Monday, June 23, 2014

Monday Poetry Stretch - Quiet

Over the weekend I was reading excerpts from the essays of Alfred Brendel on music and came across a notion that has stuck with me.
"The word 'listen' contains the same letters as the word 'silent'."
It seems so obvious and simple really, but silence is so important. The silence in music often conveys as much as the notes. It is in the silence that I do my best thinking, best writing, and best observing. I also can't help but think this is important to convey in the classroom as I teach kids how to speak with others and to actively listen.

So, silence seems like a good topic for writing this week. I hope you will join me in writing about quiet this week. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

11 comments:

  1. Amen! Silence is becoming increasingly hard to come by. I will try to write a quiet poem or a quiet scene in my book. Thanks.

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  2. Hi, Tricia! I pledge to stretch with you every Monday this summer...starting with a cheat! This poem is from a couple years ago when a kindergartener told me, "I can sing the Alphabet Song in silent language." Then she signed A-Z along with her song.

    *******************

    Secret clutched in a closed fist:
    If you wait one pinky moment
    Letting sounds slide towards your thumb,
    Eventually they perch like birds on a fence,
    Nesting two together on a quiet egg
    Till it cracks, and a beak of song breaks through

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  3. Yay, Heidi! "Beak of song" is really great. As are kindergarteners.

    Never

    It’s never really quiet.
    Even when I sit
    on the back steps by myself
    I can hear a bird calling
    to his friends and a little wind rustling
    through the crab apple tree.
    The bees are exploring
    the foxglove and daisies,
    the bumblebee loudest
    of all as he waggles
    his fuzziness.

    People noises, too—
    Nick and Sam shout
    away down the block
    playing basketball in the driveway
    like they always do
    and Mrs. Davis sings along
    to the radio. Inside my house
    Dad clatters around the kitchen.
    The TV talks, trying
    to get me to buy something.

    But I am out here looking
    for silence. You can’t buy that.

    —Kate Coombs, 2014
    all rights reserved

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  4. Inspiring, Heidi and Kate! I wrote a few months ago, but it fits the topic well:

    CITY OF BIRDS

    No sooner had the kestrel over Boston Common fell,
    So fiercely like a bomb it made a jogger twist away,
    Than toddlers strapped in double-strollers, twins, began to yell,
    "Bird! A birdy! Mummy! Daddy! Look! A bird!" for they
    Had seen Make Way for Ducklings statues, paddle-boated swans,
    Tossed fat pigeons cookie crumbs on Public Garden lawns,
    And there the fallen falcon stood, an unexploded shell,
    Atop a cabbie’s orange roof—a chipmunk for his prey
    Was hooked and dead already—daring any to dispel
    That battery of silence over all of us held sway.

    © 2014 Steven Withrow, all rights reserved

    ReplyDelete
  5. Posting this here has allowed me to make some key revisions and to re-appreciate the fact that this is all a single sentence and has a nifty limited rhyme scheme (note the differences from the version above):

    CITY OF BIRDS

    No sooner had the kestrel over Boston Common fell,
    Fiercely, like a bomb, making a jogger twist away,
    Than toddlers strapped in double-strollers, twins, started to yell,
    "Bird! A birdy! Mummy! Daddy! Look! A bird!" for they
    Had seen Make Way for Ducklings statues, paddle-boat swans,
    Fatted pigeons maundering on Public Garden lawns,
    And there the fallen falcon stood, an unexploded shell,
    Atop a cabbie’s orange roof—a chipmunk for his prey
    Was hooked and dead already—daring any to dispel
    That battery of silence over all of us held sway.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It Takes. . .

    It takes one rooster
    to call up the sun,
    one robin
    to pipe up a worm,
    It takes one peeper
    to bring in spring,
    and one angry word
    to silence a child
    for good.

    ©2014 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks to Kate Coombs for helping me fix the tense error in line 1:

    CITY OF BIRDS

    At evening rush, a kestrel over Boston Common fell,
    Fiercely, like a bomb, making a jogger twist away,
    Then toddlers strapped in double-strollers, twins, started to yell,
    "Bird! A birdy! Mummy! Daddy! Look! A bird!" for they
    Had seen Make Way for Ducklings statues, paddle-boat swans,
    Fatted pigeons maundering on Public Garden lawns,
    And there the fallen falcon stood, an unexploded shell,
    Atop a cabbie’s orange roof—a chipmunk for his prey
    Was hooked and dead already—daring any to dispel
    That battery of silence over all of us held sway.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Steven, your poem makes me think of a book I read recently, Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park by Marie Winn. It's all about birds and birdwatchers in NYC, with an emphasis on the hawks that nested on the side of a big condo tower.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thought you might like to see how I revised my poem:

    It Takes. . .

    It takes one rooster
    to call up the sun,
    one robin
    to pipe up a worm.

    It takes one peeper
    to bring in the spring,
    One bull
    to call in a herd.

    But to silence a little child
    for good,
    it takes only
    one angry word.

    ©2014 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

    ReplyDelete
  10. What fun to see revisions and to read the poems ... and to have some summer time off work to stretch. Mine came from a list poem I wrote yesterday (thanks to The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, mentioned here earlier this year) and fits the "quiet" theme nicely.

    What You Will Need

    A body of water
    A day not too hot
    A pole not too heavy
    A light, long string

    A worm and a hook
    The stomach to pierce a small, squirming thing
    A boat
    Or a quiet spot

    A pleasant companion
    Or none
    Attention to pay
    Patience to wait
    and wait

    Eyes to see the bobber bob or the water move
    Hands for tugging and reeling a catch
    A mouth to exclaim
    Or breath for a sigh

    The will to take startled creature in hand
    The skill for dislodging sharp things
    The hunger to take up the club and the knife
    Or the heart to give it all back

    A body of water
    A pole and a string
    A pleasant companion
    Or none

    The words to tell and tell the tale
    Or the memory to keep,
    alone


    © 2014 Stephanie Parsley

    ReplyDelete
  11. QUIET AND CONTENT
    Snuggled against our chestnut brown
    breakfast nook Grandma reads an
    article in the daily rag about school funding
    while I browse through my iPad to find
    pictures of fireflies for my science project
    with only the hum of our refrigerator
    keeping us company.

    (c) Charles Waters 2014 all rights reserved.

    ReplyDelete