Friday, April 10, 2009

Celebrating 400 years of the telescope this week, with a hat tip to the planetarium show, Two Small Pieces of Glass.

Two Pieces of Glass
By Tabatha Yeatts

to see the dusty dips and hollows
of our moon,
all you need are two pieces of glass
and a hollow tube
arranged just so.

to witness the busy, burning brilliance
of our closest star,
take two bigger pieces of glass,
add a guarding glass
to save your eyes,
and a hollow tube,
mix and stir.

to watch the galaxies
push away from each other
like grumpy guests
leaving a pool party,
take four pieces of glass
(four fiercely enormous pieces of glass),
in a genuinely gigantic tube,
add centuries of mathematical genius,
and stare.

~~~~

To find out how to really make a telescope, visit the Exploratorium or Storm the Castle. Also, there's Jim Quinn's Stargazing with Galileo.

The International Year of Astronomy site has tips about astronomical dates (this info is from the U.S. section):

Since the most impressive telescopic object is the Moon, and since the Moon figured prominently in Galileo’s work, the ideal time to hold monthly sidewalk-astronomy events is on Friday and/or Saturday evenings near first-quarter Moon, which occurs on the following dates for the rest of this year: Fri., May 1; Sun., May 31; Mon., June 29; Tue., July 28; Thu., Aug. 27; Sat., Sept. 26; Mon., Oct. 26; Tue., Nov. 24; Thu., Dec. 24.

Mercury’s best evening apparition for the U.S. is on Sun. evening, Apr. 26, when the planet sits just below the thin waxing crescent Moon (making it easy to find).

Friday, April 3, 2009

Happy National Poetry Month! So many wonderful daily wellsprings of poetry have bubbled up for this occasion. Gregory K is offering 30 Poets/30 Days at GottaBook. Anastacia Suen is posting a poem by a child every day during April on her blog, Pencil Talk.

The Academy of American Poets has many activities, like the FreeVerse project I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. This project challenges you to incorporate a bit of poetry into a photograph.

Here are my FreeVerse entries:

This is from "You Can't Have It All" by Barbara Ras, which I talked about a while ago.

And here is my other one. I can't seem to get either of them uploaded properly on the FreeVerse site, but they were fun to make.

These lines are from "Ode to a Skylark" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The Academy of American Poets is also running an interesting NaPoWriMo event --

How It Works

Write & Post - Challenge yourself to write at least one poem each day, publishing them on your blog or in the NaPoWriMo area of our discussion forum.

Secure Pledges - Ask friends and relatives to sponsor you, pledging to donate a set amount each day you participate. (Minimum total donation per sponsor: $5)

Compete for Prizes - At the end of April, the individuals who raise the most pledged donations in their name will receive poetry prizes and merchandise.

Friday, March 27, 2009

The Gift To Sing
By James Weldon Johnson

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day—
I softly sing.

And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note,
And sing, and sing.

I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song,
And I can sing.

I think I should read this poem every year or so. It would also be fun to write your own version of this...what you would like people to do with poems, and what you think they actually do...

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins, from The Apple That Astonished Paris. © University of Arkansas Press, 1996.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day is April 30, 2009. In case you want some help picking a poem for your pocket, check out this selection of ready-to-print pocket-sized poems! Maybe I will use Mice or Lock...

Two poems by male poets about women today.

First, Douglas Florian's Valentina Tereshkova:

Valentina Tereshkova
Shined as bright as any nova-
Won a special spatial race:
The first woman into space.

Mr. Florian explains that Valentina Tereshkova was a Russian cosmonaut -- "the first woman to fly into space aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. Despite nausea and physical discomfort, she orbited the earth 48 times and spent almost three days in space. With a single flight, she logged more flight time than the combined times of all American astronauts who had flown before that date. She recently won the greatest woman of the century award." And she happens to share my birthday, March 6!

Now our second poem...Lucinda Matlock by Edgar Lee Masters. Masters writes from Lucinda Matlock's point-of-view -- do you think he does a good job?

Lucinda Matlock
by Edgar Lee Masters

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed--
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you--
It takes life to love Life.

~~~

Ms. Matlock feels familiar to me, as though I've met her before. (I particularly like the last two lines.)

Friday, March 13, 2009

From the Nebraska Writing Project

Of Warmth
by Luke Hollis, high school student

Icicle spikes cry.
Snow shovels gnash their teeth against wet concrete-
The green frames grow on snowy lawns.

Our made-up monsters degenerate back to carrots, sticks, and coal
Glacial piles on the corners of parking lots,
Dirtied with gravel,
Shrink like shadows.

Even the hanging sky surrenders,
Bright rays dissecting
Cloud's dam.

All this,
All tells--

Cold melts.

I love the way the rhythm of Roethke's "Night Journey" echoes the movement of a train.

Night Journey
By Theodore Roethke

Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
The pistons jerk and shove,
I stay up half the night
To see the land I love.

I've got a lot to share this week. The Academy of American Poets is holding a Free Verse Photo Competition inspired by this year's National Poetry Month poster. Even if you don't want to enter, perusing the submissions is fun.

Friday, March 6, 2009

OK, so it's not summer. But why not spend some time thinking about what to do with our "one wild and precious life"?

The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I can't believe I haven't included this link before: Suppose Columbus by Charles Suhor.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Notice
By Steve Kowit

This evening, the sturdy Levi's
I wore every day for over a year
& which seemed to the end
in perfect condition,
suddenly tore.
How or why I don't know,
but there it was: a big rip at the crotch.
A month ago my friend Nick
walked off a racquetball court,
showered,
got into this street clothes,
& halfway home collapsed & died.
Take heed, you who read this,
& drop to your knees now & again
like the poet Christopher Smart,
& kiss the earth & be joyful,
& make much of your time,
& be kindly to everyone,
even to those who do not deserve it.
For although you may not believe
it will happen,
you too will one day be gone,
I, whose Levi's ripped at the crotch
for no reason,
assure you that such is the case.
Pass it on.

from The Dumbbell Nebula, 2000, Heyday Books

Friday, February 20, 2009

Canadian Alden Nowlan (1933-1983) is the focus this week.

Fair Warning
by Alden Nowlan

I keep a lunatic chained
to a beam in the attic. He
is my twin brother whom
I'm trying to cheat
out of his inheritance.
It's all right for me
to tell you this because
you won't believe it.
Nobody believes anything
that's put in a poem.
I could confess to
murder and as long as
I did it in a verse
there's not a court
that would convict me.
So if you're ever
a guest overnight
in my house, don't
go looking for
the source of any
unusual sounds.

"Fair Warning" is from Alden Nowlan: Selected Poems.

I also totally love Nowlan's The Rites of Manhood. And don't forget He Attempts to Love His Neighbors. And Great Things Have Happened.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) came from an artistic family: Her father was poet Gabriele Rossetti and her brother was the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The painting below is by DGR, and he used his sister Christina as a model.

Rosetti's Up-Hill on the Poetry Out Loud site.

Here's an unrelated, but cool, idea:

On the ProTeacher site, Tracy suggests "Popping Poetry Balloons." She says, "I always start on a Monday morning and when the students arrive they see the class clothesline lined with balloons. After careful inspection, they realize that there is a small piece of paper rolled up inside of each one."
She writes a different type of poetry on each paper. Then the kids pop a balloon and learn about/experiment with that type of poetry.

You could put different bits of speeches and poems in the balloons and let the kids take turns popping balloons and reading what is inside while you (or they) videotape the readings.

Friday, February 6, 2009

We've been looking at various poetic forms, and this week we have a bunch of classic limericks by unknown authors. I would describe what the elements of the limerick form are, but I think you can figure it out pretty quickly by looking at these:

There was a young farmer of Leeds
Who swallowed six packets of seeds.
It soon came to pass
He was covered with grass,
And he couldn't sit down for the weeds.

There was a young man from the city,
Who met what he thought was a kitty;
He gave it a pat,
And said, "Nice little cat!"
And they buried his clothes out of pity.

There was a young lady named Bright,
Who traveled much faster than light.
She started one day
In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.

A tutor who tooted the flute
Tried to tutor two tooters to toot,
Said the two to the tutor,
"Is it harder to toot or
To tutor two tooters to toot?"

An unpopular youth of Cologne,
With a pain in his stomach did mogne.
He heaved a great sigh
And said, "I would digh,
But the loss would be only my ogne."

There was a young fellow named Hall
Who fell in the spring in the fall.
'Twould have been a sad thing
Had he died in the spring.
But he didn't -- he died in the fall.

There was a Young Lady of Ryde
Who ate a green apple and died;
The apple fermented
Inside the lamented,
And made cider inside her inside.

There was a young lady of Spain
Who was dreadfully sick on a train,
Not once, but again
And again and again,
And again and again and again.

Don't miss the The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form (OEDILF). 51,000 limericks and growing!

Math limericks (This site also has a page of "stink pinks," which I always called hink pinks, but either way, they are fun).

A page about famous limerick-ist Edward Lear.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Last week, we had a pantoum; this week, we have the paradelle. A paradelle is a very strict form, but what makes it especially interesting is that it was invented by Billy Collins as a joke.

He says: "What I set out to do was write an intentionally bad formal poem. Auden said there was nothing funnier than bad poetry, and I thought a horribly mangled attempt at a formal poem might have humorous results...Because the humor would arise from observing the performance of an unskilled poet as he dealt with a poetic form well beyond his reach, I had to make up a form whose rules were ridiculously exacting.

(Who drew this? Anyone know?)

