On Tuesday, as Stella raged outside, I spent what seemed like hours at my kitchen window, marveling at the hardy birds at the feeder. Their comings and goings inspired this poem.
During the blizzard, trees and bushes tremble as birds flit and flee. Scoffing at the wind, cardinals, jays, and chickadees jockey into position. Like planes lining up for take off, they wait for their turn at the feeder, for their share of suet and seed.
Please be sure to visit Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge for the Poetry Friday Roundup. (Not sure what Poetry Friday is? Find out more from Renée LaTulippe here.)
And thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, Lisa and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and on Tuesdays throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
Each month I look forward to Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’s Ditty Challenge. This month, Helen Frost challenged Michelle’s readers to “choose and object…[then] write five lines about the object, using a different sense in each line.”
Choose an object? That narrows it right down, doesn’t it? I decided not to obsess about this. I just went through my days with this challenge in the back of my mind. Sure enough, the word “blanket” came up as I was preparing a lesson yesterday. I instantly saw the possibilities with this word. Here is my Ode to a Blanket:
Clutching your satin edge, soft as a dog’s ear, I wrap your sunny yellow self around me. Cocooned inside, I breathe in the air of summer. Night whispers are muffled as I snuggle deeper, take the first sip of a dream. Do you sleep with me? Or are you always on guard, steadfast and loyal through the night?
Please be sure to visit Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty for the Poetry Friday Roundup. (Not sure what Poetry Friday is? Find out more from Renée LaTulippe here.)
And thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, Lisa and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and on Tuesdays throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the U.S., is one of our most beloved poets. In honor of his birthday later this month, many Poetry Friday regulars are sharing their favorite Billy Collins poem.
I’ve been lucky enough to hear Mr. Collins read his poetry twice. Like his poetry, he is humble and filled with good humor. At both readings, he shared “The Lanyard.” The first time I heard him read this poem, I actually had my car keys on a lanyard my son had made at camp. Michael’s lanyard is long gone, but because of Billy Collins’s poem, I’ll never forget it.
Billy Collins at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, August 2013
“The Lanyard”
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly–
a past where I sat a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
Edited to add: Because Heidi shared the same poem, I’m adding another poem. Since “The Lanyard” stirs up many memories, I thought “Forgetfulness” would be a fitting contrast. Enjoy!
“Forgetfulness”
by Billy Collins
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never
even heard of.
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses good-bye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraquay.
Please be sure to visit Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe for more Billy Collins and the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Thank you also to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, Lisa and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and on Tuesdays throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.
I couldn’t keep up with life, work, and Laura Shovan’s Found Poetry Project, “10 Words Found in the News” this week. A few drafts are hiding in my notebook, and for now, that’s where they’ll stay. Thursday’s words, rural, warm, digester, dumps, compost, hanging, cartel, burial, peels, scraps, were culled by Ruth Lehrer from “The Compost King of New York” in the New York Times. They appealed to me immediately. My grandmother had a compost heap in her back yard for fertilizing her garden, and I initially went down that path. But, as often happens, another possibility presented itself.
Words bubble up, seeking my attention. Some form a cartel, hanging together to demand a high price for their use.
One or two peel away, shimmering with possibility.
The rest are buried, dumped along with scraps of stories and lines of abandoned poems to a compost heap in some rural part of my brain.
In the warmth and darkness of my unconscious, as if in a digester, they ferment, waiting their turn to bubble up to the surface
and bloom.
Once again, I am sharing a poem written in response to Laura Shovan’s Found Poetry Project. This year’s theme is “10 Words Found in the News.” For Thursday’s inspiration, Mary Lee Hahn chose Elizabeth Warren’s words from a CNN interview after she was banned from speaking on the Senate floor by Mitch McConnell. “They can shut me up, but they can’t change the truth,” Warren proclaimed.
As soon as I saw these words, Mary Lee’s post on Nikki Grimes’s amazing new poetry collection, One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance (Bloomsbury, 2017) came to mind. Using the Golden Shovel form, Grimes uses lines from and/or entire poems written by giants of the Harlem Renaissance to create new verses. Each line in the new poem ends with a word from the original verse. (Be sure to read Mary Lee’s post for a much clearer explanation. Better yet, get yourself a copy of One Last Word and read Grimes’s note about the form. The poetry, both the original poems and the new poems they inspired, is breathtaking. Warren’s statement seemed to be tailor made for a Golden Shovel poem. Here is my attempt at the form.
Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry is filled with love, sensitivity, and compassion. Her work has been a source of solace and inspiration to me for years. So I was thrilled when she was announced as the 2018 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture on Monday during the ALA’s Youth Media Awards Announcements. The Arbuthnot Award recognizes “an author, critic, librarian, historian or teacher of children’s literature, who then presents a lecture at a winning host site.” I can’t think of a more appropriate choice to share her insights and wisdom in our troubled times.
“Truth Serum”
by Naomi Shihab Nye
We made it from the ground-up corn in the old back pasture. Pinched a scent of night jasmine billowing off the fence, popped it right in. That frog song wanting nothing but echo? We used that. Stirred it widely. Noticed the clouds while stirring. Called upon our ancient great aunts and their long slow eyes of summer. Dropped in their names.
Added a mint leaf now and then
to hearten the broth. Added a note of cheer and worry.
In her “Note from the Author” at the beginning of This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort (Candlewick, 2002), Georgia Heard writes:
“During any difficult time, we all need a place where, as Faiz Ahmed Faiz writes in his poem “Song,” ‘the heart [can] rest.'”
No matter where one falls on the political spectrum, no one can deny this is a “difficult time.” This poem, by Karla Kuskin, gives my heart a place to rest.
“To You”
I think I could walk
through the simmering sand
if I held your hand.
I think I could swim
the skin shivering sea
if you would accompany me.
And run on ragged, windy heights,
climb rugged rocks
and walk on air:
I think I could do anything at all,
if you were there.
by Josh Boot via Unsplash.com
Please be sure to visit Violet Nesdoly at Violet Nesdoly/Poems for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
January 5th was National Bird Day. I have been a bit obsessed with these feathered flyers for several years now, so I hope you don’t mind if I extend the celebration and share a bird poem or two today.
“Words are Birds”
by Francisco X. Alarcón
words are birds that arrive with books and spring
they love clouds the wind and trees
some words are messengers that come from far away from distant lands
for them there are no borders only stars moon and sun
This week I read The Comet Seekers, by Helen Sedgwick, a beautiful, lyrical novel about two seekers whose paths crisscross throughout the book. Amazingly (coincidentally?), there is a comet in our neck of the galaxy this month. Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková may be visible with a telescope or binoculars tomorrow evening. How could I not write a haiku about a comet today?
comet seekers scan every corner of the sky searching for marvels
Comet detail of Bayeux Tapestry [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsPlease be sure to visit Donna Smith at Mainely Write for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Mary Lee Hahn’s #haikuforhealing project has grown on me, and I find myself composing haiku in my head as I’m driving, doing the dishes, or folding laundry. Yesterday as I headed out for one last round of Christmas shopping, flocks of geese flew overhead, inspiring today’s haiku.
patchwork clouds
stitched with vees of honking geese
hurrying homeward
![Comet detail of Bayeux Tapestry [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://readingtothecore.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/comete_tapisserie_bayeux.jpg?w=188&h=203)
