Poetry Friday: Counting Down to 2016

Thanks to Diane Mayr
 at Random Noodling
for hosting this week's
Poetry Friday shenanigans.

Two weeks from today, we will be welcoming a new year. There are so many unexpected surprises ahead of us. But there are also events we are looking forward to. Maybe you have a wedding, a new baby in the family, or a long-planned trip that will finally happen in 2016.

For me, 2016 marks my debut as a middle grade author. It's been so much fun to share the journey from draft to final book with my Poetry Friday friends. You're all (almost) as excited as I am. How do I know that? This is what wonderful Irene Latham sent me for the Poetry Friday Holiday Swap.

A poetry collage!

The little finch card reminds me of a poem in my book where a girl is watching a cardinal and his mate prepare a nest in early spring. 

And wow -- this beautiful collage. Did Irene know there's a scene in my book where a character compares all the people in the hallways on International Night to a busy outdoor fruit and vegetable market? 

The steeple makes me think of my book's setting, in an aging school building. 

And I love how Irene used elements of THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY's cover in the collage. That's Brianna at the top right corner and Sloane near the bottom, by the button. 

I still haven't figured out what the mysterious writing says, but I'm intrigued.

Here is Irene's poem:

INTO ARRIVAL
by Irene Latham

for Laura

Children march
through the streets
of this newly bound city,

offer their stories
like farmers at the market:
Pomegranate? Papaya?

Here a syllable, there a stanza,
soon words rise like steeples
across a white paper sky --

spring breeze tickles,
whispers, welcome,
we've been waiting for you.

Poem shared with permission of the author.

And here is an excerpt from a poem in my book, "Faces," in the voice of Norah Hassan:

... Tonight, our school

reminds me of shopping in the Old Jerusalem market.

... Fifty types of peppers to eat!

Pale green, yellow as a lemon, dark brown, red,

each with a different flavor.

On International Night,

the halls are as noisy as an outdoor market.

Thank you, Irene, for helping me celebrate my book's upcoming debut with such a beautiful poem of welcome. I'm honored!

The Progressive Poem 2014 Is Here!

I'm taking a break from the Source Poem series today to participate in another National Poetry Month tradition: Irene Latham's annual progressive poem.

The Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem lands at a different blog each day in April. As the poem travels around the blogosphere, each poet adds a line. With thirty minds cooking up a rhyming recipe, you know there are going to be some surprising flavors in this poem.

I decided to give the poem a little "Bam!" a la chef Emeril Lagasse.

Sitting on a rock, airing out my feelings to the universe
Acting like a peacock, only making matters that much worse;

"Acting like a peacock,"
from National Geographic

Should I trumpet like an elephant emoting to the moon,
Or just ignore the warnings written in the rune?
Those stars can’t seal my future; it’s not inscribed in stone.
The possibilities are endless! Who could have known?
Gathering courage, spiral like an eagle after prey
Then gird my wings for whirlwind gales in realms far, far away.

"Spiral like an eagle,"
from All About Birds

But, hold it! Let’s get practical! What’s needed before I go?
Time to be tactical— I’ll ask my friends what I should stow.
And in one breath, a honeyed word whispered low— dreams —
Whose voice? I turned to see. I was shocked. Irene’s
“Each voyage starts with tattered maps; your dreams dance on this page.
Determine these dreams—then breathe them! Engage your inner sage.”
The merry hen said, “Take my sapphire eggs to charm your host.”
I tuck them close – still warm – then take my first step toward the coast
This journey will not make me rich, and yet I long to be
like luminescent jellyfish, awash in mystery.

"I long to be like luminescent jellyfish,"
from Wikipedia

I turn and whisper, “Won’t you come?” to all the beasts and birds,
and listen while they scamper, their answers winging words:
“Take these steps alone to start; each journey is an art

You are  your own best company. Now it's time to depart!"

