring

Heidi Mordhorst
all rights reserved

And here is the collection of -CH words, one muscular verb for eaCH weekday of MarCH, that I'll be using to enriCH my little patCH of the Kidlitosphere with as muCH poetry as I can.  It should be a cinCh, but if I find I'm parCHed of poems and miss a day, then ouCH--but I'll reaCH in and try again.   Don't believe me?  Just watCH!

Forward...MarCH CHallenge: Dates and Words

2 march
3 stretch
4 twitch
5 punch
6 fetch

 9 preach
10 sketch
11 smooch
12 pitch
13 arch

16 inch
17 lurch
18 botch
19 lunch
20 hatch

23 clutch
24 crouch
25 snatch
26 perch
27 quench

pf roundup & forward...march!

Greetings to all and welcome to the last Poetry Friday round-up of February! I'm delighted to be your host as we leap over this year's invisible 29th into March, my birthday month.

Inspired by fellow Piscean Laura Shovan's February Poetry Projects (if you haven't, check out three years' worth here, here and here), I got to thinking about the word "march."  What a great word!  In addition to being the month of the god Mars, you can slow-march to the beat of your own drum or quick-march someone else off to their room.  You can play a march with the band, you can lead a march to demand rights or protest wrongs, and you can observe the march of time or progress.  The origins of this meaning of "march" are quite old, dating to when the Franks and even the Indo-Europeans before them marked off boundaries by foot.

Best of all, "March" is a tasty mouthful.  That -ch ending is explosive, definite; and yet it also has a softness, a long-lasting breathy end that belies its hard beginning.  As I considered this -ch sound, I realized that I have a particular fondness for words that end in -ch--they pop up again and again in my poems--and a project, a challenge, was born!

So here is a collection of -CH words, one muscular verb for eaCH weekday of MarCH.  I'm going to stretCH myself to post five -CH poems weekly throughout March!  A few will be previously published, but most will be brand-new. Please join me in this CHallenge, poetry friends!  If you can't write with me every day, maybe you'll share your one or two per week, or your five-in-a-row, or your favorite poem by another author including the -CH word of the day....I welcome your participation!


MarCH CHallenge: Dates and Words

2 march
3 stretch
4 twitch
5 punch
6 fetch

 9 preach
10 sketch
11 smooch
12 pitch
13 arch

16 inch
17 lurch
18 botch
19 lunch
20 hatch

23 clutch
24 crouch
25 snatch
26 perch
27 quench

I'll repost each word on its day, and you can send me your responses by email or leave them in the comments for that post.  I'll share all the responses for each week on Sunday mornings, and on March 31st I'll announce the "Stretchiest Marcher" (the poet who responded to the most words) and send a poetry prize his or her way!

Oooooooohhhh noooooooooo!  Returning from school I accidentally deleted all the round-ups I'd written after 1pm, from Irene (22) through Tricia (34).  And then, hoping to retrieve them, I accidentally deleted all the roundups I'd written this morning!  Woe is me, woe are us!  Luckily, we have the blue frog working for us and I think your links are all still there.  My apologies, but I'm just going to leave it this way.

Thanks for stopping by--I look forward to reading each and every post thoroughly!

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

sound poem

I've been wanting to celebrate with Laura Shovan this month and not quite getting there, so our 2-hour "cold delay" (???) this morning seemed like a great opportunity to catch up and write in response to a couple of Laura's Sound Poem Project prompts.





Sadly, my internet seems to be freezing in the pipes along with everything else, and I can't follow the sound links Laura has posted (and I have no idea what's going on with the formatting)...but I can listen to my house waking up and to the crazy creatures outside who don't appear to know that we are setting record low temperatures here in the DC area. It's currently 7* with a wind chill of...





Nine Below Zero





below below
the frozen mark
there's whish and sweep
of wind, and hark--





below below
the frozen sky
snow-winged birds
let fly their cry





below below
the frozen branches
blubbered squirrels
announce their antics





below below
the frozen ground
the bursting bulbs
murmur a sound





of sleeping green,
of hushed persistence...
below our listening:
spring's existence





HM 2015
all rights reserved



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


Well, that insta-poem turned into less sound and more my desperate hope of winter's end!  Please join Linda--and Laura--over at TeacherDance for today's round-up.

hearts again and why not?

http://stuffpoint.com/love/image/39530/

I have posted this poem before, on a quite special occasion since which my Beloved and I have tied the knot yet again in the state of Maryland.  And those pieces of paper we got officializing our marriage are pretty important for many social and political and financial and legal reasons.



But this string of words--that's all they are, which is the miracle--expresses a connection which must touch the inside, human place in everyone who has loved.  Now let that "hollow muscular organ that is the center of the circulatory system" fill up and become your Heart.

