Poetry Friday – Springtime Update

It has been too long since I’ve taken time to read and write on a Poetry Friday. Thank you to Buffy Silverman for hosting today. Do read her post to learn about the sly lady slipper wildflower. 

Today I came to leave a little springtime joy (as summer bears down, making a growling entrance here in the California desert).

In April, Linda Mitchell shared this poetry prompt at Ethical ELA. It is a poem where you use one or more parts of the scientific method to inspire poetry.  On April 25th, I wrote this because, after a sweltering day, we had gotten a dusting of snow overnight.

When
the weather
gods bewitch you
with heat and humidity
one day and freezing the next,
how do you always come up on top?
Or will you?
We’ll have to wait and see.

We spent five weeks of our spring in Orange City, Iowa. When we arrived, just about everything was brown, dead, cold and in winter despair. A month later, the Midwest was alive in springtime.

Update on the tulip poem: Orange City has a tulip festival every  third weekend in May. The question I asked in the poem was a common theme of conversation around town all month. Will the tulips be up? Or will they be gone already, forcing the dreaded stem festival?

As usual, the tulips knew best, so the Orange City Tulip Festival was a big success. These pictures were taken on a beautiful day just before the festival (and the crowds). It was hard to believe this was the same brown town we drove into less than a month ago.

These were taken after the Tulip Festival. The tulips were still hanging in there.

We froze this day of the Tulip Festival in the 50s!

 

 

#Verselove, Week 4

Congratulations, Verselovers with Dr. Sarah Donovan (my poem)

Pencil and paper
Dig out the broken rubble
Sing: I am Poet
I empty to become full
Poems pour onto paper

What a Poem Can Do with Glenda Funk (my poem)

A poem doesn’t know my name. 
It was composed time ago
and away from here
But that poem
whispers from the ages
From the pages
And finds its way
Swirling
Dreaming
Loving
Changing
Into my life
Today.

By My Self-Love with Jessica Wiley 

Me By Myself
After Eloise Greenfield and Katalyn

When I’m by myself
And I close my eyes
I’m content
I’m unbent
I want more
I’m a bore
I’m full of ambition
but short an ignition
I’m focused, but hazy
I’m the wind, I’m a daisy
I’m whatever I want to be
An anything I care to be
And when I open my eyes
What I care to be
Is me

Re-Encounters with Shaun Ingalls (my poem)

That year
I spent hanging out
with boys every recess,
I was one of two girls
“allowed” to play baseball
in the sixth grade lunch recess league.
Every day I wore
the same rag tag jeans
with patches on the knees.

When I went to our larger junior high school,
I decided to embrace my femininity.
I thought I had made
changes in my appearance,
that summer I started
growing my hair out. I
bought new girl clothes
and wore some that first day
of seventh grade.
But as Mrs. Sykes
called out my name
during roll call,
I came forward
to get whatever
she was passing out.
She said,
“No, this is a girl.”
Or something similar.
I said, “That’s me.”
Or something similar.

In a better world,
she would have known
my pronouns.

Found Poems with Amy Vetter

Found from “Bushwick Library,” in When We Made It, novel in verse, by Elisabet Velasquez.

Somebody Else in a Book

every Saturday
leaves us at the library
no time limit
A vacation from us
for one day
She doesn’t have to be
someone’s mother
miracle

I love her for this
for one day
inside a book
we get to be
somebody else too

Scientific Method with Linda Mitchell (my poem)

When
the weather
gods bewitch you
with heat and humidity
one day and freezing the next,
how do you always come up on top?

Or will you?

We’ll have to wait and see.

Found Annotations with Jessica Shernburn (my poem)

This is a found poem based on notes taken during Brian Keepers’ sermon at Trinity Reformed Church in Orange City, Iowa, on April 24, 2022. Dr. Derwin Gray is quoted within, as well. 

Racism and bigotry
Are they far from here?
No, they are here

Race is a construct
based on power
Forgive us our silence

God’s new creation
multiethnic
international
we are not color blind
we are color blessed
beautiful kaleidoscope
of humanity

God chose to create a
revolutionary gospel
of reconciliation

The love of Christ
compels us to act
mending
healing
restoring Shalom
(Can’t have peace without justice, for
peace and justice are married.)

Love makes us courageous
We must become extremists of love

Racism isn’t far away from here,
But the living Jesus is not far
away either.

It won’t be easy
we have to do this
I know of no other Gospel

Rolling the Dice with Stefani Boutelier (my poem)

The past is a glorified gauntlet,
Where one side of the challenge
is a ready stream of if-onlys and wishes
beyond the hope of tomorrow
But on the other side is
a source of joy and pride in
a life well-lived, strength
sustaining me into the future
Which is to say, it is punishment
only if I walk the gauntlet
letting that side beat me up
with its
glorified
regrets

Susan B. Anthony

Based on the following line that Linda Mitchell shared on her clunker list, I was inspired to do some new research on this suffragist and the tradition of adding “I Voted” stickers to her grave marker.

  • Susan B. Anthony’s gravestone is covered with “I voted” stickers

I also watched a helpful biography about this important figure.

Finally, I wrote this poem with Linda’s clunker idea. It is a septercet sandwich poem, haiku-septercet-haiku.

“I voted” stickers
bejewel the headstone of
the pioneer who
died before living her own
Amendment–the Susan B.
Anthony Amendment, where
voters thank her by
taking this nation further
to justice for all.

Poetry Friday: A Surfeit of Poems, Clunkers, and Manavelins

This week I wrote a lot of poems; I was not a student of meter. In fact, what’s meter? I was just cranking out poems. So, Linda, I’m sure I have lots of bad lines for the clunker exchange. Linda Mitchell is hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup today, and she has lots of “clunker” lines to exchange. Go on over and visit to join in the fun.

