August 2020 – SALT CITY VERSE

Stormy Weather

It’s Poetry Friday and Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe is hosting. Thank you Heidi! Make sure you check out what she has in store for poets and poetry lovers.

First have to say I want to renew my support for the Black Lives Matter movement after yet another unnecessary death. My heart goes out to Jacob Blake’s family. Can our country get any worse? My optimism lies only with the possibility of Joe Biden defeating Donald Trump in the fall and remembering heroes like John Lewis who never gave up.

My thoughts are with also those who have suffered injury and loss last night from Hurricane Laura and who are in danger still.

Today I woke up to thunder and lightening in Upstate New York which is in no way to be compared to that hurricane. Still, all storms inspire respect for the power of nature.

Stormy Weather somewhere with thunder bolt.

Last week a poem I wrote was published on line. It had been inspired by the run of the mill, but still dramatic storms I watched in my back yard as a child.

I was pleased and grateful, of course, that my poem was accepted but reading it again, I felt that it needed revision. A lot! Maybe my craft is improving, so I see it more easily. I can only hope. I revised it and will share it here. It was initially imagined as a picture book but ended up a poem.

PLAY! 


The sky wakes like an orchestra
tuning violins and oboes before a show.

In a sudden wind
leaves swoosh in my yard.
Pine trees sway to beckon 
black swollen clouds to play.


Caterpillars hide. 
Bees, dusty with pollen,
return home.  
Crows caw like a 
thousand stage hands
as the curtain rises
and fat drops splash
here and there. 

But soon leaves rattle
like snare drums.

Thunder booms!
Cymbals clash!
lightening flashes . . .

     When the curtain falls,
     and quiet settles over all, 
     Maple trees bow,
     and high in the balcony, 
     a rainbow applauds.


© Janice Scully2020

Again, I’d like to express my concern for all those affected by last night’s hurricane.

I’ll end by sharing a video of one of my favorite Gershwin songs, “Stormy Weather.” It is sung by Etta James.

Stay well, everyone, and safe. Thank you, Heidi, for hosting.

If you want to know more about Poetry Friday, find it here, on Renee LaTulippe’s website, No Water River.

What Women Can Do

It’s Poetry Friday! Romona host today from her blog Pleasures of the Page. Thank you for hosting, Romona, and we look forward to seeing what you have in store for us on Poetry Friday.

I’m thrilled to see such a competent woman V.P. candidate on the Democratic ticket. Kamala Harris is smart, articulate (remember the Kavanaugh hearings?) and not afraid to speak the truth. We need to get women’s voices into the American Oval Office, in the executive branch of government.

Congratulations, Kamala!

I was thinking when I wrote this poem below, how women know how to do things. I don’t want to make blanket statement about all women, but often women are versatile. They are problem solvers and have to be. My mother was a nurse, but most of her working life ran our family restaurant’s kitchen. She could do many things, one of them feeding a dining room full of restaurant customers. Every day.

It may seem a little dark, but thinking of my mom and other women talented in so many diverse ways, inspired this poem:

IN THE EVENT OF AN APOCALYPSE


Mothers make things,
can sew straight seams,
nurse the sick,
catch fish,
grow potatoes
roses and tomatoes
in rocky soil. 

So, if someday 
civilization crumbles
like an accordion, 
or a collapsed pile
of pick up sticks,
there might be others
of similar mothers
who carry the seeds
of a new world. 

© Janice Scully 2020

Enjoy the end of August. Stay well.

Poems about the Wind

Happy Poetry Friday! This week our host is Molly Hogan at her blog Nix the Comfort Zone. She’s been busy lately, getting ready to return to the classroom and taking pictures of Monarch caterpillars that she shared this week on her blog. Stop by to see what she has in store for Poetry Friday.

I’m enjoying a brief on-line workshop on children’s poetry with Georgia Heard and Rebecca Kai Dotlich. It’s wonderful seeing poets I’ve met at previous workshops and sharing work, reviewing nuts and bolts of writing.

I’ll share a poem I wrote for the workshop last week about the wind. The prompt was to write about the wind, paying attention to verbs:

THE WIND


It white-capped the lake, waves slapped at the shore,
stronger and stronger,
today around four.


It pummeled the pebbles, an old plastic chair,
our collection of driftwood
and took them somewhere.


By Janice Scully

Here’s a poem by Shakespeare about the wind comparing its bite to the bite of a friend’s ingratitude.

