Dave Wooley is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 13 of #VerseLove. He inspires us to find poems on the pages of books or sheets of music or newspapers – anywhere there are words. Blackout poems are positively addictive. I could sit all day finding blackout poems and wish I could. I ripped a few pages out of a Steven King destined for a Little Free Library and found this from the pages of Blaze: a single soup-spoon ain’t what I call a thing for grim peculiar amusement
Try a Blackout poem and share yours in the comments! Warning: you can’t stop after one.
Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, Emily Yamasaki is our host for Day 8 of #VerseLove. She invites us to write Something You Should Know poems in the style of the great Clint Smith. You can read her full prompt and poem here.
Note to readers: try this one! I just rambled. Sometimes I use a Sarah Donovan strategy I learned several years ago: just write for 10 or 15 minutes and see what you get. Don't worry about editing or word choice or anything - just draft. That’s what I did today. Please come write with us!
Something You Should Know
is that I only moved my lips when Mrs. Flexer
played Living For Jesus all those Sundays
in the big group before small group
because I can’t sing except with
my heart
and that I just acquired the old oak secretariat that
has been in my parents’ home since I was
a baby in Kentucky along with the old red
milk can for my porch, but back to the
secretariat: I love that it shares
the name with the greatest horse
who had to win in Kentucky first
to win the Triple Crown
and that as a child I was mesmerized by Harold Monro’s
poem Overheard on a Salt Marsh
from Childcraft Volume 1 Poems and Rhymes
with the nymph in the green dress
and it’s framed by my bed today because
I’m still mesmerized by it
and that I savor Saturdays with morning coffee
and good conversation
and that I love plants but can’t grow them
because they all die except Leafy Jean and
Leon Russell, who are thriving on the front porch
and that I have four bluebird eggs in one birdhouse
and baby Carolina Wrens in my garage
up over the garage door apparatus
and Brown-Headed Nuthatch hatchlings in another birdhouse
and fledgling cardinals in my Yellow Jasmine vines
and a nest under the porch eave
and I saw an eagle a week ago
and that all three of my Schnoodles have literary names
Boo Radley for obvious reasons
Fitz because of, you know, the party animal F. Scott
and Ollie for my favorite poet Mary Oliver
and that I blog daily and call all my writing group
people my friends
including you.
Ollie, all tucked in while campingFitz, a true party animalBoo Radley, who recently lost his beard for running through the pasture and getting matted with field spurs
He explains: “Every April, during a six-week unit on poetry in Kentucky, I’d assign students to think of a person, place, or thing worthy of a poem, and write it as if you are gifting random thoughts/ideas/verse or insight for another. We began calling these ‘poetic drive-bys’. Students loved this, often chalking poems on a neighbor’s driveway or creating one to hand to strangers at the mall (a few even ‘tagged’ abandoned buildings with their writing and one young man drove around handing what he wrote to fast food employees working in drive-thru windows). Write a poem for the boy who bags your groceries, or the sidewalk where you walk, or for the stranger you see in the park.. The goal is to craft a poem that you can leave for another to find (maybe a specific someone or maybe not — make it a poem to be discovered or gifted.”
In my county in middle Georgia. I’m leaving QR Codes with poetry videos throughout the square. Below is an example of one. I’m reading here with Ethan Jacobs, whose book Dust will be available on Amazon this spring. This is for YOU, dear reader:
With special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life Story Challenge for writers!
Earlier in the month, I mentioned that I would be planning a celebration of National Poetry Month throughout my community. As the District Literacy Specialist in my school system, I am able to tap into Literacy grant funds through my state to be able to bring interactive Literacy events to our county. Denise Krebs asked, “Will you blog it?” I assured her that I would. And I thank her for the inspiration for this post!
We kick off on April 1 with our big celebration. I sought a poet to write a poem on the theme of Bloom! Clayton Moon was my choice, because he has a true gift of writing about place. The rural countryside of Pike County, Georgia is his jam. He calls himself a dirt road mystic.
And he is. Not only did he write our featured poem, The Kiss of a Flutter’s Eye, he also added to the collection and published a book of poems about our county and its rural setting.
We sectioned his poem onto twelve pages, and I asked a recent Pike County graduate who was on Spring Break from ABAC College to illustrate the poem. She drew amazing blooms to match the words in the poem. I purchased 12 poster stands and asked 12 businesses on our courthouse square if they would allow us to place a stand with a stanza outside their door. They agreed, and merchants will add flowers at the base of the stands (Bloom!). On Friday (today as you read this), we will take these to the square and put them out for folks to come and take a progressive poetry walk, beginning at our Chamber of Commerce on the west side of the square and ending at Prosperity Real Estate on the south side of the square.
Progressive Poetry Walk Stands
On each stanza, there is a QR Code to give L4GA credit for funding the project and to let readers know which numbered stanza it is, in case they begin reading in the middle (they’ll know to go back to the Chamber to start with Stanza 1).
One of our libraries will host a paint chip poetry writing workshop. Come join me as we write!
We are also having pop-up poetry writing opportunities in several businesses, along with writing workshops. I’ll lead those in our libraries, but I prepared magnetic boards and baskets with instructional videos to help folks understand what to do in each station if they want to write poems before or after the workshops. They can scan the QR Code to watch a short How To video. I also created a Community Padlet for each poet to upload their poetry if they’d like.
Our local bookstore is hosting a Cento writing board, where shoppers can read the directions or scan a QR Code to watch an instructional video before writing their poem and sharing it on a community Padlet.
I’ve framed QR Codes with poets reading their poetry so folks can scan them and listen!
I’m also featuring poets reading their poetry in random QR Codes scattered around the square. I’ve hidden them in Easter Eggs, framed them and placed them on shelves in businesses, and even put them on bookmarks and doorknob hanger signs. If you’re interested in sharing a YouTube video of yourself reading a poem that you have written, please let me know in the comments and I’ll share where to send the YouTube link so that you can come virtually to Pike County and read your poetry! When someone scans your QR Code, there you’ll be – reading to us right here. Click here to hear me read Paint Chips, or click here to hear Clayton Moon read The Kiss of a Flutter’s Eye.
One of our local libraries is hosting a Jenga Block poetry basket, a Haikubes basket, a Found and Blackout Poetry basket, and a Paint Chip Poetry board.
We’re looking forward to an amazing celebration of National Poetry Month, and if you’re in the neighborhood, be sure to check out the progressive poetry walk and holler out for me to meet you at the 1828 Coffee Company on the Zebulon square, where we can sip a lavender latte – or my other favorite, a medicine ball tea. We’ll be having an Open Mic Night with Ethan Jacobs and other local poets on April 19th, and Clayton Moon will be signing his book on the sidewalk outside the bookstore earlier that week.
Come join us! And if you can’t make it to Georgia, come join us at #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, starting April 1. We’ll be writing poetry every day. Glenda Funk will kick off the party on April 1, and I’ll take the reins on April 2 before passing them on to another host on the 3rd. Several of us in the Slice of Life group will be hosting on a day in April – Denise Krebs, Margaret Simon, Barb Edler, and others. Don’t forget Leigh Anne Eck’s new blog group, too, that begins April 1 and focuses on topics of nature.
Thanks for a great month of writing, friends! Now we can all celebrate by wearing our Slice of Life t-shirts. I got the baseball shirt with the black sleeves, because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my first post this month, being a lost slicer wandering the streets of Anaheim looking for a meet-up. I’ll be wearing my t-shirt at NCTE this year, so if I look lost, please come help me find my way!
Common Threads 