janice.scully – Page 20 – SALT CITY VERSE

MOSS

Welcome to Poetry Friday this week hosted here at Book Seed Studio. You will find a post about one of my favorite things in the whole world. I won’t give it away, but it usually involves wearing a swim suit and is very relaxing.

I’ve been looking at our old travel photos because I’ve been home so long. I went to Ireland in April 2016, when the world was a different place in so many ways. Was there really a time before the 2016 election?

Today I heard a piece on the news about how the pub owners in Ireland are enforcing the rules that Americans can’t come in until they quarantine for fourteen days. They don’t want another surge. I’m glad they’re doing the right thing.

One of the many things that struck me about Ireland were the brilliant shades of green that abound there. Moss grows thick in forests and enchants it, as if there really are leprechauns and faeries behind every rock and tree.

And as most teachers know who might be reading this, moss is a pioneer plant, like a lichen. It begins with a spore, and is one of the living things that can grow and thrive over time in a rock’s crevasse where there is little nourishment. Moss also grows and clings to tree bark in dark damp wooded places. Moss is a sign that the air is not polluted.

I wondered if moss harmed trees, but I discovered that generally it doesn’t. But when moss takes hold on rocks, it begins to collect pieces of loose soil blowing past and eventually, over time, breaks rock and turns it into soil.

I took this picture in a national park near Killarny in Ireland

MOSS

It appears to just sit
but it's working all day.
Ask what you want,
it has little to say.
 
With fingers of steel,
it breaks rock in two,
turns it soil
its equals are few.

like worms spinning silk
in cocoons inch by inch
Moss makes the miraculous
look like a cinch.

© Janice Scully 2020

The Aran Island of Innisheer. This is the rockiest landscape I had ever seen, marked by hundreds of stone walls. A good place to look for mossy rocks.

To further capture the mood of Ireland, the color green and moss, we need to hear the words and accent of an Irish poet. I’ll share a video of Seamus Heaney reading his poem “Digging.”

If you want to know more about Poetry Friday, you can find out here at Renee LaTulippe’s excellent blog for poets, No Water River.

Haunted Villanelle

Welcome to Poetry Friday this week hosted from Haiti at There is No Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town. This blog always has something interesting and thought provoking from outside America’s borders in Haiti.

Like many of you reading this, I’m home and trying to keep busy, keep up with friends and family and write poems. With the tension and the news as it is, I need to divert myself, though I am hopeful positive change will happen. I am very worried about the essential workers and patients in hospitals. This week I returned to my brother’s letters from Vietnam and revising poems inspired by them.

Although I can’t travel now, I have always loved the thrill of different places. Right now I’d be happy with a trip to nearby New York to see my son, but that won’t be anytime soon.

So in lieu of a vacation, I will share a villanelle I wrote about a vacation, a haunted one. It was inspired by the Berenstain Bears books that I grew fond of because my two boys and my husband had fun reading them. What we used to find hilarious was how clueless the father bear was, always getting himself into trouble. Below was one of our favorite books, THE BIG HONEY HUNT. Another one I remember involved father renting a rickety old vacation house with danger around every corner.

*The Big Honey Hunt* by Stanley and Janice Berenstain, a warn copy, is still on my shelf.

When I wrote the below villanelle, I had the Dad illustrated above in mind. This form proved challenging, especially the rhyme sequence, telling a story, and maintaining tension with repeating lines. If you have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know.

OUR HAUNTED HOUSE VACATION




Something lives in this house-
crashing and thumping underneath.
Dad says it’s a mouse.


It doesn’t sound like a little mouse
seeking shelter from this craggy heath.
Something big lives in this house!


If it hears us, it might arouse
and flash it’s slimy teeth—
But Dad says it’s a mouse.


Could it be the owner’s spouse,
dead and here bequeathed?
Is a ghost in this house? 


With a bucket we could douse
a ghost. Make it howl and seethe—
but Dad says it’s a mouse.


“Children,” says Dad. “Don’t grouse!
Go pick daisies. Make a wreath."
There's something in this house.
Dad says it's a mouse. 


© Janice Scully 2020

I hope you enjoyed a trip to the heath this Friday.

One of the most popular villanelles ever written was ONE ART by Elizabeth Bishop. It’s for an adult audience and is well worth reading and rereading.

What is a villanelle? It includes five tercets followed by a quatrain. Lines 1 and 3 take turns repeating as the third line of the subsequent stanzas. Then those lines together form the final couplet. The rhyme sequence is ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABAA.

Have a good weekend. Thanks for stopping.

Do you want to know more about Poetry Friday? Find out about it here.

