2015 Sound Poem Project Day 16: Quaking Aspen

Today is Day 16 of Author Amok's 2015 poem-a-day project. We are spending February writing in response to sounds.  I'm remembering my recent trip to New Mexico, with two days of sounds related to that region.

For a full description of the project and how to participate, please read this post. I hope you'll join us. I'll continue posting poems from Day 16 as they come in. Thanks to everyone who has sent in poems so far. We've written over 70 new poems already this month!

Our Day 16 prompt is quaking aspen, suggested by Jennifer Lewis.

Many of us are thinking about winter weather -- tonight is supposed to be Maryland's heaviest snowfall this year. But Diane Mayr of Random Noodling is thinking of summer storms. I like how each of this poem's stanzas uses figurative language (thus the subtitle).

Before the Summer Storm
(Figuratively Speaking)
by Diane Mayr

High above, the angels
glad-hand each
other and get in
some practice shots.

Reluctantly, the sun
grabs her cloud
cloak and pulls it
across her face.

The neighbor's
hound begins to
bay in a most
melodramatic way.

Birds fly low as if
they are shirts
trying to avoid the
press of a steam iron.

Ants and bees
busy themselves
buzzing and battening
their back doors.

Aspens literally
quake and the maple,
like a frightened child,
lifts her lacy skirt
to hide her face.

My effort today is half found poem, with phrases found at two online sources (here's the first and the second), and some original connective tissue ... including figurative language.

Quaking

By Laura Shovan

Each heart-shaped

aspen leaf

holds its stem

at a right angle,

as a tango dancer

dressed in gold

might face

her partner’s

squared shoulder,

slim petiole turned,

angled against

whispering leaf.

They tremble together,

like thousands

of wings. A breath

of breeze

turns these trees

to quivering gold.

The aspens are dancing again in Charles Waters' poem.

MATINEE

Aspens papery flags

Whip into applause

After the ballerinas

Of breeze complete

 Their final pirouette.

(c) Charles Waters 2015 all rights reserved.

Mike Ratcliffe still has Valentine's Day on his mind with his poem. He told me that the title means, "in the grove of the trembling aspens." Be sure to read Mike's comment on this post for a little background on this wonderful poem.

En la Arboleda de los Álamos Temblórosos

by Mike Ratcliffe

¡Ay! Mi corazón. Mi amor.

My heart aches to hear

the wind through these trees.

These leaves, the only gold we’ve seen.

I cry as I think of you,

and the golden light of Andaluz.

¡Ay! This wind, these leaves—

a thousand castanets,

a thousand days searching for gold,

a thousand nights dreaming of you.

¡Ay! Dance for me, my love,

dance for me in my dreams.

I like the way that Linda Baie's final two lines make a clear visual and auditory picture. Do you hear the connection to the castanets from Mike's poem?

The Other Gold of Quaking Aspen

Aspen’s shaking, shushing rattles

of their sideways-growing leaves

makes me close my eyes,

hear natives dance among the trees.

I think they stole the sound,

hold it in a gourd of seeds.

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

Patricia VanAmburg's poem today is full of wordplay -- another type of sound poem.

Squall

by Patricia VanAmburg

quake—shake

mostly fake

snow—blow

just for show

chill still

fills each tree

quiver—shiver

trembles me

Thanks to Patricia for sending an extra treat -- this children's poem by Christina Rossetti. 

Who Has Seen the Wind?

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

And we have a new poet joining us today, Poetry Friday blogger Karin Fisher-Golton! Welcome, Karin.

Quaking Aspen Sound Haiku
by Karin Fisher-Golton


green, the aspen cheered
yellow glory lands, leaving
single leaf silence

Here are all of the sound prompts for the third week of February. As promised, I included a couple of sounds from New Mexico:

Sunday, February 15

Video of Santa Fe's Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi by my Albuquerque friend, Jennifer Lewis.

Monday, February 16
Quaking aspen. Read more about this sound here.

Tuesday, February 17

Wednesday, February 18
Recommended by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes of Today's Little Ditty

Thursday, February 19

Friday, February 20
Follow the link to choose your reptile.

