NPM 2017 Day Ten: Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****
When Nana Balch died, the grand piano made its way from Texas to Pam. In all the years I knew her, I never once saw her play it, but I know it held great comfort and many memories for her.

Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons 
by Diane Wakoski

The relief of putting your fingers on the keyboard,
as if you were walking on the beach
and found a diamond
as big as a shoe;

as if
you had just built a wooden table
and the smell of sawdust was in the air,
your hands dry and woody;

as if
you had eluded
the man in the dark hat who had been following you
all week;

the relief
of putting your fingers on the keyboard,
playing the chords of
Beethoven,
Bach,
Chopin
         in an afternoon when I had no one to talk to,
         when the magazine advertisement forms of soft sweaters
         and clean shining Republican middle-class hair
         walked into carpeted houses
         and left me alone
         with bare floors and a few books

Read the poem in its entirety.


I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

Pianos, unlike people, sing when you give them your every growl. They know how to dive into the pit of your stomach and harmonize with your roars when you’ve split yourself open. And when they see you, guts shining, brain pulsing, heart right there exposed in a rhythm that beats need need, need need, need need, pianos do not run. And so she plays. – Francesca Lia Block

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow.

NPM 2017 Day Nine: To a Cat

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****
A number of years ago we stopped in Connecticut to stay with Pam overnight before heading to a family reunion in Rhode Island. The cat scared the ever living daylights out of William, who was 8 at the time. Pam couldn't stop apologizing for the cat. I dismissed her apologies, knowing that's just who Shadow was. I knew William would get over it. Still, I wondered what it was she saw in that cat. I couldn't sleep that night, so I decided to quietly make my way to the kitchen for tea. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw Pam sitting on the couch in a dimly lit room, whispering quietly to the cat on her lap. This poem helps me understand her love for that darn cat.

To a Cat 
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
Stately, kindly, lordly friend,
      Condescend
Here to sit by me, and turn
Glorious eyes that smile and burn,
Golden eyes, love's lustrous meed,
On the golden page I read.

All your wondrous wealth of hair,
      Dark and fair,
Silken-shaggy, soft and bright
As the clouds and beams of night,
Pays my reverent hand's caress
Back with friendlier gentleness.

Dogs may fawn on all and some
      As they come;
You, a friend of loftier mind,
Answer friends alone in kind.
Just your foot upon my hand
Softly bids it understand.

Read the poem in its entirety.


I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats. ― Albert Schweitzer

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow.

NPM 2017 Day Eight: Milk for the Cat

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****
Pam had a fondness for animals, particularly those that seemed most unwanted and unloved. She had a cat the scared the living daylights out of everyone. I don't think I've ever met a meaner cat, but Pam loved Shadow, and Shadow loved her back. I've never been a cat person, but when I see a scruffy cat wandering through the neighborhood, I wonder if it has a home, and I think of Pam opening hers to all manner of downtrodden creature.

Milk for the Cat
by Harold Monro

When the tea is brought at five o'clock,
And all the neat curtains are drawn with care,
The little black cat with bright green eyes
Is suddenly purring there.

At first she pretends, having nothing to do,
She has come in merely to blink by the grate,
But, though tea may be late or the milk may be sour,
She is never late.

And presently her agate eyes
Take a soft large milky haze,
And her independent casual glance
Becomes a stiff, hard gaze.

Then she stamps her claws or lifts her ears,
Or twists her tail and begins to stir,
Till suddenly all her lithe body becomes
One breathing, trembling purr.

The children eat and wriggle and laugh;
The two old ladies stroke their silk:
But the cat is grown small and thin with desire,
Transformed to a creeping lust for milk.

The white saucer like some full moon descends
At last from the clouds of the table above;
She sighs and dreams and thrills and glows,
Transfigured with love.

She nestles over the shining rim,
Buries her chin in the creamy sea;
Her tail hangs loose; each drowsy paw
Is doubled under each bending knee.

A long, dim ecstasy holds her life;
Her world is an infinite shapeless white,
Till her tongue has curled the last holy drop,
Then she sinks back into the night,

Draws and dips her body to heap
Her sleepy nerves in the great arm-chair,
Lies defeated and buried deep
Three or four hours unconscious there.