When his paradelle (parody + villanelle) was published, many people missed the joke and thought he'd just written a bad poem. Others thought that it was an interesting challenge to write in the paradelle form, especially to create something good! There was a book of paradelles published in 2005 by Redhen Press. (The above quotes from Billy Collins are from the introduction of that book)

Ode to a Paradelle
By Cody Mace

This task is very hard to do.
This task is very hard to do.
But I know I will succeed.
But I know I will succeed.
To but succeed I will do this task,
I know is very hard.

How could you be so cruel?
How could you be so cruel?
I just wanted something simple.
I just wanted something simple.
Something so cruel, how could you?
Just be simple, wanted I.

At least I will get you back.
At least I will get you back.
With a task extremely hard.
With a task extremely hard.
Back extremely, at least,
With a hard task I will get you.

So I just wanted to do,
A hard but simple task at least.
This is something I will succeed.
Know I could be cruel, very hard back.
You get, with how extremely
I will task you!

Friday, January 23, 2009

This week we have a pantoum by teacher-poet Victoria Rivas to keep us warm. What's a pantoum? It's a poem in which the second and fourth lines of a stanza become the first and third lines of the next stanza. It doesn't have a certain length, but it usually ends with the first line of the poem repeated as the last line of the poem. Also, the third line of the first stanza is usually the second line of the last stanza. Do you think you could do it? Ms. Rivas does a wonderful job with this one:

Huddled Masses
By Victoria Rivas

a pantoum

A fire drill at 8 below zero
must not be a drill. Those are announced.
We are in shirtsleeves, sweaters at best.
Kids can’t go to lockers. Straight outside.

Must not be a drill, those are announced,
I hear another teacher saying.
Kids can’t go to lockers, straight outside,
but this teacher is wearing a coat.

I hear another teacher saying.
Good thing my coat was in the room.
But this teacher is wearing a coat
while her students shiver in the cold.

Good thing my coat was in the room
I share, not here with me. I call kids,
while her students shiver in the cold,
suggest we huddle close together.

I share. Not here with me, I call kids,
the ones wandering away from the group,
suggest we huddle close together,
get cold looks, disgust, in response from

the ones wandering away from the group.
The ones closest move closer still, touch;
get cold looks, disgust, in response from
others at first. It is warmer, so

the ones closest move closer still, touch.
Jason, in shirtsleeves, skinny arms shake
others at first. It is warmer, so
everyone calms down, huddles closer.

Jason, in shirtsleeves, skinny arms shake,
encircled by classmates, gets warmer.
Everyone calms down, huddles closer.
We laugh, complain we can’t feel our ears.

Encircled by classmates, gets warmer.
We are in shirtsleeves, sweaters at best.
We laugh, complain we can’t feel our ears.
A fire drill at 8 below zero.

I also like Ms. Rivas's Three Girls in Three Sonnets.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Author Jeff Anderson describes a good writing assignment he had in a class with poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Nye read them You Can't Have It All by Barbara Ras and then asked them to write their own "you can’t have it all, but you can have this..." poem. Read these excerpts of Ras's poem and you'll see:

from You Can't Have It All
by Barbara Ras

But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green...

you can be ...grateful for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin...

You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise...

There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.

I think winter weather makes introspective poems particularly appeal to me. But I'm going to include an old favorite that is a little less deep.

BOA CONSTRICTOR
By Shel Silverstein

Oh, I'm being eaten
By a boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor,
And I don't like it--one bit.
Well, what do you know?
It's nibblin' my toe.
Oh, gee,
It's up to my knee.
Oh my,
It's up to my thigh.
Oh, fiddle,
It's up to my middle.
Oh, heck,
It's up to my neck.
Oh, dread,
It's upmmmmmmmmmmffffffffff...

Shel's site has some great activities for kids. There's stuff for teachers/parents, too.

You can hear The Chenille Sisters sing Boa Constrictor here.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Libraries can be wonderful resources! The Sacramento Public Library has a list of novels for teens which are written in verse:

Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes:
After studying the Harlem Renaissance, eighteen high school students begin to share their own poetry aloud, revealing hidden truths and showing that each one of the classmates is not who he or she seems to be. Through "open mike" poetry and journal-like entries, the teens start to share their real lives and to form true bonds.

CrashBoomLove: a novel in verse by Juan Felipe Herrera:
"Don't know how it all started. The frozen feeling, / this fender inside me wanting to crash against everything." This is how Cesar Garcia begins describing his struggle to fit in at a new California high school and to deal with the fact that his dad has left to live with a new family.

Jump Ball: A Basketball Season in Poems by Mel Glenn:
The voices of players, fans, coach and teachers tell the story of the Tower High Tigers in their championship season, from its glorious beginnings through all of the real-life issues that come up along the way.

Keesha's House by Helen Frost:
For six high school classmates, this house where Keesha stays becomes a safe place to weather the storms of their lives: unexpected teen parenthood, foster families, coming out to unsupportive parents, and abuse. Their stories are told in the traditional poetic forms of sonnets and sestinas, defined by the author at the end of the book.

Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff:
When LaVaughn finds a sign on the school bulletin board announcing "BABYSITTER NEEDED BAD," she takes the job to save some money for college. But as she gets to know her employer, who is a struggling single teen mom with two young children, LaVaughn ends up giving (and getting) more than she bargained for.

Witness by Karen Hesse:
When the Ku Klux Klan comes to a small Vermont town in the 1920s, people of all creeds, races and ages become involved - as onlookers, victims, participants and opponents. This story, told through the voices of eleven townspeople, explores love and hate and the effects of both.

excerpt of VII
by Wendell Berry

I would not have been a poet
except that I have been in love
alive in this mortal world,
or an essayist except that I
have been bewildered and afraid,
or a storyteller had I not heard
stories passing to me through the air,
or a writer at all except
I have been wakeful at night
and words have come to me
out of their deep caves
needing to be remembered.

Friday, January 2, 2009

What Was Told, That
by Jalalu'l-din Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

From The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems, translated by Coleman Barks, published by HarperCollins.

Did you happen to hear about Agrippa, the self-destructive poem from 1992? It came back in the news last month because, for its 16th anniversary, a group at the University of Maryland re-released the poem. How did it self-destruct the first time around? It was originally released on a disk that was programmed to erase itself after a single use. It was also published in a book whose pages were treated with chemicals that made the words fade after exposure to light. You can find more about Agrippa, A book of the dead, here.

Friday, December 26, 2008

There are two wonderful things I'd like to share with you this week. One is a poem by Wm. Stafford. The other is environmental poetry resource packs from the Poetry Society U.K. Enjoy and see you next year!

How These Words Happened
By William Stafford

In winter, in the dark hours, when others
were asleep, I found these words and put them
together by their appetites and respect for
each other. In stillness, they jostled. They traded
meanings while pretending to have only one.

Monstrous alliances never dreamed of before
began. Sometimes they lost. Never again
do they separate in this world. They are
together. They have a fidelity that no
purpose of pretense can even break.

And all of this happens like magic to the words
in those dark hours when others sleep.

The Poetry Society UK has commissioned award-winning poet, ecologist, and educator Mario Petrucci to develop the following Environment-centred resource packs, designed for schools, young adults and poets:

1. Poetry : the Environment. (PDF 185KB) Four of the most pressing Environmental themes, comprehensively explored through poetry.

2. Biomimicry : Poetry. (PDF 118KB) This fascinating new branch of science is concerned with solving problems by imitating Nature. Mario’s unique poetry pack explores Biomimicry to support independent imaginative writing activity and National Curriculum alike.

3. The Green Poetry Pack. (PDF 272KB) Poems and writing ideas to engage with the natural world, soil and trees, and local self-sufficiency.

Friday, December 19, 2008

In our house, we use a Muppet version of The Gift of the Magi advent calendar. No one can really do Kermit's voice successfully, but that's not to say we don't try. ReadWriteThink.org has a neat poetry lesson plan based on The Gift of the Magi. I like how they mix the story with poetry and music. You can check it out here.

If you'd like to listen to the original Gift of the Magi, you can on LibriVox. In addition to audio options, they also have text versions.

While we're thinking about gifts, here's an excerpt from Giving by Kahlil Gibran:

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?
There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

You can read the rest here.

Lastly, if you'd like to hear Twas the Night Before Christmas, LibriVox has that too.

Friday, December 12, 2008

It's a Song Lyric Friday this week. Know this song? It's a favorite of mine.

from Where is the Love?
By the Black Eyed Peas (written by Will.I.Am, Taboo, apl.de.ap, Ron Fair, P. Board, G. Pajon, Jr., M. Fratantuno, and J. Curtis)

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin'
Selfishness got us followin' our wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema
Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness in equality
Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down
There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under
Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found
Now ask yourself

Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Where is the love?

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love?

Sing wit me y'all:
One world, one world (We only got)
One world, one world (That's all we got)
One world, one world

Friday, December 5, 2008

First, it's time to announce my new contest for young writers! You can get the details here. Don't miss it!

A little poetry from a monkey and her friend this week.

Julie sent her monkey friend this haiku:

I don't believe you
I will not look behind me
There is no monkey

And monkey replied:

how silly you are
frida is not behind me
no, i will not look.

I love haiku conversations between friends.
Monkey also penned:

do tell me, frida,
what is that necklace made of?
toasted marshmallows?

Julie has a Magic Robot Cross Stitch generator that will turn phrases into cross stitch patterns. Here's one I made:

Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way. -E.L. Doctorow

Friday, November 28, 2008

Poetic Miscellany this week!