The Fairies in Spring
Arthur Rackham (public domain)

Next up is Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at the Poem Farm. Perhaps the speaker of our poem will at last take flight with Amy at the controls.
You can find past and future entries in the 2014 Progressive Poem here:

1 Charles at Poetry Time
2 Joy at Joy Acey
3 Donna at Mainely Write
4 Anastasia at Poet! Poet!
5 Carrie at Story Patch
6 Sheila at Sheila Renfro
7 Pat at Writer on a Horse
8 Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
9 Diane at Random Noodling
10 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
11 Linda at Write Time
12 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading
13 Janet at Live Your Poem
14 Deborah at Show–Not Tell
15 Tamera at The Writer’s Whimsy
16 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
17 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
18 Irene at Live Your Poem
19 Julie at The Drift Record
20 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
21 Renee at No Water River
22 Laura at Author Amok
23 Amy at The Poem Farm
24 Linda at TeacherDance
25 Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty
26 Lisa at Lisa Schroeder Books
27 Kate at Live Your Poem
28 Caroline at Caroline Starr Rose
29 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
30 Tara at A Teaching Life

Tomorrow, Author Amok returns to a month-long series on Source Poems. Baltimore-based poet Shirley Brewer is sharing a favorite poem by Eavan Boland.

National Poetry Month 2013: Amok with Irene's Progressive Poem

I've got drama on my mind.

It was a dramatic week at our house. My son (16) jetted off to California for the VEX Robotics World Championships. It was exciting to watch his team's robot battle on Livestream.

My daughter (13) came down with stomach flu. During her school musical's opening week. I had one unhappy stage manager on  my hands. But she battled through and made it to opening night. The show must go on!

And the show must also go on in Irene Latham's 2013 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem. We wouldn't have a progressive poem without Internet and blogging technology, so it's a perfect feature for today's "Welcome to the TechnoVerse" post.

In just its second year, the poem has become a National Poetry Month tradition. It starts with a single line on April 1. Each day, a poet/blogger loans his or her talent by coming up with the next line.

I love how this year's group effort began with writing as a form of dance. Soon, we were full-on "Dancing with the Poets" (ballet, samba, tap and jitterbug made appearances). Then, we made a stop at "The Kidlitosphere's Got Talent," with our protagonist poet balancing in a death-defying trapeze act.

Baltimore Ravens' superstar Jacoby Jones is on this season of
"Dancing with the Stars." From sbnation.com

According to several sites (here's one), the idiom "the show must go on" originated with the circus circa 1941. (Wasn't there a clown in stanza three of our poem?) Ringmasters would say the phrase to a big top audience if the lions got loose. Comforting, I'm sure.

In the progressive poem, we last saw our dancing, clowning, daredevil of a speaker recovering from a tumble, learning from a mistake. ("All part of the act," Tabatha wrote in yesterday's line. Spoken like a true theater person.)

I'd like to see our speaker back on her nimble feet, ready to perform. With one last thank you to Irene and the other progressive poets, here is the 2013 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem as of 4/22:

When you listen to your footsteps 
the words become music and 
the rhythm that you’re rapping gets your fingers tapping, too. 
Your pen starts dancing across the page 
a private pirouette, a solitary samba until 
smiling, you’re beguiling as your love comes shining through. 

Pause a moment in your dreaming, hear the whispers 
of the words, one dancer to another, saying 
Listen, that’s our cue! Mind your meter. Find your rhyme. 
Ignore the trepidation while you jitterbug and jive. 
Arm in arm, toe to toe, words begin to wiggle and flow 
as your heart starts singing let your mind keep swinging 

from life’s trapeze, like a clown on the breeze. 
Swinging upside down, throw and catch new sounds– 
Take a risk, try a trick; break a sweat: safety net? 
Don’t check! You’re soaring and exploring, 
dangle high, blood rush; spiral down, crowd hush– 
limb-by-line-by-limb envision, pyramidic penned precision. 

And if you should topple, if you should flop 
if your meter takes a beating; your rhyme runs out of steam— 
know this tumbling and fumbling is all part of the act,
so get up with a flourish. Your pencil's still intact.

A list of stops on the 2013 Progressive Poem's tour of the blogosphere is posted here at Author Amok. You'll see the full roster of poets on the right. I've had a great time following along: Not only each new line, but also reading what each blogging poet has to say about contributing to a group verse.