Saturday, February 21

You'll need to turn the volume high to hear this one.

If you'd like some poem-starters to wake up your muse, you'll find them at the bottom of this post. Drop in any time with a poem. I’ll continue to post your work throughout the month, no matter which sound you are writing in response to.

Would you like to read what we’ve written so far? Here are links to the week 2 poems. You can find links to the week 1 poems on all of these posts:

Sunday, February 8

Sound of Waves Poems by Patricia VanAmburg, Diane Mayr, Linda Baie, Laura Shovan, Margaret Simon, and Charles Waters.

Monday, February 9

Bubbling Cauldron Poems by Diane Mayr, Charles Waters, Laura Shovan, and Buffy Silverman.

Tuesday, February 10

Fireworks Poems by Charles Waters, Diane Mayr, and Laura Shovan.

Wednesday, February 11

Classic Typewriter Sound Poems by Patricia VanAmburg, Diane Mayr, Charles Waters, Mike Ratcliffe, and Laura Shovan.

Thursday, February 12

Mockingbird Poems by Linda Baie, Mike Ratcliffe, Laura Shovan, Charles Waters, and Margaret Simon.

Friday, February 13

Cape Eagle Owl Call Poems by Linda Baie, Patricia VanAmburg, Charles Waters, and Diane Mayr.

Saturday, February 14

Male Woodcock Mating Call Poems by Diane Mayr, Patricia VanAmburg, Mike Ratcliffe, Laura Shovan, Linda Baie, and Charles Waters.

In Residence: Take a Hike!

It's Memorial Day weekend, fellow writers.

Let's take poet Mary Oliver's advice and remind ourselves:

"how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields"

From "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver

Julia is leading us on a stroll
to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.

But before we head out the door for a holiday weekend hike, the Northfield third grade wants to whet your appetite for streams and wildlife with their nature-themed opposite poems.

Listen to the sounds we hear around us.

Loud Things Are Beautiful
by Laura J.

Loud things are beautiful:
the loud crash of thunder,
the roaring of waves
and the pounding of rain,
the rushing of water,
and the loud, roaring cry
of a lion in pain.

Quiet things are beautiful:
the quiet trickle of water,
the flutter of willows,
and the lapping of a bay,
the snores of a donkey
and the gentle showers
in the middle of May.

Remember to check the weather before you head out on your hike, and pack your sunblock or your rain poncho.

Stormy, Sunny
by Rachel Y.

Sunny weather is pleasant:
Colorful rainbows and the sun,
bright blue skies.
Yes! No clouds.

And stormy weather is harsh:
Dark nimbus clouds,
whirling tornadoes,
streaming floods,
loud thunder and bright lightning.

Sometimes being quiet on a hike allows you to see nature in action.

Land and Sea
by Ariana G.

The land is ready to be explored.
The horse is galloping down the field.
The cheetah is napping.
The cat is stalking.
The grass is waving.

And hte sea is ready to be explored.
The dolphin is playing.
The waves are rolling.
The seaweed is drifting.
The sea turtle looks like it's flying
through the water.

If you're camping, be sure to pack plenty of water. And if you build a fire, watch it carefully or it might turn into a dragon.

Water and Fire
by Meena K.

Water is an incredible thing:
fish swimming in a pond,
beavers building dens in a river,
sharks in an ocean.

And fire is incredible too:
two sticks rubbed together,
two rocks rub rub,
dragon breathing fire out
into the air.

All poems posted with permission of the authors.

Thanks, Northfielders, for leading us on this hike through our imaginations. If you'd like take a real poetry hike with your children, check out this book -- written by students:

Find out more at Scholastic.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Next up: Northfield food poems.

In Residence: Fibbing about Outer Space

Welcome back to Northfield Elementary School, where I am in residence this month.

(What does "in residence" mean? I explain it all in this post.)

On Monday, we looked at scientific third grade Fibonacci poems. Those poems were grounded here on Earth. But outer space is also part of science and nature.

Today, let's head to the stars with third grade Fibs. I love the scientific facts that Jay includes in  his poem.

Gravity
by Jay K.

