Today is Poetry Friday. Tanita Davis is rounding up the posts for this Ides of March at {fiction, instead of lies}.
This week has been a week of poetry reading (as well as writing regular shitty first drafts of poems for the Stafford Challenge).
First and most importantly, I read poetry by my daughter Maria. She took an advanced poetry class as a senior in college and made this beautiful book of poems:
My favorite poems of this collection are Maria’s Sonnets i and ii, written about her spring break trip 14 years ago. She experienced a vastly different spring break than is typical for a college junior.
i
I’d never seen my Grandma grey and worn.
This shrunken woman in the hospice bed
cannot be my grandma. My grandma lives alone
in Yucca Valley, hiking on the dirt
roads with muddy furrows that sink like
the laugh lines on her cheeks. She conceals
wispy hair under immaculate wigs. Despite
sore hammer toes she works her sky-high heels.
That day I hiked the furrowed roads alone,
adrift amidst waxy creosote.
Stringy jackrabbits, baby quail gambol,
flitting through dry gulches like rowboats.
Somehow I didn’t want to be inside
Spring Break two thousand ten, when Grandma died.
ii
Spring Break two thousand ten, when Grandma died,
I arrived in time for bon voyage,
the convalescent odors scattered by
tamales, Spanish rice, tortillas, guac,
and Grandma, a bit tipsy on boxed wine.
One last boisterous fiesta while the Reeds
were still a family, whole and feeling fine.
The jalapeño sweat displaced the needs
that lay beneath the cornered hospice sheets.
The jalapeños were what got to me,
the smiles against those hospice whites.
The laugh of one you love is therapy
with nebulizer and glass of sweet rosé.
I’d never seen my Grandma grey and worn.
~By Maria C. Krebs, reprinted with permission by the poet
Another book I’ve read this week is Counting Descent by Clint Smith. Last year I won a Barnes & Noble gift card from Carol Labuzzetta from a promotion on her site The Apples in My Orchard. I “lost” it for several months, and when I found it recently, I added Barnes & Noble on my to-do list when we were in Temecuela last week. For more than one reason, I wanted to buy a book of poems, but I also got this package of beautiful origami paper.
I’ve been wanting to read more of Smith’s poetry because I knew him more as a journalist with his podcast Justice in America and his book How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. Here is Clint Smith reading the poem titled, “Counting Descent.”
Another book I read was this 40-year-old verse novel. The Donner Party by George Keithley is the evidence I’ll bring to the next meeting of our Friends of the Library. It is convincing evidence, I believe, for the request to be less picky about the books we place in our book shop. I was volunteering on Saturday, and I found this book in the box to be recycled (not to sell in the bookshop):
It is beautifully-written and full of detail of the horrors of the cross-country trip to California that the Donners, Reeds, and others made in 1846. There are some offensive and archaic references, which were revised in a 2012 reprinting of this book, but it’s a worthwhile find for 50 cents or $1–the price we charge for books at our Friends bookshop.
Tomorrow the March Open Write begins at Ethical ELA. Do join us!
Another opportunity on Ethical ELA: Verselove is coming in April. If you are looking for community and 30 days of writing prompts for April’s National Poetry Month, you will be coming to the right place. You’re welcome to join us. Sign up for Verselove here.
Finally, for those who are still here. If you’ll be writing a #poetrypals animal pantoum, have you seen the Pantoum Tool here? I find it very helpful.
Your daughter’s sonnets knock me out. I hope she’s still writing poems!
Wow, Denise, I’ll need to bookmark your post with all the links and ideas. I enjoyed Clint Smith’s poem, have read “How The Word Is Passed”, should know about him as a poet, too. And your daughter’s poem(s) from her special book, a memory of both sorrow and joy – loving “The laugh of one you love is therapy”. I have read several books about the Donner Party story, but this one is new to me. Wishing you a lovely weekend!
Denise, this slice was full of poetry goodness. Thanks for sharing your daughter’s poetry. It is powerful and descriptive. I looked at your links-Thanks! I also listened to Clint Smith’s reading. His way of reading aloud his poem is reminiscent of the International Reading Association’s Poetry Open Mic session where authors speak with flavor, speed, and a heightened sense of joy. I am sure that I would like the Donner Party book. I remember reading about their trek across country. It jarred me for days, Have a wonderful weekend.
Your daughter’s poems are so powerfully heartbreaking Denise. Thank you so much for sharing them.
The absolute balance in your daughter’s poetry – her word choices, timing, and use of repetition – all combined to create a song of woe and memory that is both beautiful and breathtakingly painful. I just — wow. She served the memory of love so, so well. Thank her for letting you share that, will you? And thank YOU for sharing a tiny piece of your life.
I am a HUGE fan of Clint Smith; the poem he wrote when his child was born made me cry while on Twitter. ☺ I was excited when he did a Crash Course series on Black History – it’s really good, and it made me happy to see that as a resource for kids who don’t quite have accurate history access in their schools.
…and for all the poetry opportunities, including the pantoum generator! I had a link to that somewhere, and had lost it!
Have the loveliest of weekends, and here’s to the memory of love, jalapenos, and
…and family. (I obviously somehow pushed send too quickly!)
Blown away by Maria’s poetry (heartbreaking with such deeply felt details). Clint Smith is new to me and I will have to read his work. What a lot of riches in this post!
Oh goodness! Your post, but also, oh goodness, I came here to comment and to thank you for YOUR comment on the new issue of WHISPERshout Magazine and then you led me to the Pantoum Tool (the Pantoul?) and I started writing and got all distracted in the best possible way! Denise, your reading of the kids’ poems is generous and supportive. I can’t wait to point them to it. And the Clint Smith poem! Yes. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your daughter’s poems. I also just finished ABOVE GROUND by Clint Smith and was absolutely blown away by it. I will have to get his first book.
Thank you for sharing your daughter’s gorgeous sonnets. I feel like I know this Grandma, her bravery and grabbing of life and love, her refusal to fit what you might think of as “Grandma,” just from these two poems. Absolutely lovely. Hope you enjoy your poetry reading and writing–and than you!!! for the pantoum tool!
Oh, Denise, your daughter’s powerful poetry has a special meaning for me this morning, with my mother in hospice, and my strivings to bring her as much joy as possible through the people and things she loves. I hope Maria is still writing. ❤️
Thanks for all the other richness here, too, especially Clint Smith. I love him.
And the pantoum tool — wow! 🙂
So. Much. Goodness. Here, Denise. I echo the praise for your daughter’s poem…wow. Please tell me she’s still writing poetry.