Welcome to Poetry Friday! Today it’s hosted by the multitalented Michelle Kogan Here at More Art 4 All. Be sure to stop by and see what art and poetry Michelle has for us!
I really enjoyed and was touched by all the poems celebrating Mary Lee last week upon her retirement from teaching.
Today I’m sharing a short video I took on a whale watch in Gloucester. It was a windy, beautiful day. Because of Covid, the number of people on board the boat was limited, so it was pleasantly uncrowded. You never know when a whale will surface, but I managed to capture a mom and her calf, making the four hour trip well worth it.
After the trip, I felt silly that I was actually a little scared of going on a whale watch having recently read Moby Dick.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, Today hosted by Christie at Wondering and Wondering. Thank you for hosting, Christie! Stop by for a celebration of the amazing poet and educator Mary Lee Hahn.
This week I went to Gloucester, MA, to dog-sit a friend’s dog named Patrick. I was looking forward to it because I have not cared for a pet in a long time and this was an opportunity to see the ocean and make a new friend. My husband came too and we fell in love with this thirteen year-old golden retriever. Fortunately for us, he had a schedule and all we had to do was follow it and keep him company for a week.
I felt sad leaving him today and I’m back home in Upstate NY, but grateful to have a new friend. I thought he deserved a thank you poem.
Welcome to Poetry Friday! We are hosted today by Irene Latham HERE. Thank you for hosting, Irene! Be sure to stop by and see what she has in store for us. Also, I would like to announce the BOOK GIVEAWAY WINNER:
Carol Varsalona has won a copy of D-39: A ROBODOG’S JOURNEY, a new novel in verse by Irene Latham. Congratulations, Carol!
No, just a bit of Syracuse history and not a happy bit of history. I discovered an event that fascinated me not just because it was shocking, but that it has been so totally forgotten.
As parts of America became less rural and people crowded into cities, certain dangers cropped up that would be addressed with new laws to protect the public health. For instance, in 1841, gun powder usually stored in a lonely barn in the country, could be found stored in a crowded city neighborhood.
I had never heard of the Syracuse Gunpowder Explosion. It happened in the evening of August 20, 1841, and unless you are like me and visit the Onondaga County Historical Association, you wouldn’t have known about it.
This is NOT a picture of the 1841 fire, but it might have looked like this for a moment.
The stage was set when William Malcolm of Malcolm and Hudson Hardware, needed a place to store his 625 pounds (27 kegs) of gunpowder. Mr. Going, a man who owned a sawdust filled carpentry shop on the second floor of a two story wooden building on the busy Erie Canal, agreed. Bad idea, right? Due to the Canal, sleepy Syracuse had become a bustling town of 12,000 in 1841.
A week later at 9PM a man living nearby noticed a fire in the carpentry shop. He alerted the neighbors and the volunteer fire department. Crowds formed. Firefighters responded with usual horse drawn carriages and hand operated pumps to fight the flames. Few knew about the powder in the shop. But someone did, and yelled, “Powder! Powder! There is powder in the building!” The crowd didn’t pay attention.
Soon, an immense explosion burst upwards into the sky and shook the earth for about five seconds. All the wooden buildings nearby were burned to the ground. In the silence afterward, came moans and screams of injured people. This anonymous poem was written soon after.
"The awful scene like lightening
gleam,
And thunder, through the
place,
With cries and groans and
piteous moans,
Brought tears from every
face . . .
Numerous procession for the
grave
Now darken every street;
O, death what havoc hast
thou made!
How many hearts did weep!"
Twenty-six people, including children, and six fire fighters died and over 60 injured. Being a doctor, this shocked me as I imagined the mayhem. There were no hospitals in Syracuse. The burned and injured were simply taken home.
Since I read about them, I thought I would remember the killed and injured. We do have to move on, and we always do. As a people we forget. But I feel indebted to all of them for the federal laws today that would have made it against the law for Mr. Malcolm to store his gunpowder so carelessly in a busy city. Much of public health is common sense safety, as we have learned during the pandemic.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by poet Bridget McGee HERE at Wee Words for Wee Ones. Thank you Bridget for hosting! Be sure to stop by her blog and see what poetry musings she has for us this week.
Are you interested in winning a copy of Irene Latham’s fabulous new MG novel in verse? If so, please LEAVE A COMMENT AT THE END OF THIS POST by 5/10/21.
Irene Latham
There are many things to look forward to in 2021. One of them is the release of a Irene Latham’s newest and fast-moving novel, D-39: A Robodog’s Journey. Look for it this month, on May 21st.
The novel is written in prose poems, some divided into stanzas. The prose poem form lends itself to narrative, but it also supports Irene Latham’s playful language, full of newly minted compound words, and a main character’s voice full of energy, humor and other-worldly qualities.
Klynt Tovis, the protagonist and hero of this story is a twelve year-old girl. In the first poem of the book, like any first page of a novel, we learn just enough to spark our interest and keep us quickly turning pages to see what will happen. (FYI: In the novel, you will find the margins justified right and left, so the poems are rectangular in shape on each page. I couldn’t reproduce that here, but you get the idea.)
Hey Hi Ho ThereIt’s me, Klynt Tovis, coming to you live from a looganut farm in the Worselands.
I click the button on the ham, ears alert
for a reply. I’m not supposed to talk to
strangers, even on an old ham radio-
especially now that even low-power
unlicensed broadcasts are against the law.
But now that I’ve unburied myself from
the heap of wires and metal parts in my
room, and now that I’ve finally gotten
a signal, how can I not try it? Besides,
does it really count if no one is around
to listen?
What does this poem tell us? For one thing, Klynt greets us “Hey Hi Ho There.” This greeting is surprising and welcoming. Who wouldn’t want to know the person who greets you like this?
Then:
“It’s me, Klynt Tovis, coming to you live from a looganut farm in the worse lands.”
With this sentence we understand that we are in a different kind of place. She lives on a farm but what and where is Worselands? And what are looganuts? We are not the present or the past, at least in any recognizable world. The story seems to be taking place in the future.
We read along about the “old ham radio,” that she is trying to use even though it is “against the law.” This is an important clue into Klynt’s character. She has grit and is willing to do what she must, even break the law, to do what she must do.
In the following poems, we see what our main character wants. These are big wants, not trivial. A terrible war has separated her and her father from her mother. She wants them to be reunited. The other thing is she wants more than anything is to keep D-39, a robodog she discovers in the barn.
Why did the author chose to write this novel in prose poems? I quote from her:
“I chose to present this story in prose poems because each poem acts as a burrow, offering readers a safe place to experience invented words and a dystopian reality. The technique of using the last words of one poem to serve as the title of the next poem is a variation on a traditional “crown” of sonnets—because in Klynt’s world, the old is often bumping up against the new.“
The poems do feel like burrows full of interesting words and images. I love that the last word of each poem provides a seed for the next. The poems read like scenes that move this powerful narrative along. The narrative is tight, well constructed, which is helped by this form, in my opinion.
In terms of conflict and story, the obstacles Klynt faces in the beginning are relatively minor, such as disagreement with Dad over her new found pet.
But Irene Latham knows how to get a character into very bad trouble. The war escalates. and Klynt fights, to stay alive, to keep D-39 safe, and to undertake a dangerous winter’s journey’s North to find her mother. Will she succeed in reuniting her family? Will she and her beloved D-39 survive the war? And the ending occurs as it does in any well constructed plot: It is surprising and inevitable. Readers won’t be disappointed.
Don’t forget to comment at the end for a chance to win a copy of D-39: A Robodog’s Journey.
Have a great weekend and thank you again, Bridget, for hosting this week’s Poetry Friday!
