Tag: The Slice of Life Challenge

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Awakenings at 1828 Coffee Company – an Evening of Poetry Slice of Life Day 30, Stafford Challenge Day 74

SpSpecial thanks to Two Writing Teachers
 Spellbound by Poetry

we, in one accord
listened ~ hung on every word
our hungry hearts heard

Thursday night’s reading of Awakenings by Clayton Moon in our local coffee shop on the town square to kick off our town’s celebration of National Poetry Month was a heartwarming cross-section of intergenerational bridging that nothing but poetry can build. From teenagers to young adults to middle-agers to seniors, we were all listening in one accord as we hung on every word.

Before I welcomed Clayton to the microphone, I shared the impact of a writing community not only in the writing, but in the day to day living – the motivation to learn new things, to try new things, to notice new things. I shared with those who’d come that I would be sharing poems written by living poets from across the United States during the month of April. I began by sharing a definition poem illuminating our theme of awakenings, written by our friend Fran Haley of North Carolina. I shared each canvas, one at a time, describing how they would hang ladder-style in the window of the Chamber of Commerce with eye hooks and chain once the display was complete. #4 brought smiles, the kind I could tell were deep from within, the knowing satisfaction of a feeling.

Here are some photos of the kickoff event for our town’s poetry celebration.

Definition poem by Fran Haley
Clayton “Boxer” Moon reads from his book Awakenings

Clayton, who goes by Boxer for most of us who know him, shared his book, written from the awakening to the brewing of the coffee to the first cup, the second cup, the third cup, and the dregs. His featured poem, The Heart of Nahoo, offered a tribute to retired educator Dr. Dan Dunnahoo, who was our county’s long-time art teacher and who now is the president of the Pike County Arts Council and who restored the coffee shop and preserved its history right down to saving each nail and floorboard.

Boxer’s books and Sarah’s art – they collaborate on father/daughter books that he writes and she illustrates
Boxer reads to the crowd
Boxer (L), Dr. Dan Dunnahoo (C), and Sarah (R) stand with an excerpt of Boxer’s tribute poem for Dan.
Three people who didn’t know each other an hour ago write poetry together – this is why we need more of it!
This young lady wrote a Cento poem in a short time – she used the poetry kiosk sticks and wrote hers in colorful letters.
One of our town’s short story writers came out to support poetry writing and hear Clayton read.
Our town’s Magistrate Judge talks with Sarah and Melinda Moon, Clayton’s wife and daughter
Ethan Jacobs’ Cento Poem on a magnetic poetry kiosk

Ethan was our poet for our February event. He shared from is recently published book Dust. I also wanted to share a couple of photos from his event. We’re blessed to live in a town where authors, poets, and artists stand ready to share their talents with us!

Ethan Jacobs was our reader from February, and this is a photo from his Leap Day event.
Ethan Jacobs read from his book Dust on Leap Day in our coffee shop.

Come visit us in Georgia, have coffee, and read and write with us!

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Metaphor Dice are Mirrored Magic 8 Balls – The Stafford Challenge Day 72, Slice of Life Challenge Day 28

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers

If you’ve never rolled a set of Taylor Mali’s Metaphor Dice, take note: they’re one of the best ways to make poetry accessible for reluctant writers. The red dice are nouns (conceptual, most), white are adjectives, and blue are nouns that represent the direct comparison to the red dice. I rolled the dice:

Naysay Nonet 

the truth is a back-handed mirror
because once you say to someone
to prove your argument's point
that they should have called you
you can't turn around
and not have called
them when you 
should have
called

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Chasing Sunrise – Stafford Challenge Day 70, Slice of Life Challenge Day 26

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers

I was three minutes late to work one day last week because I was chasing the sunrise. If you’ve ever been on the backside of nowhere in the rural Georgia countryside between 7:45 and 8:00 just after the time springs forward, you’ve seen it: the most gorgeous glowing coral red sunrise ever, so rich and fiery it could be an over-easy orange yolk of a just-laid Buff Orpington egg, the kind still warm upon cracking into the pan, the kind that mesmerizes folks who’ve never seen a yolk so unhormonally free-ranging fresh, that didn’t come from a carton in a store.