I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

It is a difficult matter to gain the affection of a cat. He is a philosophical, methodical animal, tenacious of his own habits, fond of order and neatness, and disinclined to extravagant sentiment. He will be your friend, if he finds you worthy of friendship, but not your slave. — Theophile Gautier

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow.

Poetry Sisters Talk Back to a Poem

The Poetry Sisters are back this month writing to a prompt created up by Sara (though she gives credit to for the idea to Laura, who mentioned it when we were brainstorming challenges for the year). April's challenge was to "talk back" to a poem. Sara chose this poem, found in Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Anita Barrows and Joanna Marie Macy.

The Night
by Rainer Maria Rilke

You, darkness, of whom I am born–

I love you more that the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illuminates
and excludes all the rest.

But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations–just as they are.

It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.

I believe in the night.


I wrote a number of poems for this challenge, but I couldn't get away from the idea of a letter. I'm not sure why I was stuck on an epistle, but that's where every draft went, even when I tried to write to form. After a number of drafts, this is the one I finally settled on.

Letter to Rainer Maria Rilke

Dear Rainer,
Somehow your poem was no surprise
knowing you as I do
but I cannot concur

You love darkness, believe in night
I love brightness, believe in light

You say darkness embraces all
without regard to any feature
I fear it harms the small, the weak
diminishes every lonely creature

There is no comfort in the night
no refuge, peace, nor sacred psalm
It’s in the sun, its warmth and light
my heart, my soul find sweetest balm

I cannot love the darkness
I won’t embrace the night
we must agree to disagree
over this we shouldn't fight

You can have the dark, my friend
but for me I’ll bathe in light

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2017. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems written by my poetry sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Kelly Fineman
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

In addition to this post, you may want to take a few minutes to read my National Poetry Month post(s). This year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love. Here are the posts I've shared to date.
4-1: Kindness
4-2: The Kindness
4-3: A Jack Kerouac Poem
4-4: When I Am In the Kitchen
4-5: Stay Out Of My Kitchen
4-6: Perhaps the World Ends Here
4-7: The Neat One

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem. Happy poetry Friday friends!

NPM 2017 Day Seven: The Neat One

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****
The first Christmas gathering Pam hosted was in 1994. The house was new and unfinished, but we were all together. I was newly married and spending my first holiday away from my family, so I'm sure my sadness was palpable. Pam worked so hard to make everyone happy. My fondest memory of that visit, and the one memory of Pam that still makes me laugh out loud, is the lunch the women shared one afternoon. Nana Balch was there, the matriarch of the family. She was in her 80s and sharply dressed. As we ate and talked, I could see Pam twitching over the mess we were making. (She was a bit of neat freak!) Nana in particular was scattering crumbs everywhere. Close to the end of the meal, Pam couldn't take it anymore, so she got out the Dustbuster and vacuumed the table and floor around Nana, and then proceeded to vacuum Nana's lap! I can still see everyone's stunned faces. I tried so hard not to laugh. This poem about neatness reminds me of that day.

The Neat One
by Violet Alleyn Storey 
(Poetry Magazine, 1925)

When others throw newspapers down,
   She lays them in smooth piles;
When index cards lie on the desk,
   She places them in files.

  “The neat one,” they have called her long—
   It’s strange they never knew
She dreamed once of toy-littered rooms
   With children running through.


I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

... there can be no real beauty without neatness and order. — Julia McNair Wright

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow.

NPM 2017 Day Six: Perhaps the World Ends Here

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****
When Pam and I had the opportunity for extended visits, we often found ourselves sitting at the kitchen table, talking about anything and everything.

Perhaps the World Ends Here 
by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Read the poem in its entirety.


I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering.—Rachel Naomi Remen

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow.

NPM 2017 Day Five: Stay Out of My Kitchen

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****
Pam and I shared a love for cooking. We also shared our loathing for folks in our sacred kitchen space. I know I intruded on her more times than she probably appreciated, but she was always very generous about my stepping on her toes. While people often like to help with cleanup after a meal, this is a good time for the cook to decompress, get a little breathing space from company, and put things to rights in their own way! I know I'm guilty of shooing people away for this very reason. Once I realized Pam and I were alike in this way, I didn't take offense when she needed alone time in the kitchen. In fact, I once sent her a Dear Abby column that contained this poem, accompanied by nothing more than a post-it note with a heart and smiley face.

