I checked back in the current five-year diary (I’m in year two) and in the ten-year volume that came before and found that last year the rose-breasted grosbeaks appeared on May 9, and their first appearance ever was six years ago in May of 2018. (Reading back through my snippets from May of 2021, the end of my last year of teaching, was a bit of a rabbit hole…)
You’ve noticed that there are no rose-breasted grosbeaks in the photo. They seem to be more wild than our usual visitors. They came several times while I stood there waiting with my camera, but just the sight of my outline through the glass door was enough to send them winging right away.
While I stood there, I was thinking of Famous, by Naomi Shihab Nye, and what a privilege it is to be famous to these gorgeous birds for our suet feeder. And to the early hummingbirds who come to the coral bells you can see peeking in the left side of the picture. Also to the black swallowtails who know they can find fennel, the monarchs who know they can find milkweed, and the lightning bugs who can thrive in a chemical-free yard.
Linda gave us our May challenge. After spinning the wheel of chance that paired us up with another Inkling, we sent off a poem and received a poem. Then, we were tasked to “Fiddle with, play with, tinker, tear-apart, be inspired or stumped by the poem.”
Here’s what Heidi sent me:
Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. ~Mary Oliver
Golden Haystack
It’s not common, it’s not every day I come across words in which I see sparks or hear a sounding something that opens the locked box of a poem. This one more or less demands that I pry at buried boxes, more or less kills me. This year delight will not stay with me. I can see it, hear it, feel the gauze of delight that surrounds me; I try to hold it but it leaves me like a pin dropping, like a coin rolling, like a sharp momentary needle in my arm. I am vaccinated against joy. I search the haystack daily for shine, ordinary evening stealing the keys of light.
Heidi Mordhorst 2021
Is that not the most perfect encapsulation of what The COVID Year was like? How our creativity was muffled and elusive?
I chose to respond to Heidi’s Haystack with some hay bales (a bit like last week’s pebbles), created from handfuls of straw, first from her poem, and then from the Mary Oliver quote.
Golden Hay Bales
There will always be this – even in a year devoid of delight, when hope will hide its face behind a mask, not letting me remember to cup my hand around its flame – I can stay as malleable as the candle with wax dripping, flowing, creating a new me.
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a loaded paintbrush, a sharpened pencil, a threaded needle – all poised in the hand of the maker – her thoughts a loosely massed haystack of hope, an undulation of light.
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Stymied by introspective search, brushing off the chaff from life’s haystack of daily human indignities, I head for the garden and its abundance of hopeful shine.
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Like a crowd bearing purple-flamed torches, every iris in the bed is poised to bloom. Any day now I will wake to see the torches flaring open like firework explosions or a hopeful chorus of purple joy I can and yet cannot hear.
Buffy Silverman has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup. And because I had a small brain lapse when I put out the call for roundup hosts last December, leaving off June, here is the call for roundup hosts June – December 2024.
The hay bale image is from Wikimedia Commons. (Do you know how hard it is to find pictures of old-school rectangular hay bales? They’re all round now!)
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Edited on Thursday evening to add…a bunch of the torches have flared open. I wish this photo had smell-o-vision!
It’s that time again. Six-ish months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.
What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.
Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape, or form (Mr. Linky, “old school” in the comments, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in, but perhaps choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.
How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you’re not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch…and learn! One thing we’re finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.
How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? You can grab the list from the sidebar here at A(nother) Year of Reading, or I’d be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address.
Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It’s like hosting a poetry party on your blog!
Put your request in the comments (blog URL is appreciated) and I’ll update the calendar frequently. Feel free to share this post on all the various socials.
My job title for the after school program is “Reading Specialist,” but I much prefer “Reading Enricher” or “Lead Reader.” I am blessed with the freedom to be creative and to choose the books I share (and ostensibly, the lessons I teach.)
We spent National Poetry Month immersed in poetry. I chose matching pairs of poems by two of my favorite children’s poets, Douglas Florian and David Elliott. Their poems are similar: usually funny, often with puns or word play, and short enough to be just the right size for the small amount of time I have at each of my sites. I created a tournament bracket that pitted Hummingbird against Hummingbird, Barn Cat against Persian, Giraffe against Giraffe and Stegosaurus against Stegosaurus.
As we read and discussed the poems before voting, the lessons of the children’s classroom teachers shone through their comments. The children identified and celebrated rhythm and rhyme. A third grader compared simile to metaphor. A fifth grade boy praised one poem’s hyperbole. Two fifth grade girls traded lines as they recited William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Kindergarteners identified (and preferred) the more positive message in Elliott’s “Stegosaurus:”
“…there’s some- thing more to life than just intelligence.”