• MTV's Poet Laureate

• Did you know my favorite football team is named for a poem? Their mascot is named Poe.

• Also, Whittier College is known as the Poets.

• Our president-elect was spotted with a book of poetry.

• Poetraits (I thought I just made up that word, but I found it had already been used here)...poetry and portraits by Evan Bissell.

• Cool bookmarks with poems on them

Friday, November 21, 2008

During his short lifetime (1867-1902), Japanese poet Masaoka Shiki is said to have breathed new life into the traditional art forms of haiku and tanka.

Poems By Masaoki Shiki

on the pine needles,
each of the slender needles,
a dewdrop rests—
a thousand pearls lie
quivering, yet never fall

~~~~

On how to sing
the frog school and the skylark school
are arguing.

~~~~

Here is the dark tree
Denuded now
Of leafage...
But a million stars

~~~~

entangled with
the scattering cherry blossoms-
the wings of birds!

~~~~

far away
under the skies of America
they began
baseball—ah,
I could watch it forever!

Visit a monthly haiku contest named in Shiki's honor.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Ah, autumn! "The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn." ~ John Muir.

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." ~George Eliot

Before you think I'm getting too carried away with the beauty of fall, I'll take a moment to offer this Simpson's animated video version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. (I wonder if they have videos for other poems?)

Come Little Leaves
By George Cooper

Come, little leaves,
Said the wind one day;
Come to the meadows
With me and play.
Put on your dresses
Of red and gold;
For summer is past,
And the days grow cold.

Soon as the leaves
Heard the wind's loud call,
Down they came fluttering,
One and all.
Over the meadows
They danced and flew,
All singing the soft
Little songs they knew.

Dancing and flying,
The leaves went along,
Til Winter called them
To end their sweet song.
Soon, fast asleep
In their earthy beds,
The snow lay a coverlet
O'er their heads.

From The Milkweed
By Cecil Cavendish

The milkweed pods are breaking,
And the bits of silken down
Float off upon the autumn breeze
Across the meadows brown.

How To Make an Autumn Leaf Bookmark

Friday, November 7, 2008

Poet Pat Schneider offers up some good advice to young writers on her web site. Among other things, she says, "A writer is not someone who is published, or someone who is famous. A writer is someone who writes. Now I am not young any more, but I still am a writer, and I have not forgotten being a writer when I was very young. It's important to write when you are young. All important things need practice. Writing is like dancing or painting or sports -- the more you do it, the deeper and better the work will be."
(You can read the rest of her advice here under "Poems for Young Writers.")

I especially like the last line of the poem below.

The Patience of Ordinary Things
By Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Friday, October 31, 2008

Halloween! Mwa ha ha! We have two haunted house poems today...actually, one is a poem and one is a song. They couldn't be more different, which is the great thing about poetry -- its phenomenal diversity.

Haunted Houses
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses.Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air...

By Elsa Mora

And here's a verse of The Twelve Houses of Halloween, Author Unknown:

At the twelfth house on Halloween my neighbor gave to me...
twelve cherry bonbons,
eleven creamy nougats,
ten shiny pennies,
nine orange gumdrops,
eight chewy caramels,
seven candied apples,
six peanut clusters,
five POPCORN BALLS!!!,
four peppermints,
three sticks of gum,
two lollipops &
a large piece of chocolate taffy.

Friday, October 24, 2008

This week, I'm revisiting Charles R. Smith, Jr., who was the first poet featured on this Poetry Friday journal. Mr. Smith has a book called The Mighty 12: Superheroes of Greek Myth that caught my eye. He recites four poems from the book on his web site (about Ares, Athena, Medusa, and Zeus).

Interested in sports/history? He has also written about legendary boxer Muhammad Ali and offers recitations of four of those as well.

Looking to illustrate your poetry? Don't miss his suggestions for photography exercises for budding photographers (He took up photography at age 16 when he joined his school yearbook staff).

Friday, October 17, 2008

I said, Baby! Baby!
Please don’t snore so loud.
Baby! Please!
Please don’t snore so loud.
You jest a little bit o’ woman but you
Sound like a great big crowd.

Langston Hughes, from Morning After

I decided to do things backwards this week and start right in with a poem. I saw this stanza in the Smithsonian in Your Classrom "The Music in Poetry" lesson plans. We are lucky to have these wonderful free resources.

Here, you can listen to music snippets that go along with "The Music in Poetry." Paul Robeson singing "Amazing Grace" gave me goosebumps!

A tip of the hat to young Kenzi B.! Kenzi used Art Thursday works as the inspiration for four poems, then she put together a book of her poetry with those and other works. Nicely done, Kenzi!

Friday, October 10, 2008

One of my favorite holidays is approaching -- Halloween! I am a fan of costumes and sweets, so it's not surprising I would enjoy October 31st. I read about a poetry-related Halloween tradition in Scotland, where children would go "guising" and perform a poem or song or tell jokes and then be given candies, nuts, or fruit. Sounds like a fun tradition!

Here's a poem that would be great for memorizing at this spooky time of year:

At Last the Secret is Out
by W.H. Auden

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
the delicious story is ripe to tell, to tell to the intimate friend;
over the tea-cups and into the square, the tongues has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
behind the lady who dances, and the man who madly drinks,
under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
there is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddently singing, high up in the convent wall,
the scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
the croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
there is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

Listen to a Writer's Almanac version here.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Excerpt from A to Z
by Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac 'Gaarriye'

Caalin, listen, I'm going to travel
From A to Z carried by language -
The alphabet, alive on the page.

I write the words and send them to you;
You sing to the wind and the crows as they fly
Carry my lines through the noonday sky
Chanting each to each. The ants
Become orators. The gossiping camels
Crowd the waterhole, eager for rumours.

Even the trees, as they rustle their leaves,
Are sharing a joke; the sheep and goats
Talk tough as they sniff out the latest news.
The hum of the breeze in the river-bed
Is the language of pride; the termites talk
With a tap and a touch; the clouds compose
Poems as only they can; the land
Speaks in prose of growth and gain
And the sound of rain in the season of rain
Rumbles like thunder and why this should be
Is something only the rain can explain.

How often do you think poems are recited in movies? I would have guessed not too often, but I think we are actually so used to it that we don't even notice it. There's a partial list of poems that have been in movies that shows they are more common than we might guess.

William Blake's poetry has been popular, for instance:
Blake's Milton; ["And did those feet in ancient time"] was featured in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, 1962; Privilege, 1967; Chariots of Fire, 1981; and Calendar Girls, 2003.
His Auguries of Innocence was in Dead Man, 1995; In the Bedroom, 2001; Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, 2001.
Blake's The Tyger was in The End of the Affair, 1955; The Horse's Mouth, 1958; Blade Runner, 1982; and The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, 2002.

T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was used in Love and Death, 1975; Apocalypse Now, 1979; Till Human Voices Wake Us, 2002; and The Fog of War, 2003.

William Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality appeared in Splendor in the Grass, 1961; Alice in Wonderland, 1966; and A River Runs Through It, 1992.

Friday, September 26, 2008

The great thing about Poetry Friday is the wonderful works that other people introduce you to ... for instance, I just got around to listening to this version of the Scottish traditional "The Water is Wide," which Melissa Wiley shared, and it was a treat! Thank you, Lissa.

"Inside this room, all of my dreams become realities, and some of my realities become dreams..."

Pure Imagination (from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
by Roald Dahl

Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin with a spin
Traveling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be...

Friday, September 19, 2008

I've posted Michael McClintock's work before (see Jan 2008), but he and his wife Karen McClintock have new Poetry & Art postcards. Here are two:

You can write MM at MchlMcClintock (at) aol.com.

A fun poetry assignment -- making a poetry comic book! On Apple's Edcommunity, there's a lesson plan which stars students as poetry super heroes. The students work in groups to write a comic (in verse) and take digital photos of themselves in poses that illustrate their story.

Thinking about "Poetic Justice"...

Have you heard the term "poetic justice"? It originally referred to the idea that fiction should have things work out properly -- good guys should be rewarded and bad guys should be punished. Today it is used to mean "strikingly appropriate reward or punishment," such as when villains are hurt by a situation they created themselves. I heard about a group that calls themselves "Poetic Justice League 4 America," which is such a cool name that it's too bad someone took it already!

Friday, September 12, 2008

OK, so I'm not featuring Shakespeare today, but I like this picture anyway:

Two delightful poem excerpts this week. The first is by Mary Cornish and is included in Poetry 180. Billy Collins initiated Poetry 180 "to make it easy for students to hear or read a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year. I have selected the poems you will find here with high school students in mind. They are intended to be listened to, and I suggest that all members of the school community be included as readers. A great time for the readings would be following the end of daily announcements over the public address system." Sounds like a great idea.

Numbers
by Mary Cornish

I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.

And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Read the rest at Poetry 180

Poet Charles Simic is wonderfully original as he describes why he would like to be a stone...

An excerpt of Stone
by Charles Simic

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

You can read the whole thing here.

Friday, September 5, 2008

The Man Next Door Is Teaching His Dog to Drive
by Cathryn Essinger

It all began when he came out one morning
and found the dog waiting for him behind the wheel.
He thought she looked pretty good sitting there,

so he started taking her into town with him
just so she could get a feel for the road.
They have made a few turns through the field,

him sitting beside her, his foot on the accelerator,
her muzzle on the wheel. Now they are practicing
going up and down the lane with him whispering

encouragement in her silky ear. She is a handsome
dog with long ears and a speckled muzzle and he
is a good teacher. Now my wife, Millie, he says,

she was always too timid on the road, but don't you
be afraid to let people know that you are there.
The dog seems to be thinking about this seriously...

