In the book I Am Writing a Poem About . . . A Game of Poetry, Myra Cohn Livingston wrote about three of the assignments she gave to students in her master class in poetry at UCLA. In 2008, Elaine at Wild Rose Reader and Janet Wong, one of the students in Livingston's master class, challenged folks to complete one of these assignments. That's the same challenge I'd like to propose this week. Write a poem in any form that includes the words ring, drum, and blanket. If you need a little inspiration, check out the ring/drum/blanket poems written in response to the original challenge.
Here's the poem I wrote the first time I was challenged to use these words.
Here's the poem I wrote the first time I was challenged to use these words.
GunfireI can't wait to see what comes out this time. Leave me a note about your poem and I will post the results here later this week.
rings out,
day
after day.
Long settled in,
War's heavy blanket
smothers
the drumbeat of
freedom.
Ring drum blanket
ReplyDeleteIn memory of MCL
Midsummer,
on a blanket,
under the canopy
of an alder tree
we marry one another.
You place a ring
of bark shaving
on my finger
and kiss me solemnly.
My heart drums as madly
as a fusion klezmer band.
There is no glass handy
for you to stomp on
so you crush a beer can
between your fingers.
Midsummer.
1959.
I no longer remember your name.
--copyright 2009 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved
Rather eerie...I just happen to have a Civil War poem that uses these three words.
ReplyDeleteLetter from Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, En Route
By Steven Withrow
I hear the cannons' distant concussions,
dismount and march among my men,
all men of Maine on a trek to hold a hill.
We march with muskets high like Trojan spears,
Union coats more gray with dust than blue.
How precisely does a Bowdoin professor fight
the rage of man after man from Alabama or Tennessee?
We are seven miles from Buford's army,
blasting and blasted
near a Pennsylvania town this hot, hazy morning
in a field our couriers say is beautiful.
They say we have the high ground and must keep it
or be crushed. As drums ring out,
I range like Whitman with walking stick,
like Napoleon with officer's pistol, scold my brother
for calling me Lawrence in front of my men.
We are a scant third of those thousand
who came from Bangor, Augusta, Portland,
to wage and win this war.
With us we have a regiment,
a full six-score band of mutineers.
I should lend them banjos and blankets,
for there are left no bullets or muskets or bayonets.
Their boots shuffling, their low breathing,
is better song on this narrow road
than could ever be the expectant echo of shells
connecting, lead cutting through thin blue cloth.
It is best to stroll and listen to their mad,
scared, northern New England whispers.
For out there far ahead is the forest
on the stony slope of Little Round Top.
New Year
ReplyDeleteRing the new bell
and drum the table
with open palms,
with elbows,
and with sticks of bread and salt.
Stomp your feet
and rock your chair –
until your mother
gives you that look –
then kick the empty air.
A new year is too late,
for you, anyway.
but it’s yours to have
unfolded before you
like a blanket on a new bed,
a few creases yet
for you to smooth
or chase with your fingers
until their ends crinkle
off the edge of the horizon.
But now is the time for noise
And now is the time for light
And now is the time
for laughing in the night
in a tight circle armed against the cold.
The old one fades,
your head nods,
to drum anew on the table to wake them.
A silent ring, they lift you with a kiss,
and, wrapped in a new blanket
Carry you into the next.
A Ring and a Drum
ReplyDeleteThe baby was wrapped
in a blanket, sausage-shaped,
and tucked in a basket.
That's usual. But we found
two things besides. That's not.
A ring—real gold,
with leaves etched
like a small treasure forest.
And a drum, a toy one
with red and blue bands.
Do they think the children
here at St. Finbar's play?
Do they think we'll save
the ring till he's grown,
and it will lead him
to a dukedom? We had
a good laugh over that.
Evie tapped out a rhythm
on the drum while I pretended
to march, a sturdy soldier
flapping my white apron
up and down the stone steps.
I let her take the drum
home to her grandson. I sold
the ring. Had to give her half.
I wish she hadn't been there,
peering over my shoulder,
cooing at the drum and the ring.
But I told her I got fifteen,
and it was more.
--Kate Coombs (Book Aunt), 2009
Kate--a poem, yes. BUT the start of a novel, too.
ReplyDeleteJane
Jane--Ha. I once submitted a collection of fantasy-themed poems and was told by the editor that most of them should be middle grade novels.
ReplyDeleteMerry Merry!
--Kate
Tricia,
ReplyDeleteHere's the poem I wrote last year when Janet Wong and I challenged people to write poems that included the words ring, drum, and blanket at Wild Rose Reader:
The Early Sixties: A Summer Day
By Elaine Magliaro
On an old army blanket,
a rough, khaki-colored island
floating on a sea of sand
at Devereaux Beach,
we sit in a circle…
a ring of friends
playing kitty whist,
drinking cola,
talking about boys, and
listening to rock and roll music…
to the sexy sound of the sax
wafting over us
moaning about love,
to a drum beating
like a young heart in overdrive.
a ring of warm cat
ReplyDeletereplaces my lap blanket
--the drum of cold rain
Happy holidays everyone!
Here's mine. It's short: Homecoming
ReplyDeleteTricia,
ReplyDeleteHere's the poem I wrote last year for the ring/drum,blanket challenge.
Happy Holidays!
ring of white-tailed deer
circle our crabapple tree
hooves drum frozen ground
pulling back blankets of snow
in search of a midnight snack
Hi Tricia -- I, too, write about war, which seems to be a common thread in a number of recent poems.
ReplyDeleteLove last line in yours, Jane!
FLAUNTING TOLL
Snow
lays blanket
over graves
of fallen
soldiers,
as drum
thrums
cadence
into
shattered
hearts,
while
gunshots
ring,
piercing
the air,
flaunting
the toll
this war
has taken.
© Carol Weis, all rights reserved