SALT CITY VERSE – Page 24 – Mostly Poetry for Children

Fog by Carl Sandburg

I woke one morning while I was away with my family in Vermont last week. Outside, the sky was white and mist settled down on the streets. It reminded me of one of a poem I love, FOG, by Carl Sandburg, written in 1916.

FOG

The fog comes in
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

What a perfect metaphor, fog as a living thing, a mysterious cat that creeps in, ever so slowly, opaque, finding a perch, and thinking about who know what. It leaves when it wants.

I wrote the following poem about ten years ago and was my attempt at using metaphor to describe a common winter phenomenon. Have you every lay in bed awake in the early morning when the snow plow passes?

THE SNOW PLOW

Rattles outside.
Gold lights flicker
in the early morning
like a watchman passing
with a lantern,

The lights circle
my bedroom wall
fade and vanish.
Later, out in the street--
boot prints.

© Janice Scully 2020

Happy New Year Everyone. January first is my favorite holiday, full of possibility and hope. I hope it’s a good year for everyone.

Thank you, Carol, for hosting at Carol’s Corner where you will find a poem that is perfect for the beginning of a new year.

A White Christmas

Thank you, Buffy Silverman, for hosting Poetry Friday and for your review of Liz Garton Scanlon’s excellent new picture book, ONE DARK BIRD.

Happy Holidays!

This week, I’ve been busy getting ready for Christmas and planning to visit my son next week, but not too busy to enjoy our white Christmas and to write a haiku.

It’s been beautiful here in Syracuse today. This photo is just outside my door: fresh snow on branches and gold Christmas lights.

A cacophony 
muffled in new fallen snow--
peace, this afternoon.

I wish everyone a peaceful Poetry Friday.

Christmas Knitting, Haiku and Presidents

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Elizabeth Steinglass. Make sure you stop by and read her amazing poem about the word “and.” It’s truly brilliant!

It’s getting closer to Christmas. I’ve been knitting rather furiously.

However, this gives me an excuse to watch the impeachment hearings and ignore all else. Though everyone says that most citizens are bored, I have found it fascinating.

I’ve especially enjoyed hearing the many very smart, reasonable, women representatives doing their duty.

So I listen and knit and use the mute button if there is too much yelling.

When I was a student at Vermont College I began to experiment with writing poetry on non-fiction topics. One project was to write a haiku about each American president. I wanted to find a “snapshot” of each life, something about them that interested me. Some snapshots were about small things, like John Quincy Adams’ skinny dipping. Other facts were about momentous things. Each haiku would be accompanied with a few factoids. What I ended up with was a mini-American history, of sorts, in snapshots, in haiku.

I will share the one I wrote about Andrew Johnson, the 17th president (1865-1869), who was the first President to be impeached.

Andrew Johnson

As a nation mourned
A proud tailor took the oath--
cranking back the clock.

Andrew Johnson, who was Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President, would lead the reconstruction, or rebuilding of the South. He was a tailor. Unfortunately, he was Lincoln’s opposite. As if looking backward from the man he followed, Johnson called slaves “savages” and believed they should not be citizens. The House drafted eleven articles of impeachment against him, based on differences he had with the Congress, but he was acquitted by the Senate.

I loved this project. I read about each president, watched videos about them, found a focus and wrote a haiku. Degregorio’s The Complete Book of the U.S. Presidents informed me. The presidents from the distant past were much easier to write haikus about than the ones I knew in real time.

I might as well finish this post with two others :

Richard Nixon

He strove to befriend
Mao Tse Tung--but his real foes
dwelled inside his head. 


William Clinton

An embarrassing
public debate--we explored
our lesser angels.

Both men were better known to us than Andrew Johnson. Here’s to the holidays and our all too human presidents.

Poems of Gratitude

It’s Poetry Friday and it’s being hosted by Tanita S. Davis at fiction, instead of lies. Thank you, Tanita! On her December 3rd blog post, you can sign up for the “New Year’s Poetry Challenge.” Check it out!

Though my work has been published in Highlights for Children and other magazines, I thought I would share my poem, First Responder, which was included in THANKU: POEMS OF GRATITUDE, edited by Miranda Paul. The illustrations by Marlena Myles are stunning. The thirty two poems by diverse and talented poets, such as Naomi Shihab Nye, Charles Waters, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Renée LaTulippe, to name just a few, are written in a different form. I knew what a tanka and a found poem was, but a fibonacci poem was new to me, as were others, and each form is clearly described. It’s a useful resource for students of poetry.

The poem I wrote is an hyperbole. I began this poem at a Highlights poetry workshop as a prompt by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard. They are great and kind teachers. In my poem, “First Responder,” I exaggerated and elevated the purpose of an every day, ordinary, object:

FIRST RESPONDER

Like an ambulance on my desk,
waiting to fix a torn page
or a broken book.

At my service,
armored helper,
cradling a bold, circular
heart, ready
for any emergency,
holding still

for the yank
and the quick rip
of a smooth piece that will
save a poem, a story,
or an injured photograph.

You park nearby
ready to
help again.

Thank you for the opportunity to share it. It feels fitting to be grateful for this book about gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thank you, Bridget Magee for hosting Poetry Friday this week. It’s so fun to hear about Americans celebrating Thanksgiving outside the U.S., in this case, Switzerland. Please stop by at Wee Words for Wee Ones and read her poem.

