Today’s (optional) prompt. Begin by reading Sarah Gambito’s poem “Grace.” Now, choose an abstract noun from the list below, and then use that as the title for a poem that contains very short lines, and at least one invented word.
A new day, a new discovery—this seems to be the way that April goes for me.
The daily prompt for today was to write a poem of negation – yes (or maybe, no), the challenge was to write a poem that involves describing something in terms of what it is not, or not like. For example, if I chose a whale as the topic of your poem, I might have lines like “It does not settle down in trees at night, cooing/Nor will it fit in your hand.”
Well, I started the process describing climbing since Ev has recently taken to the sport of rock climbing. It started well and I wrote three nice quatrains that were ok but sort of sing songs and bland. The fourth quatrain turned the whole poem around and began a totally new stream of thought.
So, I abandoned the prompt (once again) and the poem took on a life of its own.
Mountain Climb
I have built a house on the middle of a mountain; it is here I discover my desire for dance.
I love the rhythm of jumping boulder to boulder; I become my own secret Argentine tango— forward, back, cross-step, turn.
Here I learn forward ascent is felt in the heart, not the feet; and here that I realize the summit was never the goal.
The thick branches, sap running dry, the unexpected violence of shifting stone— the flesh of the mountain as it mistakes me for an intruder
reminds me of the drapes of darkness. But the glow of Venus before dawn grants me a time to wonder, what is the light for if not to illuminate?
I have built a house in which I fear nothing and no one. It is here where before I begin to die, I learn to live.
Photo Credit: Marcus Ganahl who made this image available for free on Unsplash
The final prompt of NaPoWriMo was a challenge to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’ve never heard of one before, join the club. I hadn’t either.
Here is an example from John Ashbery: “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show where every line originated. A cento might seem like a complex undertaking – and one that requires you to have umpteen poetry books at your fingertips for reference – but according to the folks at NaPoWriMo, I didn’t have to write a long one.
In spite of “tips” to help me “jump-start the process”, this was a considerable bigger undertaking than I originally thought.
Because my friend lost her daughter (and my Lizi’s best friend) on this date, I often write a poem dedicated to her on the last day of NaPoWriMo. This poem is in memory of Jacy Lynn Dettloff and in honor of my friends, Susan, Steve, and Mick Dettloff who lost their beloved daughter and sister 21 years ago today.
This year (in August) Jacy would have been 30 years old. I know this because she and my son Aaron were born just a few days apart.
The grief tears at my heart as well.
Grief In Four Parts
1.
The River
Grief is a river you wade in until you get to the other side.
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla
then maybe—just maybe—the hours will carry you
into June, when the roses blow.
The air around you fills with butterflies.
I do not know how to hold all the beauty and sorrow of my life.
The morning air is all awash with angels,
and are we supposed to believe she can suddenly talk angel?
2.
The Desert
Little petal of my heart,
I didn’t know where I was going.
I was always leaving, I was
desolate and lone.
3.
The Night
If but I could have wrapped you in myself
I would I might forget that I am I--
a smile of joy, since I was born.
Things change on the morning of the birthday—
the hope is in wakening to this your last dream.
The shadows of you are around me;
the evening shadow has sunk
gleaming. So I can
come walking into this big silence.
4.
Hope
A daughter is not a passing cloud, but permanent;
she's light and also passage, the glory in my cortex.
Dare the deliberately happy to butterfly the gnarled roots of life—
Grief dies like joy; the tears upon my cheek—
“Hope” is the thing with feathers.
--A Cento poem by cjpjordan
Grief in Four Parts (Annotated)
Grief is a river you wade in until you get to the other side.
Barbara Crooker, “Grief”
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Grief”
When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla
Matthew Dickman, “Grief”
then maybe—just maybe—the hours will carry you
into June, when the roses blow.
Gottfried Benn, “Last Spring”
The air around you fills with butterflies--
Katherine Garrison Chapin, “Butterflies”
I do not know how to hold all the beauty and sorrow of my life.
Cynthia Zarin, “Flowers”
The morning air is all awash with angels
Richard Wilbur, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”
and are we supposed to believe she can suddenly talk angel?
Mary Sybist, “Girls Overheard While Assembling a Puzzle”
Little petal of my heart!
Hilda Conkllng, “A Little Girl's Songs”
I didn’t know where I was going
Robert Vandermolen, “Flowers”
I was always leaving, I was
Jean Nordhaus, “I Was Always Leaving”
Desolate and lone
Carl Sandburg, “Lost”
If but I could have wrapped you in myself
D.H. Lawrence, “Grief”
I would I might forget that I am I--
George Santayana, “I would I might Forget that I am I”
a smile of joy, since I was born.
