In her brilliant book, Poems Are Teachers: How Studying Poetry Strengthens Writing in All Genres, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater tells us to “strengthen our abilities to see the world from multiple points of view” because developing this muscle helps us realize that “each leaf, each mouse, each stranger [is] important and worthy of our attention and care.” (pg. 77) What an important lesson for our fractured world.

I reread Amy’s thoughts on Persona poems this week as I attempted to write one for the Inklings March challenge. Margaret asked us to write a poem that “conveys a message, is written in the voice of another person, place, or thing, uses direct address.”

This seemingly straight-forward task stumped me. I tried writing about my great-grandmother. When that didn’t work, I scoured Google Arts & Culture and found an intriguing painting of a woman with blue hair, but that went nowhere. Finally, this morning (Saturday!), I remembered a poem I wrote several years ago. It’s been sitting in my notebook all this time because I wasn’t completely satisfied with it. And although it’s not exactly a persona poem, it’s close enough. Also, as I’ve been writing this, I think it’s an appropriate poem to share at the beginning of Women’s History Month.

Peasant Girl

Stitch after stitch her story grows
As nimble fingers wrap coarse yarn
Swift needles sing an ancient song

Row by row, old truths unfold
A woman’s voice is not her own
Stitch after stitch her story grows

Blocked from using pen and ink
She knits the truth of her fiery soul
Swift needles sing an ancient song

She plies her skill to share her tale
Pain and longing encoded in wool
Stitch after stitch her story grows

Texture and color are her vocabulary
She chooses each with loving care
Swift needles sing an ancient song

Pearls of hard-won wisdom shared
For all who care to see
Stitch after stitch her story grows
Swift needles sing an ancient song

Draft © 2024, Catherine Flynn

Please be sure to see how my fellow Inklings responded to this challenge here:

Heidi @my juicy little universe
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Mary Lee @Another Year of Reading

Also, be sure to visit Linda Baie, our gracious hostess, for this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup.

Happy New Year! Life has been a bit tumultuous over the past few months (everyone is fine; everything–the jury is still out) and has left me with no brainpower for writing poetry. Reading poetry, yes, always. Writing, not so much. But it’s time for the Inkling’s monthly challenge. And since it was my turn to pose the prompt, I figured I’d better get my act together.

Even coming up with a prompt was beyond me. Early in January, Molly shared a list of prompts from the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center. I asked her if she would mind if I picked a prompt from this collection. Of course she didn’t. Here’s the one I chose:

Our Lips are Sealed…Or Not
            Write a poem about secrets——family, community/societal, governmental, personal, etc.  This could be a narrative (how the secret(s) started, where it or they led, the along-the-way and final (if any) consequences.  For inspiration or starting blocks for your poem, here’s this poem, “Family Secret” by Nancy Kuhl:
            https://poets.org/poem/family-secret
            Secret loves, guilty (or not-so) secrets, happy secrets (like the gift you bought for __________ and secreted until the Big Day/Right Moment, and what happened next), whistle-blower secrets… It’s an unlimited grab-bag since humans can (or can’t) keep an incalculable supply of secrets.  Maybe there’s a big-box store or warehouse out there somewhere where our discounted secrets are kept until ordered and dispatched with 2-day shipping guaranteed.
            SO:  unsheathe the Shushhhhhh… and happy writing!  Ready and Steady and Go…

As I said, reading poetry, yes. Writing, no. So I decided to create a cento. (But I cheated and added some words of my own to help the lines flow. These lines are italicized.) Source poems and texts are listed in order at the bottom of the poem.

The secret of life
can’t be found in
the whole volume of S…
The secret is that
nothing can be permanently settled or solved;
air takes shape in shadow and light
and
time is the substance we are made of. 

So,
Err on the side of generosity.
When you love someone… offer that person … your presence.
Offer poems of love to a burning world.
Treasure…the greenness that rises out of the ashes.

“The Secret” by Denise Levertov
“The World Book” by Patricia Hooper
The Future, by Naomi Alderman
“Body’s Ken” by Simon West
Jorge Luis Borges, quoted in The Marginalia
“When in Doubt” by Sandra Cisneros
Thich Nhat Hanh, quoted in The Marginalia
“Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World” by Katie Farris
“Wild Joy” in The Comfort of Crows, by Margaret Renkl

Please be sure to visit my fellow Inkling, Mary Lee Hahn, for the Poetry Friday Roundup. And don’t forget to visit all the Inklings to learn all their secrets!

Heidi @my juicy little universe
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche

Like everything else this week, my Poetry Friday post is a day late. I had a minor medical procedure on Monday (everything is fine) that left me discombobulated all week. My posts have been few and far between lately, but it is the first of the month, which means…the Inkling challenge! Margaret asked us to “Explore the use of anaphora in a poem, how the repetition of a line or phrase can add depth to the theme.” She suggested Jericho Brown’s poem “Crossing”  as a mentor text. Coincidentally, I had been captivated by “Landscape with Things,” by Alexandria Hall, after hearing it on The Slowdown recently and was already playing with Hall’s repetition of the phrase “and still…”

Still

smudges of clouds streak
across the brightening sky
as pricks of light
from distant stars fade away.

And still a fox creeps
along the frayed edges
of the field, hunting for voles.

Still juice is poured,
coffee brewed, eggs scrambled.
Children wait at the driveway’s edge
to be transported to their futures.

And still the spider spins
her web above the rhododendron,
invisible to unsuspecting gnats and flies.

Still mist rises from the pond
as trucks rumble past,
their drivers focused on
the end of the journey.

No one notices 
the heron, silent and still,
until she lifts her great
blue wings and flies away.

Draft, © Catherine Flynn, 2023

Please be sure to visit my fellow Inklings to read their responses to Margaret’s challenge:

Heidi @ My Juicy Little Universe
Linda @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret @ Reflections on the Teche
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Then head over to Tanita’s blog, {fiction, instead of lies}, for the Poetry Friday Roundup.