I’m here with another poem in conversation with art created by two young and talented artists, the daughters of a talented, passionate maker of a mom. No surprise that these two girls have a wealth of supplies and encouragement from both parents. They are thriving — learning to boldly make their marks and trust their own visions. What a world they will make for us! What a world the ARE making for us! They give me hope for the future, a hope as green as both the heart and the landscape.
Sarah Grace has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Sarah Grace Tuttle.
Have you seen Joyce Sidman’s new book? Her clever poems (and Melissa Sweet’s always-fantastic illustrations) just beg for you to write your own Letter Poems To Friends.
So I did!
This is also Inklings Challenge week, and we were given a generously soft challenge from Margaret:
Image Poetry: exchange an image with your partner and write an image poem using a small poem form (15 words, elfchen, haiku, shadorma, etc.).
I traded images with Linda Mitchell. She sent me three from which to choose. Each had so much possibility, but I couldn’t NOT write from this one. I also couldn’t NOT write Letter Poems To Friends, so the “small poem form” part of the challenge got lost, but…THIS PICTURE!! and Joyce Sidman’s mentor texts!!! I know all will be forgiven.
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Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met this month’s challenge:
It’s been a minute, and I’m glad to be back! I missed this Poetry Friday community and the ritual of the weekly sharing of poetry.
I wrote this poem with two purposes in mind. First of all, my niece sent the beautiful artwork that illustrates my poem. To honor her gift, I wanted to write a poem in response. Secondly, this is Poetry Sister challenge week. So I wrote a tritina. As Cousin Tanita describes, “this less restrictive younger sibling of the sestina uses three repeated words to end three tercets. The order of word-endings for the tercets are 123, 312, 231, with a final line acting as the envoi, featuring all three words in the 1-2-3 order used in the first stanza. Additionally, we’ll continuing with our theme of poetry in conversation, in whatever way that is individually defined.” My poem is in conversation with E’s artwork.
I’m not sure how many of the Sisters will be able to join in this week, but here they are just in case:
It’s highly ironic that this is the poem I’m sharing today…a cloudy, cool, drizzly-morning day with the windows open all day long. Suffice it to say, this poem is a highly accurate representation of the August we were experiencing when I wrote it!
I’m taking a blog break until September 26 when I’m planning to be back for the Poetry Sisters challenge. Happy September! See you on the other side!
That’s my TED talk for today. I’m over all the shaming that implies that if you’re not doing all the things someone else thinks you should be doing then you’re not doing enough to stop the fascist regime that’s taking over our country. We’re all in the same boat and all the responses are valid, especially the ones that BUILD community instead of creating even more layers of stratification and binary us vs them hoo-hah.
Post written on Thursday, but edited now on Friday morning to add: I support (100%) what Gavin Newsom and other Democratic governors are cooking up right now, which is a bit two-faced of me, since they are DEFINITELY using the “us vs them binary” in quite a powerful, in-your-face way. I guess the difference in my mind is that they are shaming the ones who actually deserve it, while us little folk without the power they wield, need to keep doing what we can with who we are and what we have. And in a way, they are doing what I advocate: building a community of leaders with the hutzpah to fight back.
I’m having more fun with my personal Sealey Challenge this year than ever before! Right when it came out, I bought the big hunka-munka A CENTURY OF POETRY IN THE NEW YORKER 1925-2025. It’s been sitting on my desk ever since…until now. My challenge is to spend 30 minutes a day reading from it. I usually open to a random spot and go from there, keeping my notebook open to jot juicy words (including ones I’ve never heard and need to look up, as was the case for scaturient), titles of possible mentor texts, memories that are sparked by my reading, connections between poems, etc. I am also keeping my notebook open when I read through the Poetry Friday roundup, which is how I wound up writing this poem, which was inspired by “On Starting” by Phil Kaye from Tabatha’s post last week! The photo is via Wikimedia Commons. I’m too proud to use a picture of my yard, but it would certainly do.
Molly has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Nix the Comfort Zone. Remember, next week Heidi is subbing in for Margaret, who will take Heidi’s original spot on September 5.
NOTE THESE CHANGES IN THE POETRY FRIDAY HOSTING SCHEDULE: Heidi and Margaret are changing places, so Heidi will now host on August 15, and Margaret will host on September 5.
Image from the front page of The Burlington (CO) Record
I thought I was writing this poem to the photo that appeared on the front page my hometown newspaper, but as it turns out, the poem also has echoes in an extraordinary book that I finished just last night. THE ANTIDOTE by Karen Russell is set in Nebraska in 1935 between two cataclysmic environmental events: the Black Sunday dust storm and the flooding of the Republican River (24 inches of rain in 24 hours). So it’s a story of the land, but inseparably, it’s a story about the people there. Here’s how Russell (with James Riding In) describes what she attempted to do in THE ANTIDOTE:
THE ANTIDOTE uses fantastical conceits to illuminate the holes in people’s private and collective memories, the willful omissions passed down generation to generation, and the myths that have been used by the U.S. government and White settlers to justify crimes against the citizens of Native Nations and the theft of Native lands.
It was a book that puzzled me at first, then fascinated me, then horrified me, then made me read the last hundred pages at a gallop (which is why I’m “late” posting), then ultimately left me with some measure of hope.
Which brings us back to the photo and the poem. I grew up at the edge of the same Pawnee lands in THE ANTIDOTE, in a part of the country where White farming techniques have resulted in loss of topsoil and the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer. And I grew up with the myth of the noble (White) farmers, who toiled at the whim of the sparse rainfall and the destructive summer storms, and whose hope was what kept them going.
It’s time to tell the truth. All of it. And it’s time to listen to the land and agree to change the ruinous human part of our relationship with her. She wants to live, and she can heal, if we let her. If we help her.
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Marcie has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Marcie Flinchum Atkins. You can find there the Poetry Sisters who had the bandwidth to write to this month’s challenge, to write a sedoka, along with others who joined in the challenge.
PLEASE NOTE THESE CHANGES IN THE POETRY FRIDAY HOSTING SCHEDULE: Heidi and Margaret are changing places, so Heidi will now host on August 15, and Margaret will host on September 5.
A(nother) Year of Reading 