Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Matt Here. Thank you, Matt for hosting! Be sure to check out what he has for us this week.
Leaves outside my door this morning.
It’s starting to look a lot like Halloween, and I’ve begun thinking about an anticipating witches and brooms.. On my computer, I have several versions of a poem inspired by a hard-working porch broom that, in autumn, was especially busy what with everything “falling.” As you can tell, it is an epistolary poem.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Sarah Grace Tuttle, Here. Thank you, Sarah, for hosting! Be sure to stop by to see what she has for us this week.
I was browsing in a book store today and saw a book I already own by Bill Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” I had used this book in a previous post on supernovae HERE. I sat with a coffee and read a chapter entitled “Lonely Planet,” that begins:
"It isn't easy being an organism. In the whole universe, as far as we yet know, there is only one place, an inconspicuous outpost of the Milky Way called Earth, that will sustain you, and even it can be pretty grudging." Bill Bryson p. 239
Lucky circumstances make it possible for us to be alive and thrive on Earth. Importantly, we are just the right location from the sun. Any closer, we’d burn up. Any farther we’d freeze.
Earth also has the right elements, such as oxygen, sodium, potassium, iron, and many others that we need to survive.
Our molten liquid interior apparently is a big plus. First, it helped produce the gasses in our precious atmosphere and it creates a magnetic field that protects us from cosmic radiation.
Our large moon, a quarter of the diameter compared to Earth, in it’s close proximity keeps Earth from “wobbling like a top.”
The perfection we see all around us in nature is the result of all the above fortunate happenings.
I have been writing a series of Villanelles to become more familiar with the form. So here’s one inspired by Bill Bryson and Planet Earth.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, today hosted by Tabatha Yeatts HERE. Thank you, Tabatha for hosting. It’s a cool sunny beautiful day in Upstate New York. I have been thinking, as are many, about the storm in Florida and hope that people who need it find food and shelter and stay safe.
This week I quilted a small table runner for my sister who just moved to San Antonio, Texas. I made it by piecing different prints of fabric in stripes until I liked the way it looked. It was not difficult, but it was fun to arrange the patterns next to one another.
It was like moving words and lines around in a poem. I am currently reading HOW POEMS GET MADE, by James Longenbach, who teaches in Rochester, NY, published in 2018. ( Bear with me. Sometimes I write a blog post so I understand something better. It just might be the case here.)
Trust me, it a lot more challenging reading this heady book than making my little table runner, placing fabric pieces where I want them. But in this book the author showed me, in a concrete example, how the placement of a word in the right place can make a difference in the tone in a poem. I already knew that, but I felt it more clearly after reading his chapter on “tone.”
Longenbach gives us an example to think about, of a simple sentence written three ways. The bold-printed word in each version is to be accentuated.
You said that?
You said that?
You said that?
We see the same sentence, but the tone of each line is different depending on which word gets the accent. It’s fun to perform these three versions like an actor: horrified, or curious, or in an angry tone.
Now, given that accents can change tone, a poet in the process of writing a poem must decided where to place a word that she wants accentuated. Longenbach gives us the example of a poem by William Carlos Williams to help us think about it. Here are the first two stanzas:
To A Poor Old Woman by William Carlos Williams
munching a plum on
the street a paperbag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her.
The rest of the poem can be read Here.
The first line of the second stanza feels satisfying. “They taste good to her.” But the next three lines, through enjambment of the line, we hear the same sentence five syllables differently. In line two, we read the word “good”as accentuated because it’s at the end of the line. In line three the word “taste” is accentuated because of where it appears at the end of the line. In general, a word at the end of a line gets noticed, and I can see it here. It alters the tone of what is being communicated.
I cannot describe it as well as professor Longenbach does, and I’ve greatly simplified the point, I am sure. But I understand perhaps better why enjambment and line endings are such important tools in any poets toolbox.
Just as I could have placed the fabric in my quilt a number of different ways to achieve a certain results. There are different ways to arrange words in a poem to achieve the accent and tone that you seek. I recommend this book if you want more than just the nuts and bolts of writing poetry.
Welcome to Poetry Friday! This week we are hosted by Rose HERE at her blog, Imagine the Possibilities. Thank you for hosting, Rose.
Take the blinders from your vision,
take the padding from your ears,
and confess you've heard me crying,
and admit you've seen my tears.
MAYA ANGELOU, Excerpt from her poem, "Equality."
After posting a villanelle last week I wrote a few more. I became familiar with the form, and found it useful to try again. But there were none that I liked enough to share this week. Que lastima!
I know I’m not the only Poetry Friday blogger who watched the Ken Burns documentary on America and the Holocaust. It’s well worth the time and I hope everyone sees it, especially kids old enough to understand. Watch it Here on PBS. I know more about America’s response to Nazi Germany.
First of all, Hitler used our Jim Crow South and the treatment of Native Americans as guidance on what to do about the Jews. Though the killing of thousands appeared in newspapers, readers thought it was a lie. And that was a convenient belief for the many just didn’t want to help Jews.