Imagination

Happy Poetry Friday! Thank you, Linda Mitchell for hosting at A Word Edgewise. Be sure to stop by and check out what she has in store for us.

I’ve been writing more but, like others, am sometimes frustrated that it takes some much time between the glimmer of an idea and a poem you would consider sharing. It’s never clear when it’s too early to ask others to read it. In the last two weeks I’ve tried to write a poem comparing water to the imagination. When poet Kwame Alexander offered photos to use as a prompt on NPR several months ago, one was a picture of the ocean. I began to think about how water extends to the edges of what contains it. It stayed with me. So here’s a poem that I wrote this week.

IMAGINATION

It flows like water.

Shimmers to the sand and sedges,

from the depths to the edges.

If you ride the ocean in a sail boat

you’ll see the yellow sun,

and blue skies.

but for more, dive in,

explore the abyss,

or you will miss

the bioluminescent lanternfish,

and the four-foot giant clam,

or the palace of a god called Yam.

It’s wonderful to learn something through poetry. For instance, writing this I learned that there is a god in the Canaanite Pantheon named Yam. He presides over the chaos and power of the sea and has a palace in the abyss. Imagine that! Of course, you would have to.

I discovered that poet and writer Eve Merriam (1916-1992) who was the daughter of Russian immigrants, imagined the edge of the earth in her poem Landscape. Below is an excerpt. Catherine Flynn posted this poem on her blog, Reading to the Core, on March 15, 2019 and you can read the entire poem here.

LANDSCAPE

BY Eve Merriam (2nd of 2 stanzas)

What will there be at the rim of the earth?

A Mollusc,

a mammal,

a new creature’s birth?

Eternal sunrise,

immortal sleep,

or cars piled up in a rusty heap?

I hope everyone is staying well and that those around you are wearing their masks. I went on a short hike at a state park in New York this week, and though it was great being out, I’m not totally comfortable passing people on a trail even in a face mask. Have a great weekend.

Want to know more about Poetry Friday? Find out here.

Poetry Sisters and Susurrus

Thank you, Karen Eastland, for hosting Poetry Friday! Please check in with Karen to see what she has in store for us this week.

Several weeks ago on Poetry Friday the Poetry Sisters invited other poets to join them the last Friday of June. The prompt was to write a poem using the imagery of ‘thick woods’ or the word “susurrus.” Susurrus has an interesting sound and reflects its meaning: a whispering or rustling sound.

My mind has been on injustice, so my poem at the end will be about that. Injustice can be subtle, like a susurrus, extreme violence, or in between. As to the cause of the injustice, it’s been studied and called “white racism,” but never accepted by the government or most white Americans.

Of interest to me was Jill Lepore’s article in the New Yorker this week entitled “The Riot Report.” Lepore reviewed all the government commissions and inquiries into race riots since 1917. When riots threatened whites, commissions were frequently appointed so that the fearful public believed the government will do something. Nothing ever changed and the many early commissions all blamed black people for the violence.

Then the Watts riots in L.A. in 1967 was instigated again by horrendous police brutality.

President Johnson commissioned the Kerner Report, charged with the usual quest: find out why and what could be done to prevent riots. The thorough 1700-page report was published in 1968. The Kerner Report became a best seller, along with Valley of the Dolls, telling the stark truth about police violence and economic inequality. It inspired the Washington Post headline: CHIEF BLAME FOR RIOTS PUT ON WHITE RACISM.” No commission had ever blamed white people. It was astounding.

According to Lepore, our President, LBJ, ignored the report. After all, he’d thought he’d solved the race problem with the voting rights Act and 1964 civil rights Acts. That’s why, yet again, even with this report, the government did nothing and here we are fifty years later. Our institutions such as police, schools, and hospitals, the economy are racist. Many politicians pretend to care. After George Floyd’s death last month, Senator Rob Portman called for a Commission to study the problem. He should just read the Kerner Report.

I hope I haven’t been too far off track for a poetry blog. George Floyd’s death was a dramatic crime. But the word “susrussus” brought to mind the idea that prejudice can be subtle, even though to those most affected it might not experience it so. Anyway, I hope that this time around things will move forward, unlike all the other times before. Here’s my poem:

INJUSTICE

It can come by whisper

or by armor-hardened scrum.

It doesn’t ask permission

when it decides to come.

You will find it in the churches

in sermons preachers preach

haunting all our hospitals,

in words some teachers teach.

Oh, the cruelty is obvious

when armies visit streets,

but when it comes by susurrus

it’s tricky to defeat.

Thank you, Poetry Sisters, for inviting newbies to share work with you.