Read the rest here . I also love Essinger's Wild Card.

It's already started, but you can jump on in -- During September, PoeWar is having 30 Poems in 30 Days . Each day, John Hewitt posts a poetry prompt to get you thinking.

MsMac has been working on a list of Top 100 Poetry Books. Check it out.

Friday, August 29, 2008

The Scottish Poetry Library is our focus this week. What a wonderful resource for people in Scotland! But their web site is also a great resource for all of us. They have links to:

Meet six Scottish poets

Poetry postcards
Here are a few of my favorites: Just Another Pebble by Eunice Buchanan, Two Trains by Rody Korman, and The Spell of the Bridge by Helen Lamb.

Poetry Map of Scotland The Poetry Map offers a selection of over a hundred places or natural features written about by living Scottish poets.

And now a poem I discovered through the link to meet six Scottish poets...

Fern
by Liz Niven

Here, deep in a cave dark,
lacking air,a fern grows.

Fed by the smallest drip
seeping from lead slate

it's flourished.
See its glossy leaves shine.

Watch the water caught
in the camera's quick lens,

green fronds outstretched like palms.

That life can spore
and grow in such frail light!

Celebrate the shadows,
for fresh starts can fall out of them.

Around us, unseen,
nothing need be truly lost.

Slowly,much is possible,
even from darkness.

from Burning Whins

And while we're at it, let's tip our hats to the Scots for this creative idea:

In August 2008, St. Andrew Square in Edinburgh (which was the first UNESCO "City of Literature") allowed visitors to the garden to float poetry written on paper lotus flowers across the pond in preparation for turning the Square into a poetry garden.

Reader-in-residence Ryan Van Winkle was on hand as a 'personal poetry shopper' to recommend a perfect poem for visitors to read to match individual styles and tastes.

Richard Holloway, Scottish Arts Council chair, said: "The wonderful thing about having a poetry garden in a famous square in a beautiful city is the way it will help people to pause for a minute or two and let poetry into their lives."

Friday, August 22, 2008

Writers in the Schools is a non-profit organization that engages children in the pleasure and power of reading and writing. Their blog features writing by kids, including this wonderful bilingual poem by Susan.

Mi corazón como es (How My Heart Works)
By Susan, 3rd grade

Mi corazón es como un borrador.
Puede borrar las cosas malas
y mejorarlas y perdonar con cariño.
Mi corazón puede que sea una bolsa con amor,
y las personas que me quieren y juegan conmigo
las metería adentro.
Adentro de mi corazón,
yo tengo mi familia. Son muy buenos conmigo.
Mi corazón es como un huevo pequeño,
y cuando abre, estoy contenta.
Mi corazón es como una máquina trabajadora.
Hace que me mueva. Si puedo moverme,
puedo jugar y conocer la amistad.

My heart is like an eraser.
It can erase all the bad things,
make them better,
and forgive others with kindness.
It could be that my heart is like a pouch full of love.
In this pouch, I could put
the people who love me and play with me.
In my heart, I keep my family.
They are good to me.
My heart is like a small egg,
and when it opens, I am happy.
My heart is like a hard-working machine.
It makes me move. And if I can move,
I can play and get to know what friendship is.

I heard about a terrific poetry project called the Poetry Postcard Fest, which was initiated in 2007 by poets Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers. This fun idea seems reproducible in various settings (at school and in writing groups, for instance).

To do this project, each participant needs a postcard for every day of your event. The Poetry Postcard Fest takes place during August so it is 31 days (and they use 31 postcards). You can make your event last a week, though. It's up to you.

Each participant collects their postcards from wherever -- book stores, thrift shops, online, drug stores, antique shops, museums, gift shops -- (or you hand them out) and then during the event, each person writes a poem and sends it to the person whose name is below theirs on the event list.

The next day, each participant sends one to the next person on the list (if your name is on the bottom, you start at the top and work your way down). If you want, you can send postcards to more than one person the same day.

You can pick a theme for your event or a theme for each day or you can leave it up to the participants. Instead of a theme, you could also pick a form (such as haiku or limerick) for each day. Some artist-poets might even like to illustrate their poems on their postcards. You can really do what you want with this idea!

One last bit for this week! Billy Collins creates some great images, such as this first stanza of Thesaurus:

Thesaurus
By Billy Collins

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

You can read the rest here.

Friday, August 15, 2008

It's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland week here.

Here's the Mad Hatter's song, The Bat.

The Bat
By Lewis Carroll

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly
Like a tea-tray in the sky.

When she is being quizzed by the Caterpillar, Alice recites her version of You are Old, Father William.

an excerpt from You are old, Father William
By Lewis Carroll

'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head -
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.'

"Off With Her Head!"

Friday, August 8, 2008

In 1907, a sweet book by Robert Williams Wood was published called How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers: A Manual of Flornithology for Beginners. "Flornithology" is a word Wood invented, mixing "ornithology" (the study of birds) with the prefix "flor-", relating to flowers. You can read the whole thing here.

Friday, August 1, 2008

I just heard about America Scores -- so cool! Soccer and poetry, together. Check it out.

A riddle poem for you:

The beginning of eternity,
The end of time and space,
The beginning of every end,
And the end of every place.

from The Guess Book (c. 1820)

What's the answer?
The letter "e"

More riddle poems
Even more riddle poems

The Chaos was first published in 1920 in a book by Dutchman G.N. Trenité called Drop Your Foreign Accent. The Chaos covers many words in English that have confusing pronunciations.

An excerpt from The Chaos
By Gerard Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! 10
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak...

... Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

Friday, July 25, 2008

This week we've got info on Poetry Games, followed by a new poem by me.

* You can find computerized poetry games at Poetry 4 Kids.com

* Gotpoetry.com offers a well-liked poetry game called Exquisite Corpse:

1. Pick a theme or leave the theme of your game open. Rip out a piece of paper from your notebook and write a line of a poem on a piece of paper. Fold your line over so it can't be seen by your friend and hand the paper over. Your friend then writes her own line and she folds the paper so you can see neither her line nor yours. Repeat until you fill a side or two (you decide) of paper.
2. You can also tell the person the last word of your line if you want to try a rhyming "poem". These often are quite funny.
3. Once you're done, read it aloud. This exercise helps develop a playfulness and also can produce some interesting combinations. A lot of beginning writers suffer from over seriousness. Not that there's anything wrong with seriousness, but over seriousness spoils many a hard effort. Inject some playfulness into your work and experiment with language. It's a game and it's fun and sometimes breaking yourself out of your typical mode of writing can do a poet at any level some good.

* There are poetry games you can play with other people online on the The Literature Network forum

* Lastly, we've got Haikai (Collaborative Poetry Game) From WikiHow:

Haikai collaborative poetry (aka renku, or renga) has a long history in Japan, where it combines aspects of game-play with literature. It's a fun and creative group activity which is becoming popular in the west in recent years. You don't need to be a poet to play! The plan below is for a 12-verse haikai, but there are many other plans (up to 100 verses, if you and your writing partner(s) are feeling energetic!). Each haikai consists of alternating three- and two-line verses.

1. Decide who is to write the first verse. It should make reference to the current surroundings and season (not necessarily by name - e.g. 'Christmas' indicates winter; 'beach' would suggest summer). Three lines, up to 17 syllables total.
2. Pass the writing pad to the next player, for the second verse. This one will be just two lines, up to 14 syllables maximum. Come up with something to suggest the same season as the first verse. It should link to the first verse, but shift away from it a bit as well. After that first verse, everything is fictional.
3. Pass it over to the third player (or back to the first if you are only two). Another three-line verse now, but this one should make no reference to season. And while it should link somehow to the previous verse, this should shift right away from the verse before that (the first verse)
4. Alternate three- and two-line verses. Of every three verses, one or two should mention a season. Main thing is to link (sometimes quite tentatively) to the preceding verse, while always shifting away from the one before that. Link and shift, that's what it's about.

For additional info and a sample poem, visit WikiHow.

The Muse Calls Forth A Poem
by Tabatha Yeatts

Blowing softly into her small horn,
the muse calls forth a poem.

The words rise from the still water
like a swiftly-shooting tendril,
growing and luxuriously unfolding;
petals reaching in all directions,
sturdy enough to hold
the notes of her song
as they seek a place to rest.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Should poetry be only for a few people, just for special occasions, kept in classrooms? Actually, poetry should ride the bus...

An excerpt of Poetry Should Ride the Bus
By Ruth Forman

...Poetry should ride the bus
In a fat woman’s Safeway bag
Between the greens n chicken wings
To be served with Tuesday’s dinner

Poetry should drop by a sweet potato pie
Ask about the grandchildren
N sit through a whole photo album
On a orange plastic covered La-Z-Boy with no place to go

Poetry should sing red revolution love songs
That massage your scalp
And bring hope to your blood
When you think you’re too old to fight...

from We Are the Young Magicians.

Inspired by a poem penned by Sonoma State University professor Elizabeth Carothers Herron, sculptor Bruce Johnson created a major work of redwood and copper called "Poetry House" as an architectural sculpture in the form of a traditional Japanese teahouse.

Herron, a professor of Arts and Humanities, composed a poem for installation within the sculpture. Herron's epic has been seamlessly blended into Johnson's sculpture, with lines of poetry transcribed onto all of the under-layers of the building, both inside and out, including the roof, walls, floors, and the paper of the central lantern. "The intention is to imbue this small quiet space with poetry," she says.

