SALT CITY VERSE – Page 13 – Mostly Poetry for Children

Poems from Laura’s Poetry Project

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Tabatha Yeatts Here. Thank you for hosting. I know that Tabatha has been busy along with about forty other poets, including myself. We’re part of Laura Shovan’s February Poetry Project on Facebook. It’s been fun writing to a prompt every day.

I have been in San Antonio visiting my sister who I haven’t seen in at least two years. It’s been wonderful to see her. One of the highlights were homemade the tortillas we bought in a local grocery story. But there is more to do here than eat.

Today we drove down to the Alamo.

I read on a plaque:

“The limestone walls of the Alamo church are roughly 4 feet thick on average. Inside these sturdy walls the Texans positioned three cannons atop a 12-foot high elevated platform of earth and wood. . . . It was here that some of the final fighting of the Battle of the Alamo took place. According to an eyewitness, the last of the defenders continued to resist the Mexican Army from the “pitch dark” end of the Church.”

I have a lot of studying to do to get up to speed on the history. It’s complicated. But I gathered some background: that during the early 1800’s the settlers/immigrants who had come from all over the U.S and world to make a living in San Antonio, which at the time was part of Mexico, had serious disagreements with the Mexican government. This church was the settler’s staging ground in their fight against Mexican forces.

Heroes who fought in the Battle of the Alamo

And where there is war, there are heroes and tributes to them. This is my sister on the lower left catching a picture of them.

There is so much I’d like to learn about Texas, and I hope to learn more. This part of the world is so different from where I live in Syracuse, NY, where it snowed this week. The temperature has been in the 80’s here this week.

To change gears, I leave you with two poems I wrote this week. I hope you like them. The first is about an old rundown house.

A NEGLECTED HOUSE 

Under the porch
live a family 
of skunks.
I see them out 
around dusk.

Grey squirrels 
Have left
their old home
In the trees,
for a chimney 
full of old eaves.

The house is in shambles,
the landscape’s gone wild
but birds are at home
in those brambles,

It’s true 
it’s deserted
in sad disrepair,
but I wouldn’t say
nobody lives there. 

©Janice Scully 2023

The poem below is about the change of seasons, always my favorite time.

I’M MOST HAPPY

in the Cusp 
between seasons— 

The cool Spring rain 
before the Summer heat,

when Summer dons 
a cardigan for Fall.

and Fall shivers
into icy Winter.

then winter dissolves into 
flowery spring. 

It’s these cusps
I like the most, by far
when the world 
feels most
like a tuned guitar. 

© Janice Scully 2023

Have a great weekend. Thank you, Tabatha, for hosting Poetry Friday.

Fall/ early Winter on a beach in Portugal

“Nudge” and Peer Pressure

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Carol at Beyond Literacy. Make sure you stop buy and see what poetry she is sharing today. Thank you, Carol for hosting.

Would you like to know more about Poetry Friday? Look HERE.

Laura Shovan’s February Facebook Poetry Project is in full swing and the group, including me, are spending a lot of time writing new poems! The emersion has been lots of fun.

I picked up this book this week, by Richard H. Thaler, an economist, and Cass R. Sunstein, a social scientist. I’m sure many readers here have heard of NUDGE. I’ve been reading the new, and final, edition.

Since women’s rights in Iran have been in the news lately, I’ll mention a study I read of in this book about women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, in a chapter entitled “Following the Herd.”

As many people know, in Saudia Arabia women in the past have been subject to a custom called “guardianship,” where women can work outside the home only if their husbands allow it. I had always assumed that most men in that country supported guardianship. But assumptions can be tested.

A researcher named Leonardo Bursztyn decided to actually study if young husbands in that country supported the guardianship custom.

THE STUDY:

The researchers interviewed a group of young husbands in Saudia Arabia and asked them whether or not it was right for women to participate in the labor force.

He learned that the overwhelming majority of young husbands answered, “yes.”

Then, Bursztyn divided the same group of husbands in half and revealed the results of his study to half of the men.

Four months later, the wives of the men who had received the information about the majority of other men’s beliefs, that it’s OK for women to work, were applying and interviewing for jobs. The men had changed their views after finding out the views of other men.

Here’s the bottom line they discovered about social norms:

” . . . if people wrongly think that most people are committed to a long standing social norm, a small nudge correcting that misperception can inaugurate large-scale change.” (NUDGE P. 82)

In this book, I also I learned that if you want to nudge people to do the right thing, for instance, to vote, or use a towel more than once, or even pay their taxes, it’s helpful to use peer pressure. People will often do things because they know others LIKE THEM are doing it. Here’s a short poem inspired by the possibility of getting more young people to vote.

