#Verselove 2024 – A Week of Poetry 1

7. Things (Better) Left Unsaid with James Coats

Seattle, 1:04 p.m.

it happened that second
in time, after much pushing
groaning and sweating

the world grew by one
and I knew reality
would never be the same

another life
another personality
our family has grown

the world has grown
then I held you as your
bright eyes gleamed

and I was a new person
a grammy first

6. Photographic Poem with Katrina Morris

Your
Grammy
Holds on, but
Your dimples dance,
Feasting on freedom,
Sipping steep grades, your joy.
Restrain your rapture? Never!
When you summit this stony slant
You’ll keep going, for you carry stars

5. Friday Date Night with Leilya Pietre

We went to that park in Long Beach
With the beautiful walking path around a lake
I thought a break-up was imminent

We walked and then sat looking at the water
And you asked me to marry you
It took me awhile to say, Not yet.

Seven years later, I nestled into your safe yes.

4. Alphabeticals with Jennifer Guyor-Jowett

a’s bobbed tail
b’s oft flip fail
c’s open quote
d’s half note
e’s toothy grin
f’s shelf built in
g’s beckoning
h’s reckoning
i’s reaching
j’s leaching
k’s a kicker
l’s a licker
m’s a mountain
n’s spilled fountain
o’s looking round
p’s feeling proud
q’s dainty
r’s fainty
s’s slither’s slow
t’s a compass rose
u’s embrace
v’s a vase
w’s two vases
x’s holding spaces
y’s the wise owl
z’s zigzag scowl

3. Inspirational Places with Wendy Everard

Pittsburgh’s in Jack Gilbert

As we rode Duquesne Incline,
he already was old and in Berkeley. Steel City
watches over the growing of knowing,
for heirlooms of progeny. But this
morning, the three rivers backdrop
for thunderstorms, Andy Warhol and
the bridges of a city bring light to our
dark, pathways of connections.
To this city we came just to
give our kids a taste of Primati Bros.
(way too much cole slaw),
and the Pirates, and Randyland, a
show of hue saturation and celebration.
His hometown was the
landfall of his view from Paris,
the eye of his childhood, always
new. As each of us have our own past, in city or
country, we are products of our nurturing.
His lifetime weaving carried the thread of his
native city, coloring the world, his poetry with
land-roots of comfort and claiming.


Golden shovel striking line is “As he watches for morning, for the dark to give way and show his landfall, the new country, his native land.” By Jack Gilbert in “Looking at Pittsburgh from Paris”

2. The Magic Box with Bryan Ripley Crandall

List of ten that started this Magic Box poem: a green thumb, “beam me up” travel, lie detector machine, ointment to remove the pain in my right hand, reading and reducing and replacing tsundoku, Colin Kaepernick protest redo, Palestinians having their own homeland again with a good and fair government, connection with others, an organized email with an inbox that gets emptied daily, peace on earth really.

A Redo of Kneeling

My visitor today is a green thumb–
my plants clothed in need
now fed and watered with a hum

The smooth slander spotter,
reviler revealer, lifts
the weight of the world
and clears out the system

Beaming to Pennsylvania on
the wings of hearing,
really hearing you this time,
better beside the blooms,
not a long way from heaven,
not killing time,
but living and breathing freedom

Freedom tastes gentle
It’s never-ending relief
instantaneous sustenance
of hope and release

Transporting success
on the creaking knees of the old
and the knowing knees of the young
A redo please
of a quiet anthem
that hears
listens
and finds
justice

1. #hashtagacrostics with Kim Johnson

#Deliberatelydiligentdiscerner
#Eternallyemergingevolver
#Nonsensicallynaiveniceness
#Inherentlyimprobableindependence
#Solidsecondhandskeptic
#Especiallyeagerentrant

Slice of Life – Open Write for November

21 November 2023 TwoWritingTeachers.org

I had a wonderful time at NCTE, and I want to write more about it later. Here are a few pictures on Instagram, but my slice today are the poems I wrote for Open Write. My Sunday poem includes a strong feeling I had this week.

