Category: Literature

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Georgia Poet Sidney Lanier – The Stafford Challenge Day 44 – LEAP Day!

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.

Saluting Sidney Lanier

so much in Georgia depends
upon

a Macon-born poet illuminating
waterways

glazed with flute music
lyrics

from the bricks of downtown

birth-town

to the marshes of

Glynn

to Lake

Lanier

and

beyond

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The Quarreling Songbirds – Stafford Challenge Day 40

Today’s poem is a Haiku, inspired by the footage on my Netvue bird camera. We always seems to find such joy in watching birds, but the truth is that they argue and antagonize each other as much as people. Perhaps we laugh because they help us see the humor in human nature and how ridiculous we look.

The Quarreling Songbirds

quarreling sparrows
bicker, spar over birdseed
like squabbling siblings
Chipping Sparrows spar for the Johnson Funny Farm Birdcam
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Day 5 of February’s Open Write with Amber Harrison of Oklahoma, Day 36 of The Stafford Challenge

Ollie, tugging a stolen sock

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.
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Da Pup Een Da Snow Storm (Day 2 of February’s Open Write, Day 33 of The Stafford Challenge)

Photo by Julius Weidenauer on Pexels.com

Today, our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 2 of February’s Open Write is Linda Mitchell of Virginia. She inspires us today to make a mash-up poem. You can read her prompt here, along with the poems of others. Here is the basic process she describes:

Read two works, perhaps poems you have loved for a long time. Find lines that speak to each other. Take a line from one poem and mash it up against one from the other. See how many lines complement each other as a new work. Write these lines, or copy and paste these lines, into a new work.

My all-time favorite poet is Mary Oliver, and my favorite poem is The Storm, from her collection Dog Songs. My father gave me a book of poetry entitled Poetry’s Plea for Animals by Frances E. Clarke, and in it there is a poem by T. A. Daly entitled Da Pup Een Da Snow, which may have actually inspired Mary Oliver’s poem The Storm. Oliver’s lines are in bold, and Daly’s are not.

Here is my Mash-Up:

                                                                          Da Pup Een Da Snow Storm

Eef you jus' coulda seen -

                                running here running there, excited

gona wild weeth delight

                                now through the white orchard my little dog

ees first play een da snow

                               with wild feet

all around' da whole place

                                hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins

an' fall down on hees face

teel hees cover' weeth white

                                until the white show is written upon
                        
                                in large, exuberant letters

w'en he see da flakes sail

how he chasa hees tail

                               the pleasures of the body in this world

deed you evra see joy

gona wild weeth delight
 
                               with wild feet

mak's heem crazy excite'

you would know w'at I mean

Eef you jus' coulda seen -
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Deer-ssert! – Day 1 of the February Open Write, Day 32 of The Stafford Challenge

Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, Margaret Gibson Simon of Louisiana is our host for Day 1 of the February Open Write. She challenges us to write an elfchen, a form she has written almost each day of 2024. You can read her prompt along with (is it elveschen or elfchens that is plural?) here.

She gives us the basic rules:

Elfchen Guidelines:
Line 1: One word
Line 2: Two words about what the word does.
Line 3: Location or place-based description in 3 words.
Line 4: Metaphor or deeper meaning in 4 words.
Line 5: A new word that somehow summarizes or transforms from the original word.

Here on the farm, we are getting ready for a prescribed burn to prevent wildfires and nourish the soil. After the firebreak was cut and the dogs discovered all the wildlife tracks in the soft red clay earth, I could hardly get them back into the house – – it was like a dessert buffet for them! These walks inspired today’s elfchen. 

Deer-ssert!

firebreak
illuminates tracks
schnoodle noses enflamed
decadence of wildlife sweets
deer-ssert
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Birdwatching Abecedarian – Stafford Challenge Day 28

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for giving writers space and voice

As the birds make their way back from their winter vacations, I find great peace in sitting on the front porch and counting the species using Merlin ID and recording my results in eBird. This information-gathering is not only fun, but it also helps scientists at the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology track birds across the world when birdwatchers report their sightings. On Saturday morning, the weather was significantly warmer and the skies were overcast. It was the perfect morning for counting 28 species that appeared on the farm in a 90-minute observation. I was inspired to report the species in an Abecedarian list poem today, where each line beings with an ordered letter of the alphabet. 

Tufted Titmouse 
Birdwatching Abecedarian

American Robin
Brown-Headed and White-Breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Chickadee
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Bluebird
Flittering American Goldfinch
Goose (Canadian)
House Finch
Invasive Brown-Headed Cowbird
Jay, Blue
Kinglet, Golden-Crowned and Ruby-Crowned
Loud-mouthed Carolina Wren
Mourning Dove
Northern Cardinal
Obnoxious American Crow
Phoebe, Eastern
Quarreling Pine Warbler
Red-Winged Blackbird
Sparrow, Savannah
Tufted Titmouse
Up-too-late Dark-Eyed Junco
Very Hungry Chipping Sparrow
Woodpecker, Red-Bellied
Xenial Gray Catbird
Yellow-Rumped Warbler, "Butterbutt"
Zippy White-Throated Sparrow
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Dangerous Readers – Stafford Challenge Day 24

Photo by Anna Tarazevich on Pexels.com

Today’s poem is a nonet, a nine-line poem in descending or ascending same-line-number-as-syllable order. This one is inspired by a fraud. 


#thesmartestoneintheroom

don't read enough to be dangerous
read enough to have influence ~
there is a marked difference
between coercion and
living example
that defines fraud
for all those
who read
deep
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Bad Boys – Stafford Challenge Day 23

Today’s poem is a nonet, a nine-line poem in ascending or descending order with syllable numbers representing each ordered line. My son’s recent hunting experience inspired this poem. 

Actual photo of the bad boys. #camouflagedgoodboys
Bad Boys 

two lifelong friends got warning tickets
from the game warden, duck hunting
without the proper life vests
then....held up their tickets
smiled while their buddy
snapped a photo
to send their 
moms. THEY
BAD!