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“Landscape with the
Fall of Icarus” attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
Flight has been of interest since our first ancestors looked into sky and envied the ability of birds to soar above fields, trees, rivers, or oceans. According to Greek myth, Icarus and his father tried to fly in order to escape Crete. Icarus got too close to the sun which melted the wax holding his feathers on, so he pummeled to earth.
Human flight is a
topic that has drawn numerous poets, especially since the invention of the
airplane. There are several poems concerning flight in Caroline Johnson’s superb book,
The Caregiver. Here is one of them:
Flying
Taxiing down the runway—a man
leans over his seat—hushes two girls
in full-length black burkas—nearby
identical twin girls—separated
by the aisle—listen to the same music.
High powered jets—slow to take off —
full throttle—loud—thundering—
the hot rod of the cloud highway—
then no wheels—unbearable air—
not even your voice—just glide.
I settle in my seat—think of Dad
in his wheelchair—we will all be sitting
the next seven hours—like Dad sits,
always sitting, sitting, looking, sleeping—
I close my eyes.
Only 3,944 miles to go.
~ Caroline Johnson
From The Caregiver, Holy Cow! Press (2018) p. 22. Also available on Kindle.
Gliding
“What am I
but a solitary gull between earth
and heaven?” —Tu Fu
I don’t fear black holes.
Everyone has one, a dark star.
When you pass into it, gravity
bends—your feet pull, your head
stretches. But for now, warm
thermals push you and me over
farms and lakes. A ridge of wind lifts
us into the ether. With no engine,
carried only by waves of energy,
we glide in a tandem cockpit.
So many years ago you told me
your theory about death.
You called it the black hole theory.
We all disappear, you said.
That’s all. Nothing. Nada.
You dolphin down away from
darkness. A seagull arches
over water, his wings stretched
to get the most wind. He glides.
We glide. It is all about lift, you say.
We soar at an even ratio, our glider
sifting through the silence of the clouds.
Father, you can stay airborne for hours
by piloting us through the rising air.
Only sun and shadows here.
Yet I know it’s going to end.
You are going to die, I am going
to die. We will vacate these bodies,
this planet, disappear into that frozen
star you speak of. No energy.
No light. Just decayed matter
500 billion years old. But what
happens to the light, I wonder.
Will we fall like Icarus, our faith
a cruel joke? Or will we rebound,
jump back like a kite billowing on
cyclones and velocity? Father, stay
airborne. Stay part of the Milky Way.
Don’t leave me. Keep drifting,
for what are we
but gulls gliding?
~ Caroline Johnson
From The Caregiver, Holy Cow! Press (2018) pp. 25-26. Also available on Kindle.
The following poem is a rengay, a form invented by Garry Gay. A rengay has six linked haiku (or senryu) which share a theme or image (see more explicit instructions at https://www.rengay.com/rengay-essays/learning-rengay). Michael Dylan West says, “If you can write haiku, you can write rengay.” It is normally written collaboratively by two or three poets, who alternate stanza. It can also be written by six poets, each writing one stanza. The fourth option is the solo rengay, such as this one:
Night Flight
full moon—
along the runway
blue lights begin to blur
turning after takeoff
the moon disappears under the wing
for a moment below
in the Mississippi,
a white oval
the seat-belt sign
blinks back on with a beep—
the moon lost in clouds
in-flight magazine:
a four-letter word for lunar
movie over,
the moon lightens
the snow-capped mountains
~ Michael Dylan Welch
This poem, which was written 18 April 2000 while flying from St. Louis, Missouri to San Francisco, California, was first published in Frogpond 26:3, Fall 2003, page 43. It is also published on Welch’s rengay website, at https://www.rengay.com/solo-rengay/night-flight.
More flight poems:
*“A Story for Rose on the Midnight Flight to Boston” by Anne Sexton - https://allpoetry.com/A-Story-For-Rose-On-The-Midnight-Flight-To-Boston.
*“History of the Airplane” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD45amkxuEM.
*“High Flight” by John Gilespie Magee - https://interestingliterature.com/2019/12/analysis-john-gillespie-magee-high-flight-an-airmans-ecstasy/.
*And a bunch more at https://sierrahotel.net/pages/aviation-poetry.