Kelly Ramsdell

Andi Sibley

I apologize if I missed anyone. Let me know if I did.

The Clerihew and Michelle Obama

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Thank you for hosting! I hope everyone is well.

Poet Elizabeth Steinglass recently wrote a post on her blog about a wonderful craft book, Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems by poet Marjorie Maddox. It can teach and guide young poets, inspire and inform all ages. In those pages this week I rediscovered a short poetic form called the Clerihew, which is “a four line biographical poem, usually in rhyming couplets.”

I had a famous person in mind for my Clerihew and this felt like the perfect form for a brief blog post. It came to me as I watched the Netflix special “Becoming” about Michelle Obama’s book tour. It’s a fabulous documentary and it plunged me into several hours of nostalgia and missing her. The book was remarkable and wonderful to read, but seeing video clips of her and the Obama family brought tears. I felt like thanking her.

First some photos:

THANK YOU

Michelle Obama there are few

first Ladies anything like you,

Your beauty, kindness, smarts, and grace

still makes this land a better place.

©Janice Scully 2020

Rummaging through my computer, I discovered several other clerihews I’d written in the past that mentioned first ladies that I had forgotten about. Here’s one.

THE MADISONS

John Madison was shy-

Small talk? Didn’t try.

So Dolley, his wife,

brought the White House to life.

©Janice Scully 2020

That’s it for today. Enjoy the summer and let’s hope for the best.

A Poetry Pep Up

Today’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem. Thank you, Irene, for hosting. Be sure to stop by and see her post dedicated to a poet I admire, Nikki Grimes. I was awed by her novel in verse, Ordinary Hazards, which I wrote about previously, here. So I will refer readers to that. I look forward to today’s celebration of her and her prolific and marvelous work.

This week I stretched my poetry muscles using prompts from Kat Apel’s Poetry Pep Up. I thought I would share my few small pieces. I enjoyed reading the work of others’ last week. If you are not familiar with Poetry Pep Up, you can find excellent instructions for each of Kathryn’s prompts on the link above.

I warmed up with the Zentangle, but decided to keep that to myself.

Writing an EPIGRAM was next. An epigram imparts wisdom, is supposed to be witty with a “twist in the tail”, is written as a couplet, quatrain or one-liner, and it sometimes rhymes.

I love Kat’s example by Oscar Wilde. “I can resist anything but temptation.”

So here is an epigram:

TONIGHT’S MENU
Chicken or eggs-
whichever comes first.

© Janice Scully (draft)

The tetractys was fun. This is a five line syllabic poem of 1, 2, 3, 4 and then 10 syllables.

AN OBSERVATION

Words
have moods.
Some of them
choose solitude,
but is seems most gather in sentences.

© Janice Scully (draft)

The next prompt was an ekphrastic poem. Kat had several great photos but I’ll use one I found on my phone of our newest family member, Marshmallow.

Marshmallow

All I’ve ever known is people.
They feed me
play with me
and love me
Still, a cat must
be vigilant
so that’s why I’m
viewing askance
the one in the tan pants.

Next: GOLDEN SHOVEL . The first and only golden shovel I wrote was from a prompt by Nikki Grimes from an interview on Michelle Heinrich Barnes’ blog . If you are not familiar, you’ll find description of this form on the link above. Here’s my golden shovel from a poem by Christopher Marlowe:

WHERE IS OUR RELATIONSHIP GOING?

(A Golden Shovel poem inspired by a line from Christopher Marlowe’s Elizabethan poem, THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE: “Come live with me and be my love”)

So I said, “Come!

Bring your cat! We will all live

together. Yes, with

your little hedgehog, too! Trust me.

your painted turtle and

hamster will feel at home, we’ll be

a family, and you will be my

only love.

Enjoy Poetry Friday and thank you, Irene, for hosting Poetry Friday and celebrating Nikki Grimes!

Always on Time

Thank you, Margaret Simon, at Reflections on the Teche, for hosting today. While you check out what she has in store for this Poetry Friday, you can read, on her June 2nd post, a found poem well worth reading that has to do with the protests of this week. There has been legal progress in the George Floyd case, and we hope, reform on many fronts over time.

Today I’ve been thinking about time and calendars. (as an aside, I don’t know why Julius Caesar is on the 1582 Gregorian calendar below. But like Susan B. Anthony’s face on our coins, Pope Gregory Xlll must have admired Caesar. )

Anyway, I’ve been thinking more specifically about flowers and calendars. Flowers are a kind of calendar, that mark time each year, April through September in upstate New York, from crocus to crysanthamum. How different it is to see flowers in December, like the primrose, in California where my sister lives. I am grateful that I can depend on certain flowers appearing every year to celebrate the month and season. This poem is a small homage to that:

MY CALENDAR

The tulips are pink,
cone flowers yellow,
daisies are white,
the friendliest fellows,
they swell and they bloom
in my garden in June
never too late,
never too soon.