I envy those who have large families visiting from far away, catching up on news, sharing food and reconnecting over a holiday table. But I feel blessed that my husband and I at least have our two sons with us. And rather than miss a minute with them because I’m cooking, we’re going out for dinner.

At this time of political turmoil and the lack of moral values in our government, I would like to make a tribute to a President Lincoln, who wanted the best for the United States. He was responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday. Though I don’t have a photo of Lincoln on hand, I do have a photo of my youngest son, Matt, who dressed up as Lincoln for a third grade show. The picture inspired me then, with his honest gaze at the viewer. It inspires me even more now when honesty is hard to come by from world leaders.

This will be a short post, but I’d like to share some more honest feelings, with a poem I just wrote from, well, a turkey.

A TURKEY'S PREDICAMENT

If I were a turkey
I'd stay in the barn or
hide in the pig pen
until I was darn sure
Thanksgiving was over

this day of the great feast
the thank you extravaganza.

They could ask for volunteers, at least.

Whether or not it’s Thanksgiving, I have so much to be thankful for. Today I’m grateful for new friends at Poetry Friday.

First Time NCTE Attendee

Thank you Rebecca Herzog for hosting Poetry Friday!

I felt exhilarated, but a bit like a fish out of water here in Baltimore at the NCTE conference that began this morning. I’d attended many writer’s conferences, but never a conference for thousands of English teachers.

However, it must be common to feel a bit lost, because at registration, I was given a yellow ribbon for my name tag: First Time Attendee. I stuck it on my name tag and began to tackle the inch thick catalogue of events.

My situation, a writer new to NCTE, is not a hardship, though the unease of being new is universal. All new folks appreciate being welcomed, as I certainly felt here today in Baltimore. Here’s a haiku to celebrate the day:

NCTE

First time attendee

wearing a yellow ribbon–

conference courage.

About Snow

Thank you Michelle Heinrich Barnes for hosting Poetry Friday. Congratulations on a new Today’s Little Ditty! This is my first time posting here, and I am grateful to be part of it.

Our first snow fell this week, the first storm of winter. When I woke, the ground was white with and inch or two. At the coffee shop later in the afternoon, out the window snowflakes were falling still, but just barely, almost invisible. They meandered. It was the lightest of snows.

Like trees or the sky, there is always a story or a poem one can write about snow. Ellen Yeomans’ new picture book in rhyming verse, illustrated by Andrea Offermann, is about snow and what it means to three children.

The cover shows them full of wonder and expectation:

The story begins:

“Some snow is First Snow

We’ve waited for so long snow.

Is it really snow snow,

or only heavy rain? “

Many different kinds of snow appear in the text and illustrations, such as: ” . . . hit the ground and melt snow.” “Sleet Snow.” “Snow day snow.” The children can’t wait for it to come and stay so they can play all winter in the snow.

The narrative arc revolves around the seasons. Eventually, in the end, it takes these children to “Spring Snow” and “Please, please, no more snow” and a glimpse of upcoming spring activities. The rhyme is perfect and a joy to read aloud.

Back at the coffee shop, the snow I saw out the window was a curious kind of snow that inspired this:

TO A SNOWFLAKE DRIFTING DOWN AFTER YESTERDAY’S STORM

You’re an afterthought,

a glistening decoration,

spiraling down,

about to sprinkle the ground.

Since you are in no rush, tell me:

Is it easy to fall?

Does it take any effort at all?

Some Snow Is . . . by Ellen Yeomans, and illustrated by Andrea Offermann, celebrates winter and snow. I never tire of stories about the seasons. If you live in a climate with four distinct seasons, like I do, one has no choice but to embrace snow and try to see its beauty and diversity.

Find Ellen’s Yeomans’ book, Some Snow is . . . , here:

Hilda Conkling: Child Poet

Thanks to Renee LaTulippe, anyone wanting to know more about the history of children’s poetry can easily find it. On her blog, http://nowaterriver.com, can be found a video library of interviews of contemporary children’s poets as well as interviews with poet, anthologist and historian Lee Bennett Hopkins, who, sadly, recently passed away. He will be missed. Four videos he created with Renee, entitled, A History of American Children’s Poets of the 20th Century, is a wonderful legacy. There, I discovered child poet Hilda Conkling, possibly the first American children’s poet.

Young Hilda never actually wrote a poem herself. Rather, from the ages of 4-10, she recited poems to her mother, who wrote them down. Poems by a Little Girl, is a collection of poems, published in 1920 and easily found in the public domain. There are many poems. One, that gives an image of the reflection of the sky in water caught my attention. I imagine many poets must have written about that because I, too, have. Here’s Hilda’s poem found on http://gutenberg.org:

WATER

The world turns softly

Not to spill its lakes and rivers.

The water is held in its arms

What is water,

That pours silver,

And can hold the sky?

I love how the lakes and rivers hold water “in its arms.” Now, here is my take on the water “holding” the sky, one hundred years later from an adult point of view.

LAKE-SKY

It stopped by this morning,

for only a minute.

For the lake-sky to be

All it took was to see.

Clouds filled the gray,

In bundles and bundles,

Patches of blue,

The yellow sun, too.

A watery mirror,

A picture of dawn.

When a breeze came along

The lake-sky was gone.

Thank you to Hilda Conkling and your mother for giving Children Poems by a Little Girl.