Stay Out of My Kitchen
by Susan Sawyer

Please stay away from my kitchen,
From my dishwashing, cooking and such.
You were kind to have offered to help me,
And I do want to thank you so much.

I hope you won’t think me ungracious
When I ask that you leave me alone,
For my kitchen is not very spacious
And my system is strictly my own.

So please stay out of my kitchen,
It may well prevent a few wars,
And when I am invited to your house,
I promise to stay out of yours.

I'll leave you today with this parting shot, found on one of my dish towels.

No matter where I serve my guests... they seem to like my kitchen best...

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow.

NPM 2017 Day Four: When I Am in the Kitchen

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****
I have fond memories of Pam in the kitchen. She was an enthusiastic cook with a penchant for "light" recipes and sometimes unusual ingredients. She was quick to copy her favorite recipes to share with me. There are a few I still make today, though quite a few were relegated to the rubbish bin after only being followed once. Regardless of the recipe, Pam cooked everything with love and a desire to please others. I often think of her when I am alone in the kitchen.

When I Am in the Kitchen
by Jeanne Marie Beaumont

I think about the past. I empty the ice-cube trays
crack crack cracking like bones, and I think
of decades of ice cubes and of John Cheever,
of Anne Sexton making cocktails, of decades
of cocktail parties, and it feels suddenly far
too lonely at my counter. Although I have on hooks
nearby the embroidered apron of my friend’s
grandmother and one my mother made for me

Read the poem in its entirety.


I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

I think careful cooking is love, don't you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who's close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give. – Julia Child

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Lies I've Told

I pulled this old gem off the shelf this weekend.

In Chapter 4, Writing Free Verse Poems, Janeczko provides a laundry list (no pun intended) of ideas for writing list poems. I've been stuck on the idea of writing about "lies I've told."

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a list poem on the subject of "lies I've told." Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

NPM 2017 Day Three: A Jack Kerouac Poem

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****
Pam had more forgive and forget in her soul than most people I know. Forgiveness is not something that comes easily to me (though it should), and even when I do forgive, it's hard for me to forget. Pam seemed to be able to do this so easily, and with such grace. The poem below reminds me of this quality of hers. It comes from a letter Jack Kerouac sent to his first wife more than 10 years after their marriage had been annulled.

The world you see is just a movie in your mind.
Rocks dont see it.
Bless and sit down.
Forgive and forget.
Practice kindness all day to everybody
and you will realize you’re already
in heaven now.
That’s the story.
That’s the message.
Nobody understands it,
nobody listens, they’re
all running around like chickens with heads cut
off. I will try to teach it but it will
be in vain, s’why I’ll
end up in a shack
praying and being
cool and singing
by my woodstove
making pancakes.

You can find this letter, as well as his poetry, criticism, Buddhist writings, letters and more in The Portable Jack Kerouac.

I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace. – Leo Tolstoy

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow.

NPM 20017 Day Two: The Kindness

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****

"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." - Henry James

Kindness doesn't need to be some grand gesture. It can be as simple as a smile, a wave, an open door. This poem reminds me that while we may not know what another person is feeling or experiencing, one simple act may touch them in an extraordinary way. Here's a poem that expresses this sentiment.

Excerpt from The Kindness
by Jan Beatty

Their fragility, their awkward bumping
opens me to a long ago time—
            a hand on the door,
            I was walking in
to the psych hospital in Pittsburgh,
feeling broken and stripped down—
            a hand on the door
            from around my body
& I looked up to see the body
of a man, who said:
Let me get that for you—
            a hand on the door
            & the bottom of me
            dropped/
I couldn’t breathe for the kindness.
I couldn’t say how deep that went
for me.
I had been backing up, awkward/
I had been blind to my own beauty.

Read the poem in its entirety.

I often wonder how different our days would be if they were visited by these seemingly small but powerful acts of kindness by others. Today, on Pam's birthday, I am broken by the thought that we weren't kind enough, didn't do enough to offer her comfort and love. When I reach out in kindness to friends and strangers, it's Pam I see as I offer my heart to them.

