It’s Poetry Friday this week hosted by Laura Shovan here. Thank you Laura for hosting.
Tonight, July first, my husband, my visiting son and I were invited, by my other son, to an event. At NBT Stadium in Syracuse the Syracuse Mets, our local team and the farm team for the New York Mets, were playing. I confess I am not an avid fan of baseball games. But happy to do something out in the world together with my family, the four of us all went. I was glad I did. It was a lovely, cool summer night and we sat behind home base and met others as happy as we were to be there.
NBT Stadium in Syracuse home of the Syracuse Mets
Inky blue black sky
over a chartreuse diamond--
The Mets showing off.
There was only a small reminder in the elevator of the pandemic.
Our baseball mascot
cavorting in his fur suit--
inspires wellness.
As New York is 70% vaccinated, I saw no face masks. The night normal, as normal as possible given what we’ve been through. The chocolate ice cream was delicious.
I wrote two haiku here to share, posted above. But lots of baseball poetry has been written for kids. Sylvia Vardell’s 2007 post here provides a wonderful list of books of baseball poetry.
I hope all of you enjoy many evenings this summer with friends and family. I’m hoping for vaccinations to continue and the pandemic to be OVER.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Linda Mitchell here. Thank you Linda for hosting!
Not long ago, after the snow melted and spring was on the way, I stopped at Woodstock, NY, on my way home from a family visit. This creek runs through town.
Woodstock is not where the famous 1969 music festival was held. That was Bethel, NY, but Woodstock is an arts community, with craft shops and an independent bookstore. There I found this wonderful 2021 anthology of poems entitled, 100 POEMS TO BREAK YOUR HEART, edited by Edward Hirsch who is a poet and a teacher. Though it is not about poetry “mostly for children,”as in my blog title, I do think that some older adolescents might enjoy and learn from this book.
Hirsch has chosen one hundred stunning poems, most I’ve never heard of, and gives us a brief history of the poet and discusses why each poem continues to stir readers’ emotions.
Poet Edward Thomas was a young man, born in 1878, who loved walking and studying nature. I discovered him in this book and found this lovely photo on Wikipedia.
Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
Thomas is known today for his war poems. “The Owl” was written in February 1915 after the start of World War l. Still a civilian, with great empathy he describes the comforts of food, fire and rest during one evening, knowing these are things that soldiers and unfortunate others, are not able to enjoy that night.
THE OWL
by Edward Thomas (1915)
Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.
Then at the inn had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry cold, and tired was I,
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry
Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others couldn't, that night, as in I went.
And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
Three months later, Thomas joins the British Army, and two years later, died during a shell blast.
There are a few interesting craft notes that Hirsch brought to my attention. One is the owl’s cry which recalls the owl in Shakespeare’s LOVE’S LABOUR LOST. But in contrast to the Bard’s owl with its “merry note”, Thomas’ owl is melancholy.
Also the owls cry is introduced at the last line of the second stanza and the stanza break extends it’s effect with, “Shaken out long and clear upon the hill.”
The last line of the third stanza, which Hirsch describes as “an important hinge” to the poem, is eleven syllables. All the rest in the poem are ten. A hinge because it introduces the “others” that Thomas is thinking of.
In the fourth stanza, the word “salted” is a wonderful word that can simply make us think of seasoning in food, but also brings to mind tears, and sadness the author feels thinking of all those others outside the inn where he finds comfort.
This poem broke my heart. Hirsch discusses THE OWL, and many others, in a clear and accessible way.
Happy Poetry Friday, today hosted by Buffy Silverman Here. I know Buffy loves wildlife, so maybe she and others will enjoy seeing a snapshot of the fox that often wanders through our yard. Today, he posed with his dinner, as if unsure what to do, then shortly after the photo was taken, grabbed his fresh catch and ran off. I love the shape and color of this lovely creature, but always stay away when he appears.
I love middle grade humor and one of the funniest books I know is Roald Dahl’s THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX. I’ve written about humor previously, a topic close to my heart. I’m sure many of the teachers post on Poetry Friday or stop by, and their students are fans of Roald Dahl. I think that perhaps the author might have seen a creature like the one above with a similar face and whimsical tail, and was inspired to write this story.