"So what is a poetry house?" asks Johnson. "I have come to feel that it is the empty space where attention resides..."

Info from Jean Wasp, SSU

Friday, July 11, 2008

I checked out The Sound of Colors by Jimmy Liao from the library, but it is so gorgeous that I would like to get my own copy. This picture book, which was also made into a movie, is about a young girl coming to grips with the loss of her sight. She goes into the subway on a “journey of the imagination.”

Poet and storyteller Edgar Allan Poe explained that poetry is "the rhythmical creation of Beauty.” E.A. Robinson define poetry as “language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction, something that can not be said.” For those two reasons, I'm including The Sound of Colors in Poetry Friday.

“I’ve forgotten how blue the sky can be,” the girl says,
“But in my mind I still
watch the clouds change shape.”

Another book-related poem...I picked up The Land of the Silver Apples by Nancy Farmer (sequel to The Sea of Trolls, which I loved). After the pages listing the cast of characters, there was a poem called The Song of Wandering Aengus. I assumed it was written by the author, so as I read it, I thought, “That Nancy Farmer can write a nice poem.” But then my eyes flicked to the bottom and I saw William Butler Yeats had actually written it. My bad.

Well, I think it's already been established that W.B. can write a nice poem. See for yourself:

The Song of Wandering Aengus
By W.B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Composer Antonio Vivaldi's violin concertos The Four Seasons were published in 1725. Vivaldi wrote a sonnet to go with each season. You can listen to the music as you read and see how the two complement each other. This is an electric guitar version and here is Willard Scott reading the poem as the music plays. On this NASA site, you can listen to portions of each season and guess which is which.

Summer
By Antonio Vivaldi

Allegro non molto
Beneath this hard season of the burning sun
Man and flocks languish and pines burn;
The cuckoo raises its stuttering voice;
The turtle dove and goldfinch sing in answer.
The sweet Zephyr blows, but is challenged
As Boreas (the north wind) invades his territory.
The shepherd weeps because he fears
The fierce looming storm, and for his destiny.

Adagio e piano - Presto e forte
Depriving his tired limbs of rest
Is fear of lightning and fierce thunder
And flies, large and small
In a furious swarm.

Presto
Ah, his fears are all too true,
Flashes and thunder in the heavens and hail
Dashing the heads from the stalks
Of the ripe grain.

In honor of the 4th of July:

This Land Is Your Land
By Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me, a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Friday, June 27, 2008

First Fig
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths
by Philip James Bailey

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest:
Lives in one hour more than in years do some
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins.
Life's but a means unto an end; that end,
Beginning, mean, and end to all things—God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Nobel Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz, who was born in Mexico in 1914.

The Illiterate
By William Meredith

Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Who turns a letter over in his hand
And you might think this was because the hand
Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man
Has never had a letter from anyone;
And now he is both afraid of what it means
And ashamed because he has no other means
To find out what it says than to ask someone.

His uncle could have left the farm to him,
Or his parents died before he sent them word,
Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved.
Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him.
What would you call his feeling for the words
That keep him rich and orphaned and beloved?

William Meredith: "Whatever a poem is up to, it requires our trust along with our consent to let it try to change our way of thinking and feeling. Nothing without this risk. I expect hang gliding must be like poetry. Once you get used to it, you can't imagine not wanting the scare of it. But it's more serious than hang gliding. Poetry is the safest known mode of human risk. You risk only staying alive."

Friday, June 6, 2008

My favorite word that Mr. Eliot rhymes with Macavity has to be "suavity," but I also like "he breaks the law of gravity" and he's a "monster of depravity."

Macavity - The Mystery Cat
by T.S. Eliot

Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw--
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air--
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!

Macavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square--
But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!

He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair--
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!

And when the Foreign Office finds a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scap of paper in the hall or on the stair--
But it's useless of investigate--Macavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
"It must have been Macavity!"--but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, or one or two to spare:
And whatever time the deed took place--MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!

~~
Eliot's cat-poem collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats was the inspiration for the musical Cats.

Secondly, I'm going to include a link that is not about Poetry. This new site looks useful, so here it is:

Friday, May 30, 2008

OK, Mike Keith likes a poetic challenge. But as he says here, he also offers a challenge for the reader: "The poem below is a transformation of William Blake’s "The Tyger" via an unusual linguistic constraint. Your challenge is to determine the constraint, given the hint that strict application of the rule will invariably result (as it does here) in a composition containing exactly 109 words."

The first stanza of The Hydra
By Mike Keith

Hydra, hydra, looming bright
(Be calm now, O forest night!),
No man’s art - so plainly, see -
Can ask, know, capture symmetry!

Hercules and the Hydra by John Singer Sargent

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I admit, I did not figure out what he was doing. Don't continue reading if you want to figure it out on your own...

Solution:

"In The Hydra, the first letter of successive words is required to be the same as the first letter of the chemical symbols (in order) in the Periodic Table, thus producing a constrained language that might be called Elemental English."
H H N B B C N O F N S M A S P: Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon, Sodium, Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Phosphorus, and so on...

Checking in on poetry in England:

• Hear award-winning young slam poets from London.

• Watch Poetry Slideshows on the BBC site. I really enjoyed Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan by Moniza Alvi.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Have you read The Unwritten by W.S. Merwin?

It begins:

Inside this pencil
crouch words that have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught

they're hiding

they're awake in there
dark in the dark
hearing us
but they won't come out
not for love for time for fire...

Sixth grader Emily Birnbaum wrote a response to The Unwritten called Longing to be Written:

Inside this paper
Lay trees that
Long to be written on.
It's waited for so long.
Collecting dust in the attic,
It's never been written on.

The pencil won't give way,
In its stubborn way it stays.
So the paper is left sitting,
Full of trees and the long-forgotten stench of factory.
The paper that longs to be written on.

The pencil is full of words,
But the paper is only full of trees.
The pencil is selfish, holding its words inside its slim, yellow body,
Never giving the paper the only thing
It's ever wanted.

Inside this paper
Lay trees that
Long to be written on.

This paper only wants the touch of lead
On its thin, blue lines.
But the pencil won't give way,
In its stubborn way it stays.

Jiyeon Song is an Art Center College of Design student who made a very interesting project called “One Day Poem Pavilion." He took hardboards, cut holes in them at specific angles so over time during the day, the sunlight will cast a poem. Each stanza of the poem lasts for about an hour, and then a new one begins. See One Day Poem Pavilion here.

According to the project description, the holes in the hardboard, "reveal different shadow-poems according to the solar calendar: a theme of new-life during the summer solstice, a reflection on the passing of time at the period of the winter solstice."

Friday, May 16, 2008

This has to be heard to be appreciated:
Television by Todd Alcott.
Mr. Alcott refers to it as a monologue rather than a poem. That brings up an interesting point -- how can you tell the difference when you're listening? Does it make a difference? The Internet Archive describes it as "spoken word."
Hat tip once again to Mlle. Felicite.

Just Thinking
By William Stafford

Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.

Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot--peace, you know.

Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.

This is what the whole thing is about.

Friday, May 9, 2008

A hat tip to Mademoiselle Felicite for letting me know about Taylor Mali.

Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali

In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we've become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

Friday, May 2, 2008

POETRY VIDEOS

Creating visual accompaniment for poems is popular. Here are a few poetry videos:

Humpty Dumpty by Edgar Allan Poe (No, this wasn't really written by E.A. Poe. Someone re-wrote Humpty Dumpty in his style. Just see for yourself.)

Forgetfulness by Billy Collins. This is a popular poem for Poetry Out Loud participants to perform and always a crowd-pleaser.

The Revolution Will Not be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron.

Tuesday 9 a.m. by Denver Butson. I love this poem. This video was made by two 8th graders and won the Shanghai Student Film Festival.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Stanley Cat
By Laura Shovan

Stanley Cat the food critic
Walked into Ed’s Café

Disguised in sunglasses and a wig,
Notebook hidden under his beret.

“I’m sick and tired of fish and fowl.”
He told the waitress, Sue.

She said, “Our specials are spaghetti
And turtle eggs from Timbuktu.”

“Nutritious dishes, sound delicious,”
Stan purred. “Slap some pasta down!”

Sue, the clumsy waitress, slipped.
Stan left with a spaghetti crown.

Stanley Cat by Tabatha Yeatts

Here is a totally cool idea from Education World for making a class Poetry Calendar. Individuals could also make a poetry calendar -- it would be a terrific birthday or holiday gift for a writer/reader/teacher/poetry enthusiast!

Education World's plan:

Arrange students into pairs or small groups and assign each a month. Have students find the names of five poets who were born in his or her group's assigned month, and record on a piece of paper, each poet's birthday and the titles of 1-2 poems by that poet. (Students should read the poems as well.)

Ask students to share with their groups the information they find, eliminating duplicate poets. The goal is to end up with 8-12 unique birthdays per group. Then invite each student to read to the group his or her favorite poem. After listening to the poems, each group should to decide which poet and what image to feature for the month. The image should represent the month (in terms of seasons, holidays, and so on) and the month's poets or their poems.

Friday, April 18, 2008

This week: Poetry for two voices!

Poems can be fun to read together. Getting the rhythm right can be a challenge, but once you get it, it can sound good.

Here's a pretty easy one. (Have you had this conversation before? I have.)

