Monday, June 27, 2011

Monday Poetry Stretch - Sleep (or Sleepless)

Blogging here has come to a near standstill as I teach Monday-Thursday from 9-3 and Monday and Wednesday nights from 4-10. I am tired, tired, tired. Some afternoons I find myself longing for a nap. This, of course, has me thinking of sleep, counting sheep, and sleepy poetry. Let's make that our topic for this stretch. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

7 comments:

  1. A poem I wrote in February fits:

    Ready for Sleep

    Where is it written that I am ready for sleep
    when I am in bed, laptop on knees,
    new ideas wrestling with yawns.
    In the pre-dream time, something has cut
    every one of my ligaments,
    leaving me boneless as a marionette.
    Only then do I find the plot of the story;
    only then do I slip into the true sleep,
    hoping at the last to remember.
    Or, failing memory, reinventing it all again,
    though better, so much better, waking
    to grasp like an archeoplelagic diver,
    the lustre of the morning’s pearl.




    ©2011 Jane Yolen All rights reserved

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  2. Ideas like pearls--thank you, Jane!

    Falling Asleep

    Cool breeze stirs the sheets
    on my grandmother's porch.
    Train gives a coyote howl
    and summer scents the night
    with peaches and roses.

    --Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved

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  3. I didn't start out to write a Debby-Downer poem, but sometimes these things happen...

    THE SLOW WAVE

    She sleeps deeply.
    I hold my breath watching
    and waiting for her
    to breathe not knowing
    what I will do when
    her chest no longer rises,
    hoping that some day
    someone will care enough
    to watch my ribcage as
    intimately as I do this cat's.

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  4. GRAVITY

    Gravity (that creep)
    Pulls my eyelids down,
    Now I'm sound asleep
    Goodnight Beantown.

    (c) Charles Waters 2011

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  5. Sleep gentle sleep
    comes early evening
    for an hour.
    Lulled by music
    tired after gardening,
    I can relax.
    Then ideas come
    Fresh,evolving exciting
    to keep me up!
    So I write through
    midnight to three a.m.
    developing a plot.

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  6. Instead of sleeping
    I write lim'ricks and haiku
    About not sleeping.
    Mad Kane

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  7. Hi, Tricia--

    Just stopping by to say that despite my sporadic attendance I love your Monday Stretches--some really surprising and interesting work has come out of them over the months...and I've now put it on my calendar as a recurring event! I'm working hard to get organized this summer to be a practicing poet, since I'll be teaching full-time next year and I'm anxious about it encroaching on my writing time.

    My best approach, I think, is to synergize my writing self and my teaching self; hence my idea for a weekly prompt, something like "Overheard in Kindergarten." If you have any tips for prompting, do share....after you get some sleep!

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