Quicksilver Ballerina: 2014 Poetry Project

Writerly Friends, I am the type of girl who cannot resist a hot-pink tutu. Show me a box of dress ups, and I’m happy to pull on hats, scarves, and tulle creations for hours. 

Dressing up as a "Merry Man"
at Nottingham Castle.

It’s Day 22 of the Pantone®  Poetry Project. (“What’s that?” you ask. Read about the month-long writing project here.)

Today’s colors are Quicksilver and Ballerina.

Day 22 Quicksilver
Pantone ®  17-3907

Day 22 Ballerina
Pantone ®  13-2807

Many of us tied on a pair of ballet slippers at some point, or helped a child pull on tights, or pinned a grandchild's hair into a bun. Dance is a rich metaphor for life and the passage of time, as you’ll read in today’s poems.

Ballet Slipper
by Patricia VanAmburg

Her slippers, leotard and skin
are all the wrong color on
this very first day of class—
brilliant jungle dancer
pirouetting through the house—
leaping—twirling—unable to sit
still in the four-year-old circle
with fingers slippering the floor
in time to some very small music. 

Patricia's granddaughter is a girl after my own heart. As long as we're wearing a costume, let's go crazy!

Ballerina
by Diane Mayr

At four it is all about the tulle,
pink and light as French buttercream.
At fourteen it is all about the pointe,
toes raw, pink with blood and sweat.
At twenty-four it is all about the anguish
of seeing pink roses tossed for another.
At thirty-four it is all about the dance
lesson for four-year-olds in pink tulle.

I love the circular nature of Diane's poem, which we'll return to in a moment. Margaret's daughter celebrated a birthday this week. This is a "not" poem -- Margaret cleverly uses pink (NOT her daughter's color) as a jumping off point for this portrait.

29 year old

            For Maggie, 2/24/14

By Margaret Simon

Ballerina pink is not your color

as you take to the streets in an obsidian Lexus,

Independent,

daring,

bold

You fly to San Francisco. Run by the Golden Gate;

International orange looks good on you!

Undaunted, throw your hair to the wind—

Quick like silver, don’t look back.

Vintage postcard from The Old Collector.

I like the sense of movement in Linda's poem, which brings us back to the young dancer.

Granddaughter’s Kiss

by Linda Baie

netted tutu

sparkle shoes

ballerina pink

kiss

turning twirling whirling

bliss

Linda Baie © all rights reserved

For my Quicksilver Ballerina, I looked outside. Ballet can be seen as a metaphor for another kind of growth…

Maple Seeds

By Laura Shovan

Each green ballerina

pirouettes through air

and where she lands

her curtsy brushes low.

She disappears

behind a curtain of earth,

changes costume, waits

for spring’s spotlight

to call her back onstage.

Same poem in the form of a haiku

green ballerina’s

quicksilver dance—tree to earth

she waits for spring’s cue

Tomorrow, Day 23, is bringing us all kinds of weather words to play with. Your colors are Solar Power, Gulf Stream, and Nimbus Cloud.

Day 23 Solar Power
Pantone ®  13-0759

Day 23 Gulf Stream
Pantone ®  14-4511

Day 23 Nimbus Cloud
Pantone ®  13-4108

If you’d like to revisit poems from the first three weeks of the project, here are the links:

Pantone®  Poetry Project Week One Wrap-up: http://authoramok.blogspot.com/2014/02/week-1-wrap-up-2014-poetry-project.html

Pantone®  Poetry Project Week Two Wrap-up:  http://authoramok.blogspot.com/2014/02/oxblood-red-2014-poetry-project.html

Pantone®  Poetry Project Week Three Wrap-up:

Day 15: Lemon Meringue, Margarita

Day 16: Jolly Green, Cabaret

Day 17 & 18: Dubarry, Papaya Punch

Day 19: Orange Pepper, Soothing Sea

Day 20: Silver Bullet, Rhapsody

Day 21: Poseidon, Tornado, Aqua Splash

And you’ll find a list of our last seven colors at this post: http://authoramok.blogspot.com/2014/02/poseidons-pantone-adventures-2014.html

Remember: keep writing, keep sharing and this could be yours!

I'm saving this prize for our most
frequent Pantone®  Poem poster.