Sometimes that egg yolk sun’ll be right in front of you, as it is when it’s waiting for me like a dog who wants to play chase, right at the end of my eastside driveway first thing in the morning on my way to work. Then, it’s like I’ve tossed it a stick. It takes off to the left when I turn south, then stays left when I head back east, only a little lefter than before. At the stop sign, it’s still left, just not as behindish, and then when I turn back to the south right before I turn back east again, I’m approaching what I know is THE MOST beautiful sunrise ribbon of roadway in the entire county and maybe all of Georgia, maybe even all of the southeastern United States or the world or the universe.

And sometimes I slow waaaaaaay down just to take it all in, if there’s nobody behind me.

Photo by Konevi on Pexels.com
How to Chase a Sunrise

I was late for work
watching the sun dance

she curtseys 
through the countryside
a morning meringue
of slide-stepping
just over the next hill, to
do-si-do the meadows

pirouetting periwinkle pasture
just around the next bend
then

stopping to spin
like a 
March Madness
basketball
on the courthouse
clock steeple 

reminding me I'm late

that's how
you chase a
glorious
countryside
sun
           e
       s
    i
r
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Alien Whatifs On Campsite 231 – The Slice of Life Challenge Day 25, The Stafford Challenge Day 69

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers

My friend Barb Edler and I both made spooky posts Saturday. Barb’s post was about the possibility of aliens returning after their suspected driveway visit when her oldest son was a baby. Mine was about loss of sleep because of messages in a sound machine (probably possessed by evil spirits, because its twin is working fine).

All of this gnawed on my brain last night when the whatifs* started spinning on the midnight merry-go-round of my mind…..what if a tree falls on the campsite and crushes us right here in the camper? What if somebody up the hill forgot to chock their tires and their camper slides down the hill in the middle of the night and lands on us? What if a rogue tornado pops up and slings us all the way to Alabama? What if aliens invade Pine Mountain?

Aliens.

And then that whatif gobbled and swallowed my whole frontal lobe with a poem. 

What Do I Do?

what do I do
if aliens
land here
and
the whole 
campground
nudges me
forward 
to greet
the spaceship,
elects
me their
spokesperson
like some
Hunger Games
tribute?

what do I do
when the ramp 
door lowers
to the ground
smoke spilling
out against
the backlit
silhouettes
of aliens
the 
expressionless
kind
with big heads
huge eyes
and knobby
knees?

what do I do
when they 
confront me
and stop
toe to toe
face to face
expecting a
word or a
welcome or a
warning?

what do I do
when I start
wondering
if this is
what the
Indian 
Removal
Act felt like
for those
pushed off
their own
planet? 

what do I do
when it looks
like they 
start 
speculating
about 
the speed
of all
our little 
earth-anchored
sewer-hosed
spaceships
with lights
over the
doors?

what do I do
when I feel
like the fly
before the
spider says
step into 
my parlor?

what do I do?

I do
what I do
best

I invite them 
into my teardrop
to read 
poetry
and sip
tea


*with a nod to Shel Silverstein for the whatifs in his ear

Images generated by Gemini

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Tight Lids – Slice of Life Challenge Day 24, The Stafford Challenge Day 68

Photo by Jill Burrow on Pexels.com
Our first camping weekend of 2024, and we arrived in heavy rain on our favorite campground within an hour from home.  It's pretty full - campers pepper the campground, and kids are out on brightly lit hoverboards, while others are riding bikes and playing frisbee.  Folks are walking their dogs (and vice-versa), and one site had its smokeless fire ring going this morning after the drizzle stopped and there was a damp chill for the reckoning.  

The dogs were nestled back in the crook of the teardrop on the bed, under blankets like little humans, their heads resting on the pillows in a deep schnoodle-snooze.  

I was making the coffee for breakfast when the sweetest moment happened - one I shall never forget, connected to another moment that I shall also never forget.

The first one happened in May 2013, when I got my fingers slammed in the trunk of the honeymoon getaway car at my son's wedding as the happy couple were leaving.  I assured everyone I was fine, fine, fine, but as we drove back to the hotel, I cried and carried on because I was afraid I would never be able to write again since I couldn't bend my fingers yet and they looked a lot like a package of Ballpark franks after being in a sandwich press.  It sent my husband into such a panic that this moment of fear became forever etched into his scrapbook of memories he'd rather forget.  But I was fine, am fine, nothing broken or chopped off. 

