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!
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.
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:
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:
I was as mesmerized by the story of this unlikely hero as many New Yorkers were. And I was as devastated by his death. The necropsy report was recently released, showing that he had high levels of rat poison in his system, along with a severe pigeon virus. Both of which likely contributed to his demise.
Is the vandal who slashed open Flaco’s enclosure at the zoo responsible for his death, or for his incredible final year of life? Would as many people have pondered the importance of The Wild if Flaco had remained in his cage? How can we refocus this attention on the plight of a single bird and help people to understand the cataclysmic extinctions of entire species every. single. day. (up to 150 species per day, according to some estimates)?
Maybe the human brain is incapable of wrapping itself around the big picture, and the best we can do is to love and care for The Wild in our own yard, neighborhood, and city. On that note, I’m going to go check to see if the milkweed in my garden has poked its head up yet. Maybe this summer, I will have monarchs again. If not, I will have done my best for them.
Here’s how the rest of the Poetry Sisters met the challenge of a pantoum to, about, or including an animal:
A(nother) Year of Reading 
