Thursday, March 28, 2024

we weather it

How-dee, how-do?  Cardinal and I are back with the promised pantoum (and not much else), to play along with the Poetry Sisters.  Thanks to them for inviting all of us to join in their hijinks, and thanks to a certain someone for making sure I didn't post the first misguided version of this challenging challenge!




The revision help I got has me thinking once again--especially with the news about the Lee Bennett Hopkins award for THE WONDER HOUSE going to the duo of Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard--about how we poets ought to be outright collab'ing like the pop musicians out there, riffing and mixing and remixing our poems. In fact there are some places that specialize in that: 
https://www.s2fjournal.com/ and one other I saw that I can't find now.

Your thoughts on poems/collections by more than one person?

Thanks to Tricia for hosting us today at The Miss Rumphius Effect.  Can't wait to enjoy the pantoumery!

Friday, March 22, 2024

color like sound - an animal pantoum

Greetings from the land of cherry blossoms! No, I'm not in Japan, but here in the DC area, this time of year is cherry blossom time, and in many neighborhoods nearer than the Jefferson Memorial Boat Basin downtown, swathes of ornamental cherries are doing their thing.

Twenty-five years ago we took our brand new little April Fool, baby Daisy, on her first outing--to the Kenwood neighborhood in Bethesda, MD, where the very grand houses stand on streets lined with some very "ancient" cherry trees. I've checked, and as I remember the weather was pleasantly warm that Easter week, rising to 85* on April 8.  (I note also with great surprise that the clocks changed on April 4 that year, and not 3 weeks earlier on March 9 as this year.  Who decided that, and when?!)  The photo of this event that I carry in my mind is not easily available, but an annual family outing to Kenwood became tradition.  

Yesterday evening Fiona and I squeezed in this year's outing, just the two empty-nexters of us, in unsuitably dark clothing, because after a gorgeous, too-early week of warm spring last week, the temps yesterday were in the blustery 40's, although sunny.  Yes, the cherry blossoms peaked a full 3 weeks earlier this year than 25 years ago. It seems my children's lifespans coincide with the peak of the  Anthropocene, and this is the evidence.

What does any of this have to do with the Poetry Sisters' pantoum challenge for today? [uploads Tanita's graphic]

OH LOOK I AM A WEEK AHEAD.

...

...

...

...

Friends, if ever there was evidence that I'm now fully into a new era of life, this is it.  I am AHEAD of a schedule, instead of coming right up against a deadline in a planfully last-minute kind of way, which is how I have organized my time and many activities for the last approximately 40 years.

Please raise a glass with me, because change is good. You will have to wait for my cardinal pantoum until next week (bad news for you; good news for me bc I don't feel like it was quite ready!), and settle today for these: the Kenwood cherry blossom poem and video from PUMPKIN BUTTERFLY.




Thanking Rose for hosting us today at Imagine the Possibilities, and hoping she and her birds will return next week for the cardinal poem!


Friday, March 15, 2024

reintroducing *WHISPERshout Poetry Magazine*

Greetings, poetry people! This week my climate post is swerving slightly to highlight new poems by kids published at WHISPERshout Poetry Magazine.  I started this online journal about a year ago and I believe it's the only magazine in the US publishing work by the youngest kids ages 4-12. Often I can include accompanying artwork or photos of the kids.

I really thought it was a vast untapped opportunity for teachers, librarians, homeschoolers and freelancers like me to guide their young poets towards--kids love to see their work "published" in some form, just like we do!  But I've been surprised that it has been so hard to get submissions; I thought the word would spread more easily.  Still, I've been able to publish at least one issue per month, since there's no shortage of interesting poetry coming out of my own workshops with kids. (Thanks here to Margaret Simon, who has frequently shared poems written by her students.) Maybe I don't know how to use social media well enough to make it work!

In Jan/Feb, I ran two "Weather Words" workshops in which we mixed drama and poetry, acting out BARTHOLOMEW AND THE OOBLECK and writing weather poetry (although of course You Are the Boss of Your Poem and I would never insist that you write only weather poems!). March's first issue of WHISPERshout Poetry Magazine features seven of the poems written during these workshops.

With thanks to our host Tanita (fellow March bday celebrator) and a request to all of you to share the magazine far and wide, below I introduce you to a sample of the next generation of poets and their storm of weather poems. Go read! Comment! Help a young poet submit!

