Greetings from New Mexico, everyone!
Today is Day 8 of Author Amok's 2015 poem-a-day project.
We are spending February writing in response to sounds. I’ve
spent the last two days skiing and visiting the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in
Santa Fe, so I'm posting both the Day 7 and Day 8 responses tonight.
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 Days 5
and 6 as they come in.
I’m having an amazing visit with my friend Jennifer Lewis. It’s
my first time in the Southwest. Here are some of the views.
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| View from Jen's house on the Sandia Mountains. |
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| Hiking slot canyons at Tent Rocks National Monument. |
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| New Mexican landscape and light. |
Jen and I have a few sounds – special to this area of the country –
that we’ve prepared for you. I’ll post those with the week three and week four
prompts. Tomorrow, I travel home to Maryland. Look for the Day 9 and 10 poems on
Tuesday.
Our Day 7 prompt was to pick the sound of your choice from the online
Museum of Endangered Sounds.
Patricia VanAmbug chose the dial sound from a rotary phone.
Missing Link
By Patricia VanAmburg
Rotary dials made
zippery sounds to keep us
clearly connected
The Teletype spoke
to Diane Mayr of Random Noodling. She writes, “I ended up working 12 years for
the company and not long after I left, the rise of the personal computer
basically drove the final nail in the coffin of computer time-sharing.”
Cutting Edge
by Diane Mayr
Cutting Edge
by Diane Mayr
In '74 I was in the accounting
department of a business
selling computer time-sharing
to other businesses.
Technology's cutting edge.
The mainframes were
housed in a huge building.
Air conditioners hummed
and tapes whirred all day,
all night, seven days a week.
Reports were produced on tractor fed,
132 column-wide dot matrix printers.
For the time, this was high tech stuff.
My department was housed miles
away in a smaller building.
Our electric typewriters produced memos.
Click, click, click, click, click...
We typed up invoices for services
on teleprinter machines.
Click, click, click, click, click...
Our fingers raced across adding
machines to check figures.
Click, click, click, click, click...
It was a world of clicks.
And it is gone.
But, so is the cutting edge technology
that replaced it, and the one after that...
Each improvement less noisy.
When you think about it, today's
cutting edge is actually quite dull.
For her endangered
sound, Linda Baie found her own clip. I wonder, if this pest actually were
endangered, how it would affect our environment.
Mosquito
Endangered?
Yes,
buzz and whine,
rais-
ing
hand,
you’re mine, you’re mine!
swat, slap,
gone this time.
Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved
Fitting for today’s endangered sound prompt, Margaret Simon has
a memory poem.
Olympus Camera
By Margaret Simon
I was fifteen in the family Delta 88
vacation to see the Grand Tetons
blowing bubblegum bubbles and singing to the radio.
My father said, “If you want to be a real photographer,
we have to go to the warehouse in Denver
for the newest Olympus 35 millimeter
with aperture and focus.”
My first real camera got me in the darkroom
with Darren, kissing
while making film come to life
under purple lights and chemicals.
High school dreams come true when Daddy buys you a camera in
Denver.
We had a darkroom like this at my high school. Margaret’s second
to last stanza describes a place I remember well.
Charles Waters' poem is a great companion piece to Margaret's darkroom today.
And my typewriter pantoum is also set in high school.
Charles Waters' poem is a great companion piece to Margaret's darkroom today.
SHUTTER SNAP
Forever images are tattooed
With a metallic snap!
(c) Charles Waters 2015 all rights reserved.
And my typewriter pantoum is also set in high school.
Learning to Type
By Laura Shovan
I learned to type
in a sunless classroom,
no light to catch
the metal keys.
In a sunless classroom,
my fingers pressed
the metal keys:
ASDF ASDF.
My fingers pressed
beyond rote patterns
ASDF ASDF,
formed real words.
Beyond rote patterns,
I saw my thoughts. They
formed visible words
letter by letter.
I saw my thoughts. They
were metal keys
forming visible words
as I learned to type.
Our Day 8 prompt was a recording of waves from Cornwall,
England.
The
turquoise and burnt umber in Patricia’s poem remind me of Albuquerque. I haven’t
written my waves poem yet, but I’m thinking about all of the fish fossils that
have been found on the plains here. Albuquerque was once home to an ocean, the WesternInterior Seaway.