PEER PRESSURE

If you want teens
to vote,

don’t tell them
about those
who fail to vote.

Don't complain about
all the non-voters. 

Instead,
remind teens
of all those

JUST LIKE THEM

who did vote. 

© Janice Scully 2023

Here’s some facts about youth voting.

I hope this all made sense. Have a great weekend!

A Welcome February Poems

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Laura Shovan on her blog Here. Thank you for hosting, Laura!

This month I’m participating in Laura’s 11th February Poetry Project on Facebook, for the first time. So glad there was a spot left. I was a little nervous anticipating the first prompt to appear on the screen, but it’s been fun. It will keep me writing everyday, reading others’ work, and I know I will discover new ideas and poems.

Below are two poems about February, the first, a lovely one by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts, born in 1860. I think it’s lovely.

THE BROOK IN FEBRUARY
by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

A snowy path for squirrel and fox,
It winds between the wintry firs.
Snow-muffled are its iron rocks,
And o'er its stillness nothing stirs.

But low, bend low a listening ear!
Beneath the mask of moveless white
A babbling whisper you shall hear—
Of birds and blossoms, leaves and light.

And, thinking that each month has something good to offer, I wrote this:

WELCOME FEBRUARY

January was Glorious,
though landscapes were Spartan,
I love New Year parties 
and honoring Martin.

But more good is coming.
I'm already thinking
about groundhogs,
lace hearts
and Abraham Lincoln.

© Janice Scully

Happy February! Happy Groundhogs Day!

Triolet: The British Baking Show

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Marcie’s blog, Here. Thank you for hosting. Make sure to stop by to check out what she has for us this week.

Each morning, after I hear what is going on in the world, I try not to dwell on the news, for obvious reasons, and just try to be a good citizen.

I’ve been reading novels lately. ( I just read FAMILY LIFE, a 2014 novel by Akhil Sharma which was fabulous, about a young boy in an immigrant family from India and their life in the U.S. It’s a sad story but a page turner, the writing poetic.) I linked the New York Times Review.

So what can I share this week, poetry wise?

Sometimes in the evening I watch the British Baking Show, hosted by Paul Hollywood, of course. I imagine being a contestant. I am sure I would be sent home by the judges the first day of the ten day competition.

I wrote a triolet last week and described the form. So this week, for fun, I honed my craft further with another one.

BRITISH BAKING DREAMS

Today I watched the Baking Show--
the judges mostly kind.
Who knew that salt makes yeast grow slow!
Today I watched the Baking Show.
What is it like to overproof the dough,
then stand and feel maligned?
I watched the British Baking Show,
the judges mostly kind.

© Janice Scully

Have a great weekend!

TRIOLET: Morning Walk

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Susan, on her blog Chicken Spaghetti. Thank you, Susan, for hosting!

What is Poetry Friday? Find out here. It’s a great way to get to know other poets and others who love poetry.

Yesterday I was walking and saw this very common winter sight:

A barren forsythia in winter.

A bare tree. But since it is January, I began to think about spring and how everything will change in a few months. It’s not too early to start to think ahead. After all, days are slowly getting longer and there is no going back.

So since yesterday I tried to capture this bare shrub in a poem, and chose a French form known as the triolet. Some examples can be found here, including examples by poets Laura Purdie Salas and Amy Ludwig Vanderwater. If you are not familiar with this eight line form, it’s described nicely here, at a Masterclass site.

Below are the characteristics of each line. The first two lines are repeated in the last two lines.

Writing a Triolet:

1. The first line (A)
2. The second line (B)
3. The third line rhymes with the first (a)
4. Repeat the first line (A)
5. The fifth line rhymes with the first (a)
6. The sixth line rhymes with the second line (b)
7. Repeat the first line (A)
8. Repeat the second line (B)

After a few tries, and several hours, after discarding “tree” and “bush” for for “shrub,” which seemed more interesting, I came up with this:

Morning Walk

By the road a flowering shrub,
branches cold and bare,
in wintertime, ignored and snubbed,
by the road a flowering shrub.
Like a member of a dormant club
that seems without a care,
by the road a flowering shrub
branches cold and bare. 

