Author: janice.scully

KIDLIT Progressive Poem 2021

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Catherine at Reading to the Core. Thank you, Catherine for hosting! Be sure to stop by to see what she has in store for us this week.

It’s hard to believe it’s day 23 already as we celebrate National Poetry Month. Time flies, our Progressive Poem grows and finally it’s my turn to contribute. Ruth at Thereisnosuchthingasaforsakentown, has left me two lines to choose from and then I will offer two options for the next line. This is the poem so far, the last line left to us by Leigh Anne Eck:

I’m a case of kindness – come and catch me if you can!
Easily contagious – sharing smiles is my plan.
I'll spread my joy both far and wide
As a force of nature, I’ll be undenied. 


Words like, "how can I help?" will bloom in the street.
A new girl alone on the playground – let’s meet, let’s meet!
We can jump-skip together in a double-dutch round.
Over, under, jump and wonder, touch the ground.


Friends can be found when you open a door.
Side by side, let’s walk through, there’s a world to explore.
We’ll hike through a forest of towering trees.
Find a stream we can follow while we bask in the breeze.


Pull off our shoes and socks, dip our toes in the icy spring water
When you’re with friends, there’s no have to or oughter.
What could we make with leaves and litter?
Let's find pine needles, turn into vine knitters.


We'll lie on our backs and find shapes in the sky.
We giggle together: See the bird! Now we fly?
Inspired by nature, our imaginations soar.
Follow that humpback! Here, take an oar.
 
Ahh! Here comes a wave -- let's hold on tight! 

Ruth at Thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown has left me two lines to choose from:

To the boat, to kindness, to friendship’s delight

or

Splashing and laughing, let’s play until night!

I chose the second.

So, here is what we have:

I’m a case of kindness – come and catch me if you can!
Easily contagious – sharing smiles is my plan.
I'll spread my joy both far and wide
As a force of nature, I’ll be undenied. 


Words like, "how can I help?" will bloom in the street.
A new girl alone on the playground – let’s meet, let’s meet!
We can jump-skip together in a double-dutch round.
Over, under, jump and wonder, touch the ground.


Friends can be found when you open a door.
Side by side, let’s walk through, there’s a world to explore.
We’ll hike through a forest of towering trees.
Find a stream we can follow while we bask in the breeze.


Pull off our shoes and socks, dip our toes in the icy spring water
When you’re with friends, there’s no have to or oughter.
What could we make with leaves and litter?
Let's find pine needles, turn into vine knitters.


We'll lie on our backs and find shapes in the sky.
We giggle together: See the bird! Now we fly?
Inspired by nature, our imaginations soar.
Follow that humpback! Here, take an oar.
 
Ahh! Here comes a wave -- let's hold on tight, 
splashing and laughing, let's play until night!

Thank you, Ruth. for the interesting and lovely choices! With the first line, Kat Apel sent us on journey that could have gone in many directions. I struggled a little this week, on which direction I could take the poem. I thought I’d reflect back to the beginning or alternatively, simply continue the adventure. I offer these two options for the next two lines to Tabatha:

Catching ever more kindness, friendship, and fun,

or

When the Milky Way sparkles, and the moon’s overhead,

I can’t wait to see how this poem will resolve. Here is a list of the contributors to this years Kidlit Progressive Poem 2021:

April 1 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers 
2 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
3 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading
4 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
5 Irene Latham at Live your Poem
6 Jan Godown Annino at BookseedStudio
7 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
8 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
10 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
11 Buffy Silverman 
12 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
13 Jone Rush MacCulloch 
14 Susan Bruck at Soul Blossom Living
15 Wendy Taleo at Tales in eLearning
16 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
17 Tricia Stohr Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect
18 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
19 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
21 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
22 Ruth Hersey at There is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town
23 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
24 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
25 Shari Daniels at Islands of my Soul
26 Tim Gels at Yet There is Method at https://timgels.com
27 Rebecca Newman
28 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
29 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wondering
30 Michelle Kogan at More Art 4 All
 

Thank you, Catherine for hosting Poetry Friday today. Be sure to stop by to see what she has for us!

