Tag: books

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Watercolor Haiku: Bird of Paradise

When I first bought my watercolor book of step-by-step directions on a side-by-side guide, I thumbed through the pages and wondered why they had chosen such obscure flowers. There wasn’t a rose or a daisy anywhere, yet there was a cactus and sea holly. And this bird of paradise.

And then, as I started working through the book, I realized that each painting teaches a different technique. The cactus and sea holly teach tiny little lines that look like thistle needles. The cactus pot teaches shadows in gradient colors. This bird of paradise, while I don’t love it, teaches the effects of wet-on-wet painting and how colors blend when water is used to move the paint around in an area.

I think the teacher in me needed the instructional framework spelled out, starting with the learning target, including an objective, and success criteria in little boxes to check if I accomplished it all. This is one of those examples that shows that process is more important than product – because the blending of color here in a first attempt carries into other flowers that have blending involved.

I don’t like this painting at all. But I appreciate it, because it gave me practice to be able to blend color in a hydrangea that I do like. And this is how watercolor painting is teaching me that life is like that, too. We learn skills in small attempts that transfer into other areas. Take the Karate Kid, for example. He learned Wax On/Wax Off and Sand the Floor and thought he was being used as a free worker. All along, he was preparing for that fight at the end of the movie that helped him put that blond-headed bully in an agonizing face plant down on the mat.

Looking back at the new learning gives me the reassurance that old dogs CAN learn new tricks. And even better: they can teach themselves if they can read and follow directions.

Bird of Paradise

flying just above my reach

soaring into sky

in a simple vase ~

an understated glass jar

in an upstairs loft

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Watercolor Welcome: Lemon

Confession time. I was trying my best to wait to read the book I chose to read for Sally Donnelly’s Summer Reading Club, 44 Poems on Being With Each Other by Padraig O’Tuama, but I have not been successful at all. A new book of poetry, for me, is a lot like that bag of M&Ms I try to hide from myself but that won’t quit calling my name until I give in and devour the whole thing. Forbidden M&Ms are like words of poetry – – I can’t quit until the last word in the bag is gone.

And so I have read, savored, pondered, written, and I haven’t gained all the pounds of the chocolate, but I’ve consumed all the delicious indulgence of the page. There’s no sense in feeling the guilt of reading the whole thing early ~ I read it and my clothes still fit, so I’ll celebrate the power of poetry to bring joy and inspire new writing.

I’ve been watercolor painting on weekends, and I decided to take Wendy Cope’s classic poem The Orange on page 224 in the book and allow it to inspire a poem and painting of a lemon, using Cope’s same iambic beat and stanza form. Already, I’m wondering what each poem in this book can inspire in art forms: photography, collage, jewelry design, mosaic, and a million other creative possibilities. I am re-reading already. A huge thanks to Sally Donnelly for inviting us to be part of a kindred gathering of readers.

The Lemon

while camping, I painted a lemon

its colors all citrus-y yellow

curious campers came calling

waving and smiling warm hellos

and that lemon, it brought conversations

of campfires and families and fun

once strangers, now neighbors chit-chatting

on sunshine-y site 301

the “ap-peel” was really surprising

my painting was not all that zesty

but colorful palettes paint friendships

I love my new lemon-y besties

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Sally Donnelly’s Book Club and Watercolor Haiku Weekends: Potted Cactus

I’m already dreaming of a summer of reading and all the books on my TBR list – – and I will begin with a collection of poetry. Sally Donnelly, a long-time writing buddy from Two Writing Teachers whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting on more than one occasion in person at the National Council of Teachers of English Convention, is hosting a Summer Reading Club. You can check out her invitation to participate and her directions to her Padlet here, introducing her selections Dictionary for a Better World by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, and 44 Poems on Being with Each Other, an anthology curated by Padraig O’Tuama. I have had the opportunity of deeply engaging in Dictionary for a Better World a few years ago, so on Wednesday of last week while I was in Atlanta on a personal day to see the musical Six, I treated myself to the guilty pleasure of leisurely browsing a bookstore, where I picked up a copy of 44 Poems on Being With Each Other.