Emily Bronte, “I Am the Only Being Whose Doom”
Things change on the morning of the birthday
The hope is in wakening to this your last dream
Theodore Holmes, “In Becoming of Age”
The shadows of you are around me
Kathryn Soniat, “Daughter”
the evening shadow has sunk
D.H. Lawrence, “Daughter Of the great Man”
gleaming. So I can
Jennifer Richter, “My Daughter Brings Home Bones”
come walking into this big silence
Josephine Miles, “Dream”
A daughter is not a passing cloud, but permanent;
James Lenfestey, “Daughter”
she's light and also passage, the glory in my cortex.
Carmen Gimenez Smith, “The Daughter”
Dare the deliberately happy to butterfly the gnarled roots of life—
Amy King, “Butterfly the Gnarled”
Grief dies like joy; the tears upon my cheek—
Henry Timrod, “Sonnet: Grief Dies”
“Hope” is the thing with feathers.
Emily Dickinson, ““Hope” is the thing with feathers”
A significant factor in the origin of bees and my relationship with them is the nonstop hum of fear immured within me by the bonnie buzzing of their wee wings. Mama always said Grandma made me afraid because she was afraid, and so I learned to be afraid. She and Daddy said I was overreacting, repeating what I saw. Just stop, they said, as if fear was a faucet I could control with strength of will. But when I found myself grown and at last alone with the bees, instead of running, all I could do was stop and wonder at the nonstop hum of life itself.
Thank you and shoutout to Richard Lee for making this beautiful photo available for free on Unsplash.
The prompt for today was in honor of today being the 22nd day of Na/GloPoWriMo 2022, and they challenged me to write a poem that used repetition. I was invited to repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things.
So, here you go fellow poetry loving friends. Not as repetitious as some poems I’ve written, but there is that element throughout.
Happy Weekend to you!
The Owl Sees
Where the mind ends, the owl sees— through Ominous golden eyes It breathes in stealth and exhales darkness gliding through blue-black skies. Underneath the fern unfurls, shivers in the windy wake.
Where the mind ends, the owl sees— with certainty of vision and a clarity of mind; she free falls into the darkness, her mournful cry resounding into the boundless cosmos.
Where the mind ends, the owl sees— the wilderness unconstrained, the weeping child whose wailing seeps into the warping twilight. Inside echos of sadness the owl and child grieve as one.
Thanks to Dylan LaPierre @drench777 for making this photo available freely on Unsplash
Today’s prompt was the challenge to write a poem that argues against, or somehow questions, a proverb or saying.
They say that “all cats are black at midnight,” but are they really? Surely some of them remain striped. And maybe there is an ill wind that blows some good. Perhaps that wind just has some mild dyspepsia.
I chose a phrase from Emily Dickinson who had become my muse for this poetry writing month. It’s rather a metaphor than a proverb but that’s close enough for me today. I’m feeling the joy of tweaking a piece I wrote some time ago when Ryan was still living directly underneath the Brown Line “L” Train in Chicago.
when death comes
emily says dying is a wild night and a new road. i say dying is sort of like walking too close to the rails when the chicago “l” whizzes by--whooosh! nowyouseeme. nowyoudon’t. dying tastes like a quiet color in explosive rainbow proportions. i hear the clacking coming, i feel the rush of wind, i touch the steamy air just before that silver bullet train whizzes toward me.
i wonder if the actual moment of death feels like being a rider on the train watching the people stare as i pass by them.
i wonder if death feels like new life.
i wonder if becalmanddie would make a good slogan on a billboard to advertise dying.
perhaps emily is right after all; perhaps there should be a billboard sign lit in blinking neon lights, guiding the way home on the new road, which just happens to pass a tad too close to the Chicago l tracks—
Thanks to Joshua Earle @joshuaearle for making this photo available freely on Unsplash
Today’s prompt was a bit complex. The challenge was to write a Spanish form called a “glosa” – literally a poem that glosses, or explains, or in some way responds to another poem.
The idea is to take a quatrain from a poem that you like, and then write a four-stanza poem that explains or responds to each line of the quatrain, with each of the quatrain’s four lines in turn forming the last line of each stanza. Traditionally, each stanza has ten lines, and here is a nice summary of the glosa form for anyone who is interested.
I chose a poem by Rumi found in a book of his quatrains (Rubaiyat) put together by John Moyne and Coleman Barks. I love reading Rumi anyway, so I was delighted to find this book in an online format, easily accessible to all.
This is the quatrain or rubyaiyat I chose:
“The morning wind spreads its fresh smell. We must get up and take that in, that wind that lets us live. Breathe, before it's gone.” —Unseen Rain: Quatrains of Rumi
And here is my response to Rumi with each line of the Rumi quatrain woven in to complete my verse of ten lines.
The Wind That Lets Us Live
I am so small a twinkle in the starry night, a single ray of light escaping from behind a cloud. I do not know the strength I own— Like the scent of salty air, I permeate the taste buds. I am alive, breathe in— The morning wind spreads its fresh smell.