The February Challenge:
The challenge for this month is a poem about flight—humans flying, not birds, not “flying squirrels.” It may be about flying in an airplane (military or civilian, gliding, or parasailing. Flight may be metaphoric (but not flying like a bird!).
Your poem may be serious or humorous. Use your imagination! Note that the blog format does not accommodate shaped poems or long lines; if they are used, they have to be broken in two, with the second part indented (as in the poem “Lilith,” one of the May 2018 winners), or the post has to use small print.
Poems could be disqualified if the guidelines are not followed.
1-Title your poem unless it is in a form that discourages titles.
2-Single-space.
3-Put your submission in this order:
Your poem
Publication data if your poem was
previously published
Your name
A brief third-person bio
Your email address
4-Please keep the poem on the left margin (standard 1” margin). Do not put any part of your submission on a colored background. No colored type. Do not use a fancy font and do not use a header or footer.
5-You may submit a published poem if you retain copyright, but please include publication data. This applies to poems published in books, journals, newspapers, or on the Internet. Poems already used on this blog are not eligible to win, but the poets may submit a different poem.
6-The deadline is February 15. Poems submitted after the deadline will not be considered. There is no charge to enter, so there are no monetary rewards. Winners are published on this blog.
7-Please don’t stray too far from “family-friendly” language (some children and teens read this blog).
8- No simultaneous submissions, please. You should know by the end of the month whether or not your poem will be published.
9-The poet retains copyright on each poem. If a previously unpublished poem wins and is published elsewhere later, please give credit to this blog. I do not register copyright with the US copyright office, but by US law, the copyright belongs to the writer unless the writer assigns it to someone else.
10-Decision of the judge or judges is final.
11-If the same poet wins three months in a row (which has not happened thus far), he or she will be asked not to submit the following two months.
12-Send one poem only.
How to Submit Your Poem:
1-Send your poem to wildamorris4[at]gmail[dot]com (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for “dot”). The poem must respond in some way to the specific challenge for the month.
2-Put “February Poetry Challenge Submission” FOLLOWED BY YOUR NAME in the subject line of your email. Include a brief bio that can be printed with your poem if you are a winner this month.
3-Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog if it is a winner, so be sure that you put your name exactly as you would like it to appear if you do win at the end of the poem.
4-Poems may be pasted into an email or sent as an attachment or both (Doc, Docx, rich text or plain text; no pdf files, please). Please do not indent the poem or center it on the page. It helps if you submit the poem in the format used on the blog (Title and poem left-justified; title in bold (not all capital letters); your name at the bottom of the poem). 6-Also, please do not use multiple spaces instead of punctuation in the middle of lines. I have no problem with poets using that technique (I sometimes do it myself). However, I have difficulty getting the blog to accept and maintain extra spaces.
Poems shorter than 40 lines are generally preferred but longer poems will be considered.
Bios:
Caroline Johnson has two poetry chapbooks and several hundred poems in print. A nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, she has won numerous state and national poetry awards, including the 2012 Chicago Tribune's Printers Row Poetry Contest. A former English teacher, she is president of Poets & Patrons of Chicago. Her full-length collection of poems, The Caregiver (Holy Cow! Press, 2018), was inspired by years of family caregiving. Visit her website at www.caroline-johnson.com.
Michael Dylan Welch has been investigating haiku since 1976. His haiku, tanka, and longer poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies in at least 20 languages, and he has published dozens of poetry books, including books of translation from the Japanese. Michael was keynote speaker for the 2013 Haiku International Association conference in Tokyo, and in 2012 one of his translations appeared on the back of 150 million U.S. postage stamps. He is cofounder of the biennial Haiku North America conference (1991) and the American Haiku Archives at the California State Library in Sacramento (1996). Michael is also founder of the Seabeck Haiku Getaway (2008) and National Haiku Writing Month (2010), the latter held every February (www.nahaiwrimo.com, with an active Facebook page at NaHaiWriMo). He currently works as a cultural lecturer for an NFT company, and has previously worked on Mindcraft and Xbox games, as well as the Haiku Journey computer game (and has also worked for Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing). Michael lives with his wife and two teenagers in Sammamish, Washington. His personal website, devoted mostly to haiku, is www.graceguts.com.
© Wilda Morris
