Poetry Friday: Clarinet

It's been a music-filled week at the Shovan house.

Saturday, our son's high school marching band won third place at their national competition. He is a percussionist, currently on vibes.

This is me wearing the band-mom hat I knitted in my son's school colors.

Once a band geek, always a band geek. I was a flautist. Now I'm a band mom.

This week was our daughter's first middle school band concert. She plays clarinet. We've talked a few times about adding a second instrument (sax -- not for her, the deep tone kept making her laugh) but she is devoted to her clarinet.

My daughter spotted this early clarinet at the Smithsonian Museum of American History and pronounced it "weird."

Lately, I've been writing poems about my daughter. The fact that she is in middle school has triggered memories of my days at Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle, but also has me on parental alert as she transitions from 'tween to young adult.

I was looking for a clarinet poem for her and found one by Terrance Hayes. I don't think she's ready for this poem yet. It's a  very gentle love poem, but more suited for the teen side of 'tween. Teachers -- I'd recommend this poem for eighth grade and up.

All of these instruments are in the clarinet family. My daughter plays the "traditional" B flat clarinet.

Clarinet

by Terrance Hayes

I am sometimes the clarinet

your parents bought

your first year in band,

my whole body alive

in your fingers, my one ear

warmed by the music

you breathe into it.

I hear your shy laugh

among the girls at practice.

I am not your small wrist

rising & falling as you turn

the sheet music,

but I want to be.

Or pinky bone, clavicle.

When you walk home   

from school, birds call

to you in a language

only clarinets decipher. 

Read the rest at Poetry Foundation.

Hayes visited our area last month. He is a powerful poet (National Book Award winner) and a great speaker. I love the metaphor at work in "Clarinet." It is never spoken, but the clarinet and its music are deeply loved by the girl in the poem. It's soul love. The speaker's hint of sexual love is quiet -- the girl in the poem isn't there yet.

Fellow PF blogger Tabatha Yeatts (The Opposite of Indifference) and I  had a long talk about our kids and music over lunch recently. Kids who are musicians associate strongly with their chosen instruments. It's part of who they are and can define how they see themselves.

If I tell you that my son is a percussionist, my daughter a clarinetist and Tabatha's daughter is a French horn player, you begin to form an image of each child. Interesting. 

Musicians out there, what do you think about  how choice of instrument can define a person? Why did Hayes choose a clarinetist for this poem -- rather than a girl who plays the trombone?

This week's Poetry Friday host is Tabatha herself. But before you check out more poetry, check out this musical "Clarinet Poem."

National Poetry Month Issue 21

It's Day 21 of National Poetry Month. I'm blogging from sunny Bradenton, Florida -- spending spring break with my family.

Three generations living in the same house:  my parents, my husband and me, and my children. With a teenager in the mix, and my father about to celebrate his 70th birthday, relationships are in a state of flux.

At last weekend's Baltimore CityLit Festival, we had a panel discussion about our new poetry anthology, Life in Me Like Grass on Fire -- which features love poems by Maryland poets.

Panelist Barbara Westwood Diehl wrote the introduction to the "Friends and Family" section of Life in Me. It was interesting to hear what she had to say -- that family relationships are complicated things.

That is the case in Sue Ellen Thompson's poem, "Napping." She captures a shift in the relationship between mother and daughter.

Napping
 
My mother, who had walked six miles,
six days a week for years, knew
that her life was ending.  One day she smiled
at me and said, “I’m not in the mood
 
for walking today.  I think I’ll take
a nap instead.” She never napped
before lunch.  But how else could she say
it?  All morning she lay wrapped
 
in an afghan on the sofa, her eyes intent
upon a pattern taking shape in the air. 
 
Read the rest of the poem at Sue Ellen's website.

If you're local to Maryland, Sue Ellen is teaching some workshops in May at the Writers' Center's new Annapolis satellite location.

Sue Ellen's poem, "Shaken," is the source of the poetry anthology's title: Life in Me Like Grass on Fire.


Writing Exercise:
Sometimes it is the small moments that signify large changes in people.

For my 14 year-old son, a disappearing act during my high school friend's visit with her kids told me he'd hit the in-betweens -- not comfortable playing with the children, not comfortable chatting with the adults.


In "Napping," the nap itself is the signifier of a shift in the mother.


Can you pinpoint a small moment that marked a change in a family member?