Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Story Challenge throughout the month of March
Vertigo runs on both sides of my family, particularly my father’s. They say it’s caused by crystals forming in the inner ear, and I’ve employed the Epley Maneuver with a mild degree of relief on a few occasions. I usually have a debilitating case of vertigo strike, on average, twice a year so bad that I don’t walk or drive. I never know exactly when it is coming, but I often feel it building and know immediately on waking that it’s here for the day, until I sleep it off through a full night. There is no silver lining in it, either. It’s not the type of sick day where reading a book by the fire or taking the dogs out for a quick walk or doing a load of laundry can happen. I can only close my eyes, rest my head, stay still in bed (with a small trashcan within reach) where I’m safe from falling. I thought I felt a vertigo visit building early last week (the left eye pressure happens), but it never manifested itself full force, thank goodness. My gratitude that it did not come calling inspired today’s poem – a sonnet.
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for inspiring writers to write each day!
Several years ago, I led a poetry workshop for teachers in my district using Mary Oliver’s Dogsongs as our text, inviting participants to write mirror poems inspired by the late great poet. One of my favorite poems in this collection is For I Will Consider My Dog Percy, which she wrote about her own dog following the form of Christopher Smart in the 1700s in his poem Jubilate Agno, or For I will Consider My Cat Jeoffry.
L-R: Fitz, Ollie, and Boo Radley in February 2024
Over the years, we have adopted several rescues, and they appear frequently in my writing. They’re all named after favorite Literary figures. We have Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, because he was abandoned and found behind a door, an outcast of his original people. His rescue organization named him Einstein for his matted and untamed hair when he was found. I wrote a For I Will Consider poem about my Schnoodle, Boo Radley.
We also adopted a badly-abused (mostly Schnauzer, but some poodle) Schnoodle named Henry at the time, who had road rash and a broken leg that required surgery to save and eight weeks of intense physical therapy with his foster mom. We followed his journey back to health online, and prayed they would place him with us. When the news came, we eagerly met the foster mom and welcomed Henry into the fold, renaming him Fitz for F. Scott Fitzgerald, the party animal author. Turns out, he’d been correctly named as transcendental Henry David Thoreau, because he doesn’t party. Here is a poem I wrote about my Schnoodle, Fitz.
Which brings me to King. He was a young stray found on the streets of north Georgia, and he was supposed to be our girl. I’d put in a request with the rescue about a year prior to welcoming King, but the rescue called one day to let me know that they had a Schnoodle who met all the matching criteria as a good adoptee for us….except gender. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to meet this boy who needed a home but who had been turned down by two other families. It only took seconds. King was renamed Ollie for my favorite poet, Mary Oliver, and rode home with us that very day we’d hopped in the car for the 3 hour drive to meet him.
I’ve never written a For I Will Consider poem about Ollie, so today is the day especially set aside for my trophy dog we call the baby..
For I Will Consider My Schnoodle Ollie
For I will consider my schnoodle Ollie.
For he was a young stray running the streets, a real canine gangsta.
For he was named King like royalty, taken to a foster castle.
For he was rescued, brought to our Funny Farm with his one true love: a ball.
For he was renamed Ollie after Mary, who loved dogs through and through.
For he needs no bells and whistles when simple will do.
For he realized all too soon he had brothers vying for position.
For he rejected all possibility of being low dog.
For he rose like a king to the throne.
For we call him the baby.
For he eats sheets.
For he listens for empty K-cup boxes to hit the floor....(for he eats those too).
For he bites ankles and eats Ada Limon poetry books.
For he places one paw on the head of his brothers (sibling annoyance tactic? or knighting?).
For there is no such thing as a quick pee when there are things to see.
For he "kicks" the ball with his nose like a gauntlet at our feet. Throw, he commands.
For he catches popcorn mid-air.
For he fully belongs in our tribe.
For we whisper to him: you're the best dog we've got.
For he returns our love with royal full-face kisses.
We had a local poet come to our town square coffee shop to talk about his collection of poetry in his book Dust. Ethan Jacobs, a graduate of our high schools and Auburn University, shared his inspirations and writing processes, and he held an audience spellbound for a half hour with his poetry. What a gift! Ethan majored in Education but chose to follow his passion of woodworking as his career path. We are so proud of Ethan.
