April is Poetry Month

I love April. I love seeing poets come out with new challenges, new poems and my favorite, the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge. I look forward to waking up each morning to a prompt, and writing a poem before I do anything else. It feels successful, a great way to start a day with something done under your belt before even getting dressed. I hope to find other challenges to add to my poem a day as it makes me feel so happy writing poetry. I don’t know why I don’t do it every day. But April gets me fired up again.

Here’s a poem for today. A preview for myself of writing off the cuff.

BUILDING A POEM

They are working on construction here,

right outside my window.

Starting at the bottom

with a sound foundation

then adding a frame, walls

and a roof.

My poetry rarely works like that.

I don’t have a solid idea

to hold up my poems.

Instead ,an idea swoops by

landing on a branch

for just a moment

wondering where it will go

or what will grab it’s attention

in the next nanosecond.

But somehow, that nanosecond

is all it needs

to start a conversation

with my soul

one that will come back to me

time and time again

throughout the day.

Poetry Friday

It’s poetry Friday, and I hope to get back into the writer’s world by attending these poetry events again. I loved being with writers who talk about poetry. Sharing these tiny moments of emotion and contemplation make me think about how I feel on these subjects, and allows me to think deeper as I look about my life.

Today is National Poetry Day and I love seeing so many poems across facebook. Even my husband posted one, which is pretty unusual for him. Today I will post my very favorite poem. I used it at my wedding. To me it felt like it was the essence of being connected with another human being in wanting them to share the tiniest moments of life.

The Pasture

By Robert Frost

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;

I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

I’m going out to fetch the little calf

That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

A writer’s prompt

Sometimes it’s hard to get into your writer’s head. With so much going on in politics every day, the emotions run wild. How can we capture our emotions from their whirlwind of shock and awe and bring them down to the quiet moments of poetry? When our writer’s group gets bogged down, whether in bigger writing or just life, we’ve started using writer’s prompts to get us started again.

This month’s prompt was to use TREE, BUCKET and a PICNIC FOOD in a writing. I chose to use a character from my ongoing manuscript. Mei is talking about her grandmother (Popo) here, who is visiting her and trying to teach her calligraphy.

It was the trees that stopped me.

Their branches naked,

in dark contrast to winter’s last light.

They spread across the sky

long and graceful

as if reaching for all things at once,

like Popo’s fingers

that stretch and spread

as she prepares

for calligraphy.

I look at my hands,

my fingers stubby like hotdogs

poking out from fluffy buns.

They weren’t made for delicate work.

Perhaps if I soaked them in a bucket

of hand lotion

they would soften

and stretch

on their own. 

But I doubt it.

Fingers are not play dough

to ply and pull 

Into compliance.

But mine were still useful.

I reach into my pocket

to find the last 

of a chocolate bar,

A tiny bit of dopamine

For my soul.

Last year’s submission to poetrymadness!!

Bioluminescent Jellification

Jellyfish illuminate the night sea

with fluorescent constellations.

Do they conspire to create

elaborate water dragons, 

that undulate and skate

beneath the waves 

or are their tentacles 

just waving goodbye,

extraterrestrials on their journey home.

Connection

It’s time for me to connect with children’s writing again, and specifically poetry. I thought I’d start this blog to share my own writing, and to find writers who love poetry as much as I do. As we are just around the corner to April, Poetry Month, I thought this was the perfect way to start my annual poetry bling.

I can’t wait for poetrymadness!! to begin. Here is my poem from last year’s submission. The word I needed to use in the poem, was eleven.

DONUTS

Mom sends me to buy donuts

A dozen will do fine

But when I look inside the bag

A bonus one I find…

A baker’s dozen donuts!

Thirteen will never do

So I eat that extra donut

Then my stomach aches for two.

Eleven yummy donuts

Such an odd uneven number

I don’t want Mom to notice

So I quickly eat another.

Ten donuts will be perfect

As I walk on with a smile

Then trip inside a pothole

And I stumble for a while.

The donuts fall together

First the chocolate, then the lemon.

I eat those messy donuts

But my numbers now were seven. 

I worry and I wonder

if there might still be a fix

But stress eating had quickly

Brought my donuts down to six.

Mom will not be happy.

What will she feed my cousins?

So I cut my donuts all in half

And now I have a dozen.