I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it! – George Elliston

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow. 

NPM 2017 Day One: Kindness

For National Poetry Month this year I am sharing poetry that celebrates my late sister-in-law and what it means to be human. These daily posts focus on traits that Pam exuded—empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love.

*****

Let's kick this month off with a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. Before you read it, just give a listen.



This part of the poem, in particular, speaks to me.

Excerpt from Kindness
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Read the poem in its entirety.


What does it mean to be kind?

Kindness's original meaning of kinship or sameness has stretched over time to encompass sentiments that today go by a wide variety of names—sympathy, generosity, altruism, benevolence, humanity, compassion, pity, empathy—and that in the past were known by other terms as well, notably philanthropia (love of mankind) and caritas (neighborly or brotherly love). The precise meanings of these words vary, but fundamentally they all denote what the Victorians called "open-heartedness," the sympathetic expansiveness linking self to other. – from On Kindness (2010), written by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor Picador

I believe we could all use a lot more kindness in our lives. Imagine how different our world would be if we were to embrace this simple "open-heartedness."

I'll leave you today with this parting shot.

"A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees." - Amelia Earhart

Thank you for reading. I hope to see you here again tomorrow. 

Poetry Friday - NPM Starts Tomorrow!

Where has March gone! I've spent the better part of the month thinking about National Poetry Month and what I would like to explore this April. First, I decided to look back to determine what I've already covered in these yearly celebrations.

2016 - Celebrations - Project in which I highlighted daily, weekly, or monthly celebrations in April and connected them to a poet, poem, or book of poetry. 

2015 - Poetic Forms 

2014 - Science/Poetry Pairs 

2013 - Poetry A to Z 

2011 - Poetry in the Classroom  

2010 - Poetry Makers 

2009 - Poetry Makers - Interviews with poets who write for children. 

2008 - Poetry in the Classroom - Project in which I highlighted a poem, a theme, a book, or a poet and suggested ways to make poetry a regular part of life in the classroom.

I began this blog in November of 2006. I was new to this thing called blogging in 2007 and was preparing for a trip to China, so a daily celebration of poetry never crossed my mind. I'm not sure why I embraced daily posts and a thematic project in 2008, but once I did, I knew it would be a yearly tradition.

In 2009, I wrote many of my April posts in a darkened theater during rehearsals for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. My father was in hospice care at the time, and I found that both poetry and the musical kept me afloat.

In looking back, it is the glaring gap in these celebrations of poetry that touches me with a familiar prickle of grief. On March 29th of 2012, my husband lost his older sister to suicide. It was an incredibly sad time, and one in which it was hard to find solace. I wrote a lot poetry then as I tried to make sense of something incomprehensible, but I couldn't bring myself to blog. Celebrating anything just felt wrong. This year marks the 5th anniversary of Pam's death. During the last few months I've spent quite a bit of time thinking of her and wondering how I can honor her, the things she loved, and the things I loved about her.

Pam was light, and love, and kindness, and peace. In the world we live in today, these traits are much needed. So, this month I've decided to honor Pam and her legacy of caring through poetry -- poetry that celebrates what it means to be human. My daily posts will focus on empathy, kindness, caring, friendship, gentleness and love. I know the color purple will make an appearance in some small way. There might even be a kitten or a puppy among these posts to honor Pam's love for all creatures great and small.

Shortly after Pam died, I seemed to see purple at every turn, and each time I did was reminded of her. I even spent some time looking for poems that contained the word purple. Here's a short one I found that is still with me today and continues to make me smile.

The Purple Cow
by Gelett Burgess

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one!

Please join me in April for this year's National Poetry Month extravagnaza celebrating humanity and the incredible power of poetry.


I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater of The Poem Farm. Happy poetry Friday friends!

Monday Poetry Stretch - It's Back!

I took a bit of an unexpected break this month, but I'm happy to be back with you. For whatever reason, Mondays this semester have been hard to manage. I've been teaching 2 classes back-to-back, beginning at 4:00 pm and ending around 9:45. That means I haven't been getting home until a bit after 10. By then, if I haven't posted a stretch, it doesn't get done that day. so, my apologies for being lax this month.