I’m especially proud of him because one year prior to his reading, I sat in this very room with him to record several YouTube shorts of him reading his poems when his book was still a dream coming together. It was a glorious moment to see him holding his published book in his hands as he shared with his audience of 16 people ranging in age from teenagers to attendees in their 80s. I’m sharing a couple of those clips at the end of today’s post (we made QR codes of the videos and placed them in small frames around our county so that people in restaurants or places of business could scan them and discover a poem; and a few were even hidden in plastic Easter eggs!).
We’ve decided on our town theme for National Poetry Month this year.
Awakenings.
It goes with our coffee shop, the hub of our sharing, and the rural spring buds and blooms and greening of the world waking from winter.
And, perhaps, it calls to the inner poet.
Ethan reads from his book Dust
We gave attendees a time to write at the end of the evening. Here is my elfchen:
Awakening
awakening sunshine streams coffee brews ~ I leap into life......caffeinated, ready
Logo of an actual writing game changer – squeeze it and watch the magic happen as habits take root!
Cheers for the journey through the Slice of Life Challenge throughout March! Here’s the link if you’d like to read the daily blog posts of writers in this challenge.
I celebrate 3 years of daily blogging today all because the Slice of Life Challenge pushed me along in my thinking that if I could write for a week, I could write for two weeks. If I could write for a month, I could write for two months (I joined #VerseLove on the heels of SOLC). If I could write for two months, I could write every day of my life, as I now do with The Stafford Challenge. And so it began….and continues. Thank you to the Two Writing Teachers for the inspiration to make writing a part of my life every single day and for giving writers voice and space. If I can do this, we can all do this. Writers are born from mindset.
This year’s National Poetry Month (April) poster will feature a line from Lucille Clifton’s poem Blessing the Boats (at St. Mary’s) from her book Quilting: Poems 1987-1990. Today, I’m writing a Golden Shovel poem using the striking line: and may you in your innocence sail through this to that. The striking line appears vertically as ending words on each line.
if only these walls hadn't crumbled and we hadn't pretended, we may have made her proud ~ but you in your striped robe of pious innocence paint fake facades, sail in synthetic superlatives through frilly frippery, oblivious to this truth: she would not have wanted you to carry on like that
I was there for a concert with my husband – to see Atlanta Rhythm Section at The Capitol Theatre in downtown Macon, Georgia, when I saw the landmark plaque on the historic bricks back in January. From Guale, the Marshes of Glynn to Lake Lanier and beyond, so much of Georgia History is steeped in the words of Sidney Lanier. I took a picture and turned to William Carlos Williams for the inspiration today in a borrowed line poem.
The world thinks they were abandoned by their guide boat in shark-infested waters, but the truth is that another boat came for the honeymooners, swept them away to a new better life
I went to lunch with some colleagues last week, and we ordered our food in the produce section of a local farm to table restaurant. Imagine our sheer delight when we encountered this cat napping in the sweet potato bin. This is no red potato, friends. Here is the couch potato of cats, right here in rural Georgia.
Actual sweet potato kitty napping in the produce bin
Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 5 of the February Open Write is Amber Harrison of Oklahoma, who inspires writers to write a borrowed form poem using a fill-in-the-blank approach. You can read her prompt and the poems of others here.
Amber writes:
Today, I invite you to fill in the blanks in these lines by Whitman, or create and refill blanks of a stanza by another poet of your choice (this could be a time when you fill in the blanks expressively or reflectively in zine form):
I celebrate ________,
And what I _____ you ______,
For every ____________________ me as good
___________________ you.
Original lines by Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
Boo Radley, Stolen Sock World Champion, taunting with those eyes
Stolen Socks
I celebrate stolen socks And what I tug, you wrangle For every muscle moved by me as good as hackles you.
Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the third day of February’s Open Write is Dr. Sarah Donovan, who inspires us to write poems that experiment with broken lines. You can read her prompt here, along with the poems of others.
I took the ghazal form today of 5 couplets with AA BA CA DA EA rhyme scheme and measured meter, reframed the whole form, relaxed the rules and broke the lines as I thought of my mother’s 81st birthday and the moments I’m so glad my camera captured before she left us in December 2015 with Parkinson’s disease. Above, she reads to her great grandson from The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss.
Shaping Future Tense
when nothing else made any sense
when family strangers made you tense
your lap unfolded picture books
that tore down every guarded fence
great grandson's heart and mind you shaped each page a moment so immense
your fingers curled his eyes unfurled his focus on you so intense
when nothing else made any sense picture books wrote future tense
Common Threads 