Poetry Friday: Poetry Postcard 29

Greetings, poets and postcards lovers. It's Poetry Friday. Today, Linda Baie is hosting the blog roll at Teacher Dance. Linda has been a huge supporter of my poetry postcard project, even donating the lovely vintage Valentine postcard you see at the top of this post.

Not my Valentine. But he is here for a reason. Read on.

I have a new postcard poem today (#29 in the 44 Postcard Project) and a craft!

I am taking a poetry road trip this weekend, but not with a Yeti.

Last March, three poets from North Carolina visited us here in Maryland. We had readings, a workshop, and one fabulous meal at a Greek restaurant. (You can the NC poets' work on my blog: Richard Krawiec, Debra Kaufman and Stephanie Levin.)

Now, it's our turn to travel south. Poet Fred Foote and fiction authors Danuta Hinc and Jen Grow -- all Little Patuxent Review staffers -- are joining me in the mommy van known to my kids as The Mars Rover.

We leave around lunchtime, so please forgive any delays posting your comments. We'll be leading some workshops and an evening reading (details here). If you're near Cary, NC on Saturday, I hope you'll drop by.

We'll be stopping for at least one meal along the way, I  hope it's not here:

Bit of Sweden, 9051 Sunset Blvd.
Hollywood, Cal.

"The World's Most Unique Restaurant"

World's most unique restaurant,  you say? I can only guess what's on the menu.

The World’s Most Unique Restaurant

Starters

Fingernails of white lipped snails
baked in their tangy goo.

Underwater salad dressed

with phytoplankton stew.

Main Course

Fractal cauliflower over
gojiberry mash.

Yeti-hair spaghetti with
green pollen – just a dash.

            Desserts

Rubber bark and lemon shark,
our chef’s signature pie.

Layer cake with scale of snake

frosted with phorid fly.

            From the Owner

Come brave our culinary treats,

from gorsebush wine to pickled meats!

We are unique down to our seats.
It is our joy to serve you.

Laura Shovan

Did you spot the Yeti?

Imagining what is served at the world's most unique restaurant was too delicious a challenge to turn down.

Try the prompt with your students. What do they think might be served at the world's most unique restaurant? I promise, they will never forget the definition of "unique" after trying this prompt.

On to the craft. What to do with all of those Valentine cards you received yesterday? After a grace period -- we don't want to break any loving hearts -- we can make postcards from them.

This is a great project for recyclers. Take an old card,

Here's an interesting card I've been saving.

I can always save the note inside.

 cut off the front, the part with the picture.

Now I have two pieces.

Use a postcard you already have to help you trim the front of the card to postcard size.

I used a standard postcard as a guide.

Voila! Postcard. Add it to your collection or send to a friend. Remember, postcards stamps just went up to thirty-three cents.

Poetry Postcard #29 Information:

Back:

Bit of Sweden

9051 Sunset Blvd.

Hollywood, Cal.

Phone: Bradshaw 2-2800

The World’s Most Unique Restaurant Featuring the largest Smorgasboard, fine foods and liqueurs.

A “Colourpicture” Publication, Boston 15, Mass., L.S. Office 2143 So. Alsace

National Poetry Month Issue 29

Happy last Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month 2011!

All this month, I've been featuring poets from my home state, Maryland.

We've been feeling at sea in my house lately. Both of my children are winding down at their schools and getting ready for their next adventures: high school and middle school.

It's meant ups and downs as frequent as the tides. My son auditioned for his future high school's band and was thrilled to be accepted, but is so over 8th grade projects.

My daughter can't wait to join her middle school TV studio and book club. But today, she was embarrassed when all the fifth grade girls were lectured about appropriate dress (if you have cleavage, keep it to yourself).

In Lalita Noronha's poetic hands, "At Sea," has a very different meaning from the one my family is experiencing. The ocean in her poem is real -- alien, but comforting in the sense of welcome the speaker feels.

AT SEA

by Lalita Noronha

Buoyed by memory,

we float a hundred feet beneath the sea,

arms spread wide to glide past years that

disappeared into a long good night.

Beating like soft hearts,

clouds of jelly fish rise.

Sea lions come to tickle our hands,

whiskers soft as hair.

Behind the kelp,

suspended like a question mark,

a sea horse stares

and dares us to forget.