I've been writing lately to some of the exercises in The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell. This one is entitled "The Night Aunt Dottie Caught Elvis's Handkerchief When He Tossed It From the Stage of the Sands in Vegas" and was written by David Wojahn. In essence, the challenge is to write a poem about a family member meeting a famous person. Here are the guidelines for this.

• The encounter can be real or imaginary, but should at least be plausible.
• The family member, not the famous person, should be the protagonist of the poem.
• The narrator must know the "inner workings of the family member's mind," and must write about the family member as a "character" in the third person.
• The famous person can be anyone in politics, entertainment, or the arts.
• Generally, a longer poem is needed (at least 30 lines) to develop a portrait of the family member.

Here's a model poem for this exercise.

1933
by Lynda Hull

Whole countries hover, oblivious on the edge
of history and in Cleveland the lake
already is dying. None of this matters
to my mother at seven, awakened from sleep

to follow her father through darkened rooms
downstairs to the restaurant emptied
of customers, chairs stacked and steam glazing
the window, through the kitchen bright with pans,

ropes of kielbasa, the tubs of creamy lard
that resemble, she thinks, ice cream.
At the tavern table her father's friends
talk rapidly to a man in a long gray coat,

in staccato French, Polish, harsh German.
Her mother stops her, holds her shoulders, and whispers
This is a famous man. Remember his face.
Trotsky, a name like one of her mother's

Read the poem in its entirety.

Other example poems include History of My Heart by Robert Pinsky and Cuba by Paul Muldoon.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a poem for this stretch. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Triolet

I've been a bit remiss with stretches as of late. This one is coming to you just under the wire.

A triolet is an eight line poem with a tightly rhymed structure and repeated lines. Here is the form.

line 1 - A
line 2 - B
line 3 - A
line 4 - line 1 repeated
line 5 - A
line 6 - B
line 7 - line 1 repeated
line 8 - line 2 repeated

You can read an example and learn more about this form at Poets.org.

Here is an example. It comes from the book Fly With Poetry: An ABC of Poetry, written and illustrated by Avis Harley.

Phosphorescence
by Avis Harley

Have you ever swum in a sea
alive with silver light
sprinkled from a galaxy?
Have you ever swum in a sea
littered with glitter graffiti
scribbled on liquid night?
Have you ever swum in a sea
alive with silver light?

One of my favorite triolets can be found in Paul Janeczko's A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms. Written by Alice Schertle, the poem is entitled The Cow's Complaint.

Will you write a triolet with me this week? Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Sisters Write Ekphrastic Poems

The Poetry Sisters are back this month writing to an image chosen by Tanita.

Photo by Ana_Cotta, used under Creative Commons License

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ana_cotta/2763575483/in/pool-creative_commons-_free_pictures/

I wrote a number of poems for this challenge, but one idea kept popping into my head and I couldn't get over it (or past it). It was this ...
Following on this theme of phone booths in literature and film, my brainstorming took me to phone booth stuffing, the T.A.R.D.I.S., The Phantom Toll Booth, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and more. After a bit of noodling, this is what I finally settled on.

Nostalgia

I weep for
Clark Kent
Dr. Who
Harry Potter

Where will Clark become Superman?
How with the Doctor travel through time and space?
How will Harry visit the Ministry of Magic?

It’s been years since I’ve seen
an honest-to-God booth
with a door and working phone
the kind you secretly popped into
to check for forgotten change
or ducked into to get
out of the rain

I miss the snap and ch-ch-ch-ch-ch
of the old rotary dial
and later, the beep-beep-beep
of metal push buttons

I long to enter a
royal red box in London
dial 62442 (magic!)
and descend through the ground

I dream of taking a trip
in the T.A.R.D.I.S.
to talk poetry with
Dickinson and Frost

I pray that if I ever need assistance
my heroes will find a space to
hang their hats and transform

Today I’m missing telephone booths.
What will I miss tomorrow?

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2017. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems written by my poetry sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Kelly Fineman
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe. Happy poetry Friday friends!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Limerick

After watching Saturday Night Live the last few weeks, limericks and clerihews have been rattling around in my head. I thought it might be fun to write some limericks this week.