Gs
pull.
Suction
releases.
Can be strong or weak.
Secures all of us to the ground.
There's not that much gravitational pull on the moon.
If there was no gravity, we would be floating around
     in outer space with no air.

From NASA

Lindsay starts in outer space, then returns us to Earth.

What Space Is
by Lindsay H.

Stars
Space
Planets
Galaxy
Comets and the Sun
Go away as I now wake up,
Many miles away from my planet where I live.

From NASA

Dylan uses onomatopoeia to think about the future of our world. Look how the last line of Dylan's poem adds an unexpected twist.

Robots
by Dylan

Clang
Crank
Robots
Everywhere
Robots rule the world
Robots are low on batteries

Check out what today's robots are capable of: 



Great job, third graders.

Thank you to the Northfield teachers and families for giving me permission to share the students poems! I will continue to post student poems until our Poets' Tea in June.

In Residence: Fibbing in Third Grade

Writerly Friends, this month I am in residence at Northfield Elementary School.

What does "in residence" mean, exactly?

Fifteen years ago, when our family moved to Maryland, I applied to my state arts council's "Arts-in-Education" program. Through grants, often matched by a school's cultural arts budged, the program sends opera singers, playwrights, painters, bookmakers, mosaic artists, dancers, and others into schools around the state.

Some artists visit for a day, conducting assemblies. Artists-in-residence like me work with smaller groups, over a longer period of time.

The teachers and I have lost count of how many years I've been visiting Northfield -- at least eight. Instead of meeting with the whole school, I work with one grade: third!

There are five third grade classes at Northfield this year. Every day that I visit the school, I work with two different classroom groups.

The grant pays for a certain number of sessions. It works out to five workshops for each third grade class, a few meetings with the third grade educators, and a Poets Tea at the end of the residency.

At the Poets' Tea, we show off work like these
third grade portrait poems in response to fine art.

I'm sharing this background now because ...

this week I make my first appearance as a regular children's poetry blogger at Michelle Heindrich Barnes blog, Today's Little Ditty! I'll cover the poet-in-the-schools angle. Other members of Michelle's poetry team include Renee LaTulippe, Buffy Silverman, and Carrie Clickard.

I love having a long-standing relationship with a school, where I return  year after year. Older students see me in the hall and say, "It's the poet! I remember when you came to my class!"

We started this year's residency with Fibonacci poems, a form invented by Poetry Friday blogger Gregory K. Pincus. 

If you'd like to check out my Fib workshop lesson plan, you can read it at this post. 

Since we spend time talking about the Fibonacci math sequence and how it describes a pattern we can see in nature, I encourage the third graders to choose a scientific topic for their fibs. Today's poems are about plants and animals.

Plants
by Alastair

plants
life
green world
beautiful
soil, water, and sun
nature within the shining Earth

Green Earth, from NASA's Earth Observatory site.

In a Fibonacci poem, the poet starts with a small idea ... a single word, but he must use description, detail, and sometimes action -- as in this young man's exciting poem -- to reach those longer lines.

Untitled

AH!
Run!
Be scared.
Shark Attack!
They want to eat you.
It is not fun getting chomped up.

What I love about the Fib form is how it encourages stretching. The poet isn't simply building from one, two, and three syllables on a line to several syllables. As the poem develops, so must the complexity of thought. Watch how Emily uses this technique to build to a 13-syllable line.

Chameleons
by Emily M.

Green
Scales
Climbs trees
Camouflage
Lives in rain forests
Off ground, away from predators
Mysterious looking, thinking of a plan to escape

Meller's Chameleon, from National Geographic

Thank you to the Northfield teachers and families for giving me permission to share the students poems! I hope to post new poems regularly throughout May until our Poets' Tea in June.

Source Poems: "Sea Fever"

For National Poetry Month 2014, I have invited 17 authors and poets to guest post about source poems. In this series of essays, each writer will describe a single poem's significance in his or her life.

We return to the water today with guest blogger and Maryland-based poet Pat Valdata.

