NPM 2015: What Are You Wearing, Tabatha Yeatts?

Find the official NPM 2015 poster
at the Academy of American Poets

It's the first Friday of National Poetry Month. You know what that means ... a super celebratory Poetry Friday. 

This week's round-up is at Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's The Poem Farm. Want more? Jama Rattigan has a list of kids' lit National Poetry Month projects and celebrations at Alphabet Soup.

All this month, guest bloggers are putting on their finery here at Author Amok. We're doing a month-long feature on poetry about clothes. In addition to the guest posts, every Friday in April I'll post a round-up of original clothing poems. (Send those via email to laurashovan at gmail dot com or leave them in the comments). You'll find a writing prompt at the bottom of this post.

Meet today's guest blogger, poet Tabatha Yeatts. 

Thanks for having me on Author Amok, Laura! I'm sharing poems by the inimitable Greg Pincus. "Greg Pincus" is an interesting poet, don't you think? I mean, have you ever wondered how a man who is always in such a rush that he's "gottabook" somehow manages to write poems on every topic imaginable? Or how "Pincus" abbreviates to "K."? Or how a person who claims to be an "adult" gets into the head of kids so easily? Well, what do you expect from a man who fibs every chance he gets?

“Is this really Greg Pincus?”

Here are some of Greg’s weatherproof, tailor-made, pre-shrunk clothing poems:

My Method For Tying Shoes
by Greg Pincus

Keep your "Bunny Ears" and "loop-de-loops" -
I'll tie shoes with the method I've got.
Oh, sure, it's a mess
Yet there's often success...
So I call it the "Probably Knot."

I Put Each Carrot In a Suit
by Greg Pincus

I put each carrot in a suit.
The lettuce in a scarf (how cute!).
Tomatoes? Ribbons in their hair.
The celery's in underwear.
Sneakers for the kidney beans.
The cucumber's in new blue jeans.
The avocado wore a dress.
The onion's in a tux (oh, yes!).
The jicama's in high-heeled shoes.
The mushroom? Any belt I choose.
The apple is a naked guy.
The olive's in a shirt and tie.
I put the radish in a vest.
There, I think the salad's dressed.

My Favorite Shirt

By Greg Pincus

This shirt is great - the best I’ve worn.

Who cares if it’s all frayed and torn

Or that it’s old, and I’ve been growing

And when I stretch my belly’s showing?

The words it showed in blue and red

Are gone (though I know what they said).

I know it’s stained. That’s good for me:

Each splotch contains a memory.

I love this shirt with all my heart.

I’ll wear it 'til it falls apart.

So wash it, please, with love and caring...

To make it last for one more wearing.

Hat Head

By Gregory K.

I've got hat head really bad.

You say I shouldn't care?

Well, maybe hat head's fine for you,

But me? I have no hair!

Tabatha is a mysterious figure whose home may or may not have a secret room with a tea fountain. There's a rumor she trained under Madam Pomfrey. She probably didn't raise a Golden Snidget from a snidgling. She has been known to write poems about "imaginary" places. You'll find her blogging at The Opposite of Indifference.

Thanks for visiting, Tabatha. Greg, I will never look at my apple the same way again.

ICYMI: In this series...

Introductory Post

Jane Elkin looks in her childhood closet. Poems by Mark Irwin and Ron Koertge.

*Your suggested clothing poem prompt for Friday, April 3: Storage.

Where and how do you keep your clothes? Do they hang in your closet, organized by color? Are they crumpled on the bedroom floor? Are you an organized packer, or do you toss things into a suitcase and hope for the best. I still remember the name of the long-ago camp counselor (Janice) who taught us how to roll our clothes up tight to maximize space.

Send your poems any time. I'll post original work throughout the weekend.

Earlier this week, guest blogger Jane Elkin shared some poems where clothing was a metaphor for a parent/child relationship. That theme appears again in the Paul Hopper sent in. It's by Marc Kelly Smith. Thanks, Paul. I love how Smith uses repetition and plain language to add power to the poem.

