janice.scully – Page 19 – SALT CITY VERSE

Hope for America

It’s Poetry Friday and make sure you check out Jama’s delicious offerings at Jama’s Alphabet Soup, here. Thank you so much, Jama, for hosting.

Today, while working on an INKTOBER prompt, I encountered the word “wisp.” (Notice I haven’t gotten too far down my list!)

I had already written a short poem using the word FISH, which I’ll share:

HORS D'OEUVRE PARTY

Salmon paté
on plates painted with fish—
to the eye was so fetching 
some guests ate the dish.

I like writing short and hopefully humorous poems, but when I came to the word WISP, I came up with something of a different tone. Today, I felt quite sad hearing the point of view of someone interviewed on NPR who had no hope. He’s not planning to vote. I understand, as best I can, why some, including many African Americans like the discouraged interviewee, might feel that way. But I hope he can change his mind.

I have several friends and family members who are painfully hopeful that things will improve. Painfully, because hope. though necessary, can make a person vulnerable. So those thoughts inspired a Golden Shovel poem.

Here’s a link that describes the Golden Shovel form. The last words in each line read vertically comprise are a quote from another poem. I needed a quote to use and also wanted poems with the word wisp for my Inktober prompt. I discovered poet Florence Maude. You can read her poem, LITTLE WISP OF HOPE, here.

In a previous post here, I mentioned British playwright Simon Stephens. He said that the only mature way to deal with tragedy is through optimism. That requires hope. So I wrote this thinking of friends and family who are on the edge of their seats, maintaining hope, this election.

TO MY FRIEND
A Golden Shovel Poem from a line in a poem by poet Florence Maude
“Little wisp of hope, I wish you would stay.”  



It seems that some, like you and me, other’s too, don’t feel in little


amounts; no mere wisp


of love for us passionate ones. No small sense of


injustice do we feel today about America. So, hope,


must always be in our hearts as well. I


can’t imagine, can you, love with no hope? Or a wish


for something that can never, ever be? No, you  


and me, we must imagine a better world and what it would


be like to have dreams like miracles that stay.

I hope everyone has a good weekend. Nine days till Halloween! Thank you Jama, again for hosting.

Poetry Friday, and a Thought from Thomas Carlyle

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This is my first time hosting and have looked forward to it. I’ve been away from my blog for month and my thoughts have been with teachers who are returning to their students.

There are madmen running the country but still I managed to write. Being away from my blog has confirmed what I knew, that being part of this group inspires me to write and learn.

I have added Mister Linky to my blog so I hope he does his job. Fingers crossed. If he doesn’t, just place your address in the comments section.

Seasons are changing, so a few photos to celebrate Fall. In Upstate New York, it’s a time of contrasts. Lots of gold, yellow and red on my walks. Even pink.

And Halloween is almost here. I have to figure out how I will greet trick or treaters this year when they come to my door. My pumpkin door hanging and my little scarecrow have returned:

It struck me that the sky yesterday was showing a concern for others:

There have been many quiet, lovely mornings this summer, and I wish somehow I could keep them with me, freeze a moment, make it last. Maybe because I am apprehensive of the solitude that will come with frigid weather, I treasured each summer and fall moment. That’s what inspired this short poem.

AT EIGHT O'CLOCK

I wish for time  
to slow and stop
on a Thursday morning
at eight o’clock

when rays of sunshine
ignite chartreuse trees,

and maple leaves wave 
their hands in the breeze,
while cardinals chattering
on perches, be.

For this singular moment
each second will steal,
as the day rolls on
like a movie reel.

© Janice Scully 2020

I’ll end with a quote that seems relevant, by nineteenth century writer Thomas Carlyle, about what I might be listening for in quiet moments. I discovered the quote in a wonderful book, The Discovery of Poetry by Frances Mayes, who is a poetry professor and author of Under the Tuscan Sun.

All deep things are Song. It seems somehow the very
central essence of us, Song; as if all the rest were
but wrappers and hulls! . . . See deep enough,
and you see musically; the heart of Nature being
everywhere music, if you can only reach it.

Thomas Carlyle

Have a wonderful week and my best to you in your writing and in your classrooms.

Lucky Rock

It’s Poetry Friday! Thank you, Kiesha Shepard at Whispers From The Ridge for hosting. This week she is sharing poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar that speak to the heart of what it means to be black in America.

I’m hoping for the best this fall, and think that we will need a lot of work and maybe a little luck to get through Covid, the election, and get our country back on track.

I’ve enjoyed being outside during this summer of social distancing, and one of my favorite places was Long Point State Park on Cayuga Lake. One day, I was given a lucky rock by a woman on the narrow beach. A lucky rock, apparently, is one in which a hole has been worn through it. Here are a few rocks I collected. See the holes in the top three?

I didn’t realize lucky rocks were a bonafide thing until on a later visit, another woman asked me if I’d found any lucky rocks.

So here’s a poem inspired by lucky rocks. And to celebrate summer.

LOST AND FOUND.

In early September,
on the shore of the lake,

buried in sand and shells sat
a velvety gray rock

with a hole piercing its
teardrop shape,

as if a mermaid
had lost her pendant. 

