Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by artist and poet and champion of poetry, Jone Maculluch HERE. Thank you for hosting, Jone.
Thank you also, Bridget Magee, for sharing my poem today, THE FLOATING WATER STRIDER in her newsletter. It’s from her fabulous 10 * 10 POETRY ANTHOLOGY: Celebrating 10 in 10 Different Ways which is full of wonderful poems for kids by many talented poets.
THE FLOATING WATER STRIDER Skates on the pond; it never sinks. Water is helpful to bugs when you think hhow molecules huddle together to float the six legged strider like a little bug boat. © Janice Scully 2021
Hope springs eternal that someday I will complete a series of poems, which I think of as a picture book in verse, about a day in the life of a kid who lives in a family restaurant, from morning to night. I’ve posted one poem previously Here about a noisy metal dishwasher, one of my favorites. Here’s another about our walk-in-cooler.
I'M THE WALK-IN-COOLER and just what you’d want center stage in your restaurant. Kettles of soup I keep icy and cold. Lamb chops and bacon stay chilled in my hold Would you like a few turnips? Parsnips, green beans? Then slip on a sweater, wear your long jeans because the cooler is chilly, you’ll shake and you'll shiver. But it keeps our food fresh, from parsley to liver. © Janice Scully 2022 (Draft)
This is an old photo from the nineties of me and my two boys in front of the restaurant. Phil and Matt thought it was cool to visit Uncle Mike at work in the kitchen where they could find unlimited French fries.
I’ll be away from my blog for a few weeks out seeking adventure. I will be searching for more ideas and poems to share. Happy Halloween! I’m voting early this Saturday and can’t wait!!
Love the idea of a picture book of restaurant poems! The walk-in cooler poem made me smile – great details! And I enjoyed the photo of you and your sons in front of Scully’s. 🙂 Have fun adventuring!!
Happy to have shared your Floating Water Strider, Janice. Yay for hope and coolers that ‘keep our foods fresh’. That snapshot is precious. 🙂
That water strider is lovely – and what a great idea to have a book of restaurant poems! Back of house stuff is endlessly fascinating to those who never get to see what’s there. (Unlimited French fries sounds like a great thing to be fascinated with!!)
Poems concerning places always pique my interest Janice. You have gone further finding a place within a larger place to find your poetic inspiration. I enjoyed your poem and the offset couplets. Your poem took us behind the scene and revealed the inhabitants of the cooler. Personally speaking- the liver can stay there!
Brrrrr, I am pulling my fleece closer but love your walk-in freezer poem a lot. I think your rhymes feel true and the whole idea of explaining a restaurant I think is a “fresh one” and one that kids will enjoy!!! They like knowing how things work. Terrific poem!! But I really love seeing you with your boys in front of the restaurant!! I am in isolation for a bit, covid which included a trip to the Upstate ED. An experience but all is well and I feel quite well with minimal symptoms. Hoping to get some poems done. I am taking another wonderful course with Georgia and Rebecca and hope that I will be able to take their course on the poetry picture book class next.
I believe you will complete and publish a collection of poems. You can do it! For now, I love knowing you are out and exploring. I’m jealous that you got to take the class with Georgia and Rebecca. It’s something I would so love to do.
These are both delightful, Janice! I hope your adventures are wonderful–and thanks for sharing this photo, too. I love the hopeful and loving expression on your face. Oh, the liver…no way.
Janice, what a wonderful idea to write a book about your adventures as a restaurant kid. Best of luck with that idea. I want to read more of your poems about restaurant life. This one is really “cool”! Congratulations that you are also a 10.10 poet!
Love both poems, Janice. I read the first on Bridget’s post, just delightful. And the walk-in cooler workings, something new to me. I think a ‘restaurant’ book would be such fun to read. One of my mother’s cousins had a restaurant in the college town where I lived. It was so popular & now I look back & realize how very hard he worked! Happy Adventuring!
Oh Janice, WRITE THAT BOOK! I love the walk-in’s voice and imagery! Am also partial to water striders 🙂
Thanks for the nice shout out. I cracked up at liver! Please let me never eat it again (although, confession: the fresh elk liver my former husband caught and cooked was quite delicious.
I love watching water striders! I wonder where they are now that the weather’s turned cold? (research time!!)
And your poem brought back memories of summer trips to the “locker plant” — the giant freezer down on Main Street where the beef my dad’s employer gifted him with after the 4H beef auction at the county fair was stored. We put on thick gloves to go “shopping” for packages of hamburger and roasts and ribs!