How to hang up the telephone
by Delia Ephron

‘Good-bye.’
‘Bye.’
‘Are you still there?’
‘Are you?’
‘Yeah. Why didn’t you hang up?’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I was waiting for you.’
‘I was waiting for you. You go first.’
‘No, you first.’
‘No, you first.’
‘No, you first.’
‘OK, I know. I‘ll count to three and we’ll both hang up at the same time. Ready? One, two, three. ‘Bye.’
‘’Bye.’…
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘What do you mean, me?’
‘OK, do it again. This time for real. One, two, two and a half, two and three quarters, three. ‘Bye.’
‘’Bye.’
‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yeah.’

Teacher Gail Desler has some great ideas for kids studying what World War II was like for Japanese Americans on the West Coast. She suggests reading A Graduation Poem for Two by Stephanie Klose to get a feel for a poem from two different, but sometimes overlapping, view-points.

Then, students can pair up and read copies of Franklin Roosevelt's "A Date Which Will Live in Infamy" speech and An Interview with Marielle Tsukamoto.

In their own words and/or using words from the speech and interview, students use the poetry-for-two-voices format to create a poem on Japanese internment.

Any poet/student could use this idea -- contrasting two points of view in a poem for two voices -- with any historical or current event. Or a situation closer to home.

Here's a Youth Radio podcast of students performing poems for two voices (They also have a podcast of quidditch poems by students who were in a school quidditch tournament!)

Paul Fleishman won the 1989 Newberry Medal for his book Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Margaret Cavendish

Of Many Worlds in This World
by Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673)

Just like as in a nest of boxes round,
Degrees of sizes in each box are found:
So, in this world, may many others be
Thinner and less, and less still by degree:
Although they are not subject to our sense,
A world may be no bigger than two-pence.
Nature is curious, and such works may shape,
Which our dull senses easily escape:
For creatures, small as atoms, may there be,
If every one a creature’s figure bear.
If atoms four, a world can make, then see
What several worlds might in an ear-ring be:
For, millions of those atoms may be in
The head of one small, little, single pin.
And if thus small, then ladies may well wear
A world of worlds, as pendents in each ear.

Poet Trivia:
Margaret Cavendish, a.k.a. the Duchess of Newcastle, wrote one of the earliest examples of science fiction (The Blazing World).

Friday, April 4, 2008

I might use this for Poem in Your Pocket Day (April 17th)...

Friday, March 28, 2008

We've got another song this week. How quickly can you name this tune?

...Have you been half asleep
And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Are these the sweet sounds that called
The young sailors?
I think they're one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it,
There's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it,
The Rainbow Connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Yes, it's The Rainbow Connection by Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams, most famously sung by Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson), but also performed by Sarah McLachlan, Kenny Loggins, The Dixie Chicks, Justin Timberlake, The Carpenters, Jason Mraz, Willie Nelson, and more. Here's Kermit singing it on YouTube.

Plus, here's a bit of Walt Whitman's Miracles from Leaves of Grass.

WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles...

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass­-
the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

And lastly, an explanation of what is poetry by David McCord:

"Poetry is so many things besides the shiver down the spine. It is a new day lying on a new doorstep. It is what will stir the weariest mind to write. It is the inevitable said so casually that the reader or listener thinks he said it himself. It is the fall of syllables that run as easily as water flowing over a dam. It is fireflies in May, apples in October, the wood fire burning when no one looks up from an open book. It is the best dream from which one ever waked too soon. It is Peer Gynt and Moby Dick in a single line. It is the best translation of words that do not exist. It is hot coffee dripping from an icicle. It is the accident involving sudden life. It is the calculus of the imagination. It is the finishing touch to what one could not finish. It is a hundred things as unexplainable as all our foolish explanations."

Friday, March 21, 2008

This poem from Teaching Tolerance is by teen poet Ashley Thornton.

Building Bridges
by Ashley Thornton

Why does the color of our skin
Affect the world we’re living in?
Many people worked to stop the fight,
The fight between the blacks and whites.
Too bad their dream did not come true,
Bridges ought to be built between me and you.

The Civil Rights Movement
Didn’t end segregation.
I still see it living
All over the nation.
It may not be as blatant as in 1908,
But there’s still a barrier
Between each race.

Many might wonder
About the cause of this grief.
How come both worlds
Will not live in peace?
It is not impossible
Nor an unreachable goal,
For both worlds live
In the depths of my soul.

I am half black, I am half white.
In my heart both worlds unite.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Quote of the week:
To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which all good citizens owe to their country.
~ George Washington

And now a poem:

Watermelons
by Charles Simic

Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.

From Return to a Place Lit By a Glass of Milk

Mr. Simic is our current U.S. Poet Laureate.

What is a Poet Laureate?

"Laureate" comes from the laurel plant, which in ancient Greece was sacred to the sun god Apollo, and was used to form a crown of honour for poets and other heroes. The word "laureate" came from that to signify eminence or glory.

A Poet Laureate is a poet who is chosen to be honored by a country, state, town, or school for their talents. In the middle ages, England's kings and queens started having personal poet laureates who would compose poems in the royals' honor. In England, poets laureate traditionally receive the title for life; in the U.S., their term is approximately one school year.

In addition to our national poet laureate, there are also state laureates:
Poet Laureates of the individual states

More about Charles Simic:
Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1938 and lived his childhood in the midst of the European battleground of World War II. As he told JM Spalding of The Cortland Review in 1998, “Germans and the Allies took turns dropping bombs on my head while I played with my collection of lead soldiers on the floor. I would go boom, boom, and then they would go boom, boom. Even after the war was over, I went on playing war. My imitation of a heavy machine gun was famous in my neighborhood in Belgrade.” At 15, he moved to Paris with his mother; the next year they joined his father in the U.S.
Becoming a poet in Chicago and New York: Simic’s family settled in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb, and he graduated from high school there. He has said that he began to write poems to impress girls: “I still tremble at the memory of a certain Linda listening breathlessly to my doggerel on her front steps.”
from about.com poetry

Lastly, in the spirit of poets writing works for special occasions and political events, here is a link to Maya Angelou's recitation of On the Pulse of Morning at the 1993 presidential inauguration.

Friday, March 7, 2008

The first annual Poem In Your Pocket Day is coming!

The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you on April 17. You could also add a poem to your email footer, post a poem on your blog or page, or text a poem to friends.

Poem In Your Pocket Day has been celebrated each April in New York City since 2002. Each year, city parks, bookstores, workplaces, and other venues burst with open readings of poems from pockets. Even the Mayor gets in on the festivities, reading a poem on the radio. For more information on New York City’s celebration, visit here.

And here's an excerpt from Happiness by Jane Kenyon. She creates wonderful, surprising images.

...happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon...

Friday, February 29, 2008

A poem about the immortality of art by Robert Louis Stevenson, who, in addition to writing poetry, also authored Treasure Island (1882) and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886):

Bright Is the Ring...
by Robert Louis Stevenson

From Songs of Travel

Bright is the ring of words
When the right man rings them,
Fair the fall of songs
When the singer sings them.
Still they are carolled and said --
On wings they are carried --
After the singer is dead
And the maker buried.

Low as the singer lies
In the field of heather,
Songs of his fashion bring
The swains together.
And when the west is red
With the sunset embers,
The lover lingers and sings
And the maid remembers.

Poetry Out Loud is coming! If you live in the D.C. area, pencil this in:

THE 2008 NATIONAL FINALS: APRIL 29, WASHINGTON, DC
The 2008 National Finals will be held at the George Washington University Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC. Semifinal rounds will take place all-day on Monday, April 28 and the Finals will be held in the evening on Tuesday, April 29. Admission is free and open to the public.

If you live elsewhere, you can still attend your state's finals.

When the Poetry Out Loud participants recite a poem, they own it -- once you've memorized a poem, it's yours.

Here's a short one ... very easy to memorize!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Two flower-inspired poems, just because...

an excerpt from somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
by e.e. cummings

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

THE CROCUSES
by Frances E.W. Harper, 1825-1911.

Though a tremor of the winter
Did shivering through them run;
Yet they lifted up their foreheads
To greet the vernal sun.

And the sunbeams gave them welcome.
As did the morning air
And scattered o'er their simple robes
Rich tints of beauty rare.

Soon a host of lovely flowers
From vales and woodland burst;
But in all that fair procession
The crocuses were first.

First to weave for Earth a chaplet
To crown her dear old head;
And to beautify the pathway
Where winter still did tread.

And their loved and white haired mother
Smiled sweetly 'neath the touch,
When she knew her faithful children
Were loving her so much.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, born to free parents in Baltimore, Maryland, was an African American abolitionist and poet.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Willow Song
by He Zhizhang (659-744, Tang dynasty)

Friday, February 1, 2008

Have you heard of HBO's show Def Poetry Jam?

Here's 18-year-old Sarah Kay performing "Hands."

A bonus...

Invitation
by Shel Silverstein

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer ...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in! Come in!

from Where the Sidewalk Ends

Friday, January 25, 2008

It's basketball, basketball, basketball at our house during the winter. So I had to include this poem written by Rachael Kerney when she was in middle school:

Basketball
Rachael Kerney

Why be shopping at the mall,
When you could be playing basketball?
Why be standing still,
When you could be doing basketball drills?
Why be lying in a cot,
When you could be shooting a foul shot?
Why be a cheerleader rooting,
When you could be a basketball player shooting?
Why be sitting in the sun,
When you could be playing one on one?
Why be talking to your sibling,
When you could be in a gym dribbling?
Why be on the couch being lazy,
Because if you don't play basketball, you are crazy!

