Combine this with a 2-mile walk, a bit of weeding plus the cutting back of the peony foliage, a one-hour zoom, a trip to the library to audition a few more books for the new after-school year, and the usual DuoLingo lessons and 1/2 hour of Sealey reading, and you have a snapshot of my day.
Speaking of Sealey, I’ve finished three books so far, You Are Here by Ada Limón, Grace Notes by Naomi Shihab Nye, and Everything Comes Next by Naomi Shihab Nye. I like this year’s commitment to 1/2 hour of poetry reading per day rather than the unrealistic pressure of finishing a whole book in a day. It gives me more time to read slowly and savor.
The Inklings’ challenge this month was simultaneously issued by Catherine, by Ada Limón, and by Mo Daley at Ethical ELA.
Catherine charged us with joining Ada Limón’s Poet Laureate project, “You Are Here.” The Library of Congress website describes it as a “project is for everyone, and I hope people of all ages—poets and nonpoets—will feel moved to write their own response to the “You Are Here” prompt. It’s simple: What would you write in response to the landscape around you?
On Day Three of Ethical ELA’s Open Write last week, Mo Daley challenged writers to try an X Marks the Spot Poem: “Find a print article from a magazine that interests you…Once you have chosen your article, simply draw an X through the page. You will then write your poem using the words touching your X.” I printed the full text of Ada Limón’s challenge to receive my X, and the words that touched the X are italicized in my poem:
“I believe the way we respond to this crucial moment on our planet could define humanity forever. In conceiving of my signature project, I wanted something that could both praise our sacred and natural wonders and also speak the complex truths of this urgent time. It’s my hope that You Are Here will do just that,” Limón said. “You Are Here: Poetry in the Parks aims to deepen our connection to nature through poetry, and You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World is an anthology that speaks to the many different ways we are nature too. It may seem easier to surrender to the overwhelm of the world’s challenges right now, but I believe that singing out, offering something back to the earth, noticing our connection to the planet, could help us all move forward together in a powerful way.”
Limón said this project is for everyone, and she hopes people of all ages — poets and non-poets — will feel moved to write their own responses to the You Are Here prompt. It’s simple: What would you write in response to the landscape around you? People can share their responses on social media if they choose, using the hashtag #YouAreHerePoetry.
“Above all, this project is about rising to this moment with hope, the kind of hope that will echo outwards for years to come,” Limón said.
Here’s what the other Inklings did with this month’s challenge:
Laura has a book birthday and this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Poems For Teachers. Congratulations, Laura!
**Make a note that Amy LV with have the October 4 Poetry Friday roundup, not me. We’ll be traveling, and Amy generously agreed to host the roundup that week.
Funny thing happens when family visits for the week: suddenly it’s Friday and you haven’t even begun the Poetry Sisters challenge! Luckily, this is the month we chose classified ad haiku/senryu.
These poems could also work for Ada Limon’s #youarehere project, because they give two glimpses of our back yard: three kinds of milkweed, empty again this year of monarchs, and a back porch covered with acorn litter. The tree next door, which overhangs our yard, is heading into a mast year — the branches are heavy with clumps of acorns that look like bunches of tan grapes. Lots have begun to fall and get nibbled by the resident squirrels and chipmunks, along with the hickory nuts from neighbor’s OTHER overhanging tree.
I’m not sure who’s in for this month’s challenge, but here are the Poetry Sister links just in case:
Reading back in my notebook, I found this draft I wrote after the Poetry Sisters’ discussion of wabi-sabi. I was thinking about human intelligence vs. artificial intelligence, and I doodled around on RhymeZone looking at rhymes, near-rhymes, definitions, and synonyms. I rather like it that there is no rhyme for intelligence. Ranks it right up there with orange.
Robyn is popping back in from her summer blogging break to host the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Life on the Deckle Edge.
Heidi’s challenge for the Inklings this month was to “write a short postcard poem with choice details of your vacation/holiday/getaway/escape location and activities. Conclude with “Wish you were here” or some variation!”
This past week, I spent two unplanned days in NYC. The actual plan was to go to an in-person workshop at Tatter on Saturday and then come right home that evening. But mid-afternoon on Saturday, my flight was cancelled. No problem, except that the two known-to-me hotels were booked up for the night. My third choice, the Hotel Beacon, was A-Mazing, so that made up for it all and I looked forward to a fun bonus museum day on Sunday before returning home that night…which was not to be, though, because my flight was cancelled AGAIN. After a trip out to The Mayhem Known as JFK in the Midst of Numerous Flight Cancellations (see photo taken from the AirTrain), I wound up back at one of my known-to-me hotels with a flight booked for Monday afternoon. I was just about over making lemonade, but I (metaphorically) sucked it up and spent a delightful couple of semi-cool morning hours walking in Central Park before spending the rest of the afternoon and evening in airports and airplanes.
