Poetry Friday - Poems from CRICKET NEVER DOES

Knowing I would be hitting the road this holiday, I finished my shopping ages ago. This means that while everyone around me is whipped into a shopping frenzy, I can relax and browse. That's just what I was doing earlier this week (while procrastinating on my grading) when I stopped into my favorite used bookstore and treated myself to this little book.

CRICKET NEVER DOES: A COLLECTION OF HAIKU AND TANKA, by Mrya Cohn Livingston, is a seasonal collection of poems beginning with spring and ending with winter. Here's one of the winter poems.

Here we are, Winter,

just you and I in the snow,

freezing together

And because I love the book title, here's the poem those words come from.

Not wishing to stop

his chirping the whole night long,

Cricket never does

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Buffy Silverman at Buffy's Blog. Happy Poetry Friday all! And best wishes to each of you for whatever holiday you celebrate this season.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Nonet

When I sit down to write I find I am more compelled by form than topic. It's also easier for me to wrestle with form than it is to compose on a specific topic. (I was the kid in English class that stared at my notebook page when told to "free write." Guidance and guidelines do wonders for me!)

That's why I like to tinker with forms in these challenges. This week I'd like to try the nonet. Here's a description of the form.

A nonet is a nine line poem. The first line containing nine syllables, the next line has eight syllables, the next line has seven syllables. That continues until the last line (the ninth line) which has one syllable. Nonets can be written about any subject. Rhyming is optional.

You can read more about this form and see a few examples at Poetry Dances - Nonet. 

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

Poetry Friday - Superstition

On this Friday the 13th I am sharing a poem by Amy Lowell. This piece was published in 1919 in a volume entitled Pictures of the Floating World.

Superstition
by Amy Lowell

I have painted a picture of a ghost
Upon my kite,
And hung it on a tree.
Later, when I loose the string
And let it fly,
The people will cower
And hide their heads,
For fear of the God
Swimming in the clouds.

This poem and the book it was published in are in the public domain and have been digitized and made available by Google. You can read the entire volume simply by downloading a copy.

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference. Happy Poetry Friday all! 

Monday Poetry Stretch - Sijo

Last week the fall semester came to a close. We still have exams and final projects to wade through, but the light at the end of the tunnel grows brighter. It wasn't until Friday that I realized I had completely missed the Monday stretch! Not so this week . . .

I'm quite fond of the poems in Linda Sue Park's lovely book Tap Dancing on the Roof: Sijo Poems. Originating in Korea, sijo are poems divided into three or six lines. These poems frequently use word play in the form of metaphors, symbols and puns. Here is a description from AHApoetry.

More ancient than haiku, the Korean SIJO shares a common ancestry with haiku, tanka and similar Japanese genres. All evolved from more ancient Chinese patterns.

Sijo is traditionally composed in three lines of 14-16 syllables each, totaling between 44-46 syllables. A pause breaks each line approximately in the middle; it resembles a caesura but is not based on metrics.

And here is the description from the jacket flap of Park's book.

What is sijo?
A type of poem that originated in Korea.

But what is it?
A sijo has a fixed number of stressed syllables, usually divided into three or six lines.

Like haiku?
Kind of. But a sijo always has a surprise, an unexpected twist or joke, at the end.

The poems in the book are full of these wonderful surprises. One of my favorites is entitled Long Division. It is the poem that gives the book its title. Another favorite is Summer Storm. It is below.

Summer Storm

Lightning jerks the sky awake to take her photograph, flash!
Which draws grumbling complaints or even crashing tantrums from thunder--

He hates having his picture taken, so he always gets there late.

Now that you've read a sijo, you'll know that the challenge this week is to write one. Here is a brief summary of the advice Park gives at the end of her book.

Three line poems should contain about 14 to 16 syllables per line. Six line poems should contain 7 or 8 syllables per line.

The first line should contain a single image or idea. The second line should develop this further. The last line should contain the twist. 

Park writes:

I try to think of where the poem would logically go if I continued to develop the idea of the first two lines. Once I've figured that out, I write something that goes in the opposite direction--or at least "turns a corner."

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

For Thanksgiving

Two poems for my readers . . . and wishes for a joyful Thanksgiving.

Autumn
By Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.


In Harvest
By Sophie Jewett

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat;
I linger, for the hay is sweet,
New-cut and curing in the sun.
Like furrows, straight, the windrows run,
Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent
When, yesterday, the west wind went
A-rioting through grass and grain.
To-day no least breath stirs the plain;
Only the hot air, quivering, yields
Illusive motion to the fields
Where not the slenderest tassel swings.

Read the poem in its entirety.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Thanksgiving

Well, this week is a no-brainer. Let's write about thanks, Thanksgiving, gratitude, or anything that resembles thankfulness.

