Poetry Friday: Like Stitching

Molly gave the Inklings our challenge this month:

I am stealing a prompt from Audrey Gidman’s advent prompts. Prompt #24 to be precise:

Write a poem after Wendell Berry’s “Like Snow”— word for word. Choose a subject: rain, a butterfly, granite, the ocean, anything. Berry’s poem is three lines long. Break down each line. In line one, replace the word “suppose” with something else: what if; in spite of; imagine etc., replace the pronoun and the verb, replace “snow” with your chosen subject. Do the same with the second and third lines. Be sure to write an epigraph that reads “after Wendell Berry”.

Like Snow
by Wendell Berry

Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.

Like Stitching
by Mary Lee Hahn
after Wendell Berry

Perhaps we’re not the needle
but rather the thread, steady, steady,
weaving in and out.

If you look closely, there’s also a hint of William Stafford in my poem:

.

Last Monday, I had the opportunity (along with lots of other Poetry Friday Peeps!) to learn, on a zoom organized by Georgia Heard, about making poetry comics from none other than Grant Snider, the author of POETRY COMICS! He even used the poem I submitted as one of his examples!! The title is “If Canvas Could Talk.”

Since our poetry challenge this month resulted in a poem the perfect size for a poetry comic, I couldn’t resist. I created the image at the beginning of this post during the zoom. Poetry comics are fun, they challenge your brain in a new way, and you don’t have to be too precious about the art to make something you can be proud of!

Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met this month’s challenge:

Catherine @Reading to the Core
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Linda @A Word Edgewise

And Molly has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Nix the Comfort Zone!