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
....................................i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

~ e.e. cummings

The heart of Poetry Friday will no doubt overflow with  love this Valentine's Friday at Merely Day by Day with Cathy.

rampant spatulation

Spatulence

When will we ever, ever learn?

Her job is just one thing: to turn

the pancakes so they will not burn.

But when we call her to the task

(golden brown is all we ask)

she does not hop to speedy fast.

We shake the pan; she won’t come near.

She sticks her fingers in her ears,

shows us that she will not hear,

 singing “Spatu-la-la-la-la-la,

             spatu-la-la-la-la-la!”

I will say, I don't know about this one...what do YOU think?  Get lots of helpful opinions at the PF Round-up, hosted today by Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass! 

 

HM 2015

all rights reserved

revision II

I'm just ruminating over my last three poems, where I got going on a set of Spoon, Knife and Fork.  Atypically for me, all three are rhymed, similarly metered, and all share a basic 4-line stanza. I could keep going like this for a while, I guess, picking kitchen items and writing each its little ditty (see all the "Deeper Wisdom" poems featured at Today's Little Ditty, of which "What Does the Knife Know?" is one).

But would that make a readable collection, a saleable collection?  When I started typing this, I was planning for the answer to be "NO; that would be a little boring and samey and in a way unchallenging for both writer and reader," and then I was going to contrast that with any collection of "traditional" haiku, which would be therefore by its very nature boring and samey and unchallenging, and then I was going to wonder why haiku collections don't seem that way.

And then as I entered that second paragraph, I got walloped upside the head by Jack on one side and Shel on the other, and A.A. Milne appeared to wag his clever ghostly finger in my face, reminding me how many, many classic poems and entire volumes of poetry for children are rhymed and metered and kind of about the same things (although not usually kitchen items).

Now I'm wondering what it is that makes me want a new shape, a new rhythm, a new challenge each time I begin a poem. I never cook the same recipe or meal the same way twice, and at school I'm forever devising new greetings, new center activities, new routines (and creating a lot of work for myself).  While I craved novelty as a kid, I understand that for many students, sticking with one thing for longer is what's needed for competent mastery, and that too much "new" can be stressful.

Well, it seems that in the spirit of my OLW for 2015, I'm revising my 2nd-paragraph thinking.  I still think it's important for young writers to learn that poetry is not all rhythm and rhyme, and that for most beginning writers those things are hard to pull off and probably best avoided.  But golly, when 2/3 of a class of kindergarteners need to be TAUGHT to hear rhyme instead of having grown it into their bodies, and in the knowledge that I am not a beginning writer myself and quite enjoy the challenge of hewing to a rhymed and metered form, perhaps Spoon, Knife and Fork are suggesting a less varied--but no less tasty--diet of poetry for now.

Revision (with apologies to A.A. Milne)

Heidi Heidi
Mordhorst Mordhorst:
As teacher and poet she
Took great
Care to seek freedom,
Craving the novelty.
Heidi Heidi
Said to herself,
"Self," she said, said she:
"You must never get stuck at the end of the town
  called Free-Verse Poetry."

HM 2015
all rights reserved

Today's Little Roundup is with Paul at These 4 Corners.  Hope to see you there!

it had to happen: the fork poem

Tine After Tine

tuning fork for matching pitch
long-handled fork to scratch an itch
fork in the road to force a decision
(fork not as good as knife for incision)

garden fork for hard-packed soil
forklift spares your back the toil
bicycle fork suspends your wheels
favorite fork: the one at meals

HM 2015
all rights reserved

deeper wisdom: what the knife knows

Illness precluded a Friday post, but a visit to the doctor (combined with 72 hours forced rest) has led to a slight improvement and a Saturday post.  In response to the Ditty of the Month Club challenge hosted by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes and inspired by Joyce Sidman's work in Winter Bees, I offer the following.  Like Liz Steinglass, I opted to explore the wisdom of an everyday object rather than of nature, and I took a little liberty with the form as well.


What Does the Knife Know?

What does the knife know?
    Red tautness of tomato's skin.
        Onion's shallot's garlic's kin.
    Juicy slick of vitamin.   
        Jolt of pit or stone within.

What does the knife know?
    Tender coarseness of the crumb.
        Whack of steel on boarden drum.
    Whorl and loop don't armor thumb.
        Better bleeding cut than numb.

Heidi Mordhorst 2015
all rights reserved
  
I have only just realized that knife goes with spoon.  I guess a fork poem is on its way...and is anyone else having trouble, as they read these deeper wisdom poems, screening out repeated mental blarings of "What does the fox say?"

pick up an object: spoon poem

I liked
Amy's idea and Hope's spoon
so much last Friday
that it carried me
like a weebling egg
to this:




Scoop

scoop of my heart
in a crude wooden spoon
scoop of my heart
soured and soon

there will be nothing left
no sweetness or cream
bowl will be empty
empty will dream

of scoops of white foam
spoonfuls of fizz
filling my heartbowl
where yearning is

HM 2015
all rights reserved


Go live at Live Your Poem today with Irene and the rest of the Poetry Friday crowd.  How I miss you all between Fridays!

biannual britpoet feature

My spouse hails from Manchester, England ("England, across the Atlantic Sea, and I'm a genius genius") and all her parents are language and literature specialists.  It's become a tradition for me to receive from them gifts of poets less well known on these shores, and this Yuletide I received Paper Aeroplane by Simon Armitage. 