Share on Facebook! 

Share on Instagram!

Share on Bluesky!








Thursday, February 29, 2024

persona-ble

Greetings, all, and welcome to March (a favored month of mine).  We kick it off, we Inklings, by writing persona poems with Margaret Simon, whose challenge read "A persona poem has a specific audience, conveys a message, is written in the voice of another person, place, or thing, uses direct address. A great sample poem is “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes."

I'm double dipping for this one, because during the recently concluded February Poetry Project hosted by Laura Shovan (the theme this year was Games), we enjoyed a prompt provided by Margaret herself that included cards from a game she plays with students called Picwits. We each selected one of the cards and one of the photos and wrote to that combination. I stepped into the halo of this angel:


Angel to God


Oh Lord—


Every day, seven days a week

(no rest for me on the seventh day),

I put on my wings 

and leave the house.

It’s like any other job–

there are days you look forward to,

and days you’d rather be elsewhere, 

doing something else entirely,


doing nothing.


That’s my aim, my angle–

to earn a sabbath, just one day 

of angel’s rest 

now and then,

a day when I can 

lie barebacked in a hammock  made of angel hair (it really is 

feather-light), saving no one,

doing nothing.


draft ©HM 2024




That was fun, and good practice too, because I hope to be doing a mask and persona poem project with 6th graders in April, at the old middle school of both my kids.

Go here to find the personas inhabited by the other Inklings, and thanks to Linda at TeacherDance for leading the March into Spring. I hope she's not snowed under...

Catherine @ Reading to the Core

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise

Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

Mary Lee @ (A)nother Year of Reading



Friday, February 16, 2024

yet here we are

 


  
Tight on time today, but here's a word from our sponsor Planet Earth, in the voice of her proxy, poet Caitlin Gildrien.  This poem comes from the anthology you've seen me mention before--DEAR HUMAN AT THE EDGE OF TIME (Paloma Press, 2023).

I like the breadth of the perspective in this poem, its surprising density given that breadth, its uncertain, intense desire to carry on.






Thanks to Mardiret I mean Margaret of Reflections on the Teche, who is hosting us following the festivities of Mardi Gras!


Friday, February 2, 2024

pssssstt...wanna know a secret?

Greetings, all, and Happy February.  The Inklings are writing about secrets today, which may be the original double-edged sword, invented long before any tempered metal blade. I would love to watch a little home movie of the first moment some humans realized they could, for good or ill, know things that no one else knew, keeping their knowledge to themselves or between themselves and selected others without revealing them to the general public.

And oh, wait--it's occuring to me that THIS may be the real story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and possibly the point of God, to read your mind when your fellow humans can't!  Is it cynical to suggest that God is the original Elf on the Shelf? (Surely that's only one edge of the double-edged sword of the Lord, even so.)

But I digress.  Catherine offered us this challenge which she found in a series of prompts from the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center in Modesto, CA.

Prompt # 6 (for December 20): Our Lips are Sealed…Or Not

Write a poem about secrets——family, community/societal, governmental, personal, etc.  This could be a narrative (how the secret(s) started, where it or they led, the along-the-way and final (if any) consequences.  For inspiration or starting blocks for your poem, here’s this poem, “Family Secret” by Nancy Kuhl.

I received this brilliant poem in my inbox through Poem-A-Day, so I was thrilled to go in this direction, and did so writing after another Poem-A-Day offering I was taken with: "The Lord's Corner" by Tyree Daye.  Here's mine.




I also got excited about Nancy Kuhl's commentary on her "Family Secret" poem and used it for a blackout poem:


And now, before I point you to the other Inklings and their secrets, I need to share this one by Desi, a 3rd-grader I'm having the deep delight of working with regularly.  Here's her poem from the current issue of WHISPERshout Magazine, which you can find here.




Check out the secrets of the other Inklings below, and thanks to our own Mary Lee (well, YOUR Mary Lee, too--she's very generous with her participation!) for hosting today at A(nother) Year of Reading!

Catherine @ Reading to the Core

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise

Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche


AND LASTLY!  I must say a resounding THANK YOU to all who sent me such mantel full of lovely New Year's postcards, and to Jone for organizing us!

