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| Man on a Ladder by Luca Signorelli - National Gallery of Art, London |
This painting by Luca Signorelli (1440/50-1523) could serve as a good prompt for a poem about the hands of this working man—or about his feet as he climbs the ladder.
I had already decided I wanted to do a challenge for poems related to body parts—poems that could be shared on a family-friendly website. I had saved several poems by Donna Puccini from which I would select one. This morning when I opened http://www.yourdailypoem.com/, I found a delightful poem that fit the topic perfectly. I think you will enjoy it! And it may inspire you to check out yourdailypoem, if you don’t already subscribe to it.
A Man of Many Parts
I am a man of many parts
And for those parts I’m grateful.
The parts though, don’t reciprocate.
Some days, they’re downright hateful.
My head might hurt, my teeth might ache,
Or sometimes my left shoulder.
I hear from long neglected parts
Each day that I grow older.
On some days there is brand new pain.
Sometimes it hurts so bad
In places heretofore that I
Did not know that I had.
There’s cheek and jaw and palate
And mandible and chin.
And upper arm and elbow
And femur, knee, and shin.
There’s eyebrow, ribs and sinus.
There’s finger, knuckle, nose,
Or wrist and palm and ankle,
Or heel, foot, and toes.
There’s neck and throat and clavicle.
There’s diaphragm and lung,
Scapula and hamstrings,
Sternum, lips and tongue,
Stomach, heart or abdomen
Bicep, eardrum, thigh
Gall bladder and kidney
Liver, spleen, and eye.
And some parts have parts of their own
Like my old aching back —
Thoracic, lumbar, cervical,
And sacroiliac.
The pain they offer cause me
To groan and moan and grumble.
Tis’ only one of many ways
God finds to keep me humble.
Each part provides a service
From heel to top of head
Gleefully reminding me,
That I am not yet dead.
The parts decide which part will hurt.
I am not the chooser
My body is an equal
Opportunity abuser.
~ Darrell Arnold.
First published this morning at http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=4042. Used by permission of the author, who retains copyright.
If you compare the poem as published here with the poem as previously published, you may notice that Darrell has made a few changes, including adding another stanza. Some readers may be surprised to learn that poets often change poems after they have been published. Evidence, perhaps, for the truth of a quote from French poet Paul Valery: “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”
Darrell’s poem mentions a lot of body parts. It is the first poem in which I’ve see the word “sacroiliac”! I found it very amusing. In contrast, the poem by Donna which I selected, is about only one body part—a left hand. And not even the left hand of the poet or a member of her family. Rather, it is about the left hand of the conductor of the Chicago Symphony orchestra.
Muti’s Left Hand
For
Riccardo Muti
and
the Chicago Symphony
His right hand
gives the downbeat
with the stick.
The opening chords
rise into the
chandelier netted
with lights and
microphones.
Like a bird
escaping its cage,
his left hand
flutters out from his lapel,
then grasps his
heart to keep it
from bursting. He
lets it go,
a gull diving over
a sea of violins
into the deep bell
of the tuba.
Wait. Be still.
I’ll tell you when.
He does so,
punching sforzando
with a left hook,
then flinging in a handful
of salt, seasoning
soup as his grandmother did.
He knows how to
simmer.
Palm upturned, he
welcomes woodwinds,
shakes the open
hand next to his chest,
strumming an
invisible lute. Now leaning,
he points like an
angry father, reproaching
the violas. Paw
becomes claw, casting a spell
on the horns. Then
fingers point up,
like Holman Hunt’s
Jesus in the Doorway.
Brahms’ Second is
long and he is tired.
He needs to rest
that left hand. Tonight,
if he sleeps on
his back, it will recline
on the blanket or
crawl beneath it.
If he’s on his
stomach, he will tuck it
under his pillow
to keep it still. If
on his side, it
will cradle his head
to catch leftover
themes.
Crouching, he
turns the page, nods to the flutes,
smiles a crooked
smile at the oboes, and
flicks his wrist
at the brass: Run with it.
~ Donna Pucciani
From Donna Pucciani, A Light Dusting of Breath (Purple Flag Press). Used by permission of the author who retains copyright.
The April Challenge:
The challenge for this month is a poem about a part of the body, but remember this blog is family friendly. Your poem, may be literal or metaphoric. You may concentrate on one part of the body, or multiple parts. 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. Note, too, that long poems are at a disadvantage.
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 – it saves me a lot of work if you put your email address at the end of your submission.
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 April 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 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 “April 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). Put everything in the order listed above.
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:
Darrell Arnold is a native of Colorado but now lives in NW Arizona because, “I’m too old to enjoy shoveling snow.” He worked as a photojournalist for 25 years, including 17 years as publisher/editor of his own Cowboy Magazine. Semi-retired now, his passion is writing rhyming poetry that can be set to music. He as won song-of-the-year awards from the Western Writers of America and from the Western Music Association. “I’ve loved rhyming poetry since I was a kid in high school. I love the works of the old English poets as well as that of Robert Service, S. Omar Barker, Banjo Patterson, Badger Clark, and Bruce Kiskkadon. Contemporary poetry heroes are Joel Nelson, Wallace McRae, the late Mike Logan, Chris Isaacs, Virginia Bennett, and Sally Harper Bates.
Donna Pucciani, a Chicago-based writer, has published poetry worldwide in Poetry Salzburg, ParisLitUp, Meniscus, Shi Chao Poetry, Journal of Italian Translation, Agenda, Stand, and others. Her work has been translated into Italian, Chinese, Japanese and German. She has been nominated numerous times for the Pushcart Prize and has won awards from the Illinois Arts Council, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Poetry on the Lake, and other organizations. Her seventh and most recent book of poems is Edges.
© Wilda Morris