The back cover of this Selected Poems 1989-2014 says he's "the first poet of serious artistic intent since Philip Larkin to have achieved popularity," and yet I'm guessing that once again few of us know his work, since mysteriously so little seems to cross the pond. I knew him only as a novelist, and finding out that he's published a ton of poetry collections makes me feel a little ignorant. Here's Simon at the Poetry Foundation, and here's a poem from his new book. 

A Glory | Simon Armitage

Right here you made an angel of yourself,
free-fallng backwards into last night's snow,
indenting a straight, neat, cruicified shape,
then flapping your arms, one stroke, a great bird,
to leave the impression of wings.  It worked.
Then you found your feet, sprang clear of the print
and the angel remained:  fixed, countersunk,
open wide, hosting the whole the sky.

Losing sleep because of it, I backtrack
to the place, out of earshot of the streets,
above the fetch and reach of the town.
The scene of the crime.  Five-eights of the moon.
On ground where snow has given up the ghost
it lies on its own, spread-eagled, embossed,
commending itself, star of its own cause.
Priceless thing--the facelesss hood of the head,
grass poking out through the scored spine, the wings
on the turn, becoming feathered, clipped.

Cattle would trample roughshod over it,
hikers might come with pebbles for the eyes,
a choice of fruit for the nose and the lips;
somebody's boy might try it on for size,
might lie down in its shroud, might suit, might fit.  Angel,
from under the shade and shelter of trees
I keep watch, wait for the dawn to take you
raise you, imperceptibly, by degrees.


Now, no kidding--I hadn't spent much time with Simon yet--so I just opened my new 232-page volume randomly and found this poem.  But, with snow on the ground here and this poem in my own Pumpkin Butterfly, why would I look any further?

Frozen Angels | Heidi Mordhorst

We line up and hold hands

knees locked,      

then let go

Falling blindly, keen to feel

the crunch as we break the

perfect snow

Arms drag and legs plow

high and open

shut and low

Doing slowly jumping jacks

flat on our backs in

heavy snow

We sit up and bend knees

balance out

on booted toes

Stepping deeply, keen to see

the shapes we made in

crumpled snow

There they are: our angels frozen

on their backs

in a row

Where the cheerful field should lie

an angel graveyard

in the snow.

Enjoy the Poetry Friday Roundup today at The Opposite of Indifference with my my friend and local neighbor Tabatha.

revision

I thought I had picked out One Word for the year.  Standing around the flickering candles of the Yule tree last evening (secretly beaming because the children have memorized all the words of our 12-day Yuletide ritual), my One Word seemed obvious:  LIGHT.  There was my trademark quick decision, done and dusted. (This is how I found myself married the first time.)

LIGHT is a lovely word, especially powerful at this dark time of year, with many meanings in several parts of speech, and it seemed to capture the direction I need to keep going in:  a lighter grip, a lighter touch, a light heart and as much light as possible shining into my pupils (puntended).

By bedtime, though, I'd stepped back into a more practical place and realized that LIGHT was perhaps not as active a word as I need--and it certainly wasn't so pertinent to my writing life, which is where I need to put particular attention.  And I thought about how a lighter grip, how an infusion of light into the work, are what's required for good revision, whether of writing or of hasty decisions.  Other requirements for revision include patience, resting and flexibility--all areas where I could grow generally, and where my writing could benefit from less product and more persistence.  And so--in the very spirit of revision--I changed my One Word to REVISE.

Just to make sure I was on the right track, I Googled the word and found a definition which includes LIGHT--two for the price of one!
          
           re·vise            rəˈvīz/        verb

1.

reconsider and alter (something) in the light of further evidence.

synonyms:

reconsider, review, re-examine, reassess, re-evaluate, reappraise, rethink

I shared this decision with my spouse, who noodled alongside me, wondering about revision, envision and several other word choices, while I listened to myself do what I always do:  "Just stop with the possibilities-- I've made my choice and I'm sticking with it!  No time to consider anything else! Got to get on with it!"  The irony is exquisite... and I reserve the right to change my mind about my One Word should the light of further evidence require it.

*******************
One Word 2015

held and holding tight:
getting a grip
becomes a vice

time and again re-vise:
letting the light
in more than twice

HM 2015
all rights reserved

*******************
The Poetry Friday Round-up is with Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.  Happy New Year--and New Words--to all!