“Memories are like a fountain no writer can live without.”
~ Ralph Fletcher ~

It’s the first Friday of the month, so that means it’s time for another Sunday Night Swaggers challenge. This month, Linda challenged us to

Find prose text or poetry you love from a published author and use it as a mentor text to write your poem. The poem doesn’t have to be about an author or authorship…but it could.

How could I possibly choose one piece of text that I love? That would be like picking a single shell out of the sea and declaring it to be the best shell. I also misunderstood exactly what I was supposed to do, so I did something a little different.

Patricia Polacco is one of my favorite authors, and I’ve used her books in my classroom for years. The loving grandmothers, the kids who, despite their good intentions, always find themselves in a muddle, the cats…I could go on and on. What’s not to love? I’ve written more than one picture book manuscript under the influence of Patricia’s warm and gentle style.

If I could write like Patricia Polacco,
I’d write a story about a girl and her grandmother
on a hot summer day.
A dog named Buster would lie
in the shade of big maple tree,
while a black cat named Inky
sat on the back step giving
himself a bath.

After lunch, the grandmother would
bring out an old basket filled with shells.
She and the girl would marvel over
the whorls and spirals,
the spikes and ridges.
The girl would run her finger
along the cool rim of
her favorite shimmering shell,
smooth as glass.
She’d hold it to her ear,
listen to the distant roar
of the pounding surf.
“How does it do that?”
the girl would ask.
Her grandmother would smile and say,
“Magic.”

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Read how my marvelous writing partners responded to this challenge at their blogs:

Molly  @ https://nixthecomfortzone.com/
Heidi @ https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/
Linda @ https://awordedgewiselindamitchell.blogspot.com/
Margaret @ https://reflectionsontheteche.com/

Also, please be sure to visit Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

I have been visiting the library in my town for over 54 years! My weekly visits began when I was in Kindergarten and lasted until I left home for college. Several years later, I moved back to the town where I grew up and began bringing my own children to Story Hour. Now I’m honored to serve on the Board of Trustees, which is truly a labor of love.

A major renovation to the Children’s library was recently completed, and we’ll soon be celebrating with a ribbon cutting ceremony. What would a library celebration be without a poem? We invited the children at the elementary school next door to write a “My Library” acrostic. Once we have all the poems, we’re going to choose lines to create a crowdsourced poem, similar to Kwame Alexander and NPR’s “Where I’m From” project. To give the kids a springboard, I wrote my own version. The kid’s poems aren’t finished yet, but here’s my version of “My Library.”

My Library

Magical books for
Young readers to share.

Long-ago tales
Invite readers to dream.
Books about planets,
Rhinos, and more
Await curious minds.
Ready when you are,
Your imagination’s the limit!

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Please be sure to visit Karen Edmisten for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Kudos to everyone who have been keeping up with the Poemtober/Inktober words! Your poems have all been impressive. My efforts haven’t been too successful. Last weekend, though, the word ash bumped into this tweet from Robert Macfarlane, author of The Lost Words.

Ash + venation = this draft

When leaves are burned and turn to ash
their venation disappears
just like the whorls on your fingertips
have disappeared from the world.
Fingertips that will never again
crimp a pie crust,
knit a sweater,
stroke the hair of a sobbing girl.

But your heart,
now turned to ash,
still beats
in the hearts
of those you loved.

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2019

 

Congratulations Karen Eastlund!
You are the winner of Thanku: Poems of Gratitude!

Please be sure to visit Jama Rattigan at Jama’s Alphabet Soup for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

It’s the first Friday of the month, so it time for another Sunday Night Swaggers Challenge. This month, Margaret Simon challenged us to write zenos. Invented by J. Patrick Lewis, a zeno is a ten line form with a 8-4-2-1-4-2-1-4-2-1 syllable sequence an abcdefdghd rhyme scheme. Learn more about Pat and this form here. After a few false starts, I went for a walk to clear my head. As often happens, this poem was waiting for me.

Swirling, twirling like autumn leaves,
summer songbirds
flock, take
flight
toward steamy,
breezy
light
kaleidoscope
whirling
bright.

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2019

Read more zenos by my Swagger friends on their blogs:

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

Please be sure to visit Cheriee Weichel at Library Matters for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
~ John Muir ~

Please be sure to visit Laura Purdie Salas at Writing the World for Kids for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Inspired by the Poetry Sisters, my critique group decided to set monthly challenges for one another. After much debate, we christened ourselves the Sunday Night Swaggers and premiered in August with a challenge from Heidi to write definitos, a form she invented. 

This month it was my turn to come up with the challenge. I remembered an old post from Lee Ann Spillane about a Highlights Workshop she attended with Suzanne Bloom  a few years ago. Lee Ann wrote:

“Suzanne had an assortment of mystery packed into tiny boxes: metal boxes, cardboard boxes, long boxes, jewelry boxes, cloth boxes, wooden boxes, soap boxes and small boxes. We had two questions to guide our group talk:

Who was the owner of the box?
How did what is inside the box transform him or her?”

I tried this activity with teachers at my school and it sparked many interesting conversations and inspired some amazing writing. My challenge this month was more open-ended: write a poem inspired by a box.

Since I first read Lee Ann’s post, I’ve accumulated quite a collection of boxes, with lots of help from my friend Colette, who is always on the lookout for cool stuff. I shared a photo of my boxes with my writing partners, but also encouraged everyone to pick their own box if they wanted. 

So which box did I choose? Not the one I thought I would. As you may know, we’ve been renovating our house (for way too long) and I’ve been sorting through closets and cabinets.  One day after I posed this challenge, I found an assortment of tea similar to this:

My mind immediately started racing, and my box has now been transformed into a mini cabinet of curiosities. (Read more about them here.)

Now that I had an idea, all I had to do was write the poem, right? Yeah, not so much. The start of school and an ongoing medical issue with my husband (nothing too serious, but stressful and frustrating) kept distracting me from writing this poem. 

My Cabinet of Curiosities 

This box is full of treasure
I found scattered on the ground:

A fallen feather
Fragment of forgotten flight
Now grounded.

An empty marvel
Seashell or angel wing
Who’s to say?

A butterfly
Orange, brown, and blue
Resting her wings

A baby hawk’s
Snow-blue mottled egg
Expertly unzipped.

Gum tree seed pod,
barbed, brown orb
An earth-bound star

Coins from the sea
Not silver or gold
Priceless.

Baubles, relics, rarities,
Each one holds a memory
carried in my heart.

Draft, © 2019, Catherine Flynn

What did my fellow swaggers come up with? Visit them to find out!

Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe
Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda at A Word Edgewise

Then don’t forget to stop by and say hello to Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong at Poetry for Children for the Poetry Friday Roundup!