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.
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| 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.
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| Day 24 Sweet Pea Pantone ® 15-0531 |
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| 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.
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| From Bug Guide! |
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| 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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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| Day 25 Plein Air Pantone ® 13-4111 |
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| Day 25 Syrah Pantone ® 19-1535 |
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| Photograph of Monet painting by the water lily pond, 1920. From Monetpainting.net |
