Today’s host of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Wendy Everard of New York, who inspires us to research our favorite writers’ places and our own favorites, and to write a poem inspired by that place. She wrote her poem as she walked around Emily Dickinson’s home and gardens.
Bryan Ripley Crandall of Connecticut has quite a Magic Box process of turning out nonsense, whimsical poems that make us smile. You can read his full prompt along with the process (this one is loads of fun) and the poems of others here.
Just let words roll off the pen and see what pops up!
Turning the Tables
vintage green stamps in rose-hued sunglasses sewing thimble, dogtag, thumbs of young lasses Cracker Jack prizes trinkets and toys but pencils for scholarly girls and boys crocheted tablecloth clamps stitched by all our Aunt Mabels clothespinned lottery tickets turn all the tables
Today, I’m hosting the kickoff of #VerseLove 2024 at http://www.ethicalela.com, the website and writing community of Dr. Sarah J. Donovan of Oklahoma State University. Each day this month, we will be writing poetry together as we rotate hosting, celebrate writing together, and encourage one another. You can read the entire prompt below, but you can also read it (and the poetry of others) here.
Inspiration
I enjoy unlocking the puzzles of smashed-together-word hashtags and considering their power to make a statement. Like clever license plates and bumper stickers, hashtags can issue a call to action, proclaim characteristics, and identify members of a group. Today, let’s use them to introduce ourselves as we begin our #VerseLove journey together this month.
Process
Write your name vertically down the left side of a page. You can use your first name, nickname, or full name – your choice!
Place a hashtag in front of each letter of your name.
Jot a list of your hobbies, your passions, and any other aspects that you might use to introduce yourself to someone getting to know you. You can scroll through photos, Facebook posts, or poems you’ve written to help you think of some ideas.
Finally, use the letters to make a hashtag acrostic to introduce yourself to your #VerseLove family! You can #smashyourwordstogether or #space them apart.
We are your people. We can’t wait to get to know you better as we write and grow together.
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!
We celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary today. For a couple of divorcees who found each other a little later in life and had given up on ever marrying again, we realize now that when God winks on love, it’s a dream come true.
There we were, on a swing in a park, where he proposed while wearing a royal blue button-down shirt. There just happened to be a royal blue car driving by with a teenage kid cheering and fist pumping out the window as the love of my life was down on a knee asking for my hand (is there any wonder that I drive a bright blue Caribbean colored RAV4, even though my personality is more of a muted silver or pearly white?).
I think back to that day, on that swing, and count the joys.
A photo of our swing in the reading room of our home
Marriage Proposal Haiku
a swing proposal with a smashed Cracker Jack ring you'd resurrected
and still I said yes with a yes-er yes because you'd fixed the broken
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
My son (r) with hunting face camo, and his buddy (l)
My middle child of my gas station Octane Trio, the one born in 1989, turns 35 today. He loves hunting, fishing, Nascar racing, and spending time with his family of 7, plus 3 labs. I’m proud of him – he makes good choices, and I was even fine with that mullet he had going on for a couple of years. He and his good buddy recently sent me the photo above, smiling and proud of the tickets they’d gotten for not having the proper number of life vests in their boat while they were out duck hunting (turns out they were warnings – which explains the smiles).
I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and our conversation went something like this:
Screenshot
This got his attention. He knew I’d find a book about how salt marsh species cooperate to survive the harsh conditions of the marsh. I learned it throwing quadrants in the marsh when I took marine biology at University of South Carolina, where he also graduated years later. Spartina marsh grass survives in extreme salty conditions because the periwinkle shells attached to the base thrive on salt and take it in. In this way, both species can survive.
There is a story there for another time, but I guess he didn’t want to learn more about the marshgrass in his back yard. He replied, thoughtfully, moments later:
Screenshot
Since I haven’t physically seen him since Christmas and know my own battles with quick weight change, I asked about the size. I decided on the medium, but wanted him to know to be on the lookout for the gifts since sometimes with prankster kids (who learned it from him), a box might disappear off the front porch before anyone knew it was ever there. I put him on alert:
Screenshot
I am so proud of my son and wish him the happiest birthday ever. His family loves him too!
Screenshot
Birthday Surprise Haiku
he's getting a shirt and a camouflaged fan cap but not a surprise.
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.
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
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
Common Threads 