What comes to mind when we think about the Holocaust? Most Americans think of death in gas chambers. However, that was just one creative and efficient method used. There were endless methods used to murder thousands and thousands of Jewish men, women and little children. Guns, being thrown from heights, starvation, exhaustion, exposure. One writer said Nazi methods and depravity was “bottomless.”
Ken Burns shows us the details of how Nazi thinking evolved and the genocide was organized. Many Americans eventually, over several years, came to believe the murdering was really happening, but by 1944, it was too late for the four million had already been killed.
Because of the racism of members in Congress and the State Department, America didn’t help Jews for a long time, though, near the end, heroic individuals supported by our government stepped up to smuggle thousands of Jews out of Europe. Of course, we owe a debt to the soldiers who fought in the war.
I learned Charles Lindbergh, once an American hero to many, who in the 1940’s was eventually recognized as a Nazi sympathizer, created a slogan, “America First.”
Years later, in 2016, many probably might have thought that slogan was new, not a recycled, stale, failed boxcar to a dark chapter of our past.
Our children need to understand about white supremacy, Hitler and how all groups that are labeled “others” are treated. If they don’t, a Holocaust could happen again.
I am so grateful for our democracy and the efforts made by our President and others to keep it.
Thank you for reading! I am looking forward to a good weekend and hope you will have one too.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the talented poet and children’s author Kat Apel, who hails from Australia, HERE. Thank you for hosting! I look forward to seeing what’s new down under.
I got lost in enjoying the summer here in Central New York. So I allowed myself enjoy being outside and contemplate my writing ambitions. But in September, feeling a bit out of it, I was glad to attend a small Zoom meeting with Jone McCullough and a few other poetry friends.
It was awesome seeing everyone! We talked about the market and, yes, the difficulties therein, but also just enjoyed chatting and laughing. I need to get on-line more regularly because I miss seeing friends, hearing of submission opportunities, getting book recommendations and especially showing support for the kid-lit community.
So now I’m renewing my engagement in poetry. I discovered this 2021 craft book, HOW TO WRITE A FORM POEM, by Tania Runyan. There are many placed to learn about forms, but this is an excellent book, covering the nuts and bolts and a form might be useful.
So, I chose to write a Villanelle this week. Runyan suggested that waiting for something, anything, might bring to mind a villanelle. So I wrote about waiting to say goodbye to a loved one who lives far away.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone, HERE. Thank you, Molly, for hosting.
It’s August and I’m inundated on some days with vegetables from my generous neighbor, Mike’s, garden. When he knocks at my door, I know I better clear the afternoon of all planned activities. This week he brought beets, lettuce and squash, just picked. It’s an amazing gift.
I love the beet greens and the roots themselves, but I wonder what kids must think of them. Though pickled beets were served once upon a time in my family restaurant, I was loathe to touch them and didn’t. But, after growing up and trying fresh beets from a garden, well, I changed my tune.
I easily found a kid’s poem written about beets. Here’s the first stanza of a poem by Jack Prelutsky from NEW KID ON THE BLOCK. The full poem is HERE.
I'd Never Eat a Beet
by Jack Prelutsky (stanza 1)
I'd never eat a beet, because
I could not stand the taste,
I'd rather nibble drinking straws,
or fountain pens, or paste,
I'd eat a window curtain
and perhaps a roller skate,
but a beet, you may be certain
would be wasted on my plate.
Vegetables do lend themselves to humor. Did you ever wonder why? If you have a theory why, share it in the comments. Goofy shapes? The Colors? The fact that parents are always trying to get kids to eat them?
The words to the poem below came to mind after roasting some beets today.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Marcie, HERE. Thank you for hosting. It’s been a pleasant summer this year and I want to be outside as much as possible to attend concerts, visit a local Fingerlakes winery or two, visit state parks and read on my porch. Summer in New York is too short!!
My heart goes out to those impacted by flooding and fires across the country, driving more and more discussion and action on climate change.
I spent some time this week thinking about Linda Mitchell’s clunkers. She provided quite a list, some more impossible than others.
I decided to simply have fun with one of them, one that made me think about how each word in a sentence changes it, sometimes dramatically.
The clunker was: “We don’t want you to worry,”if you haven’t guessed. And it seems relevant as there is a lot of worry in our lives. So, how lovely to imagine a sincere “We don’t want you to worry,” rather than other imagined possible sentence endings.
Though I don’t do much gardening, I do have coneflowers and daisies coming up along the side of my house. They are beautiful this year. I also saw a monarch butterfly fluttering around the flowers, though it didn’t make it into the photo.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Mary Lee HERE. She has turned one of Lindas “clunkers” into delightful verse about green beans. Thank you, Mary Lee, for hosting!
Today I sat on my porch with a glass of iced coffee, water dripping from the glass, thinking about summer and the 92 degree heat, listening to the sounds of insects, imagining the heat rippling upward from my suburban street.
The heavy air bore down and the loud chirp of the crickets or cicadas in the trees did too, in peaked crescendoes.
I documented the day in haiku:
HEAT
rippling off asphalt
practically invisible—
searching for water
WATER
In all things alive.
Clear, cool, modest miracle
quietly cycles.
