“Get curious. Go deep. Feel.
Explore.
Create new paths.”
Johanna Wright
It’s April 1st, the first day of National Poetry Month, the first full month of spring, and the first day of our first full month of quarantine. So it’s hard to say Happy 1st day of April as we ordinarily would. And yet, the blessing of our ability to connect through this amazing technology is something to be happy about. How lucky we are to have thousands and thousands of poems at our fingertips to read and savor and find comfort in.
Many poets of the Kidlitosphere undertake a poetry project each April. In the past I have joined in when I could, but haven’t ever committed to a project of my own before. And although figuring out how to teach online has a steep learning curve, I do have a bit more free time I normally would. So if not this year, when?
On a recent episode of the Ted Talk Radio Hour, Enrico Ramirez Ruiz, an astrophysicist who describes himself as a “stellar mortician,” explained that “we are all atomically connected, fundamentally, universally.” My aim is to focus on some element of the natural world and find those connections, and within them, find tolerance and understanding. Should be a snap, don’t you think? I have no idea where all this will lead, so thank you in advance for your patience. I’m sure there will be false starts and changes along the way, but isn’t that true of all adventures?
If you’d like to read more, Jama Rattigan has generously devoted much time and energy to curate a page of links to many National Poetry Month projects.
“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”
~ Joseph Chilton Pearce ~
Every day, we encourage our students to swallow their fear and take risks. And every day, they take them. But how often are we that brave? Hitting the “Publish” button on our blog posts is one type of risk, but this is usually only an individual risk. This year I decided to be brave and take part in Irene Latham’s Progressive Poem. “A poem that travels daily from blog to blog, with each host adding a line, beginning April 1,” this is the poem’s 8th year. (You can read more about this amazing project here.) Matt Forrest Esenwine got us started by challenging us to use “only FOUND lines” from songs!
I have been in a panic about my line all month. I feared my line wouldn’t measure up and I would let Irene, Matt, and all the other poets down. But I’d made a commitment. So I dusted off CDs I haven’t listened to in years, watched hours of YouTube videos, and read reams of liner notes. I gathered a list of lines I thought might work. But the poem is a living entity. It changes direction often. And it changed right before it was my turn to add my line! I did find a line I was happy with, but I had several unused lines that I really liked. I decided to use one as a strike line for a Golden Shovel poem. (BTW, the Progressive Poem is with Penny Klosterman today. Check it out here.)
This line is from “Upside Down,” the first track on Jack Johnson’s Curious George soundtrack.
We’ll sing and dance to mother nature’s songs
Also, happy birthday to William Shakespeare! And even though this post isn’t about him (although he was a master borrower), where would we be without the Bard?
Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
On a recent episode of On Being, Krista Tippett’s sublime podcast, Lawrence Kushner explained the concept tzimtzum, or “god’s self-contraction to make spaces within god for creaturely beings to live” (Read more here.) (For the record, I am not Jewish, so I hope I haven’t muddled this or offended anyone.) Kushner went on to say that this idea manifests itself in our daily life when we make a space to create “so that something you love will have room to grow.” I love this.
Making space in my life to create, to write, has been an incredible challenge recently and I almost feel like I don’t even remember how to write anything. But I’m not giving up.
Undergrowth with Two Figures, Vincent van Gogh, 1890. Cincinnati Art Museum, via Wikimedia Commons
Inspired by Irene Latham’s Artspeak! theme of happy, I scrolled through Google Arts & Culture until I found a painting that brought a smile to my face. I found Undergrowth with Two Figures by Vincent van Gogh completely enchanting. I longed to step into the painting and gather armfuls of flowers. Instead, I gathered inspiration for this haiku:
Beneath silver trees coruscating daffodils illuminate the day
Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
Many people have wonderful poetry projects planned for this month. I’m following Heidi Mordhorst‘s lead and will join in when I can as prompts strike my fancy or match up with my life.
In this case, Mary Lee Hahn‘s “Playing With Poetry” was the springboard. One of Mary Lee’s options for poetry playfulness was paint chip poetry. Thanks to our recent renovation project, I have paint chips everywhere. We chose “Milky Way,” a luscious shade of yellow for the guest room. (This color also makes me very happy, so I could add Irene’s project to the list of inspirations.)
I’d been toying with how to structure a Milky Way poem without much luck. Then, on Monday morning, the moon was a thin crescent, hanging on the edge of dawn. The arc of the moon got me thinking of spirals, which led me to Fibonacci sequences, which led to this poem.
Star
Sun
Solar
System spins
At galaxy’s edge
The Milky Way’s spiral arms
Twirl like a ballerina’s silver-sequined tutu
“…seek the resonance that enters a poem only when it is touched by the stillness of nature.” ~ Margarita Engle ~
Spring has finally arrived in my corner of Connecticut! The forsythia have been ablaze for the last two weeks, and greening lawns are dotted with dandelions. Everywhere you look, the world is abloom. For this final week of National Poetry Month, I decided to revisit Margarita Engle’s tanka challenge for Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’s Today’s Little Ditty Challenge. Even though there is nothing still about spring, the beauty of the season resonates deep within me.
Lithe limbs arch and bend trimmed with a thousand blossoms, ballerinas, graced in frilly pink tutus, chasséing on a spring breeze.
On a southern slope, columns of bright daffodils raise their trumpets high and play a rousing fanfare heralding winter’s retreat.
Thank you, Michelle, for inviting us to your DMC Potluck this month! Be sure to visit Michelle’s to read more poetic offerings. And don’t forget to visit JoAnn Early Macken at Teaching Authors for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Reading to the Core 