Tomorrow in the TechnoVerse, Poetry Friday blogger Diane Mayr (of Random Noodling) tells us about Archive.Org.

And...Curtain!

From PBS.org

Poetry Postcard 18

It was a busy poetry weekend. The latest issue of Little Patuxent Review went on sale Saturday, launched with a fabulous contributors' reading. I love these events. As editor, I get to stay behind the scenes and cheer on all of the readers.

The Winter 2013 issue, Doubt, features
a Renaissance masterpiece on the cover.

This issue is tight (apologies for the slang). And it includes a piece Poetry Friday by blogger Irene Latham. You can purchase a copy at the LPR website.

Sunday, it was my turn to read. About seven of us were featured at Baltimore's Watermark Gallery, there was prose and poetry. Thanks to Eric Goodman, Manzar (who owns the gallery) and co-host Nitin Jagdish (fellow NYU grad -- go Violets!) for putting together such a great variety of readers.

My love of purple teams goes back
to my NYU days. (Go Ravens!)

Although I'd printed poems for the reading -- two from my book, several postcard poems -- Manzar mentioned the poet Rumi in her art-talk. I had a postcard poem "after Rumi" sitting in my Dropbox folder. Which meant it was on my phone. I've never read from my phone before. I leave that to younger, hipper folks like the Word Pimp. But it went pretty well.

The postcard poems were well received. It's great to get so much positive feedback on the project.

Today, I have an antique tourist postcard:

I have never been to Germany, so I had to do a little research. The Drosselhof is a wine tavern on the Drosselstrasse, a street well-known to tourists for its music and taverns. You can pay a virtual visit to the Drosselhof, which has a website.

Still, I didn't have enough to go on. Until I learned that one translation for Drosselstrasse is "Thrush Lane."

I'd had an encounter with a little bird, maybe a thrush, in the early fall. At the time, it seemed too ordinary an experience to write about. Birds often crashed into my grandmother's glass breezeway when I was a child. Some survived, some didn't.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Song_Thrush_on_Flickr.jpg

I don't know why the postcard made this bird-story work as a poem. Perhaps what is working is the habit of writing a poem nearly every day. Or not  feeling like I have to knock one out of the ballpark every time I sit down to write.

As you will see, it's apropos to post this poem after such a busy weekend. 

Thrush Lane

That thump

on our glass door –

a thrush. It let me

scoop it whole

into my palm,

stroke its

dappled breast,

make it calm.

I spoke to it

of taverns

crowding

the Drosselgasse

with song.

The thrush replied,

Tut-tut,

oh-lay oh-lee,

chortling

to the quiet

afternoon.
by Laura Shovan

Postcard Information:

Rüdesheim – Drosselhof

Reproduction und Druck: Wödicke & Gemberg, Berlin

Verlag C. A. Stachelscheid – Düseeldorf, Pressehaus – Bestell-Nr. 010

I sent this card and poem to Poetry Friday blogger, Susan Taylor Brown. Susan is a bird-lover and photographer, so she's talented all around. Several weeks ago, Susan sent me two original photo-postcards of birds for the project. I thought she'd enjoy "Thrush Lane."

I have used a bird-call website for a couple of poems now. It's a cool site for bird enthusiasts. You can find it at Birdjam.com.


We had another bird encounter this fall. My husband, Rob, discovered a little bird, maybe a wren, stuck in our bathroom fan. 

Can you see the bird's tail on the left?

The bird was so wedged in the fan blades, we were sure it was dead. But my handy husband removed the fan from the ceiling and the little thing was alive, just very squished. 

Almost free!

We had to break the fan to get the bird loose, expecting its wing to be broken. But the bird flew for the evergreens the moment we popped the fan apart. Now I know what it means to make a beeline for something.

Tabatha (The Opposite of Indifference) and I were supposed to meet for lunch today, but Mother Nature had other plans. Still, I know Tabatha is thinking of me. She's featuring music-themed postcards at her blog today, including a band of creepy clowns.

Poetry Friday: Writing about News

Many Poetry Friday bloggers who write for kids are also accomplished poets for adults. Irene Latham is one of those.

Irene blogs at Live Your Poem.