SUMMER SOUNDS
Sweltering back porch.
Leaves wave as cricket sounds flow
like ocean waters.
I wanted to celebrate the living things around me and the interdependence in nature that supports us.
Everything everyone does, day to day, involves water. Water is part of all that is alive and beautiful in the world. I am grateful for heat, too, appreciating as the temps rise how it is moderated so it doesn’t hurt us, balanced by water in lakes, rivers and oceans.
Below is Skaneateles Lake in the Fingerlakes, where I can practically see the water cycling and cooling the air. I recently read how, in the 1800’s, as America grew westward, acres of swamps and wetlands, considered useless and even dangerous, were destroyed to create farmland. White settlers moving out west didn’t appreciate the role wetlands play as thermostat. We know more now about the need for wetlands.
Skaneateles Lake in the Fingerlakes of New York State
On my road trip to California earlier this year, I passed through South Dakota, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and saw many hot places with few trees, endless rocks, and little water, like the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, or parts of the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
The Badlands
The Petrified Forest National Park
So I’m celebrating water and I know I’m not the only one feeling the urgency to protect our environment.
Welcome to Poetry Friday! We are well into July and today hosted by Jan at Birdseed Studio. Thank you, Jan, for hosting! Stop by and see what she has to offer us this week.
During Covid, I’ve pretty much done what I could to avoid getting sick. I have been vaccinated and boosted and avoided crowds. I traveled cross country in April without a problem. So when our oldest son from California asked us to meet him for three days in New York, we drove there.
But, I immediately had a feeling, immersed in the crowded sidewalks and restaurants, that things might be different here. I could imagine the virus everywhere.
And we came home with Covid. Our son, who recently had it, didn’t get reinfected.
Poor me! But though I regret being a link in the viral chain of transmission, for three days we had a happy visit. Vaccines and boosted, we weighed the pros and cons and took our chances. Four days after testing positive, we are feeling a lot better. We got away without serious consequences so far.
New York from our Hotel roof.
I was inspired to write this poem by my experience this week.
I often think how different the last two years would have been if the sick were not disappearing into ICU’s and if Covid had been a different disease.
What would have happened if it were the bubonic plague, which inspired poet John Davies in the early 1600’s to write stanzas like this, stanzas that conjured visions of “carcase-carriers,” and citizens flooding streets in fear, guards on the roads:
TRIUMPH OF DEATH
by John Davies
LONDON now smokes with vapors that arise
From his foule sweat, himselfe he so bestirres:
“Cast out your dead!” the carcase-carrier cries,
Which he by heapes in groundlesse graves interres.—
Now like to bees in summer’s heate from hives, 5
Out flie the citizens, some here, some there;
Some all alone, and others with their wives:
With wives and children some flie, all for feare!
Here stands a watch, with guard of partizans,
To stoppe their passages, or to or fro, 10
As if they were not men, nor Christians,
But fiends or monsters, murdering as they go.
Excerpt from "Triumph of Death" HERE
Well, we don’t have Bubonic plague and though we might have Covid still, there are reasonable remedies and more to come. Even having Covid, it feels less threatening at this moment to me than the threat to Democracy.
Now I’m telling myself, “Lighten up!” Really, I’m trying.
I hope everyone is healthy and all the teachers and librarians on Poetry Friday are enjoying what has been for some, at least here in Syracuse, a lovely summer.
Welcome to Poetry Friday. I’m the host this first Friday in July. I hope all of you are well and enjoying summer, in spite of all that’s going on. We must make sure to VOTE this November.
For some reason, my computer won’t allow me to comment on some posts. I will continue to try, but if you don’t see a comment from me, it doesn’t mean I’m not reading and learning from Poetry Friday posts.
I recently bought the book: BILL BRYSON: *A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, published in 2003.
Reading science never fails to inspire a poem, and this book did. I read in the first few pages about supernovae and learned in laywoman’s terms what they are. Here’s a definition from Bryson’s book:
“Subernovae occur when a giant star, one much bigger than our own Sun, collapses and then spectacularly explodes, releasing in an instant the energy of a hundred billion suns, burning for a time brighter than all the stars in its galaxy.” Star gazer and minister Robert Evans from Australia, who carefully searched for and discovered newly exploding supernovae from his back yard, stated that a supernova is “like a trillion hydrogen bombs going off at once.”
Of course, supernovoe are tremendously far away, so we see only specks of light.
How did he know he had found a newly exploded star? It seems so simple:
Unlike the light from older stars, light from a newly exploded star or supernova “occupies a point of space that wasn’t filled before.”
That’s it. New light in a space that wasn’t filled before. That’s the evidence he looked for. And he apparently was good at finding supernovae with his backyard telescope.
This YouTube video tells about Reverend Robert Evans, amateur astronomer:
So this week, as I sat on my porch behind the wall of leaves that surrounds it, this poem came to me.
A royalty free image of a supernova from Dreamstime.com. I doubt Robert Evans saw anything like this from his back yard telescope.
I’ll be away on Poetry Friday, but will catch up and hopefully comment on all the posts later in the weekend. Thank you all for stopping by. I appreciate every visitor.