The main character, Mr. Fox, is endlessly clever and determined to steal food. The antagonists, three greedy farmers, are equally as clever as well as mean, and are determined to keep him away from their farms. The conflict makes for a great deal of humor.
I hope everyone is enjoying summer, are well and getting some fresh air.
My posts have been a little shorter with the summer. Have been out and about as much as I can and seeing friends and enjoying my post-vaccination freedom here in Upstate NY. I hope restrictions are loosening up elsewhere.
The novel in verse, EVERYWHERE BLUE, BY JOANNE ROSSMASSLER FRITZ, published this year by Holiday House deserves another shout out. On 4/22/21, Jone Macculoch posted an excellent interview with the author here if you want to know more about this talented poet.
What I loved most about this book was the musical terms and feeling that coursed through the novel from first page to last. For instance, the book is divided into four parts and each part is named by a musical term: Diminuendo, Adagio, Staccato, and the last is Crecendo. Like a piece of music, the plot and tension builds through poetry.
The novel begins with this poem:
(this is just the first part)
NOVEMBER
November pulls me down.
Like a diminuendo in music,
gradually dying away.
Darkness falls too early
and the chill creeps in.
Before dusk,
before we learn the truth
about my brother,
this day plays out
like any ordinary day,
a symphony of sameness.
Just the way I like it.
The twelve year-old oboe playing main character, Madrigal, faces a problem: her brother, named Strum, has disappeared from college. This is discovered early on and the rest of the book kept me on edge. It’s a mystery, and the author tells the story in poems, mostly free verse, but peppered with carefully crafted and well placed forms such as villanelle, couplets and haiku. As the mystery of the missing brother plays out, we get to know Madrigal’s parents and sibs as they attempt, each in their own way, to deal with this mysterious loss.
Chekov said that happy families are all alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. By the end of the novel, we understand what it is in this particular family that has caused it to be troubled.
I won’t, of course, reveal how this plot resolves, but the ending gives us hope, and this is a family we like, grow to understand, and in which we see ourselves. I love that in the end, we see Madrigal, who has struggled with playing her oboe, finds more feeling in her music as her family heals.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, hosted this week by Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche. Not only is she sharing some of her own awesome poems, you will also find an amazing photo by Jone Macculoch. Don’t miss them! Thank you, Margaret, for hosting.
I’m a little late this week. Hope everyone has had a good beginning of June. Today I’m sharing a photo from Cardiff, Whales. I have never seen an art project like this! It was taken by Mari, a friend of a friend, came upon it and who has given me permission to share it. Thank you, Mari! I wonder who thought up such a fanciful display.
Welcome to Poetry Friday! Today it’s hosted by the multitalented Michelle Kogan Here at More Art 4 All. Be sure to stop by and see what art and poetry Michelle has for us!
I really enjoyed and was touched by all the poems celebrating Mary Lee last week upon her retirement from teaching.
Today I’m sharing a short video I took on a whale watch in Gloucester. It was a windy, beautiful day. Because of Covid, the number of people on board the boat was limited, so it was pleasantly uncrowded. You never know when a whale will surface, but I managed to capture a mom and her calf, making the four hour trip well worth it.
After the trip, I felt silly that I was actually a little scared of going on a whale watch having recently read Moby Dick.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, Today hosted by Christie at Wondering and Wondering. Thank you for hosting, Christie! Stop by for a celebration of the amazing poet and educator Mary Lee Hahn.
This week I went to Gloucester, MA, to dog-sit a friend’s dog named Patrick. I was looking forward to it because I have not cared for a pet in a long time and this was an opportunity to see the ocean and make a new friend. My husband came too and we fell in love with this thirteen year-old golden retriever. Fortunately for us, he had a schedule and all we had to do was follow it and keep him company for a week.
I felt sad leaving him today and I’m back home in Upstate NY, but grateful to have a new friend. I thought he deserved a thank you poem.
