Category: Poetry

Poetry Friday: Plentitude

Catherine Flynn13 Comments

Several months ago, I suggested that when my critique group partners and I resumed our monthly challenges we write “In One Word” poems. This form was created by April Halprin Wayland and you can read about it here.

I’ve been tinkering with ideas for this poem all summer. After playing with several potential words, I stumbled across the word “plentitude.” This word appealed to me for several reasons, including the fact that it seemed be contrary to the current state of our country. I’m not thrilled with this very drafty draft, but perfection isn’t the goal of these challenges.

Pick up a pen.
Write the secrets of your heart. Let
your truths flow, set down in
ink for all to know. Don’t dilute
the facts. Everyone is entitled
to tell their story, sing their tune.

So let’s lean in, tilt
our heads, lend
our ears, and listen to each line
with an open heart. Tend
and nurture one another, unite
and celebrate our plentitude.

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2020

Photo by Marco Secchi on Unsplash

Please be sure to visit my fellow Sunday Night Swaggers to read what word they chose for their “In One Word” poems.

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone 
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Heidi Mordhorst @ My Juicy Little Universe
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

Then head on over to Carol Varsalona’s blog, Beyond Literacy Link, for the Poetry Friday Roundup and Carol’s stunning “Embraceable Summer Gallery.”

Poetry Friday: Drops of Liquid Sunshine

Catherine Flynn12 Comments

Earlier this week, Margaret Renkl wrote in her column in The New York Times to “enfold ourselves in small comforts.” I needed this reminder, and found this small comfort on one of my morning walks.

A multitude of goldfinches,
trilling and chittering
like windchimes,
pierce the stillness of dawn
as they rise over the meadow:
drops of liquid sunshine.

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2020

Please be sure to visit my critique group partner and poet extraordinaire, Heidi Mordhorst, at My Juicy Little Universe for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Poetry Friday: A Queen Anne’s Lace Etheree

Catherine Flynn12 Comments

In July, the Poetry Sisters challenged one another and all Poetry Friday participants to write etherees. As Tricia Stohr-Hunt explained on her blog,

An etheree is a poem of ten lines in which each line contains one more syllable than the last. Beginning with one syllable and ending with ten, this unrhymed form is named for its creator, 20th century American poet Etheree Taylor Armstrong.

I’ve never tried to write an etheree, but the mathematical progression appealed to me. But what to write about?

Our house is surrounded by hay fields. At this time of year, each one is a glorious patch of wild flowers and grasses, birds, bees, and butterflies that deserve a poem that celebrates their beauty.

Queen Anne’s Lace Etheree

Queen
Anne’s lace
fills summer
fields, clusters of
lacy white haloes
soaking up bright sunshine,
hosting bees and butterflies–
a serve-yourself, all-day buffet,
soon to be transformed into silage,
live up to its other name: cow parsley.

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2020

Please be sure to visit Ramona at Pleasures from the Page for the Poetry Friday Roundup!

Poetry Friday: Powerless

Catherine Flynn12 Comments

Tuesday

Ahead of the storm
a pair of wrens
search the gutters
for delectable tidbits
before they’re washed
away.

Wednesday

Branches and limbs
akimbo,
wires tangled
like a kitten’s toy.
Phones fall silent.
Butterflies don’t care.

Thursday

Black bear lumbers
across the yard,
oblivious to generator’s roar.

Friday

Wake to rain–
rush to catch
this morning shower
in a bucket.

Saturday

At dawn, the translucent
waning moon
winks good morning.
It’s power never
fails.

Sunday

A book* transports me
to another place and time.
When the lights blink on,
I keep reading.

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2020

* Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. Simply amazing and I highly recommend it.

Please be sure to visit my friend Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Poetry Friday: The Roundup is Here!

Catherine Flynn27 Comments

Welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup! (Find our more about Poetry Friday in this post by Renée LaTulippe here.)

When our world came screeching to a halt last March, my local indie bookstore, The Hickory Stick Bookshop, soon reopened for phone orders and curbside pickup. I was happy to keep them busy. But I was even happier when they reopened for in-person (with masks, plenty of hand sanitizer, and social distancing, of course) shopping. On my first trip, I found this book on the display table in the children’s section.

