Thank you, Buffy Silverman, for hosting Poetry Friday and for your review of Liz Garton Scanlon’s excellent new picture book, ONE DARK BIRD.
Happy Holidays!
This week, I’ve been busy getting ready for Christmas and planning to visit my son next week, but not too busy to enjoy our white Christmas and to write a haiku.
It’s been beautiful here in Syracuse today. This photo is just outside my door: fresh snow on branches and gold Christmas lights.
A cacophony
muffled in new fallen snow--
peace, this afternoon.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Elizabeth Steinglass. Make sure you stop by and read her amazing poem about the word “and.” It’s truly brilliant!
It’s getting closer to Christmas. I’ve been knitting rather furiously.
However, this gives me an excuse to watch the impeachment hearings and ignore all else. Though everyone says that most citizens are bored, I have found it fascinating.
I’ve especially enjoyed hearing the many very smart, reasonable, women representatives doing their duty.
So I listen and knit and use the mute button if there is too much yelling.
When I was a student at Vermont College I began to experiment with writing poetry on non-fiction topics. One project was to write a haiku about each American president. I wanted to find a “snapshot” of each life, something about them that interested me. Some snapshots were about small things, like John Quincy Adams’ skinny dipping. Other facts were about momentous things. Each haiku would be accompanied with a few factoids. What I ended up with was a mini-American history, of sorts, in snapshots, in haiku.
I will share the one I wrote about Andrew Johnson, the 17th president (1865-1869), who was the first President to be impeached.
Andrew Johnson
As a nation mourned
A proud tailor took the oath--
cranking back the clock.
Andrew Johnson, who was Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President, would lead the reconstruction, or rebuilding of the South. He was a tailor. Unfortunately, he was Lincoln’s opposite. As if looking backward from the man he followed, Johnson called slaves “savages” and believed they should not be citizens. The House drafted eleven articles of impeachment against him, based on differences he had with the Congress, but he was acquitted by the Senate.
I loved this project. I read about each president, watched videos about them, found a focus and wrote a haiku. Degregorio’s The Complete Book of the U.S. Presidents informed me. The presidents from the distant past were much easier to write haikus about than the ones I knew in real time.
I might as well finish this post with two others :
Richard Nixon
He strove to befriend
Mao Tse Tung--but his real foes
dwelled inside his head.
William Clinton
An embarrassing
public debate--we explored
our lesser angels.
Both men were better known to us than Andrew Johnson. Here’s to the holidays and our all too human presidents.
It’s Poetry Friday and it’s being hosted by Tanita S. Davis at fiction, instead of lies. Thank you, Tanita! On her December 3rd blog post, you can sign up for the “New Year’s Poetry Challenge.” Check it out!
Though my work has been published in Highlights for Children and other magazines, I thought I would share my poem, First Responder, which was included in THANKU: POEMS OF GRATITUDE, edited by Miranda Paul. The illustrations by Marlena Myles are stunning. The thirty two poems by diverse and talented poets, such as Naomi Shihab Nye, Charles Waters, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Renée LaTulippe, to name just a few, are written in a different form. I knew what a tanka and a found poem was, but a fibonacci poem was new to me, as were others, and each form is clearly described. It’s a useful resource for students of poetry.
The poem I wrote is an hyperbole. I began this poem at a Highlights poetry workshop as a prompt by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard. They are great and kind teachers. In my poem, “First Responder,” I exaggerated and elevated the purpose of an every day, ordinary, object:
FIRST RESPONDER
Like an ambulance on my desk, waiting to fix a torn page or a broken book.
At my service, armored helper, cradling a bold, circular heart, ready for any emergency, holding still
for the yank and the quick rip of a smooth piece that will save a poem, a story, or an injured photograph.
You park nearby ready to help again.
Thank you for the opportunity to share it. It feels fitting to be grateful for this book about gratitude.