For a bit of inspiration you might want to check out these links.
Thanksgiving Poems at Poets.org
The Cranberry Cantos at The Poetry Foundation

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

Poetry Friday - Thanksgiving

Back in 2009 the Poetry Seven took up the challenge to write together. Here were the rules.

• We each do a villanelle.
• In one of our repeating lines we use the word thanksgiving, in the other repeating line we use the word friend.
• No other rules, no other similarities. Just those two things.

The villanelle I wrote is a bit of an anthem and appropriate for the upcoming holiday, so I thought I'd share it again.

Dear friends, Thanksgiving!
For glorious oaks and sprawling trees
in winter, summer, fall and spring

For all things green and lush and living
that dance so lightly in the breeze
dear friends, Thanksgiving!

For spiders spinning webs of string
while swinging and dangling on a trapeze
through winter, summer, fall and spring

For sunflowers bold and bright and smiling,
climbing skyward with grace and ease
dear friends, Thanksgiving!

For birds that chirp and peep and sing
while visiting blossoms with bumblebees
through winter, summer, fall and spring

For poems, prose and words that sing
of beauty that brings us to our knees
Dear friends, Thanksgiving
in winter, summer, fall and spring!

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Katya at Write. Sketch. Repeat.. Happy Poetry Friday all! 

Monday Poetry Stretch - Prose to Poem

I've been reading a lot of primary source documents for my class and am thinking about transforming a prose document into poetry. Let's consider this a form of a found poem. Take a letter, a speech, a passage from a favorite book, any portion of prose with some meaning, and use words from it to write a poem. (Note that if you use excerpts from poems by other authors that you will be writing a cento. You can read more about the cento at Poets.org.)

Here's a poem I wrote based on the words from the chapter Winter Animals in Walden: Or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau.

Hills rose up around me
and in misty weather
loomed like fabulous creatures.

I walked freely
far from the village street,
where I heard the forlorn note 
of a hooting owl.

At length the jays arrived,
then the chickadees in flocks,
hammering away with their bills.

And once a sparrow
alighted upon my shoulder.
For a moment,
I was more distinguished
by that circumstance
than any epaulet
I could have worn.

I hope you'll join me this week in turning prose into poetry. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - To Sleep

Here's what I need most in my life these days ...

To Sleep
by John Keats

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.


Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Poems of Peace

In thinking about Veterans Day I read over some of the pieces linked at the Poetry Foundation's page on Veterans Day Poems, as well as some of the entries at The Sandbox. I have a great deal of respect for soldiers, the sacrifices they make, and the work they do. We wouldn't be who we are without them. That's why this week, I want to write about peace, something we should all be working towards.

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

2 Days Late for a Birthday Milestone

On November 6, 2006 (that was 7 years ago!), I launched this blog. Here's a picture of that post.

At that time I was still teaching our technology course and was looking to expand my work with students. 

I've come a LONG way since I started my first web site in the spring of 1995 (yes, you read that correctly). Back then my web pages were all written in HTML. Now this web stuff is so much easier.

I haven't been around much as of late, but am trying hard to reconnect with the community that first embraced me and brought me into the blogging fold. I am so grateful for all the wonderful people I've connected with, many of whom I've had the pleasure of meeting in real life.

So, I'm wishing myself a belated happy birthday while thanking you all from the bottom of my heart. I'm so grateful every time you stop by.

Poetry Friday - For the Chipmunk in My Yard

I've long been a reader of and subscriber to American Life in Poetry. American Life in Poetry is a free weekly column for newspapers and online publications featuring a poem by a contemporary American poet and a brief introduction to the poem by Ted Kooser. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry.

If you subscribe, each week you get a lovely little gift of poetry in your inbox. What could be better? If you stop by online, you can print out a PDF of your favorite columns.

Here's one of my favorite fall selections from this project.

For the Chipmunk in My Yard 
by Robert Gibb

I think he knows I’m alive, having come down
The three steps of the back porch
And given me a good once over. All afternoon
He’s been moving back and forth,
Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs,
While all about him the great fields tumble

Read the poem in its entirety.

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Diane at Random Noodling. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Cinquain

Poets.org defines the cinquain in this fashion.

The cinquain, also known as a quintain or quintet, is a poem or stanza composed of five lines. Examples of cinquains can be found in many European languages, and the origin of the form dates back to medieval French poetry. 

The most common cinquains in English follow a rhyme scheme of ababb, abaab or abccb. 

I'll admit that the first part of this definition was unfamiliar to me. It was only this second part that I recognized.

Adelaide Crapsey, an early twentieth-century poet, used a form of 22 syllables distributed among the five lines in a 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 pattern, respectively. Her poems share a similarity with the Japanese tanka, another five-line form, in their focus on imagery and the natural world.