Yesterday, Wildflower Watercolor Week started, and I’m taking a class online to learn more about watercolor techniques. After March bloggers at Slice of Life shared their love of Emily Lex watercolor books when Leigh Anne Eck asked what everyone would bring to a party where technology was not allowed, it brought back memories of strolling through Woodstock, Vermont and seeing one of those themed watercolor books after NCTE was held in Boston a couple of years ago. Slicers resurrected that memory with their love of watercolor books. I picked up an off-brand at Hobby Lobby and shared a couple of my paintings with Glenda Funk, who then found a watercolor class on Facebook and encouraged me to sign up. So I did, and I look forward to learning new techniques from a real person, not a step-by-step book. On weekends throughout March, (and today) as we travel here and there, I’ll be painting and sharing Haiku Watercolors – the semi-good, the bad, and the ugly.

Here’s one of my daughters’ favorites, along with a haiku that mentions one of my favorite poetry collections I’ve read lately: Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan.

Cactus Coddiwomple

I read about you ~

Instructions for Traveling

West ~ Take me with you!

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A May Cento: Lucille Clifton

After an unseasonably chilly weekend with some misty drizzle and some sunshine while we were out gallivanting in Indian Springs State Park in Flovilla, Georgia and having shrimp and gouda grits at Yahola Creek for the Kentucky Derby party, we are back to the weekday work routine of a mundane Monday. I can’t help considering the similarities of the Derby for a horse to the impending retirement of everyday people everywhere, looking forward to grazing in the green pasture without running the race in all the trained and prescribed ways of riders jockeying them into position, running the never-ending course to finish first in their own Golden Tempo.

I was thrilled to see history made Saturday with the first female trainer of a Kentucky Derby winner wearing the color of the day – the hope for the run for the roses of red – as she tearfully approached the ring and took her place in the annals of time, celebrating her moment as the hearts of all women everywhere cheered her from the stands and living rooms throughout this great country and all around the world. Ada Limon’s famous poem How to Triumph Like a Girl is not lost on a day like this, the poem itself inspired by the running of the horses when the poet lived in Kentucky.

Ears up, girls, ears up! – Ada Limon

And for today, here is another favorite female poet – Lucille Clifton – whose poetry I’ve used to create a cento like those I wrote in March, using a line from different poems to form an entirely new one.

Wild Country

live where you can

be the one that understands

it is home and you know it

but listen

it is wild country here

there will be no peace

listening for the bang of the end

Taken from poems in this order: eyes; defending my tongue; ways you are not like Oedipus; to my friend, Jerina; eve thinking; lucifer understanding at last; the beginning of the end of the world

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VerseLove Day 28: Instructions

Our host, Jessica, lives in Chicago, Illinois where she teaches English. She is currently a teacher-consultant with the Chicago Area Writing Project.

Jessica offers these words of inspiration: “This winter, I was fortunate to see the Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. ” She was inspired by the lyrics of Grapefruit, in which a poem takes the form of instructions. Today, she inspires us to write poems on how to do something. You can read her full prompt here.

Lately, I’ve returned to the interlibrary loan system I used when I was in college to get books I want to read in my rural county in middle Georgia. I log in to my account, search the shelves across all the state libraries, and place holds on the ones I want in hard copy with my Pines System Library card. One simple click brings them across the miles to me – for free – where I pick them up and return them right across the street when I’m finished. It’s a frugal way to read anytime, but especially with retirement and a more limited budget as the next chapter. Also, our library offers free state park and zoo passes and theater tickets. If I want to listen, I can log in to Libby and get audiobooks too. This is the way to live, laugh, and read.

Librarian scanning books while woman shows library card at checkout desk
A librarian helps a smiling patron check out books at the library counter.

How To Enter The Next Chapter

get a library

card ~ reserve your books online

check out locally

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VerseLove Day 23: First Words

Denise Krebs lives in Yucca Valley, California, near Joshua Tree National Park. She is busy learning to write habeas corpus petitions and briefs to help immigrant neighbors, campaigning for a new congress person, and stocking the shelves of the best Friends of the Library bookshop in her area. She blogs at Dare to Care. I am blessed to call Denise a personal friend, with whom I’ve presented at NCTE Conventions, written with for years at ethicalela.com, and write with each month as part of a small group of writers as part of The Stafford Challenge. I’m happy to introduce you to Denise today.