Friday, January 19, 2024

50 ways to cure the climate


Greetings, Poetry People!  As I write, snow is falling steadily for the second time this week here in the MD suburbs of DC.  Our 4-day school week dwindled to just one yesterday, and while it's nice to finally have snow days in January, right where they belong, the bigger climate picture is always on my mind.

So I have two bon mots for you today (and I'm not using that expression in the Francophone way meaning "clever remarks"; I'm using it the way my dad used to, meaning "little treats.")  The first is a poem from DEAR HUMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME: POEMS ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE UNITED STATES (Paloma Press 2023).  I'm still getting to know all the poems and poets included in this anthology, where my poem "Prompt: Write a Climate Crisis Poem" appears.  This one I'm sharing is not by me!


Sonnet for the Seasons: New England | Kate Cell

 

And what if we could stop it, after all,

   could stop the change too swift for us to grasp,

   listening instead to the maple's sweet dusk

drip in the metal bucket?  The whipp-poor-will


may never summer here again.  Recall

   to us Lock's Pond, ice thick enough to rasp

  through to snatch the drowsy trout, the chilled clasp

of hands raw in glazed wool gloves.  How small,


how petty our accounting of the world

  in all its flames.  We have no means to measure

    the beauties we have lost, burnt, broken--

our love shies away from our grief, we lie curled

  in shame.  How should we learn now what we treasure?

    Wait.  Only wait, for the windflower to open.


So who is this decidedly not petty Kate Cell, the poet? "Kate Cell is the Senior Climate Campaign Manager for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. In her role, she manages the UCS Climate Campaign, leading a multi-disciplinary team of scientists, policy analysts, legislative affairs staff, and outreach and communication experts working to achieve policies that can reduce global warming emissions and increase resilience to climate change impacts. ... She holds a BA in English and psychology from Macalester College and studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop."

I don't know about you, but all my hope is in the people, as Adrienne Rich wrote, "those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world."  So my second treat for you on this third Friday of the month, Climate Friday here at mjlu, is a link and an excerpt from The Grist 50, annual list of climate and justice leaders to watch, published by Grist Magazine. Just look at who they are and what they're doing!!!  We are not alone.  Here's just one group of folks working hard on solutions in the Business & Technology arena.


THE GRIST 50

Evette Ellis

She’s building the workforce to support EV infrastructure
Evette Ellis headshot

Long Beach, CA

Cody Finke

Laying a new foundation for cleaner construction
Cody Finke headshot

Oakland, CA

Aaron Fitzgerald

This founder wants to turn everyday products into permanent carbon sinks
Aaron Fitzgerald headshot

Houston, TX

Rob Lawson-Shanks

He’s tackling e-waste with circular design — and robots
Rob Lawson-Shanks headshot

Chantilly, VA

Sandeep Nijhawan

This tech entrepreneur’s next challenge: Green steel
Sandeep Nijhawan headshot

Boulder, CO

Sanjana Paul

Her hackathons fuel climate innovation
Sanjana Paul headshot

Cambridge, MA

Joanne Rodriguez

She’s harnessing fungi to tackle construction waste
Joanne Rodriguez headshot

Bolingbrook, IL

Uyen Tran

Countering fast fashion with lessons from nature
Uyen Tran headshot

New York, NY

Franziska Trautmann

From a recycling problem, she’s creating a coastal-restoration solution

New Orleans, LA

Franziska Trautmann headshot


Seriously, friends, go meet all 50 of these "Fixers." You will get inspired. Is "enspaired" a word, like the opposite of "despaired"?  That's what I mean.

I'm pretty sure we will all find enspairation too at the round-up today, served up today in a steaming cup by Robyn Hood Black. See you there!


Friday, January 5, 2024

the elfchen celebrate

Happy New Year, poetry friends, and may it be filled with the breath of peace within and without!

It's the first Friday of January and so the Inklings are tackling a challenge set by yours truly.  I gave my fellow Inklings, said a person at a craft night who spent her time there ordering gifts on the internet, "the gift of HOMEWORK?!"  It was on the order of an Advent calendar, with little doors to open, but instead of chocolates or stickers or Legos or big words (I made that for my kids one year), it had POETRY PROMPTS.

