Tag: Lucille Clifton

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February Open Write Day 2: Hope Lies Within

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Stacey L. Joy of Los Angeles, California is our host today for the second day of the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. She writes, “Back in April 2021 for Verselove, our Ethical ELA friend, Dr. Kim Johnson, prompted us to write a mirror poem by finding words from another poet to use in our original poems. I fell in love with You, too, Can Fly by Zetta Elliot. And I fell deeper in love with the Etheree as my form. It’s Black History Month, and my heart longs for hope during such difficult times. I know our ancestors left us with hope. It’s up to us to find it and spread it.”

You can read Stacey’s full prompt and the poems of others, along with the process for writing an etheree here.

I used two of my favorite black poets’ works today, and one favorite of Mexican-American descent, to blend an etheree in celebration of all strong women of this nation: Lucille Clifton (won’t you celebrate with me) and Maya Angelou (The Human Family), two strong women whose poetry modeled what our reigning US Poet Laureate Ada Limon meant when she wrote How To Triumph Like A Girl. And here we are, standing on this bridge together.

Lifting Our Shirts

take

my hand

celebrate

togetherness

strength in unity

we are more alike, my

friend(s), than we are unalike

the human family survives

on this bridge of lady heart triumph

just lift our shirts and see to believe it

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February Open Write: Love Poems Inspired by Black Poets

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Donnetta Norris of Texas is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com with a LOVEly invitation for this Saturday morning in February to kick off this month’s Open Write. You can read her full prompt and poem here. Her Paul Laurence Dunbar-inspired poem Invitation to Love in turn inspired me to mirror a poem by a favorite black poet. I love so many – Jericho Brown, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Clint Black, and many more – – but of course, Lucille Clifton captures my soul in every poem. I fell in love with blessing the boats (at St. Mary’s)when its final line was chosen for the National Poetry Month theme a couple of years ago. She inspired me to lower case my letters in an e.e. cummings style, and I have been doing that ever since in most poems I write. Here is Clifton’s mentor poem I took from The Poetry Foundation as my inspiration for the prayer poem I wrote today:

blessing the boats
                  (at St. Mary’s)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back  may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

Here is my prayer poem, filled with love:

blessing the children (and theirs)

may these prayers
offered each morning
whispered Heavenward
from the Rav4 road to work
(my prayer chamber)
multiply exponentially
with peace, health, safety,
sobriety, love, joy, provision, and
all good things
may these intercessions
meet you where you are and
keep you in God’s grace
may they stir in your heart
blessing you and yours
with a holy head kiss
divine in all love
lingering through the years
forever

Amen.

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Clifton’s Cliffhanger – The Stafford Challenge Day 50, SOLC Day 6

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for giving writers an encouraging and safe space.

I’m borrowing a line or two from Lucille Clifton today, from her book Quilting: Poems 1987-1990, to write a borrowed line poem. This line in italics is from her poem “eyes”:
I could say so much to you
if you could understand me

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Resyntaxed Semantics

I could say so much to you
if you could understand me 

but the mixmaster
spun the vinyl
resyntaxed
semantics

now
I'm the one 
who doesn't 
recognize
the tune

I once knew
the original
lyrics
of
y
o
u

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Golden Shovel Boat Blessing – The Stafford Challenge Day 45, SOLC 2024 Day 1

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.

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Striped

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