Denise inspires us to write borrowed line poems in a new way. She shares her process: Choose a poem and write the first word of each line in a column down the side of your page. You can use the whole poem or just a stanza. You can use one of Jackson’s or choose another poem or stanza from someone else you are reading. Write a free verse poem letting the other poet’s words carry you. You might find that being held to one simple constraint, like having the first word in each line determined, can release more freedom in your poetry.

I’ve been dabbling in watercolor techniques lately, getting ready to step out into retirement and paint landscapes of the places I visit. I was inspired by Denise’s poem today when I thought of dust settling – – as if it ever really settles – – but my mind went to watercolor and stardust, and I used Lauren Camp’s poem Tonight the Sky Breathes from her collection In Old Sky as my borrowed first words. Lauren was the astronomer poet in residence at The Grand Canyon and is also a former poet laureate of New Mexico. I attended a session where she spoke last month, and I fell in love with her style and her themes of darkness and grief over the loss of her father.

White winged horse flying in a vibrant starry galaxy with moon and constellations

Pegasus Wins the Derby

wet on dry, vivid
Thunder cracks seep in
and settle in bold strokes
like horse hoof dust

Let wet on wet be
what carries racecloud churnings
night a stardust palette
washing teardrop stains into constellations

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VerseLove Day 20: Voice and Perspective

Our host today, Corinne, lives in Detroit, Michigan where she teaches at Sampson Webber Leadership Academy in Detroit Public Schools Community District. She serves as a Transformative Engagement Lead at her site, presenting professional development for the staff. You can read her full prompt here.

Corinne inspires us to write two-voice poems, or poems in two perspectives. I have chosen a tricube for today’s two-voice poem, alternating voices in italics and unitalicized text.

Decisions

I doubt it…

I’m certain.

Let’s rethink.

I say yes.

I say wait.

Wait alone.


Cold feet stay.

Sure feet go.

Wait means no.

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4/19: The Kid Lit Progressive Poem

Come along and read our 2026 Progressive Poem, where a poet adds a line each day, it’s organized by Margaret Simon and originally started by Irene Latham.  Today is my day to add a line to the poem, and you can see below the map of the Land of Poetry. I’m continuing a tweet by Meek Dove today over in Thackeray’s Thicket. I learned, through a bit of research, that William Thackeray has a fitting middle name for a theme of The Land of Poetry.

One possibility for what The Land of Poetry might look like, line and map by Tabatha Yeatts

The Land of Poetry

On my first trip to the Land of Poetry,
I saw anthologies of every color, tall as buildings.
A world of words, wonder on wings, waiting just for me!
Birding for words shimmering, flecked in golden gilding.

Binoculars ready, I toured boulevards and side streets
exploring vibrant verses, verses so honest and tender,
feathery lyrics, bright flitting avian athletes
soaring ‘cross pages in rhythmic splendor.

In the Land of Poetry, I am the conductor,
seeking oodles of poems that tug at my heart,                                      
a musical medley of sound and structure,                             
an open mic in Frost Forest! Wonder who’ll take part?

There’s a pause in the program; no one takes the stage
the trees quiver, the audience looks up. Raven lands,                                
singing Earth’s message of the sage.  
“Poetry in motion will be forevermore, from forests to sands.”

“Scatter,” she croaked. “Beyond Wilde Pond, to each and every beach.”
Meek Dove mustered courage and sang, “Instill humanity with compassion and peace.

Let Thackeray’s middle name, from this thicket, hearts reach!”

A bird sitting on a moss-covered branch among flowers, singing 'Make Peace'
Meek Dove perched on a flowering branch singing ‘Make Peace’ from Thackeray Thicket in The Land of Poetry

And I’m handing the fabulous feather pen to Buffy Silverman to continue our journey through The Land of Poetry.  Take the wheel, Buffy!!