Saturday, 11/18/23 “Instructions on Being a Dragonfly” with Kim Johnson

Instructions on Healing with Witnesses: A Skinny Poem

Not on a journey. I’m alone.
healing
needed
fears
wounds
healing
occurring
witnesses
together
healing
I’m on a journey; not alone.

Sunday, 11/19/23 “Belonging” with Fran Haley

Kaleidoscopic Encounter

I met someone yesterday
At a conference–
We engaged in
conversation
standing in the exhibit hall.
She’s come here from a
South American country
Where she fled to the U.S.
as a refugee.
Her grandfather came there as
A refugee fleeing the Holocaust.
Her name came together,
a perfectly delightful mix of
Spanish, Arabic, and Jewish.
She is a kaleidoscope of
color and light and generosity,
And I am better for having met her.

I’ve come here from
a white-washed history,
a white-washed lineage,
and so much loss of
color and light and generosity.
I’ve come from who knows where,
Except the generic ‘Wales,’
as a child, it was all I was given
when I asked, evidence enough
that we were in the right pot,
melting into America.
I came from who knows when–
not in this century,
or the last,
maybe the one before.

We are all losers
in the myth of white supremacy.
We are not a melting pot,
We are a kaleidoscope.
We will all win, when
We all belong.

Monday, 11/20/23 “Give Me This” with Kim Johnson

On the airplane, Moon followed me home
last night. She wore a hefty grin–
face half full of bright white teeth,
gleaming, she smiled at me
as I peered out through
the darkness. Watched
her dance with
the plane’s
wing,

As
I view
her playful
moves, She reminds
me: we need the dance.
While the Sun brightens far
away, we are left here with
Moon. She transforms: new-, crescent-, half-,
full-faced, while dancing with obstacles.

Tuesday, 11/21/23 “Birdspiration” with Fran Haley

Quail families grow–
Eggs hatch, and precocial chicks
hit the ground running.
Soon, coveys are filled with teens.
How quickly we come of age!

Wednesday, 11/22/23 “Doggerel” with Fran and Kim

There once was a dog named Sonny
Whose lifelong goal was not money
All he wanted was rubs
Castle King he was dubbed
scritch-tingle-scratch of the tummy

April 2 – #Verselove Coffee Poem

Weekend Coffee Share Poem with Kim Johnson, April 2, 2024

If we were having coffee, I’d have tea, a nice London Fog latte with oat milk or a sweet and spicy masala chai. (But, I understand that most people prefer coffee, so I still say, “Let’s go out for coffee,” like I call tissue Kleenex.)

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about February 26, 2020, when the government shut down schools because a bus driver in Bahrain had Covid-19 and dropped off children at three different schools the day before.

I’d tell you that I started writing in March with the Slice of Life story challenge, and then on into April with this group of poets. I’d tell you that poetry and this community filled my sails during those following months of isolation, fear of the unknown, and virtual teaching. And then I’d smile and remember that this community has been filling my sails ever since.

I’d ask you about your story of writing. What sustains and keeps you on this journey? Then we would laugh and read poems to each, our favorites that we have written and our favorites that others have written deep within us.

I’d also have to tell you that I normally drink tea in my jammies, and the photo my husband snapped is me ready to go out the door on an out-of-town adventure.

#Verselove, Week 2

Why Thursday? with Anna J. Small Roseboro (my poem)

Flirty Venus’ namesake day
Relinquishes the work week
Into reassuring rest–
Day of finis. This Friday we call Good
All the more, Jesus, when
You proclaimed, “It is finished.”

Image by AlexandruPetre on Pixabay
Tumble Down Poetry with Andy Schoenborn (my poem)

Mother Goose Shoes

There was an old woman
who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children
she didn’t know what to do.
Mother Goose, that is,
not my mom.
She wasn’t old—just a young widow,
and we didn’t live in a shoe.
We lived in a small house
with a lot of kids.
We shopped for one pair of shoes,
just one pair of shoes,
at the beginning of each school year.
We’d drive down to the shoe shop
next to McCoy’s market, and
start browsing the Mother Goose shoes.
We would then sit, ducklings in a row,
as the clerk measured our feet.
Then they’d bring out the footgear
we wanted to try.
The little leather Mary Janes…oxfords…loafers…
I didn’t know or care what they were called.
I had found my favorite pair.
It didn’t matter to me that
they needed to be a half size bigger,
and that the store didn’t have that size,
nor did they expect to get it before school started.
School was starting, and I was ready for
these shoes,
these shoes,
these shoes
to go with me in the dresses
I would wear to second grade.