And in this blue cosmos,

at least for one moment,

the skin of a sea-tulip blooms pink,

a hundred feet beneath the sea,

without corners,

without edges,

without ends.

Published with permission of the author.

This poem first appeared in JMWW, Winter 2008; http://jmww.150m.com/Noronha.html (A great journal to submit work to, by the way.) 

Writing Exercise (Upper Elementary - Adult):

Many of us have had these "without corners/without edges/without ends" moments when we connect with animals.

When the speaker in "At Sea" touches sea lions and comes face to face with sea horses, it gives him or her a sense of timelessness.

Write about a time when you connected with an animal (or other living creature -- a tree?) and felt this way. 

One of my favorite poems on this theme is "A Blessing" by James Wright. It's posted at the Poetry Foundation.

Another Maryland poet is hosting Poetry Friday today! I can hardly stand the serendipity. Please visit Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference for the last round-up of NPM 2011.

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?

National Poetry Month Issue 20

Big Lots, Wal-Mart, the airport or amusement park -- all are great for people watching.

How often have you traveled home from shopping, shaping in your mind a report for your mother, sister, significant other: "You won't believe what I saw at the mall!"

We were at Busch Gardens in Tampa yesterday. While I was getting soaked on a river-rafting ride with the kids, my mother watched safely from a bridge. As soon as we were off the ride, she told us about a man she observed. He'd fed quarter after quarter into a water cannon, shooting bursts of spray at the people on the rafts.

My Maryland poet of the day is Kathleen Hellen. She also goes by the name Shiori, and has a new book out under that name: The Girl Who Loved Mothra.

Kathleen's poem, "Neither Can You Steal," begins with an observation -- people talking in a parking lot. How much of the poem is "real" doesn't matter. There is emotional truth in the experience Kathleen describes here.

Neither Shall You Steal

by Kathleen Hellen

After shopping at the Big Lots, headed for the car,
she sees the child has something in his fist.
“What’s this?” she asks, leaning in,
his small fingers locked around an artificial
flower. A silk gentian from China, so breathtakingly real
she has to feel it when he holds it up, and she says, “Joey,”
the shadow of a frown descending on a child’s right from wrong.
She knows she taught him better— “It’s for you,” he says,

Read the rest of the poem here.

Writing Exercise:
Next time you out and about and observe a conversation that catches your ear, think about what you found interesting. In Kathleen's poem, it's how the child and the mother's perceptions of the same event are wildly different.

Let's use "Neither Should You Steal" as a model and write in the third person this time. Keep yourself out of the poem, an omniscient observer. Let the dialogue and body language speak for itself, without allowing the narrator to act as judge.

National Poetry Month Issue 4

Spring is a time to welcome simple gifts. After winter's blankness, I'm pleased to see the flash of red that means Brenda and Bob, our resident cardinal couple, have returned to nest in the backyard.

Today's featured Maryland poet is Mary Westcott. Her sonnet, "Slow Music," is featured in Life in Me like Grass on Fire. It is an ode to the simple gifts a pet cat offers.

Mary sent me her poem, "A Child's Wishes" for readers to share with elementary students. It's a list poem, but notice that the wishes are for simple things -- Sun, Moon, rain -- that we realize, by the end of the poem, are remarkable gifts we've already been given.

A Child's Wishes
by Mary L. Westcott

I'd wish for the sun
As my lamp, the clouds
To shade my fears,
The moon to climb
On when I need to stretch.
I'd like the rain to wet
The grass each day,
Slippery on my bare feet.
I'd like a butterfly
As a friend to walk beside
Me on the forest path.
She'd flutter like an eyelash,
A third eye, a witness
To the bright and beautiful
Future.

Posted with permission of the author.

Mary has been volunteering for 10 years at Maryvale Elementary School in Rockville, MD. She works with ESOL students on their reading and writing. Mary gets to teach the third graders poetry!

Early Elementary Writing Exercise
Let's structure this list poem for young writers. We'll use some of Mary's phrases as line starters for the children to fill in:

I'd wish for the sun as my...
the clouds to...
the moon to...
I'd like the rain to...
I'd like a butterfly as...
She'd flutter like a...
A witness to...

Happy National Poetry Month. I'll be back with another Maryland poet tomorrow.