Welcome to Poetry Friday! We are hosted today by Irene Latham HERE. Thank you for hosting, Irene! Be sure to stop by and see what she has in store for us. Also, I would like to announce the BOOK GIVEAWAY WINNER:
Carol Varsalona has won a copy of D-39: A ROBODOG’S JOURNEY, a new novel in verse by Irene Latham. Congratulations, Carol!
No, just a bit of Syracuse history and not a happy bit of history. I discovered an event that fascinated me not just because it was shocking, but that it has been so totally forgotten.
As parts of America became less rural and people crowded into cities, certain dangers cropped up that would be addressed with new laws to protect the public health. For instance, in 1841, gun powder usually stored in a lonely barn in the country, could be found stored in a crowded city neighborhood.
I had never heard of the Syracuse Gunpowder Explosion. It happened in the evening of August 20, 1841, and unless you are like me and visit the Onondaga County Historical Association, you wouldn’t have known about it.
This is NOT a picture of the 1841 fire, but it might have looked like this for a moment.
The stage was set when William Malcolm of Malcolm and Hudson Hardware, needed a place to store his 625 pounds (27 kegs) of gunpowder. Mr. Going, a man who owned a sawdust filled carpentry shop on the second floor of a two story wooden building on the busy Erie Canal, agreed. Bad idea, right? Due to the Canal, sleepy Syracuse had become a bustling town of 12,000 in 1841.
A week later at 9PM a man living nearby noticed a fire in the carpentry shop. He alerted the neighbors and the volunteer fire department. Crowds formed. Firefighters responded with usual horse drawn carriages and hand operated pumps to fight the flames. Few knew about the powder in the shop. But someone did, and yelled, “Powder! Powder! There is powder in the building!” The crowd didn’t pay attention.
Soon, an immense explosion burst upwards into the sky and shook the earth for about five seconds. All the wooden buildings nearby were burned to the ground. In the silence afterward, came moans and screams of injured people. This anonymous poem was written soon after.
"The awful scene like lightening
gleam,
And thunder, through the
place,
With cries and groans and
piteous moans,
Brought tears from every
face . . .
Numerous procession for the
grave
Now darken every street;
O, death what havoc hast
thou made!
How many hearts did weep!"
Twenty-six people, including children, and six fire fighters died and over 60 injured. Being a doctor, this shocked me as I imagined the mayhem. There were no hospitals in Syracuse. The burned and injured were simply taken home.
Since I read about them, I thought I would remember the killed and injured. We do have to move on, and we always do. As a people we forget. But I feel indebted to all of them for the federal laws today that would have made it against the law for Mr. Malcolm to store his gunpowder so carelessly in a busy city. Much of public health is common sense safety, as we have learned during the pandemic.
Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by poet Bridget McGee HERE at Wee Words for Wee Ones. Thank you Bridget for hosting! Be sure to stop by her blog and see what poetry musings she has for us this week.
Are you interested in winning a copy of Irene Latham’s fabulous new MG novel in verse? If so, please LEAVE A COMMENT AT THE END OF THIS POST by 5/10/21.
Irene Latham
There are many things to look forward to in 2021. One of them is the release of a Irene Latham’s newest and fast-moving novel, D-39: A Robodog’s Journey. Look for it this month, on May 21st.
The novel is written in prose poems, some divided into stanzas. The prose poem form lends itself to narrative, but it also supports Irene Latham’s playful language, full of newly minted compound words, and a main character’s voice full of energy, humor and other-worldly qualities.
Klynt Tovis, the protagonist and hero of this story is a twelve year-old girl. In the first poem of the book, like any first page of a novel, we learn just enough to spark our interest and keep us quickly turning pages to see what will happen. (FYI: In the novel, you will find the margins justified right and left, so the poems are rectangular in shape on each page. I couldn’t reproduce that here, but you get the idea.)
Hey Hi Ho ThereIt’s me, Klynt Tovis, coming to you live from a looganut farm in the Worselands.