This summer, I have been savoring Irene's book The Color of Lost Rooms. Many of the poems are character sketches and persona poems, spoken in the voice of a character.

Buy a copy!

Putting the focus on a single person is somewhat like writing a focused image poem. The character (or the object, in focused image) represents a larger truth, but is distilled through one person. 

I like this technique for writing poems about current events, particularly when trying to tackle a BIG event -- one that has affected the public consciousness.

If you've ever worked with teen writers, you know that they have a deep desire to write about social issues and events. It's an admirable goal and one we writing teachers should encourage.

However, teens often write about these things from a distance: generic soldiers marching as they hear gunfire, homeless children standing in the street. While these images are real, the media has made them familiar to the point of cliche. How, then, do we write about big events without generalizing?

One solution, write small. Write specific. Don't try to tackle the whole forest fire. Write about one house, one tree.

Take a look at how this works in Irene's simple, yet powerful poem, "After Katrina."

After Katrina

by Irene Latham

She loosens laces, widens mouth

of soggy shoes, then leaves them

to dry on the weathered railing where

they soon sprout pine straw

and a wren darts out -- four pink

eggs hidden just beneath the tongue.

She backs into the house, careful

not to let the screen door slap shut,

and for a heartbeat she is neither

grateful nor resentful, just a woman

pressing her toes into warm linoleum,

pulling apart a piece of day-old bread.

Posted with permission of the author.

Some discussion questions if you read this poem with your students:

• Would you have the same reading experience if this poem were titled, "The Wren?"
• Why did the poet leave Hurricane Katrina out of the poem itself, only referring to that disaster in the title?
• What does the wren symbolize to the woman in the poem?

The focus on one person's moment of normalcy when nothing feels normal gives the poem balance. This is a good lesson for high schoolers in particular, but also for any poet who aims to write about big topics and feels overwhelmed by the task.

If you'd like to read more poetry related to current events, check out the e-zine The New Verse News.

Wishing you a happy Poetry Friday! Thanks to Andi at A Wrung Sponge for hosting today's round up.

30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets #19: Irene Latham on the 1:1 Ratio

Irene Latham is a fellow Poetry Friday blogger. You might call her writing habit the Golden Rule for writers: Read more than you write.

I read an interview with recent Pen/Malamud Award winner Edith Pearlman, who writes short fiction. She reports a ratio of 50:6 -- reading as many as 50 books but writing only about six stories each year.

Here's Irene: Read one book of poetry for every poem you write.

On my night table now, one book by a local poet...

and one nationally known poet. This book won a prize
from the press Irene mentions. (LS)

I first heard this piece of advice Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference in 2010, from the lips of Jeffrey Levine, editor at Tupelo Press.

At the time, I was like, wow, really? It seemed impossible -- I mean, during those mad times (like National Poetry Month) when I'm writing a poem a day, that's like 60 poems a day. And, I thought, (add eye roll here) the advice just might be a bit self-serving, as it was coming from someone who would very much like for me to purchase books from his press.

And that's when I realized I had been really good about making middle grade fiction a priority on my reading list, but my tendency with poetry was to return again and again to the same favorite volumes.

So I decided to actually try it. I started off by ordering Tupelo Press's fantastic subscription series (nearly a book a month for just $99!), and then started making volumes of poetry for children a priority. Talk about win-win: I read these books, keep some, gift A LOT of them. New babies? Give them poetry. Kid birthday? Give them poetry. Friend birthday? Give them poetry.

And here's the best part: I really can tell a difference in my writing. I've been exposed to ideas and inspiration and forms I never would have thought of. It's really opened me up, and also helped to refine my poetic voice.

Try it! Even if you initially roll your eyes like I did, I bet you'll end up finding it a new and valuable part of your (not just writing) life.

Irene Latham is the award-winning author of two volumes of poetry THE COLOR OF LOST ROOMS and WHAT CAME BEFORE and two novels for children LEAVING GEE’S BEND and DON’T FEED THE BOY (coming October 16!)

Family legend has it that since she was four years old she’s been writing love poems – to her mother. To find out more about Irene, visit her at www.irenelatham.com.