Stormy Weather: 2014 Poetry Project

Don’t be blue, Writerly Friends. Although our month-long Pantone® Poetry Project is winding down, we still have three days of color-inspired poems to share.

Are you new to the Pantone® Poetry Project? Read all about it, right here.

Today’s colors tell a weather story with a happy ending. We begin with Stormy Weather…

Day 26 Stormy Weather
Pantone ®  18-4214

but by Daybreak…

Day 26 Daybreak
Pantone ®  17-3817

the skies are Porcelain Blue.

Day 26 Porcelain Blue
Pantone ®  14-4512

We’ve got some interesting metaphors working in today’s poems. Linda Baie (Teacher Dance) uses Stormy Weather as a state of being – a weather report on human moods, rather than precipitation.

Don’t Know Why…

By Linda Baie

Sunday crunch-

weekend flew,

cloudy words:

“Homework due!”
            stormy weather

Chapter two-

history,

darkened sky:

“It’s a mystery.”

             stormy weather

Analyze

poem’s rhyme,

lightning strike:

“I don’t have time.”

            stormy weather

Write bio-

famous guy

raining hard:

“Now I sigh.”

            stormy weather

Teenager

turns out light

advisory:

“Good night, good night.”

             stormy weather

by Linda Baie, all rights reserved.

I can relate to the stormy teen moods, Linda, but also to the parent who acts something like a weather forecaster.

It’s Mardi Gras week. Margaret Simon (Reflections on the Teche), who lives in Louisiana, writes, “I did travel to New Orleans this weekend and saw some amazing cloudy skies.  I started thinking about how the layers looked like a wedding dress.  I found some wedding gown descriptions to help me carry the metaphor throughout the poem.”

Partly Cloudy

by Margaret Simon

The bride was dressed in billowing waves,

blue-grey Chantilly lace layered

over a white-topped empire waist. 

Her scalloped neckline accented by rays

of sunlight peering through a cathedral train.

Her attendants, those high Mississippi kites, 

flew with utmost grace

announcing her imminent arrival.

Mississippi Kite from Carolina Bird Club

There have been a few times during this project when our poems’ themes have overlapped. (Remember our nostalgic Oxblood Red poems?)

Today is one of those days. Something about Blue Porcelain sent several of our poets shopping for vacation and travel souvenirs.

Journey
by Diane Mayr (Random Noodling)

Made in China. Ballast
in a wooden ship to be
shipped across the seas.

South around the tip
of a continent, then
northbound to Boston.

Shattered along the way.

Tea unloaded. Shards
of cheap china dumped
into Boston's harbor.

High tide, low tide.
Tidal currents. Day after
day. Year after year.

Decades...A century?

A walk on the beach
in Nahant. Sea glass,
a polished stone, and

a fragment of porcelain--
edges smooth. Placed
in my pocket for luck.

And the journey home.

Souvenir

by Laura Shovan

Magnets are for tourists, seashells glued

into googly-eyed turtles, a coffee-table

Coliseum. When I visit, take me

to the yarn shop—to Ursula’s Knits

above the bail bond store in Waikiki,

where the large proprietress swore

she never made mistakes and,

if I came back, promised to fix all mine;

to climb rickety stairs in Concord, Mass,

up to the shop where the only local wool

was Canadian, cool porcelain blue

I longed to own, that hot summer.

I take the Concord yarn out sometimes,

roll its two-ply twists between my fingers.

I leave the bits of hay and can’t think

what to make: a sweater? scarf

in Wedgewood blue, color

of my mother’s eyes? Curled

into its loose skein, I linger in

potentialities—a flock of blue sheep

grazing the fields of Canada

like puffy ice cubes, clouds

frozen solid, heavy enough to land.

An Eye for Blue Porcelain

By Patricia VanAmburg

He was fond of Willow Ware

Flow Blue and the blue lotus dragons

that his parents bought in Madagascar—

pocked with rice before glazing.

Patricia knows I am a knitter and hand-made sock-lover, so she sent me these virtual Blue Porcelain socks.

At the Prince and the Purl

My blue wooly sheep could be munching flowers in Michael Ratcliffe’s poem. Maybe in a few weeks.

Poem by Michael Ratcliffe

Morning sky, porcelain blue-- March snow--
we know winter's not through.
Spring awaits daffodil's cue
to return with Beltaine's hue. 

I had to look up "Beltaine." It's a traditional celebration of the spring equinox. We have the deep Peacock Green and Blue Jewel skies of spring for tomorrow’s colors.

Day 27 Peacock Green
Pantone ®  16-5431

Day 27 Blue Jewel
Pantone ®  18-4535

I’ll save our last color, Tandori Spice, for this week’s Poetry Friday. Look for a Pantone® Poetry Prize announcement -- I've got something special for the participating poets.