This is the form that is taught in schools alongside haiku and diamante, though I'm not fond of the didactic approach generally taken, which consists of listing words related to a topic (adjectives, action verbs, etc.) .

If you are looking for some guidance, Kenn Nesbitt has a nice page on how to write a cinquain.

For a bit of inspiration, here's an example by Adelaide Crapsey.

Snow

Look up…
From bleakening hills
Blows down the light, first breath
Of wintry wind…look up, and scent
The snow!


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

Poetry Friday - November Night and Triad

I've been reviewing poetic forms while selecting topics for my Monday Poetry Stretch series. Since cinquain will be coming up soon, I thought I'd share a few examples today.

November Night

by Adelaide Crapsey

Listen.

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.

You might know Adelaide Crapsey as the inventor of the cinquain. Even though she authored fewer than 100 poems, her work is spare, yet powerful. Writing through illness and her impending death, much of her work touches on death and dying. Here's an example of one of those poems.

Triad

by Adelaide Crapsey

These be

Three silent things:

The falling snow…the hour

Before the dawn…the mouth of one

Just dead.

You can learn more about Crapsey at The Poetry Foundation. If you want to read more of her poetry (she did write more than cinquains), take a look at Verse by Adelaide Crapsey.

Check out other poetic things being shared and collected today by Linda at Teacher Dance. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Happy Halloween - A Bit 'O Shakespeare

Macbeth: Act 4, Scene 1

A dark cave. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

First Witch 
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Witch 
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch 
Harpier cries "'Tis time, 'tis time."

First Witch 
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

All
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch 
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

All
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch 
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

All
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch 
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Monday Poetry Stretch - 13 Ways of Looking at Fall

This weekend I was savoring Wallace Steven's wonderful poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. I began to think that looking at fall in this way might be an interesting thing to do. Now, you don't need to come up with 13 stanzas of your own. Perhaps we could write this as a modified renga, each contributing a verse or two.

Here are the stanzas I'm starting with (I think).

Why is autumn

fall?

Is it cooling temperatures?

Dampening spirits

as summer fades away?

Could it be as simple

as dropping leaves?

II

Ripe, round, juicy

delights picked 

and turned into

steaming, cinnamon slathered pies

 

However you want to approach it, the challenge this week is to write a few stanzas (or more!) about fall. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - Zero by Eve Merriam

In honor of the holiday just 6 short days away, I'm sharing a poem in the spirit of the season.
I love the 1987 publication Halloween ABC, written by Eve Merriam and illustrated by Lane Smith. However, I must say that I am even fonder of the 2002 revised and retitled edition Spooky ABC. Besides the absolutely pitch-perfect poems and illustrations, one of the most interesting things about the book is the section at the end entitled "The Awful Truth Behind The Making Of Spooky ABC." In it, Lane Smith describes how the first book and revised edition came about. This section also includes images that were created for the first book, but ultimately dropped because Merriam's poems suggested other illustrations. For example, vampire was lost to viper, tree to trap, and cat to crawler. (I do LOVE the cat illustration, as well as the one for invisible. I wish you could see them!)

Today I'm sharing the poem for the letter Z.

Zero
by Eve Merriam

Round blank
Round blank
Only bubbles
mark where it sank.

What was the secret,
what was the prize?
Nothing but hollow
holes for eyes.

Where did it come from,
and where did it go?
No one alive
will ever know.

Check out other poetic things being shared today at Live Your Poem. Wish Irene a happy 1000th post while you're there. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Rictameter

Created in 1990 by two cousins, rictameter is a nine line poetry form in which the 1st and last lines are the same. The syllable count is 2/4/6/8/10/8/6/4/2.

You can learn more about this relatively young form at Wikipedia, or read some examples at Shadow Poetry.

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

Poetry Friday - Mortimer Minute

I hope Mortimer isn't too angry that I finished off the last of the fresh celery greens last night while making a pot of yummy vegetable soup. I promise to head to the farmer's market tomorrow to get him something green and leafy if he promises to stick around!

I've been absent from Poetry Friday for quite a while now, so Laura Purdie Salas thought this might be a way to get me back into the swing of things. I think she just might be right! Like Laura, I'm not much of a meme girl, but this one was too much fun to pass up.

So, without further ado, I'm jumping into the Children's Poetry Blog Hop head first. Many thanks to Laura for the invite!

Here’s how to hop “Mortimer Minute” style!

• Answer 3 questions. Pick one question from the previous Hopper. Add two of your own. Keep it short, please! This is a Blog Hop, not a Blog Long Jump. This is The Mortimer Minute—not The Mortimer Millennium!
• Invite friends. Invite 1-3 bloggers who love children’s poetry to follow you. They can be writers, teachers, librarians, or just plain old poetry lovers.
• Say thank you. In your own post, link to The Previous Hopper. Then keep The Mortimer Minute going — let us know who your Hoppers are and when they plan to post their own Mortimer Minute.

