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.

out now! rhyme & rhythm poems for student athletes

Welcome once again to Poetry Friday!  If you're unfamiliar, you can go here to learn more, and please do consider plunging in and bringing your fresh face to the conversation! 

And now, please join me in celebrating the belated book birthday of RHYME & RHYTHM: POEMS FOR STUDENTS ATHLETES!!!

 

This anthology was pulled together by Dr. Sarah J. Donovan of Ethical ELA fame, and it features established and emerging poets--including three of us Inklings--waxing poetic about high school sports.

Just as Tabatha Yeatts's IMPERFECT anthology has hit a sweet--or bittersweet, or sour--spot of need and sold 3,500 copies (prompting her to collect another similar anthology about keeping perspective), RHYME & RHYTHM goes very specifically where no YA poetry anthology has gone before: into locker rooms and pools, onto ice rinks, football fields and basketball courts, and even into the dim gym of a school dance.

 

                                      To read the rest of the poem, buy the book here, or click here.

 

My poem, excerpted above, is one of the few written in rhyme and meter; most are free verse or invented forms, and there are several which are prose poems.  The list of contributing poets includes Mary E. Cronin, Zetta Elliott, Linda Mitchell, Laura Shovan, Margaret Simon, Padma Ventrakaman and many others whose work you will enjoy getting to know.

The poems range widely across sports but also across the emotional experience of playing sports.  A frequent theme is the thrill of participation, the simple enjoyment of exertion and skill, colored by  other aspects of our identities as humans. So often what could be a universal pleasure is interrupted by self- and other-judgments about having bodies of particular sizes, shapes and shades, lacking means or family support, bearing pressure and expectations.

We do what turns out to be a strange thing here in the U.S.--we build athletics into the school experience rather than letting school focus on academics, rather than keeping sports a separate pursuit for away-from-school hours. (I read an article about this which I now can't find, related to Amanda Ripley's work.) The idea of "student athletes" becomes a curious one when you realize how uncommon it is elsewhere.  

The poems in this anthology, taken together, call our approach to athletics into question and leave me wondering where the pure pleasure of play is, that we all need for healthy, creative bodies and minds.

RHYME & RHYTHM is currently only available through the Mojo sales platform from Archer Publishing, which designed the book and illustrated it with stock photos. We hope it will soon be carried through more bookstores online.

Thanks to Irene at Live Your Poem for rounding us up today!

inklings october challenge: hybrid forms

Greetings, Poetry Friday people!  Go here to learn more about this weekly fiesta de poesía.  I do not actually have any poesia in Spanish today, but I have certainly been enjoying some Spanish-language poetry in translation at Poem-a-Day.

Instead I have my response to Mary Lee's challenge to our group of INKLINGS this month.  

 

We are taking it in whatever way it works, and my version is  "Explain a poetry form (ode, elegy, sonnet, limerick, etc) using that form." Me being me, it got a little hairier and more complex even than that. (I felt very seen reading this quote yesterday in the NYT from their two-time Pulitzer winner for criticism, Wesley Morris: “I can be paralyzed by my glut of ideas,” he said, “which often means I wait to write things until the last minute.”)

So here, without further ado about nothing, is my

In case you have not met a definito before, it is my own invention, a form the rules of which I have now resoundingly broken: the definito is a free verse poem of 8-12 lines (aimed at readers 8-12 years old) that highlights wordplay as it demonstrates the meaning of a less common word, which always ends the poem. 

But hey--you make it, you break it!  

 I believe this month's offerings will be even more varied than usual, and I believe you will love every one.  Start with Catherine's at Reading to the Core, as she is our hostess with the mostess this week.  Then pop around and enjoy all the INKLINGS have to offer. 

 
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

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!