Below is a list of all the poets where the 2026 Progressive Poem has and will make stops:


April 1 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
April 2 Cathy Stenquist at A Little Bit of This and That
April 3 Patricia Franz at Reverie
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 6 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 7 Ruth Hersey at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town
April 8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
April 9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
April 10 Janet Clare Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
April 11 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 12 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 13 Linda Mitchell at Another Word Edgewise
April 14 Jone MacCulloch at
April 15 Joyce Uglow at Storied Ink
April 16 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
April 17 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 18 Michelle Kogan at More Art for All
April 19 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 20 Buffy Silverman
April 21 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem 
April 22 Karen Edmisten
April 23 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 24 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 25 Tanita Davis at Fiction, instead of Lies
April 26 Sharon Roy at Pedaling Poet
April 27 Tracey Kiff-Judson at Tangles and Tails
April 28 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
April 29
April 30

Also, hop over to http://www.ethicalela.com to day for the 19th day of VerseLove, where Stefani Boutelier is hosting us and inspiring us to up our game as she gamifies poems. I used a Wordle inspiration today:

God and Emily Having a Garden Chat

take a stand for hope
Hebrews Eleven, Verse One
the thing with feathers

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VerseLove Day 8: In Poetry We Say

Our host today for the 8th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is, Linda, who lives in Virginia, where she teaches from a middle school library. Linda inspires us to write prose sentences in the form of poetry the way we would say it in verse. You can read her full prompt here. She gives us this example: “In English, we might say, ‘I feel lost in the chaos of life,” but in poetry we say, ‘The heart wanders through the storm, seeking sunlight in shadows.'”

She shares a process we can use: Take a sentence from English. Translate it via the phrase, in poetry we say…

My chosen phrase is Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

swells of earth in hillock

and knoll

hummocks and mounds

hills of ant and of mole

can ne’er be vast as the sky

nor the sea

to hold all the love

I feel for thee

nay, it shan’t hold me back
but shall let me pass
into thine own dear presence
where we shall be one ~ you and me

at long last

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VerseLove Day 6: Forgiveness Poems

Wendy Everard of New York is our host today for the sixth day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, encouraging us to write forgiveness poems. You can visit the website for her original prompt, which I’m sharing in part here as she quotes Joseph Bruchac from his book A Year of Moons: “It’s January here in our Adirondack foothills.  The time of Alamikos, the Abenaki term for the first moon of the new year.  In English, it’s the New Year’s Greeting Moon.  It’s the time when people would go from one wigwam to another – nowadays one house to another – and speak the New Year’s greeting,
Anhaldam mawi kassipalilawalan. Its meaning, translated into English, is, ‘Forgive me for any wrong I may have done you,’ a recognition of the fact that there is always more than one way to look at any situation, any human interaction, because it would be said not just to people you know you’ve wronged, but to everyone.  Everyone.”

She goes on to describe the process we can take writing our poems:

“Your poem can take any form you wish.  Bruchac urges us to ‘think of the times when your own feelings were injured by a word or deed from someone who was totally oblivious to the fact that they’d wounded you.  It happens more often than we think.  We’re in a hurry and we brush someone off.  We make a remark offhandedly or say something that we may think is humorous but in fact cuts another person to the quick.’  Or think of a time that this happened to you.  Or just write a general poem of forgiveness – giving it, asking for it, or struggling with it.  Reflect, and write a poem that captures the spirit of “anhaldam mawi kassipalilawalan.”

I’m not gonna lie. I’ve forgiven some doozies, and I’ve been forgiven for some doozies, others of which I may never be forgiven for, but I’m struggling with one that needs a lot of head space and heart space. I’m still chiseling away at it, ten months later. And poetry helps me see that I’m not alone in my struggle.

Black hearse towing an orange U-Haul trailer on a roadside with autumn foliage.
A hearse pulls a U-Haul trailer.

Jesus, Take the Reese’s Rabbits

His first Easter in Heaven yesterday

and here I am

his child,

His child,

recipient of God’s

ultimate sacrificial forgiveness

~ in the forgivingest season of all ~

and yet I struggle

after all the trying

to make things right

clear his hoarding

clean his messes

he curmudgeonly says NO on repeat

I hum Jesus, Take the Wheel on repeat

I cuss on repeat too

even in the midst of prayers

….and then he up and dies

with all this unfinished business

no U-Haul behind the hearse

like a final take that!

and I hope to good gracious

he gets none of the feast

of the blessed Easter lamb

or the chocolate bunnies or

especially any of those Reese’s cup rabbits

until we get the rest of his stuff

cleaned up and that may

take a few more Easters

but if he’d just listened

to his children

we wouldn’t be praying he’s

in time out up there

having to watch all the angels

who weren’t so stubborn

eat of the lamb and the chocolate

licking their angel fingers

at him on his antique stool

in a corner of Heaven