© Janice Scully (draft)

Here’s a picture of the direction we are headed. You get the idea. I don’t know what kind of flower this is. Does anyone know? I don’t believe it is forsythia.

Happy Winter to you all from cloudy Upstate New York!

Your Wondrous Liver

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Catherine Flynn Here. Make sure you stop by and find out what she has up her sleeve for us this week. Thank you for being the first host of the year!

What is Poetry Friday? Learn more HERE.

I’ve had a reset with the new year. I’ve have returned to a few manuscripts that have been dormant for a while, with new eyes. One is a manuscript of poetry about the non-fiction topic DIGESTION, of all things.

My plan was two years ago to write a poem about “Team Digestion” that is, all the organs involved in this important endeavor. I was thinking perhaps that kids about seven might like to know where their food goes and that I might have fun writing about it. Also, no matter where you live or who you are, what happens to your food is always the same.

It was fun.

Anyway, I wrote poems, in several different forms, some of them I really like, some not so much, along with non-fiction notes to go with each.

But with this new year, I decided a prose picture book story about digestion is more suited to the topic, not to mention, way more publishable. I’ve revised and written a manuscript that I am much more excited about, more fun to read, and it captures the teamwork involved in digestion.

You’ll have to take my word for it.

But I have poems that I can share. Below is an etheree about a very important part of the team. It’s the mastermind, the liver, that takes all the thoroughly digested nutrients from the busy small intestine, and puts them together to make all the proteins and other things the body needs to grow.

An etheree is a ten line poem that starts with one syllable and ends with ten syllables. Each line grows by one syllable.

LOOKS DON’T TELL MY WHOLE STORY

Red
silent
sentinel
never asleep
lord of the belly
lounging like a walrus
in the right upper corner
Some things do not look impressive,
yet do the unimaginable.
Such is the case with the wondrous liver. 

© Janice Scully 2023

I’ll close with short two liner about the Gall Bladder. Have a great Weekend!

WHAT IS A GALL BLADDER?

This organ is the pear shaped bin
your liver stores its bile in.

© Janice Scully 2023

Human liver with gallbladder, duodenum and pancreas isolated vector illustration

Rocks and Socks

Welcome to the last Poetry Friday of 2022, this week hosted by poet Patricia Franz Here. Thank you for hosting, Patricia! Make sure you check in and see what Patricia has for us this week!

Because of a car trip to our relatives, and idle time in a car, I have been knitting a pair of socks. Because it’s small, a sock project is easy to bring along. What does this have to do with poetry?

A year ago, I was thinking of possible writing projects and considered using pairs of words that rhymed. Socks and rocks were two of the words I thought of. What did they have in common? Was there a poem there?

Would these two rhyming words yield humor? I had no idea if anyone but me would see opportunity here. Anyway, about rocks and socks I came up with a poem. I revised my initial attempt and like it better. I hope we all find ideas to inspire us over this new year.

ROCKS and SOCKS

Two words rhyme, 
four letters the same.

Rocks--hard, 
scattered on beaches and trails,
spewed from volcanoes
in a hot molten blurs.
I wonder:
What is Earth made of?
What are fossils?

Socks-- soft.
Who invented them? 

Perhaps the first knitter
walked on rocks
stole four letters 
and made two socks. 

©Janice Scully 2022

Happy New Year! Until at least April, I wish you all a sturdy pair of socks. Thank you Patricia for hosting!

Carl Sandburg’s PHIZZOG

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the lovely talented poet, Irene Latham HERE. Make sure you stop by to see what Irene has for us this week.

Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Get your questions answered HERE.

Because it’s the holidays and I recently traveled, I found myself looking at too many pictures of me and deleting many. I thought of being human and our personal relationship to the ever present and ever changing face we each carry around.

There I was, smiling in front of ancient buildings, at a Thanksgiving party with relatives, posing with my son in California. It’s surprised me how much I look like both my parents. It’s difficult to describe, but a variety of emotions welled up.

I discovered Carl Sandburg wrote a poem that resonated. It was in this book, and the poem was originally published in 1930:

PHIZZOG
by Carl Sandburg

This face you got,
This here phizzog you carry around,
You never picked it out for yourself, at all, at all--did
     you?
This here phizzog--somebody handed it to you--am I 
     right?
Somebody said, "Here's yours, now go see what you can 
     do with it."
"No goods exchanged after
     being taken away"--
This face you got.

This poem is sweet and funny. No goods exchanged, indeed!