Pat Valdata

Sea Fever, Spring Fever

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t like the ocean, and boating, even though the only boat ride I took as a child was the Circle Line’s sedate cruise around Manhattan. Something about traveling on the water appealed to my child’s mind for reasons I couldn’t fathom (pun intended!). Then, when I was in sixth grade, I discovered John Masefield’s “Sea Fever”:

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking,

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Between the alliteration and the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, I could hear the rhythm of pitch and roll in every line. This was the first poem to give me the “aha!” moment of hearing how the sounds represented the sense. I loved to recite: “To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife….” Say them out loud—isn’t it a fun line to speak? I loved then, and still love, how the wavy smoothness of “the gull’s way and the whale’s way where” transitions into a sudden punch of frigid wind “like a whetted knife.”

I had always enjoyed reading poetry, from Mother Goose to A Child’s Garden of Verses. [Previous Source Poem posts about A Child's Garden of Verses include "The Land of Counterpane" and "Rain."] 

But “Sea Fever” was the first poem that piqued my interest in craft, not that I could have expressed it just that way when I was in sixth grade. By the time I took literature classes in high school, though, I was seriously interested in matters of craft, although my own poetry consisted of overwritten, angst-filled creepy lines meant to channel Edgar Allan Poe, or short, pithy verses that I thought were as sophisticated as anything written by Dorothy Parker.

And then I read an untitled poem by E.E. Cummings and was fascinated by the poem’s appearance on the page; by sounds like “Just/mud-luscious”; by his trick of writing “eddieandbill” and “bettyandisbel” to visually show the closeness of the two pairs of children who are inseparable at play; and by the mysterious “balloonMan” whose goat-footedness led me to the encyclopedia to learn more about Pan, who is the perfect mythological character to represent springtime, fertility, and eddieandisbel’s & billandbetty’s foreshadowed sexuality.

Cumming’s poetry, which was avant garde when he wrote it, still seemed hip and fresh when I first encountered it in high school (okay, so it was a long time ago). Then it seemed the very opposite of Masefield to me, and it led me into the world of free verse poetry. But now I see how similar the two poems are in their treatment of sound effects; how Cummings, in his use of typography and repetition, is also paying close attention to rhythm; and how both poems celebrate the irresistible wildness of nature that draws me outdoors in just-spring and to the ocean (or at least the Chesapeake Bay) every chance I get.

__________________________________________________

Surf

By Pat Valdata

On the anniversary of your dying alone

I stood on the hard-packed shoreline,

back turned toward the insistent wind.

I picked up a clamshell covered in spume,

ridges smoothed by the tumble to shore.

In the heavy, polished, concave core

I ground sand grains under my thumb.

A gust pushed me three steps closer

to the hiss of spray, the retreating surf,

where wave after wave thrummed ashore,

pushed by last night’s thunderstorm.

I tasted a filigree of freezing foam.

Salt on my fingertips. Too much like tears.

A note about this poem: “Surf” isn’t a new poem. It won the Eastern Shore Regional Poetry Competition in 2006. But it is representative of the “semiformal” way I often write now, paying attention to rhythm and mixing rhyme and off-rhyme, and in doing so, acknowledging the influence of poets like Masefield, Cummings, and many others.

John Masefield, painting by William Strang
Source: The Telegraph

Pat Valdata is poet and novelist whose most recent book is Inherent Vice, a book of poetry published by Pecan Grove Press in 2011, the same publisher that printed her poetry chapbook Looking for Bivalve, which was a contest finalist in 2002. Pat has twice received Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council for her poetry. In 2013 she was awarded a grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation for a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Thanks to this grant and residency, she completed the manuscript for a forthcoming book of poetry that was awarded the 2015 Donald Justice Prize. Pat lives in Elkton and works at the West Chester University Poetry Center.

Previous posts in this series:

Laura Shovan on "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams

Dylan Bargteil on "On Moral Leadership as a Political Dilemma" by June Jordan

J. C. Elkin on "Hannibal Clim" (author unknown)

Diane Mayr on a haiku by Basho

Jone MacCulloch on "We Are Waiting (a pantoum)" by Joyce Sidman

Mary Bargteil on Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

Jacqueline Jules on "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes

Pamela Murray Winters on "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dennis Kirschbaum on "Rain" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Janet Fagal on "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats

Linda Baie on "The Way It Is" by William Stafford

Source Poems: "We Are Waiting (a pantoum)"

For National Poetry Month 2014, I have invited 17 authors and poets to guest post about source poems. In this series of essays, each writer will describe a single poem's significance in his or her life.

