I am a creature of habit. I crave routines to keep my life in order. Needless to say, habits, routines, and order are out the window. We are all trying to make some sense of our new reality.
The habit of Poetry Friday is now deeply ingrained in me, and yet I couldn’t manage a post last week. I resolved not to let this week go by, too.
At the beginning of the month, Tabatha Yeatts was in Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’s TDL Spotlight and challenged readers to “write a poem about a game.”
There are several games I love to play, but my husband is NOT a game player. Now that my children are grown, I don’t play games as often as I’d like, so I really had to dig deep for an idea for this challenge. Not surprisingly, afternoons spent with my grandmother came to the rescue. My sister often joined in the game, but for today, it’s just me and my grandmother.
“Authors”
One deck of cards
one me, one you
can chase away the blues.
Shuffle, shuffle
four cards each,
Time for the big reveal.
I’ve got Jane Austen.
Here’s Shakespeare. Tennyson
and Hawthorne, too.
In your hand you hold
Dickens, Balzac, Alcott,
and your favorite, Sir Walter Scott.
Back and forth,
we trade our cards
and slowly build our sets.
The last card is drawn.
Again, you’ve won.
Play once more? You bet!
© Catherine Flynn, 2020
Please be sure to visit Tabatha at her blog, The Opposite of Indifference, for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Reading to the Core 
This is great! So glad you made it to Poetry Friday. I love the names of the authors in the game.
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I love this. I think we had the same card deck. My parents collected them.
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Awww! I have happy memories of playing Crazy 8s with my grandmother (our deck wasn’t as cool as that one!). I love that first stanza — it gets to the heart of the matter 🙂
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I played “Authors”, too, Catherine. I don’t have them anymore, but see that they are still available in various places. My grandmother and I played lots of Canasta then I played with my daughter. It’s a fun poem/memory you’ve created! Stay safe & healthy!
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Nicely played, Catherine. 😉 And what a cool deck of cards! Your poem reminds me of all the hours my kids spent playing card games with their Grammie. It’s nice to think that they might fondly remember that pastime one day, too.
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I never played this game, but on our last day together, my class (minus the 11 who were absent–some sick, some starting “vacation” early) played a whole-class game of spoons. We laughed so hard. Great memory to see me through without them…
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Your poem reminded me of my grandmother. I went to her house a lot and the games I remember playing were War and Rummy. I used to love playing cards.
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What a great deck of cards! I love the sweetness of the memories that shine in this poem. I play cards a lot with my youngest daughter. We always use the same decks, which my older daughter bought me from a flea market. I think there’s a poem in all of that somewhere. I’m glad to see you here 🙂
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I haven’t actually played this game, but I did buy some of the vintage cards for my artsy endeavors! Loved reading your poem about them… :0) My mother and I had games of gin that went on for years….
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I investigate an online platform to play friends with a Sydney author-friend during lockdown… but thus far, I’ve been too busy writing poetry!!😂 Yet here you are, admirably balancing both! (Or memories of.) That’s a winning hand, for sure. (I do love that deck of cards. Distracting, much!)
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What a lovely memory that your poem has captured. There is just something about grandmothers and games that just go together. I played cards with my husband’s grandmother – that was my “night out” as I was a stay-at-home mom.
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I love that deck of cards and the poem you created from the had you were dealt! I missed Tabatha’s challenge at the first of the month but hope to jump in before the month is out. I am finding that Poetry Friday is a routine I’m clinging to in these topsy turvey days.
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What a cool deck! Your poem reminds me of playing cards with my grandmother when I was a middle and high schooler. We’ve revived one of her favorite games for the quarantine — Casino.
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