My Father's Coat
by Marc Kelly Smith

I'm wearing my father's coat. He has died. I didn't like him, But I wear the coat. I'm wearing the coat of my father, Who is dead. I didn't like him, But I wear the coat just the same. A younger man, stopping me on the street, Has asked, "Where did you get a coat like that?" I answer that it was my father's Who is now gone, passed away. The younger man shuts up. It's not that I'm trying now to be proud of my father. I didn't like him. He was a narrow man. There was more of everything he should have done. More of what he should have tried to understand. The coat fit him well. It fits me now. I didn't love him, But I wear the coat.

Read the rest at SlamPapi.com.

Parrish Lantern left the gift of a poem this morning. I'll have to learn more about French poet Valerie Rouzeau.

I put on my walking shoes

by Valérie Rouzeau 

I put on my walking shoes 
I had shown you with the soles retreaded 
from old tires.
In pilgrim boats I floated to you
petals stuck to the leather as proofs
of my wishes on the way.

If anyone can find a link to the rest of the poem, please let me know and I will post it.

Poetry Postcard 19

Remember that creative wall I was talking about a few days ago? Postcard 19 was when I slammed face-first into its bricks and crumpled in a ridiculous puddle where wall meets floor. You can still see the marks on my forehead.

It started, as all things in the 44 Postcard Project do, with a card:

“239−A BEAUTY SPOT, BELLE ISLE, DETROIT, MICH.”

Isn't it lovely? Can't you just imagine yourself strolling through those flowers and over that bridge? Well, I could not. I could only glom onto the phrase "A Beauty Spot." The kind Cindy Crawford is famous for. 

Marilyn Monroe also
had a beauty spot.

Soon, a little rhyme was running through my head. And it goes:

Belle Ilse

Deirdre had a beauty spot,
a mole, a mark, a little dot.
She looked at it more than she ought,
her lovely beauty spot.

Deirdre's beauty spot was shy
(all moles avoid the sun and sky).
It packed a case and said goodbye.
Deirdre was left to wonder why.

by Laura Shovan (I grudgingly admit it)

Maybe the beauty spot went to Belle Isle, to bury itself beneath the flower beds.

Belle Isle, Detroit will be the site of a 2013
 Grand Prix Race. Too noisy for a mole.

I did know a Deirdre once. She was the older sister of an elementary school friend. One Halloween, Deirdre took great delight in blindfolding us and making us touch eyeballs (hard boiled eggs), but I don't remember her having any moles.

Is this poem revenge at long-last? Or was I just trying to laugh myself out of mid-project doldrums? You decide.

I'd like to thank Baltimore poet, Mr. Anti-Establishment himself, David Eberhardt. David is always willing to take a playful risk with his writing, so I know he'll forgive me for sending him the "Belle Isle" postcard. It is, moles down, the goofiest poem in the project... so far.

Thanks to the tipster who recommended a current postcard art exhibit! (Sorry, I didn't write down who you were. Please send me a comment so I can credit you by name!)

The show is at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts through April 14. (Find the exhibit page here.)

A poster for the exhibit. Find out more at
the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

There is a review of the postcard exhibit at the Boston Globe online. I loved this phrase, by reviewer Mark Feeney: "few shows this year are likely to offer more in the way of enchantment than 'The Postcard Age: Selections From the Leonard A. Lauder Collection.'" 

He goes on to say, "The 700 or so examples that are on display in 'The Postcard Age' are almost without exception aesthetically pleasing, historically illuminating, or both." Road trip, anyone?

The review also has some historical information about postcards. It's well-worth reading. Visit the exhibit website itself, and you can choose a postcard to email to a friend.

The further I go into the project, the more I appreciate postcards -- their history, but also their creative possibilities. As we have seen, they make great writing and art prompts.

This postcard art project comes from the Logan School
for Creative Learning in Denver.

I love how the project requires the student to use the artist's
color scheme and style to create something new.

Later this week, I hope to introduce you to twin brothers -- one on each coast of the U.S. -- who have a longstanding tradition involving postcards.