BLOW, BLOW THOU WINTER WIND
by William Shakespeare

Blow, blow, thou winter wind 
Thou art not so unkind 
As man's ingratitude; 
Thy tooth is not so keen, 
Because thou art not seen, 
Although thy breath be rude. 

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: 
Most freindship is feigning, most loving mere folly: 
Then heigh-ho, the holly! 
This life is most jolly. 

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky, 
That does not bite so nigh 
As benefits forgot: 
Though thou the waters warp, 
Thy sting is not so sharp 
As a friend remembered not.
 
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: 
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: 
Then heigh-ho, the holly! 
This life is most jolly.

Have a jolly week and stay safe. My thoughts are with all the teachers and students who are planning for a return to school.

Want to know more about Poetry Friday? It’s here, on poet Renee LaTulippe’s website. Thank you Molly Hogan for hosting today!

Briefly, about Haiku

It’s Poetry Friday, today hosted by the amazing Laura Purdie Salas. Let’s see what she has in store for us this week. I hope everyone is well as we get through each new week which fly by. My thoughts are with all the teachers and students trying to get back to their important work.

Just for fun and interest I entered the 2020 Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Contest, not that I thought I would ever win or place and did not. The winners were recently announced here, chosen from over 2,000 haiku entries. It was the eight annual contest run by The Heron’s Nest, an on-line haiku quarterly journal that welcomes submissions. In the above link, the editors shared the winning haiku and honorable mentions and described in detail why they are chosen. It’s well worth reading if you have an interest in haiku and it made me think about this popular form.

Though I write them on occasional I still know too little about haiku as an art form. I did know that classically, haiku is a three line poem originating in Japan with a 5-7-5 syllabic count, though some haiku poets veer from this. The number of syllables varies. I found the syllabic limitations useful and fun when I set out several years ago to create snapshots of historical figures, such as John Q. Addams, the first president to ever be photographed:

JOHN Q. ADDAMS

An early morning
skinny-dipper! A darn shame
shutter bugs missed that.

© Janice Scully

We could use someone interesting and innovative today, like you, JQ!

Classically, within the 17 syllable format, the haiku was often divided into two parts, that contrast in tone. An example given was this, written by Issa:

Look at the warbler-
he's wiping his muddy feet
all over the plum blossoms.

I think the shift in tone here is between the lovely image conjured by the warbler contrasting with his muddy feet on the plum blossoms.

Beside contrast in tone within the poem, the other classic haiku characteristic is the “kigo”, or seasonal word, which gives the reader a sense of, or course, the season. In the above haiku I see plum blossoms, a warbler, and mud . . . I guess spring.

According to Lowenstein, optimistic SPRING is often implied by “cherry blossoms and certain birds.

The bright exhausting SUMMER is implied by “flower and tree words.”

AUTUMN is “melancholy” and expressed images such as a “full moon, wind and dying leaves.”

Words like “snow” might signify a cold and difficult WINTER.

On The Heron’s Nest’s website submission page they post a list of qualities these contemporary editors look for when evaluating haiku. These do seem to take their cue from classic haiku.

Present moment magnified (immediacy of emotion)
Interpenetrating the source of inspiration (no space between observer and observed)
Simple, uncomplicated images
Common language
Finding the extraordinary in “ordinary” things
Implication through objective presentation, not explanation: appeal to intuition, not intellect
Human presence is fine if presented as an archetypical, harmonious part of nature (human nature should blend in with the rest of nature rather than dominate the forefront)
Humor is fine, if in keeping with “karumi” (lightness) – nothing overly clever, cynical, comic, or raucous
Musical sensitivity to language (effective use of rhythm and lyricism)
Feeling of a particular place within the cycle of seasons

So much to think about in writing such a brief poem. Haiku can feel to me to be inscrutable, though fascinating and worth the effort. Here are a few from the Japanese masters:

On a withered branch
a crow has settled.
Nightfall in autumn.

Bashō (1644-94)


Wandering through a stream
in summer, carrying my sandals.
How delightful!

Buson (1715-83)


Is that crow tilling
the field or just
walking around there?

Issa (1762-1826)


After I'm dead, tell people
I was a persimmon eater
who also loved haiku.

Shiki (1867-1902)

I hope you liked these. Have a great day and take time off from our troubled world, perhaps, and write a few haiku. Maybe it will provide a small respite.