And not just any poetry prompts.  Since I am no longer Christian (though I grew up as the PK of a Lutheran minister) but a pagan-flavored UU, at my house we celebrate what you might call a portmanteau winter holiday called Yuletide.  There's a special candle tree and, of course, ritual words to say each night as we light one more candle celebrating a gift of the human spirit, starting on the Winter Solstice, December 21 and lasting 12 days until January 1st. Here's a slightly abridged version of the words, which my kids (24 and 21) of course know by heart. 



For the challenge, I asked everyone to "pick one prompt that appeals and address it however you like!" As the instigator of the challenge and of the whole Diwakwanhanumas enchilada, I felt compelled to answer all 12 prompts, but the darling (and moreish) Elfchen helped me keep it doable.  Here I go, letting my light shine! (There are a couple you saw last week.)







I hope you'll go and see how the other Inklings selected and addressed these prompts--it will be a complete surprise for me, since we haven't met since Yuletide started.  Let's thank Marcie at her eponymous blog for ushering us into the New Year!


Catherine @ Reading to the Core
Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading 
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche


Friday, December 29, 2023

elfchen

 "Elfchen"

Greeting, poetry players! I'm joining with the Poetry Sisters today in their hijinks with the German poetry form which you *could* call an "elevenie," but why would you when you could call it an "elfchen"?

The form (German Elf "eleven" and -chen as a diminutive suffix to indicate diminutive size and endearment) is a short poem with a given pattern.


I am immediately charmed and challenged by this form, because "What do you mean?" but also because in German "elf" means eleven, yes, but when capitalized (Elf), also elf! So to me there is no choice but to write them playfully mischievously.


I hope I succeed a few times here...I'm going with semistandard punctuation, and I think the first word serves as title in these. The first one's from an extended verse narrative I'm working on.

 

coffee

steams darkly

in Mom’s cup:

nose intrigued but tongue

revolts



lobe

hangin' out,

a blank slate

just waiting for adornment:

purpose!



match

lies lightly–

feisty little hothead

craving our casual strike–

ignites


Thanks to the Poetry Sisters for letting us all play along! Watch their Elfchens cavort at the locations below, and I'm wishing our host, Michelle at MoreArt4All, and all of YOU a playful and mischievous end to 2023, in the knowledge that a little joy can keep us going even when the world's pretty dark.

Friday, December 15, 2023

COPout28

Howdy, Poetry Friends!

Busy time here, just as by you, I'm sure--so I just have time to offer a couple of links so you can, if you choose, get a perspective on what went down at the largest climate negotiation ever, COP28.


I trust scientist & communicator Katharine Hayhoe to tell it like it is, with enduring positivity:

https://www.talkingclimate.ca/p/science-vs-greed-at-cop28

I trust Grist to keep its journalistic focus:

https://grist.org/

I trust Earth Justice, because the Earth needs a good lawyer:

https://earthjustice.org/


And now, a poem, not by me but admired by me:

Playing with Bees |RK Fauth

So the world turned
its one good eye

to watch the bees
take most of metaphor
                        with them.

            Swarms—
                        in all their airborne
                    pointillism—
                                shifted on the breeze

for the last time. Of course,

the absence of bees
                                    left behind significant holes
in ecology. Less


                                    obvious
            were the indelible holes
in poems, which would come
                                                            later:

Our vast psychic habitat
shrunk. Nothing was

            like nectar
                                    for the gods

Nobody was warned by
a deep black dahlia, and nobody

grew like a weed.

Nobody felt spry as
                        a daisy, or blue
                        and princely
as a hyacinth; was lucid as
            a moon flower.            Nobody came home


                        and yelled   honey!   up the stairs,

And nothing in particular
by any other name would smell as sweet as—

Consider:
the verbal dearth
that is always a main ripple of extinction.

The lexicon of wilds goes on nixing its descriptions.
Slimming its index of references
for what is

super as a rhubarb, and juicy
as a peach,
or sunken as a
comb and ancient as an alder tree, or
conifer, or beech, what is royal
as jelly, dark as a wintering

hive, toxic as the jessamine vine
who weeps the way a willow does,
silently as wax
burned in the land of milk and

all the strong words in poems,
they were once

smeared on the mandible of a bee.


Keep bees on your mind even in this dead of winter, and thanks to Janice for hosting
us today at Salt City Verse!