She bought them for me,
this stressed-out mama,
but she did say to me,
“If you outgrow them
before you wear them out,
I’ll cut the toes out to make room.”
She never had to,
I just scrunched up my toes
as needed.

MotherGooseShoes.gif
Liberation and Joy with Stacey Joy (my poem)

yesterday I was invincible
today I realize I won’t last forever
so the flowers smell sweeter
the bird song more melodious and
the lunch you served extra delicious

The News with Susie Morice

Possibilities
From remarks by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
April 8, 2022

Meaningful notes from children
speak to hope and promise of America.
232 years for a Black woman to be selected to
serve on the Supreme Court of the U.S.
We’ve made it,
We’ve made it,
All of us,
All of us.
Here in America anything is possible.
Inheritor of the dream of liberty and justice for all.
All Americans can take great pride in this moment,
A long way toward perfecting our union.

Quirky Poems with Kim Johnson

Calling things by their 18th century names
How about the quirk you have
of calling things by archaic names? Like
Chest of drawers
instead
of dresser
Ice chest
instead
of cooler
Bathing suit
instead of
swimsuit
How was I supposed to know?
At least I don’t call a sofa a
davenport.

Definito with Margaret Simon (my poem)

Felicity is a friendly word,
Four syllables of fabulous–
Felicity is a jubilant songbird
Fortunate enough to have lungs
to be heard above the heartache
Fruitful and fertile,
He willingly warbles
a skillful tune of trust
Adroit in his happiness
Felicity

Birds are So Smart with Dixie Keyes 

What I Learned from the Birds and You

The way the Oriole serenades with no busker box
And keeps singing when no one listens.

The way a murmuration of starlings flies
across the sky with coordination and
grace, not hurting one another.

The way robins build nests for future
generations, without bragging
or competing with their neighbors.

I learned these things from you today, too–
the way you serve, love, and live life
without demanding credit for yourself.

Tell Me Without Telling Me poem with Scott McCloskey

Sleep in a crib in my parents’ room until old enough to know it was weird.
Scootch over in the big bed, so as not to lie in my sister’s nighttime accident.
Watch Mom sledgehammer a hole in the wall.
Watch her frame the hole into a doorway to the garage to make another bedroom.
Help make nine salads on individual plates for dinner.
Dry the dishes my sister washed when it was our team’s turn.
Always have someone my age to play, fight, and ride bikes with.
Always have someone older to teach me to read, do my nails, and comb my hair.
Never be home alone.
Never feel unworthy of love.

Double Golden Shovel – Ethical ELA Open Write

Today’s golden shovel prompt came from the expert–Dr. Kimberly Johnson. Read all about it here, and be sure to watch her video explanation. My inspiration and Martine Luther King, Jr. quote came from an Instagram post today by Ibram X. Kendi.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ibram X. Kendi (@ibramxk)

It is time for a lesson for all us whites.
Is justice and peace better 55 years after he said it?
An unapologetic MLK prophesied. Listen we must.
Aspect 1 is that he was killed for speaking so frankly
of injustice and the complicity of white silence. Let his words be
their healing, our healing. It’s been said,
Sense of racism we all suffer. We all are
of the same truth–no justice, no peace. There’s not
superiority in having different skin color. Putting
that into perspective…is there superiority in
the size shoe you wear? Since 1619 similar
people have tried to justify injustice. A mass
of privilege led to silence and denial. The effort
America has taken to hide in white fears, to
believe whites are more. We need to reeducate.
They need, we need to know 40 acres and a mule would themselves
have been a much more productive effort. Old ideas out,
so we can educate ourselves out of
little and fearful thinking. We can humbly bow to their
to-finally-have-justice lives of color. We can give up fearing, own,
learn, act to take out white supremacy, and bury our ignorance.