I have been a fan of Emily Winfield Martin’s work since I first discovered it several years ago. To have a whole book of her fanciful, dream-like images felt like a gift. The fact that there were “little scraps of larger stories” included with each image was an added bonus.

Since I brought The Imaginaries home, I have delved deep into the images and the ideas and feelings they stir in me. They have inspired quite a few poems, and I can’t wait to share Winfield-Martin’s paintings and words with my students. Here is one of my favorite images from the book and the poem it inspired.

“She never told anyone what she saw at the edge of the world.” Emily Winfield Martin

“The Edge of the World”

At the edge of the world
rocks rise from the fathomless
blue-green sea
spangled with starfish
forming countless constellations
that glimmer in the sun.

Explorers, untethered
from home, follow
limitless wonderings
to this far horizon,
braving perilous shoals
searching for secret songs
and untold stories
seeking unimaginable creatures,
discovering this truth:

Here there be mermaids.

© Catherine Flynn, 2020

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Poetry Friday: The Comet

Catherine Flynn11 Comments

For the past week or so, I’ve appreciated being distracted by Comet Neowise. I was lucky to see our latest celestial visitor with and without binoculars one night last week, but because of the weather, I haven’t been able to spot it since then. Many friends have shared their pictures though, so I feel like I’ve gotten my fair share of sightings. How could I not be inspired to write a poem?

The Comet

A massive ball
(three miles wide!)
of ice and dust
sailing through
the solar system,
pulled by gravity,
warmed by the sun,
is suddenly a
celebrity:
a cosmic exclamation mark,
a reminder to look up,
to be dazzled,
to dream.

© Catherine Flynn, 2020

Comet Neowise over Caliente, CA by Jason Hullinger / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) via Wikimedia

Please be sure to visit my poetry pal, Margaret Simon, at Reflections on the Teche for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Poetry Friday: “Worth” by Marilyn Nelson

Catherine Flynn6 Comments

It no longer seems appropriate to say, “What a week!” It seems that every single day brings some new mind-boggling occurrence. This week, at least, the bad news has been balanced by two momentous Supreme Court decisions. Still, my heart hurts for our entire country. Recently, The New York Times acknowledged the power of poetry to bring us “solace, strength, and power” by asking many prominent poets, including Kwame Alexander, Joy Harjo, and Arthur Sze, what poets and poetry they have turned to during these tumultuous days. I read many of the poems recommended, thinking I would find some to share with the my middle school students. As I read, a link to Marilyn Nelson’s poetry came up. Marilyn Nelson, former Poet Laureate of Connecticut, is the author of many powerful books of poetry for young people and has long been a favorite of mine. This poem is from Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color (WordSong, 2007), which she co-authored with Elizabeth Alexander.

Canterbury, CT 1833-1834

“Worth”

for Ruben Ahoueya

Today in America people were bought and sold:
five hundred for a “likely Negro wench.”
If someone at auction is worth her weight in gold,
how much would she be worth by pound? By ounce?
If I owned an unimaginable quantity of wealth,
could I buy an iota of myself?
How would I know which part belonged to me?

Read the rest of the poem here.

Amira Abdel-Aal and Shawna Coppola led a session on The Ed Collaborative this spring about ways to maximize student engagement with their writing. One of their suggestions was to share “provocations,” rather than prompts. They suggested that provocations are intended to “provoke thoughts, discussions,and questions.” This poem will do all of that and more.

Please be sure to visit Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Poetry Friday: Finding Light with Nikki Grimes

Catherine Flynn11 Comments

At NCTE last November, I had the pleasure of sitting with Nikki Grimes at her table at the Children’s Book Award Luncheon. Everyone at the table received a copy of her extraordinary verse memoir, Ordinary Hazards (WordSong, 2019). I have long been a fan of Nikki’s poetry, but reading the story of her childhood and teen years left me with a deeper admiration for Nikki.

Recently, Irene Latham announced that she wanted to celebrate Nikki Grimes when she hosted Poetry Friday today. Irene said,

Nikki has won all kinds of awards lately, and due to covid, there haven’t been in-person events, so this gives us all an opportunity to say:

I knew immediately that I wanted to write a Golden Shovel to honor Nikki. This is a form Nikki made popular through her stunning book, One Last Word, using the words and “wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance” for her strike lines. Nikki’s poetry abounds with gorgeous language and words of wisdom, but I thought these lines, from the end of Ordinary Hazards, would speak to us all during our troubled times.