Limericks are humorous nonsense poems that were made popular in English by Edward Lear. Limericks not only have rhyme, but rhythm. The last words of the first, second, and fifth lines all rhyme, and the last words of the third and fourth lines rhyme. This means the rhyme scheme is AABBA. The rhythm of a limerick comes from a distinct pattern. Lines 1, 2, and 5 generally have seven to ten syllables, while lines 3 and 4 have only five to seven syllables. Here is an example from Lear's book.

If you can't read the text, here's the limerick in the 5-line form usually seen today.

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
   Two Owls and a Hen,
   Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'

You can read Lear's A Book of Nonsense online, which includes 112 limericks.
 

I hope you'll join me this week in writing some limericks. If you feel politically inclined, that would be fun too. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Rhupunt

I am still reading and pondering the forms in Robin Skelton's The Shapes of Our Singing: A Comprehensive Guide to Verse Forms and Metres from Around the World. The Rhupunt is a Welsh verse form. Lines are 4 syllables long, with the last line rhyming with the last line of the following stanza. Stanzas may be 3, 4, or 5 lines long. Here is the pattern for these versions.

3-line

x x x A

x x x A

x x x B

x x x C

x x x C

x x x B

4-line

x x x A

x x x A

x x x A

x x x B

x x x C

x x x C

x x x C

x x x B

5-line

x x x A

x x x A

x x x A

x x x A

x x x B

x x x A

x x x A

x x x A

x x x A

x x x B

Since the lines in each stanza are generally thought to be portions of a long line, they are sometimes presented as a couplet with lines of 12 to 20 syllables. Written this way the rhupunt would look like this:
x x x A x x x A x x x A x x x B
x x x C x x x C x x x C x x x B

You can read more about the rhupunt at The Poets Garret.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a rhupunt. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Sisters Write Villanelles

This month the poetry gang wrote villanelles with the theme of brevity or shortness. The villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. It is made up of five tercets and a quatrain. The rhyme scheme is aba aba aba aba aba abaa. The 1st and 3rd lines from the first stanza are alternately repeated so that the 1st line becomes the last line in the second stanza, and the 3rd line becomes the last line in the third stanza and so on. The last two lines of the poem are lines 1 and 3 respectively.

I started poems on 4 different topics, but ultimately couldn't get away from politics. My apologies for that. It's too bad really, because some of the other ideas were interesting. I'm going to keep working on the poem built around Shakespeare's quote "brevity is the soul of wit." It was the first thing I thought of when I began brainstorming ideas for this form and I just couldn't get it out of my head. I also worked on poems about winter days and revising poems. 

Here's the poem I'm sharing today. I thought about calling it "The Relativity of Trump," but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Untitled Villanelle

Time is relative they say

sometimes long and sometimes brief

it just depends upon the day

November seems so far away

yet we’re still filled with disbelief

time is relative they say

We want Obama’s yesterday

when our hearts weren’t filled with grief

but it depends upon the day

We read Twitter with dismay

and with impatience seek relief

but time is relative they say

Now we must make our way

with this narcissist in chief

so hope depends upon the day

We cannot run away

we must hold to our belief

time is relative they say

it just depends upon the day

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2017. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems written by my poetry sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Kelly Fineman
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by  Penny Klosterman at Penny and Her Jots. Happy poetry Friday friends!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Things To Do

In honor of Elaine Magliaro, who has a new book coming out on February 7th, I thought it might be fun to write "Things To Do" poems.

Elaine wrote a terrific post way back in 2010 describing how she got started writing things to do poems. Inspired by the poems of Bobbi Katz, Elaine took to writing list poems in this format with her second graders. The post, The Super Duper "Things to Do" Poems Post, includes example poems written by/with her students, as well as links to original poems Elaine wrote in this form.

Elaine's book, Things to Do, is filled with poem that describe "things to do" if you are dawn, a bird, honeybee, an acorn, the sky, and more.

Here's an excerpt from a poem that didn't make it into this collection.

Things To Do If You Are a Castle

Stand on a stony cliff
overlooking the sea.
Wear a thick wall of armor.
Sprout tall turrets.
Be a haven.
Drop your drawbridge
for damsels in distress.

Read the poem in its entirety.

I hope you'll join me in writing a "Things To Do" poem this week. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.