I am fearless in my tiny state I know not when or where. I know not how or what’s to come, yet move ahead without an inkling of tomorrows’s fright. I am alive, breathe in— We must get up and take that in,
I must get up with brave resolve not filled with dread or doom. Tragedy might tear apart, yet I choose to stand— to look in the eyes of wailing winds whipping wildly lash and cheek. I am alive, breathe in— that wind that lets us live.
I sing of life; I dream of death. I fear not either one. I see eternity among the stars, still choose to shine my light. Not everyone can see the rays, I find contentment there— moving forward, arms outstretched; I am alive, breathe in— Breathe, before it's gone.
Musings on the International Day of Peace and the first weeks of school:
Here I am teaching in-person for the first time in a year and a half. It seems funny to even use the words “in-person”; I mean, how else do you teach?
But now many of us understand words Ike virtual learning, zoom calls, and home office from firsthand experience. This past year and half we learned the value of hunkering down and staying home to “be safe” and the sheer joy of being able to gather together with friends and family. We found peace and made peace and offered peace where none was given.
We saw conflict, felt tension, and recoiled from verbal combat every time we opened a social media app.
But just like teaching, living in peace with one another is less about relaying information or our point of view and more about building relationships. It’s less about building fences and more about building bridges.
So with these thoughts in mind, I taught the students the song “With Just One Small Voice” this week, and we talked about what it means to use your voice together with others to speak out for or against something. I asked the students what things they would speak out about if given the chance.
A fifth grader said he would speak out against homelessness, another said they would raise awareness about hunger, a third grader said she would want to use her voice to encourage others to clean up the environment, and a second grader raised her hand and shared her heart for the plight of Haitian immigrants so passionately and articulately, I thought I had been transported to middle school.
These are the future peacemakers and bridge builders of our world. These are the thinkers and change makers.
And I get to work with them every day.
I will bind myself willingly to this kind of work–to peacemaking and restoration and love because I believe this is what will ultimately change the world. Respect, cooperation, listening with empathy, being willing to change your mind: these are the heart of hope for our future.
And so with this fullness of hope in my heart, I pray that peace finds its way to you wherever you are and in whatever you do.
We are what the world is becoming, so with one small but collective voice let’s sing so our voice is heard.
Photo edited by Mariah Wilson; photo courtesy of Charles Deluvio/Unsplash
When I was growing up in the fundamentalist evangelical church, I was taught that I was too loud, too bossy, too brass and too crass. I was chubby and wore half sizes in children’s sizes which was the plus size version for kids. My best friend was skinny, flat chested, and sporty. I was chubby, developed breasts early, and quite clumsy.
I wasn’t allowed to date until I was 16 and then only Christian boys because the Bible said it was a sun to be “unequally yoked”. I couldn’t see PG rated movies, use playing cards, listen to rock music, or use “crass language” including “substitute” words like gosh, darn, golly, shoot, poop, or (Heavens to Betsy!) crap.
But it was the messages I heard about sex and my body that have been the toughest to overcome. Sex outside of marriage wasn’t even an option. Should I do such a thing, I would be forever ruined, someone else’s trash.
The list of rules for girls was quite long:
- Bodies should be covered up, even when swimming.
- Nakedness was something to cause shame.
- Virginity is what gave women value; it’s was her gift to her future husband.
- Sex is shameful, don’t do it… unless you’re married.
- Once married, women won’t want sex as often as men, but never refuse your husband.
- Always keep yourself looking good for your man.
- Put something pretty on just before your husband comes home.
- Women should submit to the authority of men for their own protection.
- Only men have strong sex drives.
- If women have sex before marriage they are damaged goods and no one will want them—they are like a crumpled rose.
Deconstruction is a process that I am still experiencing. It’s amazing how quickly the teaching and indoctrination of my youth comes back to bite my enlightened feminist modern soul. I find it difficult to separate the good from the bad of my upbringing. But I am determined to continue this work.
Purity Culture
Men are visual Or so I’ve been told So many times It is woven into my DNA.
Be careful Watch what you wear; Watch how you walk don’t be forward or loud or brassy.
No one likes A brassy woman Women are responsible For the lusting found In the hearts of men.
I tell myself I have grown out I have moved on From such foolish Patriarchal nonsense.
I tell myself I have deconstructed Whatever that means I have separated The truth from the lies.
Until something happens And all of it comes Rushing back— Guilt, Anger, And Burning Shame.
At the end Of deconstruction There remains a giant Pile of rubble, one Mess of mortified me.
But I own Every last piece Of senseless shame Every tiny bit Of damning guilt
I own my story I own my future I alone own The power to rebuild my life.
Poetry, Ponderings and Possibilities 