We must pay attention because, like acts in a cabaret, allotted only a brief window, flowers come and go. There’s drama in the natural world, all of it driven by time.

LETTING GO

Daffodils bloom,
for just a few weeks
the loveliest flowers,
come take a peek-

I hoped they’d last longer,
if only they could. 
I’d ask them to stay,
if I thought that they would,

I'd yell, “Wait!” to daisies,
next in the queue,
but I have to let go
what else can I do?

© Janice Scully 2020

I felt sad writing this poem, thinking of everything I have let go of beyond flowers. But there is always something to look forward to. Some things are as small as a haircut and bigger things like returning to work and school. And so many look forward to deep structural reform and social justice in America.

I hope everyone is healthy. Make sure you stop by to check out what Margaret Simon has in store for Poetry Friday.

About Optimism

It is another Poetry Friday and there is continued tragedy in America beyond the Corona virus. Mary Lee is hosting and she has been using her blog, A Year of Reading, to support the #Blacklivesmatter, the family of George Floyd and all people of color who simply ask for the justice that white people enjoy every day. No one can be neutral. Thank you Mary Lee.

I wrote this to express my frustration.

WHAT A WHITE PERSON CAN DO FOR GEORGE FLOYD

Blind cops
broken justice
black man killed with a knee
four against one. We must speak up!
SPEAK UP! 

© Janice Scully 2020

I was going to post about nature, share a poem about the progression of flowers outside, but it seems inappropriate now. Maybe next week.

What does it take for people to get through tragedy?

On-line yesterday I listened to British playwright Simon Stephens talk about his play SEA WALL, a monologue staring actor Andrew Scott, that he shared this week on YouTube. In this short play an unthinkable family tragedy occurs. In a discussion afterward Stephens said that the only mature response to a terrible tragedy is strive to find optimism. I think that what he said is true, but with the leadership we have in America, racism, and the rampant lack of empathy for those who suffer, it optimism possible? But still we try to find a way forward.

I will end with a photo of my beautiful bleeding heart plant. Maybe there’s a little hope in it because it never quits. It keeps coming back every year. Sympathetic people, tree huggers, etc, those who try to help others are called bleeding hearts as if it’s a weakness, but these flowers seem to belie that with their beauty.

Thank you again, Mary Lee, for hosting.

Poems about Brothers

Welcome to Poetry Friday, today hosted by the talented Carol Varsalona at her blog, Beyond Literacy. Stop by, she is sure to inspire. Thank you, Carol, for hosting. I hope everyone is healthy and getting through the current crisis day by day. My thoughts are with all teachers and health care workers everywhere.

Today I will do a short post about brothers. I grew up with three, all older. I have been thinking this week about my youngest brother, Mike, who for many years, was a stalwart playmate. A year and a half apart, we often played together, climbing trees, and swimming. He passed away over ten years ago and I miss him, but mostly I remember how fun and kind he was.

Me, my brother, Mike, and my sister, Barbara.

We were both competitive and my dream was driven to prove I could run faster than Mike. I tried and tried and loved trying. Usually, one of us would pick out a tree in our yard, say “On your mark, get set, go!” and run there and back. He usually won, being wiry and fast. But he didn’t always. At least, in my memory.

BROTHER AND SISTER

“I will race you to that tree!’
My brother challenged me.

But when I raced him to that tree
we tied, and he said, “Gee!

How'd you get so quick today?
He spied me with a scowl.

"Can't you see I'm taller now,
and faster? That is how."

© Janice Scully 2020

I was curious to find other poems written about brothers. I found a site called Interesting Literature were I found poems written by celebrated poets such as Sappho, Herrick, Keats and more. Many were about war and about the death of a brother and they are all worth reading, and mostly written for adults. But for this post, I will post a poem by Lewis Carroll, of Alice and Wonderland fame. He also was a poet. He was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in 1832 and died in 1898.

His poem, Brother and Sister captures the annoyance a brother can have towards his little sister. It’s over the top, but it is, after all, Lewis Carroll.

BROTHER AND SISTER
by Lewis Carroll

SISTER, Sister, go to bed!
Go and rest your weary head."
Thus the prudent brother said.

"Do you want a battered hide,
Or scratches to your face applied?"
Thus his sister calm replied.

