THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY

THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY
April 12, 2016

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Orange you glad it’s Poetry Friday, Sweet Pea? 2014 Poetry Project

Welcome back to the Pantone ® Poetry Project. We’re in our last five days of writing in response to interior paint colors. Sound strange? Heck – I’ll take inspiration in whatever form you’ve got.

THE THREE MUSES
The Three Muses by Orestes Gaulhiac
at RDZ Fine Art

Find your poetry muse
at Anastasia's blog, Poet! Poet!
Anastasia is hosting
Poetry Friday today.
All month, poets and writers have been joining me with their colorful poems and sketches. (Read a post with the "rules" of the project here.)

On Day 28, I’ll be giving away prizes to some of the participating writers.

But that's a few days away. It's still the 24th day of our Pantone ® Poetry project. We are writing about two colors today: Sweet Pea and Orange Ochre.

Day 24 Sweet Pea
Pantone ®  15-0531
Day 24 Orange Ochre
Pantone ®  16-1253
I was expecting to write about the tiger lilies, thick as weeds at the side of my house. I was expecting that my mother’s springtime garden, with pea pods growing on a vine, would make an appearance. I was expecting Halloween.

Instead of lilies and sweet peas, my poem came in the form of a spider. Orange Ochre inspired me to pull out an old poem. I haven’t looked at this since my teens were in preschool.

Miss Spider needed some polishing up, a little revision. But she’s ready to come out from under the car and reveal herself, as she did all those years ago when I was picking up my youngest from preschool.

Marbled Orb Weaver Spider
By Laura Shovan

I know I saw something
scuttle under the car.
A pebble-sized pumpkin
on eight spiny legs.
It’s a spider, says Mom.
What a lovely bright orange.

We watch the spider move
into the sun—orange ochre legs
carrying the round pumpkin ball
of its body, its back marked
with dark brown grimaces.
A tiny jack-o-lantern
ready to attack.

 Orange Marbled Orb Weaver - Araneus marmoreus - female
From Bug Guide!
What's That Bug? says
she's also called a Pumpkin Spider
Here's a poem from Michael C. Davis of Virginia. This one is for high schoolers and up, not for younger readers.

Ocher
by Michael C. Davis


First, the black, like meal
sifted through the fingers.
Night, where now you are.

Then the orange
smeared on your cheeks.
Forever may the sun be.

Finally, the red
to pool at the base of the pit
as if you had not died
but miscarried
and life was but an interrupted dream.


Diane Mayr of Random Noodling shares this funny narrative poem for Sweet Pea.

When I Read Russian Novels
by Diane Mayr


Just out of college I went to work for 
a university library while attending 
graduate school. I had the time and 
patience in those days for Russian 
novels.  A good number of evenings, 
weekends, subway rides, and lunch 
hours were spent with the library's

brand-spanking-new copy of the 
five hundred page novel, And Quiet
Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov.
One day, in the cafeteria while I read,
I sipped green split pea soup. Inevitably,
I spilled it on the book's unsullied pages.
Horrified, I blotted the soup as best as

I could, but, to this day, I'm sure the Don 
Cossacks still leap across the pea green 
puddle as they traverse Russia looking 
for war, romance, and everything else 
a character craves in an novel existence. 
Forty-years gone, I now read chapbooks
and write about green split pea soup.

I admit -- I have more than once accidentally schmutzed a library book.

Please be sure to visit Margaret Simon’s blog, Reflections on the Teche, today. I was so excited to hear that Margaret’s students “did our chalkabration poetry with colors, inspired by your project. I will be posting for Poetry Friday.” I can't wait to check it out, Margaret.

I will post your Sweet Pea and Orange Ochre poems throughout the day. Feel free to leave them in the comments.


Tomorrow, have a very different pair of colors: Plein Air and Syrah. Are you imagining Claude Monet painting en plein air, a glass of red wine resting on his easel?

Day 25 Plein Air
Pantone ®  13-4111

Day 25 Syrah
Pantone ®  19-1535

Photograph of Monet painting
by the water lily pond, 1920.
From Monetpainting.net

13 comments:

Linda B said...

I like those 'dark brown grimaces'. What a spider, have never seen such a beautiful one. Sees as if it would be hard to hide!

Diane Mayr said...

Wow, what a mix of poems! This month has been a fun ride.

The spider is amazing. It looks like a cherry tomato just ready to pop in the summer heat!

Liz Steinglass said...

All three poems are fascinating and so different. The colors were clearly inspiring! I will have to give this a try!

Author Amok said...

Hi, Linda. Indeed, which is why they don't often come out of the woods. If I remember correctly, this was a BIG girl, too.

Diane -- the spider almost reminds me of Cinderella's pumpkin coach.

Thanks, Liz. Glad you enjoyed the poems.

Author Amok said...

Wait a second -- I just realized that tomorrow's colors looks suspiciously like the map of the Polar Vortex temps. Yikes.

Patricia VanAmburg said...

Is it just me or is this blog speeding up? Here is one for tomorrow. I am the woman in the painting, but the artist is more Matisse than Monet.

Wine on the Seine

A silver-haired woman
sips some Syrah
from a cut-glass goblet
en plein air
and sun-drenched canvas.

jama said...

The month has really flown by. Thanks for all the color goodness. That is one cool spider!

A librarian sullying a new library book? Well, if you have to, I guess split pea soup is the best way to do it. :)

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes said...

How big is a BIG girl spider, Laura? I guess sometime I'll have to write a ditty about my own BIG girl spider story... about a huntsman spider that got just a bit too familiar. Not nearly as pretty, but I dare you to google the image. Also loved the intensity of Michael's poem and Diane's Don Cossacks leaping across the pea green puddle.

Karin Fisher-Golton said...

I'm late to discover (but not too late to catch up)--I love your notion of letting the pantone colors inspire you. I'm glad you dusted off that spider poem. I was especially delighted by "pebble-sized pumpkin" and "A tiny jack-o-lantern/ready to attack." The colors lead to such rich detail in all the poems.

Keri said...

All I can think is, "I'm glad the spider went UNDER the car, not IN the car." (Shudder) I've enjoyed your Pantone project!

Mary Lee said...

Wow. I'd love to see one of those spiders in real life...from a distance...

Author Amok said...

The spider couldn't have been bigger than the tip of a pinkie finger, and so gorgeous. Then again, I am a bug person. I tend to run to, not away from, eight-legged critters.

Bridget Magee said...

Beautiful poems and beautiful spider. I run toward things that are orange - my favorite color. I love the lines,
" carrying the round pumpkin ball
of its body," Exactly! = )