I click the button on the ham, ears alert
for a reply. I’m not supposed to talk to
strangers, even on an old ham radio-
especially now that even low-power
unlicensed broadcasts are against the law.
But now that I’ve unburied myself from
the heap of wires and metal parts in my
room, and now that I’ve finally gotten
a signal, how can I not try it? Besides,
does it really count if no one is around
to listen?
What does this poem tell us? For one thing, Klynt greets us “Hey Hi Ho There.” This greeting is surprising and welcoming. Who wouldn’t want to know the person who greets you like this?
Then:
“It’s me, Klynt Tovis, coming to you live from a looganut farm in the worse lands.”
With this sentence we understand that we are in a different kind of place. She lives on a farm but what and where is Worselands? And what are looganuts? We are not the present or the past, at least in any recognizable world. The story seems to be taking place in the future.
We read along about the “old ham radio,” that she is trying to use even though it is “against the law.” This is an important clue into Klynt’s character. She has grit and is willing to do what she must, even break the law, to do what she must do.
In the following poems, we see what our main character wants. These are big wants, not trivial. A terrible war has separated her and her father from her mother. She wants them to be reunited. The other thing is she wants more than anything is to keep D-39, a robodog she discovers in the barn.
Why did the author chose to write this novel in prose poems? I quote from her:
“I chose to present this story in prose poems because each poem acts as a burrow, offering readers a safe place to experience invented words and a dystopian reality. The technique of using the last words of one poem to serve as the title of the next poem is a variation on a traditional “crown” of sonnets—because in Klynt’s world, the old is often bumping up against the new.“
The poems do feel like burrows full of interesting words and images. I love that the last word of each poem provides a seed for the next. The poems read like scenes that move this powerful narrative along. The narrative is tight, well constructed, which is helped by this form, in my opinion.
In terms of conflict and story, the obstacles Klynt faces in the beginning are relatively minor, such as disagreement with Dad over her new found pet.
But Irene Latham knows how to get a character into very bad trouble. The war escalates. and Klynt fights, to stay alive, to keep D-39 safe, and to undertake a dangerous winter’s journey’s North to find her mother. Will she succeed in reuniting her family? Will she and her beloved D-39 survive the war? And the ending occurs as it does in any well constructed plot: It is surprising and inevitable. Readers won’t be disappointed.
Don’t forget to comment at the end for a chance to win a copy of D-39: A Robodog’s Journey.
Have a great weekend and thank you again, Bridget, for hosting this week’s Poetry Friday!
It’s Poetry Friday, today, hosted by poet Matt Ersenwine HERE. Be sure to stop by and see what he has for us today. Thank you, Matt, for hosting.
A Clerihew is poetry for everyone. It’s a short comic or nonsensical verse, typically in two rhyming couplets with lines of unequal length and referring to a famous person. The form was begun by Edmund Clerihew Bentley in 1875 as a schoolboy:
Edmund Clerihew Bentley Said “I like my name immensely But sometimes when I’ve had a few I call myself Edmund Bentley Clerihew”
As you can tell, a clerihew is a short comic or nonsensical verse, typically in two rhyming couplets with lines of unequal length and referring to a famous person. I’ll add this as guidance:
I have written a Clerihews before about two First Ladies, Michelle Obama and Dolley Madison Here.
I’ve added two more this week to my small collection to thank the President and Vice President, on the night of his first State of the Union address and at the end their first 100 days I office.
I don’t think I have never felt such gratitude towards a president and Vice President, for their calming voices, how they include everyone, and the way they’ve helped us fight the pandemic. I can’t believe how pleasant and human they are! For that, they both deserve clerihews and even more, maybe a sonnet, sestina or a villenelle. But I’ll stick to the clerihew.
THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT
A slog through the mud, it’s seemed that way, Joe,
Perhaps there is someone you would like to celebrate with a clerihew. If you do sometime, please share them. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying a little more freedom the vaccines are making possible. Last night we had our son over for dinner. Today I had coffee out with a friend, sat at tables, socially distanced, but we took our masks off. I hadn’t done this in a year!