It was time for the June Open Write at Ethical ELA. That was fun! I have five days worth of poems from this lovely community of teacher-poets. Days One, Two, Three, Four and Five, if you are interested. Next Open Write will be July 17-21. You are welcome to join us.

There was also Margaret’s “This Photo Wants to Be a Poem,” where I pulled a couple of clunkers for Linda.

I was on the committee to create a keepsake book for our principal and his family who are leaving next week to go back to the United States. I wrote one for each of the family members. These are the pages from the book that I wrote, after I removed the photographs of family, students, and staff, for the sake of privacy.

Perhaps all my reckless poetry writing this week is getting me ready for The Poetry Marathon coming up on Saturday. Are you participating? Here is a link to my page on the Poetry Marathon site and a link to my follow-up blog post.

I did spend some time thinking about Poetry Friday before I got so busy this week. I wrote a definito poem created by Heidi Mordhorst. In Heidi’s words, a definito is a free verse poem of 8-12 lines (aimed at readers 8-12 years old) that highlights wordplay as it demonstrates the meaning of a less common word, which always ends the poem. Quite a fun way to learn and write about new vocabulary words. You can read lots of great examples here on her definito post.

This isn’t the first definito I’ve written. I tried a definito a few weeks ago at Margaret Simon’s blog when her post was about Rigmarole. Remember? In the comments, she asked us to try one with the word poignant. I tried, but I wasn’t happy with it and as soon as I submitted, I knew I hadn’t defined poignant. I’m trying again today on a brand-new-to-me word: Manavelins, which was one of Dictionary.com’s words of the day last week.

Merriam-Webster defines “manavelins– odds and ends of food LEFTOVERS

Manavelins

When your family’s had a busy week
and dinner plans look bleak, just bits and
smidges of food left in dishes in the fridge–
tofu tetrazzini, a few pieces of beet,
a tub of butter, stale bread of sprouted wheat
a bowl of Gramma’s pasta, some sticky, gooey treats,
a few peaches and some plums, so cold and sweet,
four hard boiled eggs, and just a shred of meat…
then dinner becomes a rehash of this mishmash.
All those leftovers for dinner are manavelins.

And finally, here is one more poem I wrote to read at a 5C class poetry slam, the only grade 5 class I continued to co-teach throughout the school year. I taped it up near my camera, and everyone thought I had memorized it. I’m developing some bad habits with Zoom! (Or at least habits I’ll miss after this Zoom chapter.)

5 C Poetry Slam Poem by Mrs. Denise

 

Have you ever used the word manavelins?
Do you think I captured it in my definito of manavelins?

Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise is the host of Poetry Friday today.

 

#OpenWrite for June 2020

June 20, 2020 – List Poem and Lift a Word prompt

Doctor Solomon
Servant of God and humanity
Older with underlying conditions
Did not stop his work
Urgent care physician
Contracted Covid-19
We prayed

  • for a miracle
  • for healing
  • that you would go home to your wife, to your grandchildren
  • for you to laugh and listen as always
  • for us to hear your wisdom again
  • for you to pray for us again

Again and again
But today you died
Rest in peace, dear Dr. Solomon,
Today you are with Jesus in Paradise.

My sweet teacher-mentor-fellow-poem-writing sisters left some healing comments and gratitude for Dr. Solomon. See them here.

June 21, 2020 – Father’s Day Small Fiction
I wrote this poem with another prompt for The Isolation Journals. See A Gift From My Father.

June 22, 2020 – Memory Poem

Playing House
Think playing house–
but maybe not that kind–
come with me to the
eucalyptus grove
at Grove Avenue Elementary School
a hundred trees planted so close
they barely have elbow room
aromatherapy for us
minty, herbal with a touch
of honey and lemon
no sun rays make it to the floor
so nothing grows
tamped-down, hardened clay
becomes our earthen tile
pencil-like leaves fall and gather
the floors swept with our hands
construction materials
readied for the building
we mound the leafy walls
zig-zagging willy-nilly
throughout the grove
the bell rings for us to go back to class
play as long as possible
before running to avoid being late
immediately start watching the clock
when is our next recess?
finally…run to the grove
choose our favorite spot and build again–
living room, den, bathrooms and
bedrooms, lavish and profuse
this forest is our mansion
gladness gleaned from the grove

June 23, 2020 – Marcher or Leaper?

Leaping Into the Story
The story is with us, with us for a lifetime.
The story is within us, much beyond
Our lifetimes. Story passed on to our heirs. Little or
Much property doesn’t matter, but generation after generation
All become heirs of our beliefs–
Tenets of toxicity,
Positions of poison,
Cesspools of say-sos.
Four hundreds years of unjust stories.
Let justice roll down like water.
Righteousness like an endless stream.
The story of humanity makes
Us alive to Truth. Will we listen to the Truth?
Will we make amends? Hear the story.
Tell the story. Tell
The Truth.
Tell the stories for the just world we yearn for.
March for Truth. Truth that will set
Us free. Then maybe we can
Leap into a changed storyline.

June 24, 2020 – Writing with Melanie Crowder

Rose of Saffron
Out in the open
In the full sun
Lies the costliest of all
Spices

For thousands of years
It is true
The Crocus Satimus corm
Initiates the process
First lying dormant
Through the heat of summer
Does its wizardry underground

Then the autumn crocus
Burgeons and blossoms
Six purple petals
Cradle the crimson stigmas
And yellow styles

Gentle hands
Carefully pluck out the
Three red threads,
Dry and store safely–
150 flowers are needed to make
One gram of spice
(400 flowers to match the mass of a penny)
Use saffron for
Fancy fragrances
healing and health
Creating golden ambrosial delights
Beauty of the beloved