"Sister, do not raise my wrath.
I'd make you into mutton broth
As easily as kill a moth."

The sister raised her beaming eye
And looked at him indignantly
And sternly answered, "Only try!"

Off to the cook he quickly ran.
"Dear Cook, please lend a frying-pan
To me as quickly as you can."

And wherefore should I lend it you?"
"The reason, Cook, is plain to view.
I wish to make an Irish Stew."

"What meat is in that stew to go?"
"My sister'll be the contents!"
"Oh"
"You'll lend the pan to me, Cook?"
"No!"

Moral: Never stew your sister.

Well, I don’t think my brother ever wanted to stew me. But our days of foot races and swimming in the Delaware had to end. When we became adolescents, he took up wrestling in school. Cars and girlfriends made him scarce, but now I often think about when we were eleven and ten.

Enjoy poetry Friday!

ANONYMOUS POETS and Humor

Welcome to Poetry Friday this week hosted by Jama Rattigan at Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Stop by. You are sure to find something delicious either baked or written in verse. Thank you, Jama, for hosting!

Several months ago I was in a used bookstore called the Bookery in Ithaca, N.Y. that was going out of business. In a cardboard box tucked away in a corner, I found the poetry anthology Knock on a Star: A Child’s introduction to Poetry, edited by X.J. Kennedy and his wife, Dorothy M. Kennedy, with whom he collaborated on textbooks and magazines.

Born in 1929 in New Jersey, X.J Kennedy is known for his humorous poems for all ages. He added the letter X to his name so people would stop confusing him with Joseph Kennedy, JFK’s father.

Among the poems in Knock at a Star were some by anonymous authors.

This is a quote from the book:

“Who is Anonymous, anyway? Anonymous means “no name.” In this book, we’ll give this by-line to any poet whose name nobody knows. Anonymous, after Shakespeare, may be the second best poet in our language. At least, he and she wrote more good poems then most poets who sign what they write.”

Yes, for sure, Anonymous has written many, many poems. Here are two silly anonymous poems from the collection:

ALGY

Algy met a bear.
The bear met Algy.
The bear was bulgy,
The bulge was Algy.

Anonymous

DID YOU EEVER, IVER, OVER?

Did you eever, iver, over
In your leef, life, loaf
See the deevel, divel, dovel
Kiss his welf, wife, woaf?

No, I neever, niver, nover
In my leef, life, loaf
Saw the deevel, divel, dovel
Kiss his weef, wife, woaf. 

Anonymous

Also, according to the Kennedys, poems do five things: 1) Make you laugh 2) Tell stories 3) Send Messages 4) Share Feelings 5)Start you wondering.

The poems above are written simply to make us laugh. I’m drawn to humorous poems. I’ve always been interested, even as a child, in what it is that makes people laugh. It isn’t easy to write humor, whether a story, joke or poem.

An important part of humor is the comic premise, which is an idea that is skewed away from reality. For instance, in the poem Algy, above, the comic premise is this: the idea that a bear and a person meet, as friends do. This is not reality, but the gap between reality and the comic premise is where the humor bubbles up. And of course, the word play Algy/ bulgy is funny.

Another ingredient to humor is surprise. In the poem Algy, the bear eats the person he just met. That’s a surprise. It’s also important that is no one gets hurt. People getting hurt isn’t funny. But wait? What about Algy? Well, he doesn’t really get hurt, he just ends up as a bulge inside the bear. This is not a violent poem. We wouldn’t think it was funny if the scene was bloody.

Humor is trial and error. Only one out of ten ideas that a writer might think is funny will actually be funny to their audience. That seems about right to me. So a poet is taking a risk sharing work that they think will be funny. It takes courage. Having said that, here are two word-play poems I wrote that might have some humor in them, but who knows?

BIN AND IN

Would you rather be IN
or the BIN that it's in? 

© Janice Scully 2020

THE MUG BUG

I saw something floating
one day in my mug,
legs in the air--
a bug, very smug.

"Get out!" I yelled,"Now!
or drowned you could be!"
She said,"Thanks for the warning
and thanks for the tea!" 

© Janice Scully 2020

A sense of humor during this pandemic is important for mental health.

My prompt? I took two rhyming words, unrelated, like bug and mug, and tried to find a comic premise. We see bugs in our mugs sometimes. That’s reality. But a bug swimming for fun? That’s not reality. Maybe there is something funny there. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but that’s OK. Give it a try. You can always sign it Anonymous.

I hope some of this made sense.

Thank you, Jama for hosting Poetry Friday today! And thanks to all poets everywhere who make us laugh, tell stories, send a message, share feelings and start us wondering.