Many similar rocks
sprinkled the shoreline

like an end of summer
lost and found. 




© Janice Scully 2020

I am beginning an on-line workshop on novels in verse and so I won’t be posting this next month. Any progress on my WIP will require considerable focus, which has been difficult for me this summer. I hope all the teachers out there are well, successfully and happily returning to their work.

Thank you, Kiesha, for hosting!

Present Tense

It’s Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the talented Carol Valsalona on her blog, Beyond Literacy. Make sure you stop by and check out what she has in store this week. Thank you, Carol.

Two weeks ago, Carol made a request:

Poetry Friday Friends:
If so inclined, please share a new image poem on the topic, Summer 2020 in the Midst of Quarantine Life, at your blog for the September 4, 2020 Poetry Friday that I am hosting.  It will be a way to showcase the beauty of nature during trying times.

I have been celebrating the beauty of summer this week in my kitchen. With all the sun and rain in Syracuse, my generous neighbor’s garden has exploded with vegetables, especially tomatoes. It’s been a bright spot during the pandemic at my house.

I think this qualifies as an image that celebrates the beauty of nature, don’t you? I was indeed inundated, as the tomatoes were ripe and many could not wait to be cooked. Spaghetti and meat balls anyone?

Of course summer seems sweet partly because, at least where I live, it ends. I’ve been feeling nostalgic. A week of chilly weather, it seems as if summer never happened. This idea inspired this:

PRESENT TENSE


After a week,
cool air on bare arms.
The sharp flap of wind gusts
in street awnings.
Clouds linger, the sun
too weak to chase them.

You can't seem to remember summer.
 
Months later, you notice
the sprinkle of
white on trees. The black glare
on sidewalks,
breath turns to mist
as the world
starts to freeze

and it's like a dream, the time
before you moved on from fall,
and into your winter clothes
but you did.





© Janice Scully

Enjoy your weekend. I haven’t mentioned here all the disturbing things that are going on in America, but my thoughts and prayers are with Black Lives Matter, with those who are ill, with the scientists who are working to defeat Covid, and with the Joe Biden campaign.

Be sure to visit Carol’s blog, Beyond Literacy!

If you want to know more about Poetry Friday, it’s here.

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.

A Summer Etheree

It’s Poetry Friday and it’s hosted this week by Catherine at READING TO THE CORE. Thank you for hosting! Be sure to stop by.

This week I am posting a poem from a prompt offered by the Poetry Sisters. The prompt was to write an etheree about summer or about foresight.

An Etheree is a poetic form. It is ten lines long. The first line is one syllable and each subsequent line increases by one syllable.

When I heard of the summer 7/24 reopening of the National Zoo in Washington D.C. I thought I’d write about that, a place where children might learn about nature and animals safely during the pandemic. Everyone above six must wear a face mask, and those from 2-6 recommended but optional. What will the animals think?

SUMMER 2020 AT THE ZOO


A
macaw
is painted 
red. Tiger hides
behind bold black stripes.
Pandas wear spectacles,
while the elephants blend in.
This year when the zoo is open,
animals, resting in cool shadows,
might puzzle over camouflaged people. 
 
© Janice Scully 2020

I just want to note that today was the funeral and celebration of the life of Congressman John Lewis.

May he rest in peace and may his important human rights work be continued everywhere in America till it’s complete. Listen to President Obama’s eulogy here.

Stay well everyone!

MEERKATS AND GRAVITY

Welcome to Poetry Friday. If you don’t know what Poetry Friday is, learn more about it here at Renee LaTulippe’s fabulous poetry website, No Water River.

This week our host is the talented Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche. Please check in there to find out what she has in store for poets this week.

Let me say up front that I have been overwhelmed for a while by the feelings engendered by the phrase “While Nero fiddled, Rome burned.”

It just seems that as there is so much our country should be doing now to solve real problems, yet leaders fight and waste time and money.

However:

Yesterday I found some fun topics to think about. On Wednesday evening on the PBS show, “Animals with Cameras,” tiny cameras that weigh 5% of a meerkat’s body weight, were placed around the necks of meerkats. These clever engineers scurried off to reveal their burrows four feet underground, like a dense subway system.

The cameras revealed a birthing room with five infant meerkats, eyes still closed, actively rooting around for mother’s milk. (I don’t have a picture but you can watch the show.) Apparently this had never been seen before, the babies’ level of activity was a surprise to the researchers. These creatures made me smile. Thank you PBS.

A family of meerkats out and about. They emerge from their burrows two or three weeks after birth.

I also leaned on NOVA why planets and moons are spheres–Gravity of course. It inspired this.

PLANETARY QUESTION

All planets and moons
must become spheres. 
Gravity softens 
all angles.

Does roundness help planets
hurl faster through space
and why orbits 
never get tangled?  

© Janice Scully 2020 (draft)

Fortunately this week I’ve felt some progress as I try to write a novel in verse inspired by my brother’s Vietnam letters. I hope to have a first draft done, the story down soon, in time to share some of them in a workshop I’m taking with Georgia Heard next month.

Don’t forget to check out what Margaret Simon is up to this Friday at Reflection on the Teche.