Thank you, Nikki Grimes, for sharing your light with us. And thank you, Irene, for hosting today’s celebration of this amazing woman.

Poetry Friday: Farewell to My Students

Catherine Flynn12 Comments

What to say this week? My heart hurts. The images of pain and anguish are unbearable. But we must bear them. So much has been lost. We must acknowledge this loss and take steps to repair the damage inflicted by events of the past week. Make that events of the past four centuries.

I was filled with thoughts of all this loss as I searched for a way into the challenge Heidi Mordhorst set for our Sunday Night Swaggers this month. Heidi’s original challenge was to write a poem of farewell to our students, but she then encouraged us to say goodbye to whatever we needed to. In spite of, or perhaps because of, what has unfolded in our country this week, I do want to say this to my students.

Lost & Found

By the beginning of June,
the lost and found bins
are overflowing
with coats
and sweatshirts
and lunchboxes.

But this year,
those bins aren’t as full.
This year,
we lost
days,
weeks,
months,
of time together.

As we tiptoe cautiously
into summer,
these are my hopes
for you:

Lose your Google password.
Go outside.
Find a patch of grass.
Lie down.
Look up.
Find a cloud shaped
like a cat,
or an elephant,
or a whale.

Lose the unfinished homework.
Find a book that pulls you in.
Read for hour,
after hour,
after hour.

Lose your sorrow
over missed parties
and games.
Find joy
chasing butterflies,
blowing bubbles,
eating ice cream.

Never lose your memories
of our time together.

I will never lose
my memories of you.

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2020

Fellow Swagger Margaret Simon is hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup today at Reflections on the Teche. Read what she’s saying goodbye to there, then visit our partners in poetry to read more poems of farewell.

Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe

Poetry Friday: “How to walk around the block” by Michael Salinger

Catherine Flynn8 Comments

When school closed in March, there were no answers to a million questions. We had no idea how long school would be closed. No idea if distance learning was possible. And if it was, who knew what it would look like. There was one thing I did know: I needed my most trusted books and resources with me at home. One of the first books I put pulled off my shelf was Poems Are Teachers: How Studying Poetry Strengthens Writing in All Genres, by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater. I know most people in the Poetry Friday community are familiar with this book (and many have their own poems published in its pages), but if you don’t know this book, do yourself a favor and order it today.

Just as I suspected, I have turned to Amy’s gentle wisdom about writing many times over the past ten weeks. Recently, as the weather has turned from a cold, dreary spring into glorious summer-like days, cabin fever has started to set in. I could sense a restlessness in my students (and in myself, for that matter). They needed an adventure.

Amy’s book is full of poems to inspire and strengthen student writing. In it, I found the perfect poem to launch my would-be travelers on an exploration of their neighborhood in Michael Salinger‘s poem, “How to walk around the block.” Michael’s poem invites readers to see their neighborhood, and themselves, with fresh eyes. My student’s couldn’t wait to go for a walk around their block to find what awaited them out there.

“How to walk around the block”
by Michael Salinger

Wear shoes.
If they have laces, make sure they are tied.
Pick a direction and go.
Double foot hop
over sidewalk cracks,
then stop and pick up a rock.
No snooping in your neighbor’s mailbox
(You’ll get in trouble if you get caught.)
Woof bark woof bark woof bark woof;
ask before you pet that dog.
That stick could use a new location.
Remember,
where you started is your destination.
‘Cause ’round the block
is a circle
(even if it’s really a square).
Arriving back at your front door,
you’ll be a different person
when you get home.

© 2018, shared with permission of the author

Many of you have also been writing #PoemsofPresence this month. Using Michael’s poem to encourage my students to find their own #PoemsofPresence fills me with hope as we head into a summer filled with unknowns. I hope we all can see the coming months as a time of discovery. Discoveries about our block, our neighbors, and most importantly, ourselves.

Thank you to Michael Salinger for allowing me to share his poem, and thank you to Amy Ludwig VanDerwater for her wonderful book. Please be sure to visit Mary Lee Hahn at A Reading Year for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

One of my recent discoveries on my block.
a hawk feather on the path
reminds me
I’m not the only one
who calls this place home.