In the end, “Barn Cat” by David Elliott won the first side of the bracket, and Douglas Florian’s “Stegosaurus” won the second side. So it was
The Barn Cat by David Elliott
Mice had better think twice.
versus
Stegosaurus by Douglas Florian
Ste-go-SAUR-us Her-bi-VOR-ous Dined on plants inside the forest. Bony plates grew on its back, Perhaps to guard it from attack. Or to help identify A Stegosaurus girl or guy. Its brain was smaller than a plum. Stegosaurus was quite DUMᗺ.
A group of older students at one of the sites helped me brainstorm a list of the qualities of poems to guide the final voting away from choice based on a favorite animal or illustration and towards rhythm, rhyme, word choice, details, and message: poems that make you think, poems that surprise you.
By a vote of 25 to 19, “Stegosaurus” by Douglas Florian won. It was valued most for its rhythm and rhyme, and for the humor in the surprising word choice at the end. “Barn Cat” owed its strong showing to the rhyme, the realism, and the way the reader has to think in order to understand the poem and its humor.
all those years walking in early-morning dark — does Orion miss me?
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I tend the trillium — oak’s companions since forest-time — do they know me?
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insect on the car — we’ve never met before now — did you choose me?
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leaf-footed bug — Leptoglossus oppositus — what name do you call yourself?
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full moon wakes me — my face, briefly bathed in moonbeams — do iris buds feel it, too?
(c) draft, Mary Lee Hahn, 2024
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The Poetry Sisters’ challenge for this month was inspired by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard’s, Welcome to the Wonder House. Our mission was to write about “unanswerable questions.” And though life seems often to be one unanswerable question (or unfathomable event) after another, I found it INCREDIBLY hard to write to this prompt. Luckily, Jane Hirschfield was able to offer assistance. In her new book, The Asking, she has several collections of small poems she calls “pebbles.” I’ve found these “pebbles” in several sections of the book, and it must have been more than coincidence that when I turned the page for today’s reading, there was [THIRTEEN PEBBLES]. Thank you, Jane.
Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters are wondering about:
cradled in stars, our planet sleeps, clinging to tender dreams of peace sister moon watches from afar, singing lunar lullabies of hope.
almost dawn, I walk with others, keeping close, my little brother. hand in hand, we carry courage escaping closer to the border
My feet are lightning; My heart is thunder. Our pace draws us closer to a new land of wonder.
I bristle against rough brush— poppies ahead brighten the browns. Morning light won’t stay away— hearts jump at every sound.
I hum my own little song like ripples in a stream Humming Mami’s lullaby reminds me I have her letter
My fingers linger on well-worn creases, shielding an address, a name, a promise– Sister Moon will find always us surrounding us with beams of kindness
But last night as we rested in the dusty field, worries crept in about matters back home. I huddled close to my brother. Tears revealed the no-choice need to escape. I feel grown.
Leaving all I’ve ever known the tender, heavy, harsh of home. On to maybes, on to dreams, on to whispers we hope could be.
But I don’t want to whisper! I squeeze Manu’s hand. “¡Más cerca ahora!” Our feet pound the sand. We race, we pant, we lean on each other I open my canteen and drink gratefully
Thirst is slaked, but I know we’ll need more than water to achieve our dreams. Nights pass slowly, but days call for speed through the highs and the lows, we live with extremes
We enter a village the one from Mami’s letter, We find the steeple; food, kindly people, and shelter. “We made it, Manu! Mami would be so proud!” I choke back a sob, then stand tall for the crowd.
I’m having great fun with my 2024 NPM project. I’m writing daily (mostly privately), and…audiencing. After ten years of public projects, when I never managed to both write AND appreciate the writing of others, it feels good to spend time each day reading, appreciating, and being inspired by all you’ve been up to! (If I’ve missed yours, leave a link in the comments!)
This poem was inspired by the villanelle Tanita wrote this week. She compared the experience of writing a villanelle to the Poetry Sisters’ recent writing of another form with repeating lines — the pantoum. I wanted to test Tanita’s hypothesis that a villanelle is better for “…short lines, direct ideas. It’s good for inescapable truths. A pantoum sometimes leaves more wiggle room…”
I’m not sure I hit upon any inescapable truths, but I did have fun.
Jone has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup. Happy National Poetry Month!
I gave the Inklings their challenge this month. I asked them to “Write a haiku sequence that talks about poetry without mentioning it by name. Here is your mentor text.”
I initially approached the challenge in an entirely left-brained way. Not surprisingly, my attempt fell flat. Once I got that out of my system, I was able to write poetically about writing poetry.
Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met my challenge:
We had probably 1.5″ yesterday, and so far this morning 1.75″ with more forecast for today, tomorrow…all the way through to Friday, with a brief respite before it clouds up again on Monday for the eclipse.
“Lake Easement” has engulfed both back beds…
…but our neighbor has it worse.
Here’s my haiku for today:
aftermath robin song signals respite it won’t last