Postcard 19 Information:

“Belle Isle, Detroit’s island park, is located in the Detroit River near the heart of the city. Here there are more than 985 acres of grandeur blended into one magnificent panorama of recreation and amusement.

UNITED NEWS CO., 24 WEST JEFFERSON AVENUE, DETROIT, MICH. ‘C.T.ART-COLORTONE’ REG. U.S. PAT. OFF.”

Read about Belle Isle as it is today.

UPDATE: Just as I said to my  husband, "I have to find a way to see this postcard show in Boston," it hit me. I am going to Boston. The AWP Conference is in March, and I will be there. To which Rob said, "You just made your own night, didn't you?" Yep.

Poetry Friday: Rhapsodic for Robotics

This week is a momentous one in the Shovan household. It is the first time that one of our children is in a different time zone from the rest of the family. Many of you mom and dads know how strange that feels.

Our fifteen year old son, Robbie, is with his school robotics team in Omaha, Nebraska. They are competing in the Vex National Championships.

I rose at 3:30 Thursday morning to get him to the airport for a 6:50 AM flight. There was drama, of course (the forgotten wallet, the rest of the team's late arrival at Dulles). But, the team and their two robots arrived in Omaha, on time, on the same plane.

To help cheer on the team, I am rhapsodizing about Robotic poetry today.

First, some robot poems for elementary schoolers:

My Robot's Misbehaving

by Kenn Nesbitt (author of My Hippo Has the Hiccups)

My robot's misbehaving.
It won't do as I say.
It will not dust the furniture
or put my toys away.

My robot never helps me
with homework or my chores.
It doesn't do my laundry
and neglects to clean my floors.

It claims it can't cook dinner.
It never makes my bed.
No matter what I ask of it,
it simply shakes its head. 

Read the rest at Kenn's site, Poetry4Kids.com.  

My Robot

by Gareth Lancaster

My robot must rate as my favorite toy,
A wonderful, whirring, mechanical joy.
My robot can talk, but he'd much rather sing,
Or go to the park and play on the swings!

My robot is silver and very astute.

For instance this week he was learning the flute.

The "sweet" ending is at Fizzy, Funny, Fuzzy: Fun Poetry for Kids.  

For middle schoolers who are into technology, robots, and maybe poetry, here is one to make you think. (It's a bit smaller to preserve the line breaks.)

And here is a robot reciting Ogden Nash poetry. It recommends some additional poetic reading. There's nothing like a robot saying, "Have fun," to make you feel a sense of joy and playfulness 
(kidding).



Robot Poem

by Christine Howey

This poem was written by a robot.
Do not be afraid.
Okay, now you’re reading these words in that funny voice all     humans
use for robot voices, the droning nasal monotone.
This…po...em…was…writ...ten…by…a…ro...bot.
Please stop doing that.
It’s really kind of insulting.
Robots don’t sound like that anymore.
Okay, now you’re noticing that a lot of the lines are short and clipped,
like you expect robot language to be. But in reality, it’s quite easy for a
robot to embroider looping and complex sentences, such as the one
we’re in now, with many subordinate clauses, and never, as you say,
miss a beat.
This is because robots can now sneak in through small cranial
openings, take a sample of human brain tissue, no bigger than half a
postage stamp, and use that neural material to make full-size 3D
replications of the human brain.
Even a poet’s brain.
We use a copying machine.
We Xerox your brains and then write poetry.

You will find the rest at Pudding Magazine.

For high school poets, a book I want to check out:

Robot Haiku: Poems for Humans to Read Until Robots Decide It's Kill Time, by Ray Salemi. (I'm guessing no real haiku were injured by robots in the writing of this book.)

And you can find a long poem/short play, "Death and the Robot

Powers," by Robert Pinsky at the Poetry Foundation.

We are excited that Robbie has this great opportunity to meet and talk robot with other tech-minded kids. He's really enjoying being on the team.

Here's an animation showing what the robots must do to earn points:

 

However, I'd have to be a robot not to miss him. How about cheering myself up with some poetry? Our Poetry Friday host is Gregory K. at GottaBook.