Happy Holidays to everyone!! Hopefully the arctic weather doesn’t preclude my family from traveling four hours to see my husband’s sister for Christmas. We’ll all take our phizzogs with us for photos and celebrate Christmas and the end of 2022. We are lucky we have the freedom to do so. God bless the people of Ukraine.

An Amazing Holiday Swap gift

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Karen Edminsten HERE. Thank you Karen, for hosting! Drop by to what she is sharing this week.

Look HERE if you would you like to know more about Poetry Friday.

It is fun to get a mystery gift in the mail! So much fun, it really should happen more often! When I received my holiday swap gift from Linda Mitchell, I was busy and had forgotten, I think, that Christmas would be here soon. I’d forgotten swap time was near.

I puzzled over this bulging envelop that appeared in my mailbox for a moment before I opened it. What could this be?

Inside I found a so called “Junk journal” with all sorts of treasures spilling out from it, which made it hardly junk.

I found a package of cut out words to be used as “poem seeds,” various collage pictures, such as stars made of paper,

and, of course, poetry.

This acrostic poem by Linda came with it:

And another wonderful poem was also inside, entitled “Today’s Poem Offers”:

TODAY'S POEM OFFERS

A bumper crop of stars
fresh from the fields
of Falling Star Farms

Stars heaped up high
sparkly with dew
fresh-picked by me
ready for you

Fill a bag, fill a basket
your pockets too
with all these good wishes
my star harvest holds for you

by Linda Mitchell, 2022

My new little journal, put me in the holiday mood, so I wrote this in response:

CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

comes from the heart,
arrives in December-
a surprise when it starts.

You think you aren't ready
the Grinch has your ear,
but when it takes hold
it can light a new year.

© Janice Scully 2022

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas! And may the holiday spirit last well into the New Year.

Portugal and a Portugese Poet

Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Catherine Flynn HERE. Thank you for hosting, Catherine. I look forward to what she will be sharing this week. I saw her and Patricia Franz who is another Poetry Friday blogger, and other poetry friends last evening on line. We are attending the first week of a Georgia Heard workshops. The topic? Poetry collections!

My husband and I returned a week ago from a long planned, covid delayed, trip to Spain and Portugal, both countries beautiful,

The Duoro valley in Portugal, where they grow grapes for their famous Port wine.

with gorgeous cities and art such as the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. In his masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, still being built, have windows that make the inside spaces glow with extraordinary color, like it was, I swear, radioactive.

Here’s a selfie of me with the city of Toledo, built on a solid granite hill, a river on three sides and buildings full of Jewish, Arab, and Christian influences. Behind me, far below, is the river and the city rising above.

People were friendly everywhere we went.

This young man named João in a university town called Cuimbra, (pronounced queem-bra) was happy to discuss the famous Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, suggest a book, and chat about Portugal.

I bought the following book from Joao, and in it I sought to discover who Fernando Pessoa was. He baffled me. According to the editor Richard Zenith, Pessoa was known for writing from the personas of many people that he created, that were part of him.

“His point of view was eloquently expressed by his . . . self-multiplication, into dozens of literary personalities whose names signed a large part of his sprawling output.” Richard Zenith

FOREVER SOMEONE ELSE; Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa, edited by Richard Zenith

So in this book, you will find poems written by names Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Alvaro De Campos, poets all created by Pessoa. He was like a playwright writing characters who speak from their own separate selves.

Pessoa wrote about his created characters, “The Author . . . cannot affirm that all these different well-defined personalities who have incorporeally passed through his soul don’t exist, for he doesn’t know what it means to exist, nor whether Hamlet or whether Shakespeare is more real, or truly real”

So what small piece of the work can I share that might interest young people as well as adults to know more? Pessoa wrote the following accessible and beautiful poem through the poet, Ricardo Reis:

To be great, be whole: don't exaggerate
       Or leave out any part of you.
Be complete in each thing. Put all you are
       Into the least of your acts.
So too in each lake, with its lofty life,
       The whole moon shines.

I love the image of a moon in a lake that make the poem come to life.

It would take a while to get to know the many sides of Fernando Pessoa.

Below is my husband, Bart, with a sweet 19-year old waiter in a small lunch place. It’s easy to tell who is who. Everyone we met seemed to love their families and country. This young man said he wouldn’t leave as he would miss Lisbon, his family and especially, it seemed, the food. The grilled octopus and Bachalhau (codfish) were delicious.

I hope everyone enjoys the holidays. Thank you, Catherine, for hosting.