Friday, January 18, 2008

In honor of the upcoming birthday of a great thinker & brave man, this week's poem is actually from a song, James Taylor's Shed a Little Light:

Let us turn our thoughts today
To Martin Luther King
And recognize that there are ties between us
All men and women
Living on the earth
Ties of hope and love
Sister and brotherhood
That we are bound together
In our desire to see the world become
A place in which our children
Can grow free and strong
We are bound together
By the task that stands before us
And the road that lies ahead
We are bound and we are bound

"Everybody can be great because everybody can serve."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

National Poetry Month is April. Teachers, librarians, and booksellers can request a free copy of the 2008 poster here. Posters from past years can be purchased for $5 by the general public here.

Friday, January 11, 2008

It seems as if everyone is familiar with haiku, but fewer people have heard of tanka. Tanka was developed in the late 700s in Japan and consists of five lines -- traditionally the first and third have five syllables, the second, fourth, and fifth have seven.

A haiga is artwork that is accompanied by haiku, but tanka writers have started making "taigas," like this one by Michael McClintock (poem) and Karen McClintock (art).

Some additional information from artist Karen McClintock:

The new movement in modern English tanka over the last 20 or so years has strayed away from the formal syllable counting of the past, with many prominent poets dropping it entirely. Poem lines are still short, and three or five lines, but haiku and tanka is being written in our language with an ear to content, flow, lyric, and expression of idea rather than adhering to a strict pattern of syllables which many poets find too confining. My husband (Michael McClintock) pioneered this movement 40 years ago and thinks it is the future direction of the whole genre in the west.

A bonus...

A haiku by pre-modern Japanese poet Raizan

You rice-field maidens!
The only things not muddy
Are the songs you sing.

It's a double bonus day...I am loving all this wonderful imagery!

Prairie Fires
by Hamlin Garland, 1860-1940

A curving, leaping line of light,
A crackling roar from hot, red lungs,
A wild flush on the skies of night,
A force that gnaws with hot red tongues,
That leaves a blackened smoking sod
A fiery furnace where the cattle trod.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Spellbound
by Emily Brontë,1818-1848

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing dear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

Friday, December 28, 2007

A Room Can Say Only So Much
by Cody, 8th grade

The messy room says neatness and order are not important
And the closed blinds say light is not welcome
The autographed footballs say he's a fan
And the jet fighter model on his desk say he's creative

His picture para-sailing shows his bravery
The camouflaged wall color says he has things to hide
The big closet says he's stylish
And the baseball hats say his hair is always 'bad'

The radio shows he has a love for music
The fireman's helmet says he's supportive
The mini-bank shows he is protective
But, he has another room, too

The big bed shows he loves to sleep
The captain's badge says he's a leader
And trophies in his room say he's an athlete
But the room does not make the man.

A bonus...
Rap versions of Chaucer's poetry?
Yes, it's true! But check out Babasword and hear for yourself.

Friday, December 21, 2007

From New Year's by Dana Gioia

The new year always brings us what we want
Simply by bringing us along to see
A calendar with every day uncrossed,
A field of snow without a single footprint.

You can read the rest of New Year's here

By JR Sinclair

Friday, December 14, 2007

Oranges by Gary Soto is a great poem about young love.

From Oranges

I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

Read the rest of it here.

A bonus...

Poetry HowTos from About.com

How To Memorize a poem
You memorize because you have to, the poem was written for you & you must make it your own, step-by-step you learn it by heart...

How To Unblock! Write first time, every time!
A list of suggestions to get you writing poems again when you're blocked. About Poetry Guide Bob Holman has lots of ways to unblock, tap your poetic springs, get the poems flowing, write first time, every time.

How To Get started submitting your poems for print publication
A simple step-by-step outline to help you manage the process of submitting your poems for publication.

How To Locate the text of a poem
A simple step-by-step outline of how to find the text of a poem on the Net when you can only remember one line.

Poetry
by Alphonse Mucha, a Czech artist who lived from 1860-1939.

Friday, December 7, 2007

A Winter Solstice poem by Susan Cooper, the author of The Dark is Rising.

The Shortest Day
By Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Friday, November 30, 2007

Snow-Flakes
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Out of the bosom of the Air
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

Even though I don't think of snow as sad at all, I enjoy this poem. Longfellow creates a beautiful image!

Friday, November 23, 2007

Epitaph of John Jack
By Daniel Bliss (1740-1806)

God wills us free; man wills us slaves.
I will as God wills; God's will be done.

Here lies the body of
JOHN JACK
A native of Africa who died
March 1773, aged about 60 years.

Tho' born in a land of slavery,
He was born free.

Tho' he lived in a land of liberty,
He lived as a slave.

Till by his honest, tho' stolen, labors,
He acquired the source of slavery,
Which gave him his freedom;

Tho' not long before
Death, the grand tyrant,
Gave him his final emancipation,
And set him on a footing with kings.

Tho' a slave to vice,
He practised those virtues
Without which kings are but slaves.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Kristine O'Connell George has a great web site with information about her books, poems you can listen to, teacher tips and ideas, and more. Her page about the Amazing Middle School Poetry Quest has this wonderful poem and many others.

Runaway
by Meghan, 5th grade

Orange is the color of the drinking gourd signal,
Grey the pepper that I sprinkle.

Green is the woods that hide me,
Black is the time of day I flee.

Silver is the color of the North Star I follow,
Yellow is the flame in the cabin hollow.

To read the rest, go here.

Friday, November 9, 2007

The Journey of a Leaf
By Ariana, age 12

A golden ship emerges,
from its safe, green home.

Its deck is quiet, vacant
while the wind mans the sails.

The rocking of the ship is slow,
drifting down,
down,
down.

Then the ship comes to a stop,
its long journey is over.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Three Ghostesses
by Author Unknown

Three Little Ghostesses,
Sitting on postesses,
Eating buttered toastessess,
Greasing their fistessess,
Up to their wristessess,
Oh, what beastessess,
To make such feastessess.

from a t-shirt

Friday, October 26, 2007

excerpts from TO A SKYLARK
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
...

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then -- as I am listening now.

Poetry Friday Bonus

I am fascinated by new poetic forms that people create. So I thought I would include a few links here so you can explore them for yourself:

Author Helen Frost wrote her award-winning novel, The Braid, in a new poetic form which was inspired by Celtic Knotwork. Wow!

About.com: Poetry covers a number of poetic forms, like Fibonacci poems, based on the Fibonacci number sequence. Cool! Gregory K also introduces the "Fib."

Another mathematical form, the Tetractyses

Invent Your Own Poetry Form on Education World

The Rothko

If you know of another new form or if you come up with one yourself, send me information about it.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Another poem by Lilian Moore. I haven't seen an illustrated version of "I Left My Head," but it seems like you could have fun with it.

I Left My Head
by Lilian Moore

I left my head
somewhere
today.

Put it down for
just
a minute.

Under the
table?
On a chair?

Wish I were
able
to say
where.