The Collection
By Patricia
VanAmburg
Sound box pulsing on
waves without water—
unpierced by gull or light—
no colored sea glass turned
turquoise and burnt umber
with tumbling in the scum—
no chips of polished shell
ringed like fiesta ware—
no strands of mermaid hair.
I like the way Diane
Mayr’s waves poem moves from exterior, tactile images to an interior question.
Breaking on the Shore
By Diane Mayr
Sand slides from
beneath my feet.
This return flow
unnerves me, yet,
is exhilarating.
Am I stationary?
Am I moving?
Does the sea know
my line between
reality and illusion
is not so well-defined
as to be uncrossable?
Sand slides from
beneath my feet.
This return flow
unnerves me, yet,
is exhilarating.
Am I stationary?
Am I moving?
Does the sea know
my line between
reality and illusion
is not so well-defined
as to be uncrossable?
Linda Baie’s response to the sound of waves opens
with an invitation. The rhythm of this poem is evocative of waves.
Sea Song
Would you, could you
come with me?
We’ll watch and wander
by the sea.
We’ll hold the shells
washed up on sand.
We’ll jump the waves.
I’ll hold your hand.
We’ll follow birds
with our own dance,
laughing at
their zig-zag prance.
We’ll close our eyes.
We’ll feel the beat
of waves and waves
upon our feet.
And when the sun
dips low adieu,
I’ll travel home
with you, with you.
Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved
I made a diamante poem with help from Read, Write, Think's Diamante Maker.
By Laura Shovan
I made a diamante poem with help from Read, Write, Think's Diamante Maker.
Ocean
endless gray
moving pulling crashing
tides grasp like fingers at the shore
receding undulating enticing
unstill travelers
Waves
By Laura Shovan
Margaret Simon has been working on some poems
dedicated to a dear friend. She says she likes how this poem “visually looks like the heartbeat image, too.”
Waves
By Margaret Simon
If you could draw an image of her heartbeat,
it would be the waves crashing to shore
then pushing back against the sea,
Crash, silence, crash, silence,
a beat never ending,
the sound of life
going on.
Charles Waters also captures the fleeting nature of waves in his poem.
Here are all of the sound prompts for the second week of February:
WAVES
Gushes of aquatic shaped
Mountain ridges corkscrew
Themselves onto shore
Leaving foamy, disintegrated
Signatures.
(c) Charles Waters 2015 all rights reserved.
Here are all of the sound prompts for the second week of February:
The Sound of Waves
Saturday,
February 14: Recommended by Buffy Silverman.
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.
If you’d like to read what we’ve written so far, here are links
to the week 1 poems:
Read Water Wheel
Poems by Laura Shovan, Margaret Simon, Diane Mayr, Linda Baie,
Patricia VanAmburg, and Charles Waters.
Read Angel
Chimes Poems by Diane Mayr, Margaret Simon, Laura Shovan, Linda
Baie, Patricia VanAmburg, and Charles Waters.
Read Knife Sharpening
Poems by Diane Mayr, Linda Baie, Margaret Simon, Laura Shovan,
Charles Waters, and Patricia VanAmburg.
Read Thunderstorm Poems by Margaret Simon, Diane Mayr, Patricia
VanAmburg, Laura Shovan, Linda Baie, and Charles Waters.
Read Ballet poems by Diane Mayr,
Margaret Simon, Laura Shovan, Patricia VanAmburg, and Charles Waters.
Read Theremin Poems by Matt Forrest
Esenwine, Charles Waters, Patricia VanAmburg, Margaret Simon, Diane Mayr, Laura
Shovan, and Buffy Silverman.
Saturday, February 7:
Listener's Choice -- pick your endangered sound.
3 comments:
The pictures are wonderful, Laura, not surprised. What a lovely time you are having! I must apologize for not reading "all" the directions about the endangered sounds, thought we were to choose our own. (Don't tell my students!) Like always everyone, I love the poems, the variety of approach and topic is breath-taking.
Amazing colors there in the Southwest. One day I must travel. The Georgia O'Keeffe museum would be my first stop. I've been a great admirer ever since reading about her in in a book about Edward Steichen, and then seeing a documentary on PBS many years ago. (I think this may be the one: http://perrymilleradato.com/Documentaries/georgia-o_keeffe
I love the surprises these poems offer. Each so very different!
Delightful mosquito surprise, Linda.
Beautiful wave image, Margaret.
I just had exactly that sliding experience, Diane--so succinct.
I am going to take a small break. Carry on friends! Come home Laura.
XOX Patricia
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