Spring Haiku and a Touch of History

Welcome to Poetry Friday, hosted today at Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Thank you, Jama for hosting! Stop by and see what she has in store for us!

Spring is coming to Central New York and below are two haiku inspired by this amazing season. I love the magic of early spring, who doesn’t? I love when trees come to life, before they are even full enough to cast shade. I think we can use all the beauty we can find, and these images are small bits.

And Another:

© Janice Scully 2021

I rarely have enough flowers outside to cut and bring indoors, but this spring the daffodils seemed to explode. So I picked some. I love how they arrange themselves as they lean together in a glass.

Now for some history in the midst of National Poetry Month. As you might know, I live just outside of Syracuse, New York and have always been fascinated by “Salt City” history. During the 19th Century, Syracuse was the main suppler of salt for much of the United States. It supplied the Union Army during the Civil War. Commerce was aided, of course by the Erie Canal, which was funded, to a large extent by Syracuse Salt.

The Erie Canal in Syracuse, late 1800’s

Though parts of the canal still exists outside the city, the canal seen here has been filled in to become Erie Boulevard. Many think it would have been amazing if that part of the canal still existed. 

SALT CITY ON THE ERIE CANAL 
 
 A boat bumps up to a dock
 with the thud of ropes 
 

 and gritty canal water
 slaps the wooden sides and shakes
 

 sleeping passengers.
 They’ve arrived in Syracuse,
 

 at the bustling era 
 of Syracuse Salt,
 

 before the railroads took over,
 before midwest mines
 

 stole all their business,
 before the canal was filled in with dirt
 

 and Model T Fords replaced 
 canal boats. 

© Janice Scully 2021

   

Be sure to check out what Jama has for us and may spring bring at least a few peaceful moments to us all. Thank you, Jama.

NO BUDDY LIKE A BOOK, by Allan Wolf

It’s Poetry Friday, today hosted at Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference, here. Thank you, Tabatha, for hosting. Be sure to check out what she has for us this Poetry Friday.

I have had several things on my mind this week. First, this has become a picture book week for me as I dusted off a draft of a picture book and revised it. I wanted some fresh ideas. I wanted to make it more poetic, and more illustratable.

So, I attended a picture book class through the UCLA Extension, and although I had attended picture book talks before, I wanted to think about the topic again and it was a wonderful review. I’ve always been fascinated by how pictures and text together create story. The class was taught by writers April Halprin Wayland and Alexis O’Neill, and illustrator Barney Salzberg. I found some books to place on my “to read” list, such as April’s TO RABBITTOWN, and Alexis’ LOUD MARY.

Also, as I was thinking about picture books, through Jone Rush Macculloch and her fabulous interview on 1/4/21, I discovered poet, Allan Wolf, who has a new 2021 delightful rhyming picture book, entitled NO BUDDY LIKE A BOOK. It is illustrated by the talented Brianne Farley.

It a wonderful book and all about why all of us read: It takes us places. And where does this story take us? Everywhere.

Allan Wolf begins with this quatrain:

We learn important stuff from books.
We learn to speak and think.
We learn why icebergs stay afloat . . . 
and why Titanics sink

And so we visit space:

and other countries, represented by their fabulous birds. The names of these feathered creatures and the countries they are from are written under the image. The illustrations are colorful and playful. The children charming.

Wolf’s rhyming is spot on and reads without a hitch. We understand as we read and he reminds us, in case we might have forgotten:

But although these wondrous places hold
a certain fascination,
the greatest nation in the world
is my own imagination!

These are some of my thoughts during my picture book week. The Progressive Poem took an interesting twist on Rose Capelli’s blog on 1/7 and I can’t wait to see where it goes. And thanks to Margaret Simon who has organized the Progressive Poem to celebrate this year’s National Poetry Month.

WEATHER CHECK AND NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Mary Lee at A YEAR OF READING, here. Thank you, Mary Lee, for hosting! Be sure to stop by to discover what poetry she has for us today.

This week, it seemed unreal that I was going to a friend’s house for a small gathering. It was lovely to sit around a table without masks, as we all had been completely vaccinated. It was warm outside and it seemed winter was over. Perhaps we were like owls having survived a forest fire, coming forth from the haze. Besides an owl, I thought of another creature to compare us to.