Today's guest blogger poet Jone MacCulloch. Jone blogs about being a K-5 librarian at Check it Out.

Jone MacCulloch

There were a lot of poets on my mind when I signed up to guest blog here. I could select Naomi Shihab Nye or William Stafford or William Carlos Williams (already featured). Each one has influenced my writing. However, one poet is responsible for teaching me the following poetry form.

Whenever I write a poem using the pantuom form, I am thankful for Joyce Sidman's book Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow. [What is a pantoum?]

"We Are Waiting (a pantuom)" was tucked into the back half of this book which I was reading as a judge for the CYBILS Poetry Award in 2006. (Read about it here.) This poetry form is also found in Joyce’s book This is Just to Say.

We Are Waiting (a pantuom)

By Joyce Sidman

Our time will come again,

Say the patient ones.

Now is meadow,

But not for long.

Say the patient ones:

Sunlight dazzles,

but not for long.

Seedlings grow amongst the grass.

Sunlight dazzles,

and the meadow voles dance,

but seedlings grow amongst the grass.

Forest will return.

Meadow voles dance,

where once was fire,

but forest will return.

We wait patiently.

Once was fire,

Now is meadow.

We wait patiently.

Our time will come again.

What are we?

I read and reread this poem. Its musicality captivates me. It feels like a call and response in the simple complexity of repeating lines. I love the weaving of the lines, a tapestry of words. There's a story here. Something has happened in what was once the forest.

"We Are Waiting" is a perfect source poem for close reading with students. Asking them what they notice about the poems and its structure provides great discussions. Sidman's website is an excellent resource for all poetry aficionados.

Sidman's poem mentors me. Rereading this poem is important to my process of writing a pantuom. While I've not memorized this poem (or many others, as I hate memorizing), the cadence of this poem is with me. Sidman suggests to begin with a topic that's a passion for you. I write down several phrases about the topic. Then like a jigsaw puzzle, I arrange the lines, fitting them together. It's a time to play around with the line order.

For my response to "We Are Waiting" I borrowed the first line of Joyce’s  poem and a few other words.

I love what happens in spring. In February, when we had snow, there were the daffodils emerging in my front flower box. They are followed by the pink tulips. And there’s nothing better than listening to the arrival of the robins, a harbinger of spring days.

Jone's daffodils are eager for spring.

Spring

By Jone MacCulloch

Our time will come again,

say the emerging daffodils

in the dazzle of the sun

as pink calypso tulips bloom.

Say the emerging daffodils:

Our time is brief

as pink calypso tulips bloom

during spring's first rain.

Our time is brief,

sing the robins

during spring's first rain

while worms wriggle in the grass.

Sing the robins,

We'll be back

while worms wriggle in the grass

nectar awaits the first arrival of bees.

We'll be back

in the dazzle of the sun

nectar awaits the first arrival of bees.

Our time will come.

© 2014 Jone Rush MacCulloch 

Joyce Sidman

Jone is a teacher-librarian during the school year, who writes, reads, and blogs (personal blog, Deowriter and school blog Check It Out) the rest of the time. She’d rather write poetry than memorize it. She has had haiku published in Acorn; A Journal of Contemporary Haiku and the Haiku Society of American Members' Anthology. In 2012, she self-published a small collection of poetry and photography, Solace in Nature, and is currently working on a novel in verse. Helping with SCBWI-OR book sales is one way Jone gives back to a great writing community. You can follow Jone on Twitter @JoneMac53.

Previous posts in this series:

Laura Shovan on "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams

Dylan Bargteil on "On Moral Leadership as a Political Dilemma" by June Jordan

J. C. Elkin on "Hannibal Clim" (author unknown)

Diane Mayr on a haiku by Basho