Which makes this morning's moment all the more special.  

I handed him
the water
bottle
as I 
made 
coffee

more and more
recently
I've handed 
him 
tight lids

I apologized ~
my hands
don't have
the
strength
they used
to have
I explained
again

it’s a scary 
feeling, this
change
of
neediness

He smiled
took the
bottle
uscrewed 
the lid
handed 
it back

his words
brought 
reassurance
of the
deepest
kind

.....but 
they 
can still
write


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March Open Write Day 5, Stafford Challenge Day 64, Slice of Life Challenge Day 20

Special Thanks to Two Writing Teachers
Photo by Daniel Reche on Pexels.com

Shelley of Oklahoma is our host today for the final day of the March Open Write, encouraging us to write poems to help us relax. You can read her full prompt here. I have one of those conferences today – the kind in a town with a gas station and a stop sign and maybe a hot dog in the gas station and nothing else, and I’m driving in with coworkers from an hour and seven minutes northeast, and I’m not overnighting so I have to leave early and get home late and I know the coffee’s gonna suck because it always does when they have those plastic canisters of powdered creamer and only pink-packet off-brand sweetener.

But I’m trying to relax.

Really.

Frumpy

Relax - no one cares
whether your pants match your shirt
or that they're wrinkled

Relax - no one cares
that the tops of your feet are
white as unbaked bread

Relax - no one sees
you picking at your fingers
of chipped nail polish

Relax - no one knows
your Odor Eaters are now
expired by three months

Relax - just because 
you forgot to tweeze your lip
doesn't mean don't go

After all: you're the 
driver....others are counting
on you to get there

Relax - your oil got
changed, your gas tank's full and your
car is vacuumed out

Relax - your riders 
might find your car is cleaner
than theirs (not driven)

Relax - wait, is that
.....is that a seam coming out?
It's right on the butt

Nope, don't relax.  Go
change pants. Nothing clean? That's what
long sweaters are for.

Heck, grab a blanket
and wrap up like a student
.....relax for a change!




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Luc-Bat Family Gatherings – Slice of Life Challenge Day 13, Stafford Challenge Day 57

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for inspiring writers.

As I move through the challenge of writing a poem a day for a year, I’m trying different forms and experimenting. Today, my poem for The Stafford Challenge is a luc-bat, a Vietnamese poetry form that alternates six and eight syllables with internal and end rhyme scheme. I refinished my late grandmother’s table recently, and I often think about all the family members who have ever sat at this table – and all the stories told here. I wonder, sometimes, whether family members in Heaven get passes to visit and check on the living. And whether there is a kitchen full of spirits listening in, checking on us to see what we’re doing.

I hope so! 

Family Gatherings

table transformation
for our congregation of folks
family pride evokes
stories build laughs and jokes from past
so those long gone will last through time
ancestors living ~prime of life
conjured husband and wife ~spirits
pasts with presents - - its future
gatherings to endure ages

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Daffodil Swing Choir – The Stafford Challenge Day 54, Slice of Life Challenge Day 10

Many thanks to Two Writing Teachers for giving writers space to bud and bloom!
The earth laughs in flowers. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today’s poem is a triolet, inspired by Barb Edler’s post yesterday. Before Barb’s mother died, she planted daffodils, and these are Barb’s favorite flowers. I, too, lost my mother (December 2015) and miss her very much – my mother’ s favorites were wild petunias and yellow roses. When I need to count blessings and decompress, I take my keys off the hook by the door and start up my little blue Caribbean RAV4 and go riding the country roads. I look for the blooms, the rolling hills, the hawks on wires, the cows in the meadows. It puts the world back in perspective for me – – I am here but for a blink of an eye, and whatever is worrying me, too, shall pass.

Today, let’s remember our mothers who have gone before us but who still wave to us in flowers! We still see you, Moms! #flowerhugs

Daffodils on Highway 109 in Meansville, Georgia

Daffodil Swing Choir Triolet

countryside daffodils dance and smile

their friendly welcoming rural hellos

across hills and meadows, mile after mile

countryside daffodils dance and smile

swaying in their swing choir style

robed in greens and sunshine yellows

countryside daffodils dance and smile

their friendly welcoming rural hellos

#countryside charm. #daffodilsmiles. #momsstillspeak