Later, I wrote this:

CHECKING ON SPRING
 

 Today at someone else's
 kitchen table, mask-less,
 nibbling on bagels:
 post vaccination party.
 
 After a year of solitude,
 we seemed more groundhog 
 than human, 
 fresh from our dens, 
 
 eyes round and searching
 for signs that winter
 will not return, 
 but in the chatter,

 I saw or heard
 nothing definitive. 
 
 © Janice Scully 2021

This came in the mail today: Naomi Shihab Nye’s EVERYTHING COMES NEXT. As I read, I was struck by how powerful the beginnings of her poems are.


Whether it be prose, a poem or a play, the beginning has to convince the reader to read on. As Billy Collins says in his MasterClass, the beginning of a poem has to welcome you in and make you feel safe in the hands of the poet. And it has to do more, of course. It has to give a reader the impression that what comes next is well worth the reader’s time.

Nye’s beginnings in this book surprised me, which is something else I love in a great poem. I’ll share two fabulous beginnings from this amazing book. Even with such short excerpts by Nye below, what surprised you? When you read them, do you want to read more?

WEDDING CAKE

Once on a plane

a woman asked me to hold her baby

and disappeared.

I figured it was safe,

our being on a plane and all.

How far could she go?

She returned one hour later . . . .

___________________

CAT PLATE

That’s what we used to do in our house,

says Lydia, when we were mad at our dad–

we served him on the cat plate.. . . .

There are many more poems in this book and they all draw you in right away, surprise you and teach about craft as well: how to welcome a reader and hook them so they keep reading.

Here’s another beginning by Nye:

THE ART OF DISAPPEARING

When they say, Don’t I know you?

say no.

____________________

I hope you all have a great weekend, and may we gradually enjoy more time with friends and family, mask-less, not socially distanced, when we’re vaccinated and it’s safe.

What is Poetry Friday? Learn more about it here.

ONE HAIKU ON MAKING PITA BREAD

Welcome to Poetry Friday! Thank you, Susan Bruck, for hosting here at Soul Blossom Living.

I’ve kept busy this week revising work. I’ve also been reading Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. I’ve never read them cover to cover. Twain writes characters with heart breaking humanity. For instance, Twain Huck is unable to be “good” and turn in Jim, an escaped slave, to authorities. He knows if he were a well bred boy and had good character, he would. Twain shows us through character, how slavery corrupted American society. Through his work, we can gain insight into how we became the America we are today.

For an adventure, I baked this week. I have always wanted to make pita bread, and I was surprisingly successful. I read the directions carefully and found it wasn’t that hard. They were crisp and tasty and I surprised my neighbor from Lebanon with some. I used the recipe in my old Fanny Farmer Baking Book, but there are many good recipes on line. Here’s one.

Here are the pita before their plunge into a 500 degree oven . . .

and after.

I wrote a haiku about what I learned about pita:

 Two to three minutes
 
 it takes to bake pita bread-

 same as the sun rise.  

©Janice Scully 2021

I hope you all are well. Have a good weekend.

SQUIRRELS

Welcome to another Poetry Friday! We are hosted today by Linda at TeacherDance. Make sure to stop and see what poetic intrigue she is up to.

This has been another horrible week in the national news and I fear for my Asian friends and family members. How can they not feel threatened by the racial violence that is taking place, it seem, all over the country? Meanwhile the pandemic will continue for a while. I’m sure, like me, many turn to nature for some solace.

This week while walking down a street I began to notice the squirrels’ nests in the highest branches of trees. They are uncovered in the winter because leaves have fallen. They inspired a poem that I will share, but first, I discovered this poem by Amos Russel Wells who was born in Glen’s Falls, N.Y., during the Civil War. I thought his poem was charming. 

To A City-Park Squirrel
by Amos Russel Wells

 
Dear little exile from woodlands dear,
How can you keep your wilderness grace,
How can you bound so merrily here,
Shut in this narrow and formal place?

Still your fancies are forest-free,
Still as gallant you swing and glide
From dusty tree to skeleton tree
As once you roamed through the woodlands wide.