Mortimer's got some friends waiting, so let's go!

Photo by Camilo Gonzalez

Mortimer: Is there a children’s poem that you wish you had written?

Mortimer, you really can't expect me to pick just one! There are so many that I love for so many different reasons. Since growing up next door to a dairy farm, I've always had a fondness for cows. This means that I wish I had written just one of the many cow-themed poems penned by Alice Schertle. Here's one of my favorites.

Taradiddle

She landed hard,

they say,

and afterward was slightly lame.

For several days

the curious came to stare,

and many hoped

that she would dare

to try the trick again.

They went away dissatisfied.

She never tried

to jump again,

but gazed for hours at the moon.

They never found the dish and spoon.

Poem ©Alice Schertle. All rights reserved.

Mortimer: Do you have a favorite poetry book from childhood?

I certainly do! It's called THE PEDALING MAN AND OTHER POEMS and is written by Russell Hoban. Here's a photo of my well-worn and much beloved book. It was published in 1968. I'm not sure when I got it, but I remember it well. Growing up near the Erie Canal, Genesee River, and Lake Ontario I was very familiar with water, but it was this poem of Hoban's that captivated me. 

Old Man Ocean

by Russell Hoban

Old Man Ocean, how do you pound

Smooth glass rough, rough stones round?

     Time and the tide and the wild waves rolling,

     Night and the wind and the long gray dawn.

Old Man Ocean, what do you tell,

What do you sing in the empty shell?

     Fog and the storm and the long bell tolling,

     Bones in the deep and brave men gone.

Mortimer: If you could host a dinner party and invite three poets, who would you choose?
Oh Mortimer, that question is just so unfair. Since I'm a rule-breaker, I'll give you two answers. If I could dine with the dead, my choices would be Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Walt Whitman. Of folks writing poetry today, I'd choose J. Patrick Lewis, Helen Frost, and Avis Harley. (Yes, I left out some AMAZING poets, but I'm going to gloat for just a moment and tell you that I have shared meals with some of them!)

That's it for me and my Mortimer Minute. Next week the the Children's Poetry Blog Hop continues with Robyn Hood Black, an author and poet I had the honor of sharing many fabulous meals with while attending a Highlights Foundation workshop.

Robyn is the author of Sir Mike (Scholastic) and Wolves (Intervisual Books) and writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her poetry appears in The Poetry Friday Anthology and The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, Pomelo Books), in Georgia Heard's anthology of found poems, The Arrow Finds Its Mark (Roaring Brook), and in leading haiku journals. Her fiction has appeared in Highlights and her poetry has been featured in Ladybug and Hopscotch. She also creates "art for your literary side" through her business, artsyletters.

Check out other poetic things being shared today at Merely Day by Day. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Kyrielle

I seem to be stuck on repeating forms these days. There is something challenging about fitting the same line(s) into a poem and making it work.

A kyrielle is a French from that was originally used by Troubadours. In the original French kyrielle, lines had eight syllables. Written in English, the lines are usually iambic tetrameters. The distinctive feature of a kyrielle is the refrain in which the final line of every stanza is the same. The name of the form comes from the word kyrie, a form of prayer in which the phrase "Lord have mercy" (kyrie eleison) is repeated.

A kyrielle can be any length as long as it is written in 4 line stanzas of iambic tetrameters. A kyrielle also has a rhyme scheme. Two popular forms are aabB/ccbB/ddbB etc. or abaB/cbcB/dbdB etc., where B is the repeated refrain.

Here is an example of the form.

Kyrielle
by John Payne

A lark in the mesh of the tangled vine,
A bee that drowns in the flower-cup's wine,
A fly in sunshine,--such is the man.
All things must end, as all began.

A little pain, a little pleasure,
A little heaping up of treasure;
Then no more gazing upon the sun.
All things must end that have begun.

Where is the time for hope or doubt?
A puff of the wind, and life is out;
A turn of the wheel, and rest is won.
All things must end that have begun.

Golden morning and purple night,
Life that fails with the failing light;
Death is the only deathless one.
All things must end that have begun.

Ending waits on the brief beginning;
Is the prize worth the stress of winning?
E'en in the dawning day is done.
All things must end that have begun.

Weary waiting and weary striving,
Glad outsetting and sad arriving;
What is it worth when the goal is won?
All things must end that have begun.

Speedily fades the morning glitter;
Love grows irksome and wine grows bitter.
Two are parted from what was one.
All things must end that have begun.

Toil and pain and the evening rest;
Joy is weary and sleep is best;
Fair and softly the day is done.
All things must end that have begun.

If you want to learn more about the kyrielle you can read this Wikipedia entry or the article Kyrielle: The Kyrie Reformed.

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