My response to Heidi’s prompt is not a short postcard poem. It long, like my trip became.
Yes, I did get an upgrade…to a SUITE!
But does this look like a sky worthy of a flight cancellation? I think not. It did rain later in the night, but still…
This view from the AirTrain on Sunday afternoon is, on the other hand, the stuff of understandable flight cancellations.
Here’s what the other Inklings did with this month’s challenge:
The Poetry Sisters challenge this month was Wabi-Sabi. I just re-read the prompt and realized that Wabi-Sabi was supposed to be the title of the poem. Oh, well. I’ll claim the third truth of Wabi-Sabi — nothing is perfect!
In his book Wabi-Sabi Simple, Richard Powell described wabi-sabi as a philosophy that acknowledges a lifestyle that appreciates and accepts three simple truths: “Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.” I embrace this philosophy whole-heartedly in my gardening.
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Lawn dappled with clover. Exuberant mish-mash flower beds. One raised bed all fennel — buffet for black swallowtails. Three kinds of milkweed for monarchs. Landscaping by Wabi-Sabi, Inc.
Next month, we’re writing haiku that give away something. Haiku that could be found on your local Buy Nothing FaceBook page, or at the curb during your community’s Free-cycle event.
I’ve been having fun pairing my (mostly) daily Stafford Challenge cheritas with photos from the garden and/or neighborhood. You can find these poems ephemerally in my Instagram stories or archived on my Instagram profile page.
Back story for the first one — our sweet peas are learning to lean INTO the garden from the fence where they climb to avoid being pruned by the deer that come through the easement and nibble.
The second is a closeup of a mimosa tree — I found one on a recent walk that had branches low enough to let me get a picture of those gorgeous blooms.
The last are balloon flowers from a plant in my garden.
Molly gave the Inklings our June challenge — a quote from a talk by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Molly reported that essentially he said, “Write something narrative and by narrative I mean something that has story and observation to it…write about the first time you saw somebody who’s become a you to you…a you that you love to say…detail what else could be seen”… and let those other things convey what it all meant to you.
After listing all the YOUs in my life and writing about a bajillion drafts, I decided that my YOU for this poem would be the process of figuring out what to write about. My YOU is inspiration itself.
I’m scheduling this post on Tuesday because on Wednesday I leave for a week spent with family. I won’t be able to comment until it’s almost time for another Poetry Friday, but I still can’t wait to see what the other Inklings do with this challenge.
The Poetry Sisters’ challenge this month was to write in the style of Lucille Clifton’s homage to my hips, and choose our own body parts to pay homage to.
Listen and watch as she reads her poem. That grin (almost a smirk) tricks you into thinking she’s poking fun at herself, but nothing could be further from the truth. She writes against ageism and sexism and racism. Her phrase “I like to celebrate the wonderfulness that I am” became my battle cry. I am who I am who I was who I will be, but I AM HERE! Against all odds, I have come this far, and I’m going to carry on singing at the top of my voice…well, insofar as an introvert can manage, at least.
Here’s what body parts the rest of the Poetry Sisters are celebrating:
I am conflicted by what it means to be human. Some days more than others, but this month is one of those days. And wouldn’t you know it, my poem of the day today from Jane Hirshfield is “Let Them Not Say,” which just serves to reinforce these feelings. I am also listening the The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green which probably fuels this conflict as well. Not probably, certainly.
We have done so much harm, and yet we do so much good.
We kill and kill and kill, and yet there are five no longer invisibly small black swallowtail caterpillars sprinkling frass on our kitchen table from atop the fennel in the drinking glass.
We break so much, and yet we can dedicate ourselves to repair, and gather around picnic tables in a community garden to form a mending circle so we can repair beloved articles of clothing and dream other forms of repair into being.
I am an animal, an omnivore, and therefore other plants and animals have died so that I can live.
I know that our oak and our neighbors’ oaks send way more acorns out into the world than could ever possibly survive (even if this were a forest and not a neighborhood). I do not mourn all the possible oak trees that were eaten by squirrels and deer or that fell on pavement and rolled away down the street. But I do mourn the ones whose brief lives I ended with my weeding fork.
What to do about this existential conundrum? I guess the only thing to do is to go on. And to do the best we can in spite of what we, as an individual and as a species, are and have been. Do the best we can do. Which Kate DiCamillo would say is to have a “capacious heart.”
Michelle has a capaciously generous Poetry Friday roundup post that is bound to fill you with way more hope and joy than mine!
A(nother) Year of Reading 