Surely you must, on a witching night,
Flee from the prisoning haunts of men,
Over the housetops take your flight,
And bathe yourself in the woods again!

It’s easy to imagine this squirrel taking flight! (Actually, I wouldn’t mind fleeing into a city, like New York, to satisfy my pandemic travel fever.) Anyway, the poem resonated with me because as I looked at the squirrels’ nests this week on my street, I began to imagine they lived in high rises. This isn’t the first time these furry and common creatures have showed up in my writing. 

SQUIRREL HIGH RISE
 

 Two round cozy nests 
 of twigs and leaves 
 in the highest branches
 of a tall tall tree,
 hovering over
 the hills and town—
 like fancy 
 penthouse apartments.
 

 There is not one window,
 none at all,
 or an elevator
 in the hall. 
 

 And squirrels don’t pay
 even the smallest fee
 for a cozy apartment
 in a high rise tree.
 
© Janice Scully 2021

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, and enjoy the early spring. Thank you again, Linda, for hosting.

Last Minute Haiku

Welcome to Poetry Friday, the coming of Spring edition. Heidi Mordhorst, at My Juicy Little Universe, is hosting HERE. Be sure to stop by to see what poems she is sharing this week.

Spring is coming to Central New York and everything seems imbued with new hope. They are lowering the age for vaccines and people are lining up. I don’t think it’s too wishful to believe that as time goes on more and more people everwhere will agree to take it.

Today, I waited for a LaMiPoFri to come to me as I stared out my living room window at the early spring colors, mostly brown, but some green. I noticed my husband left a ladder by the porch.


MARCH RITUAL

Wood ladder among

the hemlocks and melting snow–

Christmas lights come down.

©Janice Scully 2021

Then another was inspired by old dry leaves that never fell.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Dry crispy leaves shake

in spring — as xylems hoist sap

upward to new buds.

©Janice Scully 2021

THE BOTTICELLIAN TREES, by William Carlos Williams, provides images of trees changing in spring. Trees/ alphabet metaphor to me was unusual. It’s a lovely poem. Below is the beginning, and the rest HERE

THE BOTTICELLIAN TREES

The Alphabet of 
the trees

is fading in the
song of the leaves

the crossing
bars of the thin

letters that spelled
winter

and the cold
have been illuminated

with 
pointed green

by the rain and sun--

I hope everyone is well and enjoying the first days of spring, at least they are the first days in Central New York.

A small tree in my front yard

The Art of Avoiding Detection

It’s the first Friday of March (where has the time gone?) and a new month of Poetry Fridays. Thank you Kathryn Apel for hosting this week at Katwhiskers! She has an inspiring post and acrostic poem about writing, persistence and passion. Congratulations to her on her new picture book, “A Bird in the Herd.”

I have been polishing a work in progress, a collection of non-fiction poems for third grade about something we all know about, the wonder of digestion. I have been thinking about humor and what facts to include where.

Though I didn’t get to every February prompt offered by Laura Shovan, I gave one or two a try every week. The poem I want to share this week is from a prompt by Randi Sonenshine on day #25, using this photo for inspiration.

The prompt is about the ways living things try to blend in. The photo above is of an octopus that is disguised as coral. I’m not sure I see it, but that is the point, isn’t it? The master of disguise, the walking stick, aka stick bug, came to mind.

Stick bugs are found all over the world except Antarctica or Patagonia. They can be a foot long, but most are several inches. They are fascinating to look at because it’s hard to tell at first if it is a twig or a bug.

There are about 3,000 species and usually they will reside in one single tree their whole life, eating its leaves. Oaks are popular. They live about one year and survive mainly by their ability to avoid detection by taking on the color and texture of wood, although some use unpleasant secretions and sharp spines to defend themselves. 

SUNDAY MORNING IN HOLLYWOOD
 
 A long brown
 stick bug, dead-still,
 in twig-pose,
 on an oak tree
 except to munch
 on a leaf,
 
 Lady Gaga hurries to
 a coffee shop
 in dark shades
 jeans and no make-up.
 
 Will they outsmart
 bats, birds, and the paparazzi
 and finish breakfast? 
 