Everything I need
is
in it.

~~~~~

Did you know?
Back in 1957, Ms. Moore became the first editor of the brand-new Scholastic Arrow Club!

Friday, October 12, 2007

Another water-based poem...

NIGHT
By Dong-Myung Kim

Night is
A lake shrouded in blue fog.
I am a fisherman
On sleep's sailboat,
Fishing dreams.

Friday, October 5, 2007

I love this. It's especially nice read aloud.

Seal Lullaby
by Rudyard Kipling

OH! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

Friday, September 28, 2007

THE GREAT TABLECLOTH
By Pablo Neruda, from "Extravagaria," translated by Alastair Reid

Let us sit down soon to eat
with all those who haven't eaten,
let us spread great tablecloths,
put salt in the lakes of the world,
set up planetary bakeries,
tables with strawberries in snow,
and a plate like the moon itself
from which we will all eat.
For now I ask no more
than the justice of eating.

Friday, September 21, 2007

There Is No Frigate Like A Book
by Emily Dickinson.

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

Friday, September 14, 2007

from The Seed Shop
By Muriel Stuart

...Here in their safe and simple house of death,
Sealed in their shells a million roses leap;
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

Baby Orang-utan
by Helen Dunmore

Bold flare of orange -
a struck match
against his mother’s breast

he listens to her heartbeat
going yes yes yes

Friday, September 7, 2007

Mulga Bill's Bicycle
by Andrew Barton Paterson

'TWAS Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendant to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"
"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.

"But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wild cat can it fight.
There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof or wheel,
But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight;
I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight."

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above the Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.

It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
But Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, clung tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then, as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek,
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man's Creek.

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, "I've had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I've rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
But that was sure the derndest ride that I've encountered yet.
I'll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it's shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It's safe at rest in Dead Man's Creek - we'll leave it lying still;
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill."

Australian poet "Banjo" Paterson also wrote "Waltzing Matilda."

Friday, August 30, 2007

The Kraken
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Friday, August 24, 2007

THOUGHTS ON GETTING OUT OF A NICE WARM BED IN AN ICE-COLD HOUSE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM AT THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
by Judith Viorst

Maybe life was better
When I used to be a wetter.

Friday, August 17, 2007

excerpt of Five Cantos from the Prayer Book of Aphrodite
by Sandra Kasturi

...Love is a chambered nautilus shell
thrown into startled hands
by a devilish sea.

Friday, August 10, 2007

an excerpt from When We Come Home, Blake Calls for Fire
by Nancy Willard

From A Visit to William Blake's Inn

Fire, you handsome creature, shine.
Let the hearth where I confine
your hissing tongues that rise and fall
be the home that warms us all.

I love this entire poem, but I couldn't find a place to link to the rest of it.

A Visit to William Blake's Inn won the Newbery Award in 1982 and it also won a Caldecott Honor Award the same year. It's the only book to win both.

And here's a link about William Blake

Friday, August 3, 2007

Knitted Things
by Karla Kuskin

There was a witch who knitted things:
Elephants and playground swings.
She knitted rain,
She knitted night,
But nothing really came out right.

The rest is located here.

Friday, July 28, 2007

At first, I tried to find a photo or painting to go with this poem. But then I decided that I'd rather just stay with the image the poem gives me than replace it with something else.

Silver
by Walter de la Mare

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and a silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

An interesting piece of trivia about this poem is that it was set to music and sung!

Friday, July 20, 2007

Two rather different poems...

To Any Reader
Robert Louis Stevenson

As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear; he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.

And secondly...

W
by James Reeves

The King sent for his Wise Men all
To find a rhyme for W;
When they had thought a good long time
But could not think of a single rhyme,
"I'm sorry," said he, "to trouble you."

What do you see?

A lily or

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:
While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

The Lily by William Blake

Friday, July 13, 2007

Today we'll take a look at poetry by Eve Merriam (July 19, 1916 - April 11, 1992).

Why I Did Not Reign
by Eve Merriam

I longed to win the spelling bee
And remembered the rule
I had learned in school:

"I before E,
Except after C."

Friend, believe me,
No one was going to deceive me.

Fiercely I practiced, the scepter I'd wield,
All others their shields in the field would yield!

Alas, before my very eyes
A weird neighbor in a beige veil
Feigning great height and weighty size
Seized the reins and ran off with the prize.

Now I no longer deign to remember that rule.
Neither
Any other either.

From It Doesn't Always Have To Rhyme

You can check out Merriam's short and lovely End of Winter at Baseball Almanac.com.

Eve Merriam's How to Eat a Poem

Friday, July 6, 2007

If all the griefs I am to have (1726)
by Emily Dickinson

If all the griefs I am to have
Would only come today,
I am so happy I believe
They'd laugh and run away.

If all the joys I am to have
Would only come today,
They could not be so big as this
That happens to me now.

Friday, June 29, 2007

These Haiku Fortune Cookies sound like a great idea to me. I will have to try this recipe.

I'm not sure where I will come up with the haiku to put in them, but the link above lists some great haiku books. I could also make my own or turn it into a fun family project.

Wing Nuts: Screwy Haiku by Paul B. Janeczko and J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Tricia Tusa, lives up to its name with haiku like this one:

On Ferris Wheel
I regret French fries, milk shake --
those below agree

Friday, June 22, 2007

Sometimes you can get more out of a poem when you hear it than when you read it. You can wander around these internet sites and have a listen:
Poetry Archive
Internet Archive
I haven't looked into it, but I think anyone can add a poem to the Internet Archive, so you could pick a poem and record it yourself!

And now, for this week's poem:

Isn't it strange some people make
You feel so tired inside,
Your thoughts begin to shrivel up
Like leaves all brown and dried!

But when you're with some other ones,
It's stranger still to find
Your thoughts as thick as fireflies
All shiny in your mind!

What do you see?

A waterfall or

Sunlight streams on the river stones.
From high above, the river steadily plunges—
three thousand feet of sparkling water—
the Milky Way pouring down from heaven.

The Waterfall at Lu-Shan by Li-Po

Friday, June 15, 2007

My senses all are backwards
and it really makes me wonder
if on the day that I was born
somebody made a blunder.

For, strange but true, my senses
all got totally reversed.
Now everything I like the best
is what you'd call the worst.

I only like the smell of things
that frighten other noses.
I love the odor of a skunk.
I hate the smell of roses.

I only like the taste of foods
that cause most folks to shiver.
I hate the taste of chocolate.
I'm crazy over liver.

I'm not too fond of music
but there's simply no denying
I like the sound of honking horns
and little babies crying.

I hate the feel of silky, velvet
softness on my skin.
I much prefer the way it feels
when sitting on a pin.

I hate the look of anything
that's really cute and snuggly.
The things I think are pretty
are what most consider ugly.

So let me tell you one more thing
before I have to go:
I think YOU are the most attractive
person that I know.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Roald Dahl is well-known for writing beloved books, but he also wrote poetry. I like this description from The Poetry Archive of the spot where Mr. Dahl did his writing:

Roald did all his writing in a little hut at the bottom of his garden. It was rather shabby, with an old armchair and photos stuck to the walls, but he liked the peace and retreated there for four hours every day. Roald used a particular brand of pencil and wrote on special yellow (his favourite colour) paper which he ordered from America. He carried on writing right up until he died in 1990 and you can still see the last notes he made in his wastepaper basket if you visit his hut which is now part of the Roald Dahl Museum.

The following poem is one that was never published. Mr. Dahl sent it the year before his death to a a class of students in England in response to their letters.

"My teacher wasn't half as nice as yours seems to be.
His name was Mister Unsworth and he taught us history.
And when you didn't know a date he'd get you by the ear
And start to twist while you sat there quite paralysed with fear.
He'd twist and twist and twist your ear and twist it more and more.
Until at last the ear came off and landed on the floor.
Our class was full of one-eared boys. I'm certain there were eight.
Who'd had them twisted off because they didn't know a date.
So let us now praise teachers who today are all so fine
And yours in particular is totally divine."

One more poem for this week. This poem is from A Child's Anthology of Poetry, Elizabeth Hauge Sword, ed.

Swift things are beautiful:
Swallows and deer,
And Lightning that falls
Bright-veined and clear,
Rivers and meteors,
Wind in the wheat,
The strong-withered horse,
The runner's sure feet.

And slow things are beautiful:
The closing of day,
The pause of the wave
That curves downward to spray,
The ember that crumbles,
The opening flower,
And the ox that moves on
In the quiet of power.

Isn't "in the quiet of power" an excellent ending?

Friday, June 1, 2007

Here's a great idea -- Norwood, a private school in Maryland, has a Poetry Day in May. They say, "On the morning of May 25th, poetry could be heard throughout Norwood’s halls. Sixth graders, many equipped with props and costumes, were dispersed throughout the public areas of the School. As other members of the Norwood community passed by, they activated the performers with a push of a sticker “button.” As always, Poetry Day was delightful for both the audience and the performers." I'll bet it was!

Today's poem comes from the Sung Dynasty:

Take a lump of clay,
Wet it, pat it,
Make a statue of you
And a statue of me.
Then shatter them, clatter them,
Add some water,
And break them and mold them
Into a statue of you
And a statue of me.
Then, in mine, there are bits of you
And in you there are bits of me.
Nothing shall ever keep us apart.

Friday, May 25, 2007

The Entrance Place of Wonders: Poems of the Harlem Renaissance, selected by Daphne Muse, has a great combination of memorable poems and bold, colorful illustrations. I had a hard time picking just one poem to share. I love "Your World" by Georgia Douglas Johnson, "To You" by Langston Hughes, and "The Gift to Sing" by James Weldon Johnson. But for this week, I settled on "Rhapsody" by William Stanley Braithwaite.

I am glad daylong for the gift of song,
For time and change and sorrow;
For the sunset wings and the world-end things
Which hang on the edge of to-morrow.

I am glad for my heart whose gates apart
Are the entrance-place of wonders,
Where dreams come in from the rush and din
Like sheep from the rains and thunders.

Friday, May 18, 2007

This is cool! A Harry Potter poetry contest sponsored by Abebooks. Write a Harry Potter-themed poem of any kind by July 6, 2007 and enter to win a one-of-a-kind bookshelf made of HP books! Check it out here.

And now, a poem of mine. I kept thinking about things I hoped would happen, and that got me started about wishes...

A wish,
like a kiss
you blow
and watch swirl away.

It might
spin around the world
and land back
on your cheek.

So light,
you might not
even notice.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Two poems by Gregory K. for your reading pleasure.

DIARY OF A BAD WEEK
by
Gregory K.

Monday: Failed to pay attention...
After school I had detention.

Tuesday: Said things I lamented...
Apologized but was detented.

Wednesday: Won school stairway race!
After school, the same old place.

Thursday: Pulled a classic trick...
Faked an illness; stayed home sick.

Friday: Food fight! Man, what fun!
From the school watched setting sun.

Weekend: This just makes me cry...
I’ve been grounded. Don’t know why.

A poem a day
Keeps the doctor away?
Well, no... but it still doesn’t hurt.

A poem a day
Is quite good anyway,
But it’s still not as good as dessert.

In Mother's Shadow
By Janet S. Wong

I walk behind Mother
through the woods
careful
not to touch the poison oak
she points to with her stick.

You can read the rest of the poem, and even hear the poet read it herself, here

– from The Rainbow Hand: Poems about Mothers and Children

UNTIL I SAW THE SEA
by Lilian Moore (1909-2004)

Until I saw the sea
I did not know
that wind
could wrinkle water so.

I never knew
that sun
could splinter a whole sea of blue.

Nor
did I know before,
a sea breathes in and out
upon a shore.

Friday, April 6, 2007

This old favorite of mine is from Sara Teasdale's The Crystal Gazer:

I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.

With One White Wing by Elizabeth Spires is out of print,
but you can find it in your library or find used copies on A1 Books .

Do you know the answer to the poem-riddle above?
It's a shadow!

Have you ever read/heard Charles R. Smith, Jr.'s sports poems yet?

I've had his "Allow Me to Introduce Myself" go through my head all day before!

If you go to his website and scroll down a bit, you can hear him perform it himself

And then it can go through your head all day, too...

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