 © Janice Scully 2021

I have no idea if Lady Gaga wants to avoid the paparazzi but I imagine she does, at least on Sunday morning.

Good luck to our teachers as they get vaccines soon and children returning safely to school. With children in mind, I’ll close with a joyful verse by William Blake. We all know how children want to play and resist coming back indoors at the end of a summer day. Hopefully kids will have more freedom this summer. 

NURSE'S SONG
by William Blake

When the voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
   And everything else is still. 

"Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies."

"No, no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly
And the hills are all cover'd with sheep.

"Well, well, go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed."
The little ones leaped & shouted & Laugh'd
   And all the hills echoed.

Edna St. Vincent Millay: Travel

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Karen Edmisten Here. Thank you, Karen for hosting this week! Please stop by and see what she is sharing today.

And to begin, congratulations to Irene Latham for her Caldecott Honor award for her picture book, THE CAT MAN OF ALEPPO! And happy birthday, too!

This week I will share work by Edna St. Vincent Millay, a poet was born in Maine in 1892 and lived to be only fifty eight. She wrote drama, librettos, and poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1923. Early on, she wanted to be a pianist, but since her teacher felt her hands were too small, she decided to write, to our benefit. Some thought her writing was naughty and outrageous, others found her the refreshing voice of the twentieth century woman.

She was the daughter of an independent mother, divorced from a “frivolous” husband. She became a practical nurse to support her children. Of her mother, Millay wrote: “I cannot remember once in the life when you were not interested in what I was working on, or even suggested that I should put it aside for something else.” You can read more about her fascinating life in the link above. But why choose a poem by her today?

Maybe because the end of the pandemic is more forseeable, I’ve been fantasizing about road trips. I can’t complain about a thing because I have much to be grateful for. Still everyday I think about summer and swimming in my favorite park in the Fingerlakes, visiting Maine or the Jersey Shore, the Adirondacks, places I love. I want to see my sister who lives across the country. So when I read the poem, TRAVEL, by Millay, I felt perfect. The language she uses, the sensory details created in me longing to board a train.

Edna St.Vincent Millay

TRAVEL

The railroad track is miles away,
   And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
   But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,
   Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see it's cinders red on the sky,
   And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
   And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
   No matter where it's going.

I also have a poem to share from day eight of Laura Shovan’s February poetry Project. The photo for the prompt, with such beautiful detail, was provided by Buffy Silverman.

 
 OLD SNOW

 Snow clings 
 to winter tree bark
 like suds to hair and skin
 after a bath,
 before a final rinse 
 
 and sticks around
 perhaps to dissolve 
 the winter dirt, 
 and scrub the forest
 trees for spring. 
 
 © janice Scully 2021

I hope the numbers of vaccines in arms accelerate and all the communities most severely impacted by the pandemic get their shots! All of us want to see our family and friends, get the kids in school, and maybe feel more freedom see more of the world, before too long.

Fungus- the Great Recycler

It’s Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Ruth at her blog, There is no Such Thing as a God Forsaken Town, HERE. Thank you, Ruth! I look forward to seeing what you have in store for us.

Earlier this month, I came across this creepy image, on Laura Shovan’s blog, as a prompt for poets. The photo came from The Alliance for Chesapeake Bay. I’d never seen anything like it. No, they are not human hands. But they sure do look like human hands, dead ones.

So, I thought, did I really want to write about this gruesome image, the fungus OSCOMYCETOUS? Of course I did! And I will share my poem:

THE STRANGE BEAUTY OF THE OSCOMYCETOUS FUNGUS

Dead man’s fingers—

arthritic, furtive

fungal reproductions 

of human digits, pointing

upward from the decay

on the forest floor.

A reminder in dull gray-yellow

that living things,

even us, are recycled

in diverse fashion

after death.

Though I admire

the cleverness of nature,

if I’m destined

for such an afterlife,

I’d rather be a toadstool.

©Janice Scully 2021

This is just a prompt, I’m not normally so gruesome. Some good things are actually happening even in the midst of this pandemic. Over the last month it’s clear that Covid is no longer being ignored.

Stay warm and safe.