Wilda Morris's Poetry Challenge

February 2012 Challenge - A Love Poem

2012-02-01T06:53:00.002-06:00

Here in the United States, Valentine’s Day is coming soon, so thoughts turn to love. My Aunt Ersel and Uncle Laird got married on Valentine’s Day, which always seemed very romantic to me. They had a wonderfully romantic marriage, which lasted the rest of their lives.

In most cultures of the world, poems of love are about as old as poetry itself. You can still read love poetry from ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, ancient India, etc., etc. etc. Poetry seems to be a uniquely appropriate way to convey love for another person.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning expressed her love for Robert Browning in a series of sonnets, published later as Sonnets from the Portuguese. The 43rd sonnet is a special favorite of many people.

Sonnet 43

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Note that this sonnet is not just a discussion of love; it is addressed to the beloved. That is true, also of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, another love poem.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

~ William Shakespeare

Love poems do not have to begin, as do these two sonnets, with questions. And of course, love poems do not have to be sonnets, nor do they have to use the elevated language of Browning and Shakespeare. So many love poems have been written over the centuries that it is not easy to come up with a creative approach that has not already been used.

A contemporary poet, Marvin Bell, found a very unique and attention-getting way to begin a long poem to his wife. “To Dorothy” begins

You are not beautiful, exactly.
You are beautiful, inexactly.

"To Dorothy," from Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000, published by Copper Canyon Press. Copyright © 2000 by Marvin Bell. You can also find the poem at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20932

When I decided to write a love poem to my husband, I decided to work off of a metaphor which I had not seen used for a relationship. Here is my love poem:

Love Letter
For Ed

Maybe you think I keep you
like I keep my old shoes
because I can't bear
to break in new ones
but that's not the reason.
After all these years
you’re still a good fit,
still polished to a shine
in my eyes.
I want to be laced up with you
as long as I live.

~ Wilda Morris

(First published in Grab-a-Nickel, Fall/Winter 2004-2005, p. 12).

Yep, the picture at the top is from our wedding, August 31, 1963.

The February Poetry Challenge

Read these directions carefully! The poetry challenge for February is to write a love letter in poetic form: a poem addressed to someone you love; a poem which expresses your love in a unique way. You may write a formal poem or free verse. If formal, please specify the form. The deadline is February 15. Poems submitted after the February 15 deadline will not be considered. Since this is 2012, do not use antique language (such as “thee” and “thou”) unless it is absolutely required by the poem itself.

Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. As much as I would enjoy a heart-shaped poem, I am unable to publish indentations, shaped poems or even extra spaces between words or phrases.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, you may submit it if you retain copyright, but please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]. Be sure provide your e-mail address. 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.

© 2012 Wilda Morris

January 2012 Challenge Winners - Color Poems

2012-01-30T20:23:00.006-06:00

There were a number of excellent poems submitted for the January Challenge, a color poem. Since I knew several of the poets, I printed the poems without the names of the authors, and gave them to Judith Tullis, Vice President of the Illinois State Poetry Society, to judge. Tullis especially liked three of the poems, presented here in reverse order.

Winter White

Blowing, blowing-
The snowdrifts shift and whirl
Wafted fiercely upward,
Like so many ghost strokes.

Who wields the brush?
The One Unseen.
He lays not His hues on the canvas flat
But sends them swirling, drifting, flying.
Like sifted flour blown from beneath,
This ever-changing winter scene.

I watch.
The wind stills,
Its whirrs stop.
The Painter lays down His icy brush
And through the hush the snow-white drifts
In innocence recline.

~ Carole Mertz

This poem appeared in The Lutheran Digest, Winter, 2008.

“'Winter White,'” said Tullis, “is very descriptive of a winter storm and how wind makes the snow drift in all directions and then 'in innocence recline.'" The poet sees the hand of God conducting this event, brushing shades of white everywhere.

Come Evening

Aqua and cornflower-blue
streak the sky.

Rose tones flush and falter
as day draws to a close.

Clouds chase the blush,
make room for strokes

of turquoise, lavender, violet
that tuck in the night

and fade to indigo
with stars shivering white

as I lie
in shades of gray.

~ Marcia J. Pradzinski

Tullis wrote: “In 'Come Evening,' I like the way the poet uses color to progress from afternoon through sunset until finally day is 'tucked in' by the darkest color indigo relieved only by "stars shivering white," observed by the poet who rests in 'shades of grey.' That last line is a wonderful contrast to the rest of the poem.”

An Artist's Transformation

The black and white photograph in our family album
has been transformed into pastel shades
of blues and greens – a dab of pink.
Grandma Ella sits in the meadow,
arranging a bouquet of freshly picked flowers
as her young daughters – Vivian, Ruth, Mae –
all focus on their mother’s hands.

The old snapshot came to life a century later
when Mae’s girl, Diane, dipped her artist’s brush
into a palette of springtime colors.
These images emerge now, like old friends,
from a farm field many miles
and many years away.

~ Marjorie Pagel

“My favorite . . ., though," Tullis wrote, “is 'An Artist's Transformation.'
The idea of a mother and her three daughters in an old black and white family photograph being brought to life by the pastels of an artist from a later generation is simple and beautifully told. The springtime meadow is a perfect setting and I can almost smell the wildflowers.”

Pagel, herself, had this to say about her winning poem:

Although there are no personal pronouns used in this poem, my mother Vivian is one of the three girls seated in the grass as their mother (my Grandma Ella) assembles the bouquet. In my memory my grandmother was an austere woman, and I never would have imagined her sitting in a field of flowers, so I love to see this quiet side of her, as well as the relationship with three of her five daughters. She wasn't more than 30 years old when the photo was taken.

The original painting of this photograph has been copied in color (the wonders of modern technology!). It is framed and hangs on the wall overlooking my computer. When I thought about this month's challenge, I decided to attempt a word portrait which would capture some of the emotion I feel when I think about the original scene and the subsequent transformation by an artistic cousin.

Congratulations to the three winners, and thanks to Judith Tullis for judging the poems this month.

Copyright to the poems posted here remain with their authors.

Thank you to everyone who entered the January Challenge. Watch for the February Challenge, which will be posted soon.

© 2012 Wilda Morris

January 2012 Poetry Challenge

2012-01-01T05:00:00.007-06:00

Colors can inspire very interesting poems. In “That Vase of Lilacs,” in The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (NY: Grove Press, 2010), Kay Ryan tantalizes us with the immortality of purple. In Hailstones and Halibut Bones (Doubleday, 1990), her popular book of color poems for children, Mary O’Neill says purple is “sort of a great/Grandmother to pink.”

Purple was featured in a very different way in one of my poems, which was published in the Rockford Review (Winter 2005-2006).

Propositions

Plum-purple truth drips blood
across pages of history,
across prairies and rivers and diaries.
Its fist slams into the sides
of mountains, bridges and breasts.
Its mouth devours all it desires:
dirt, deserts, and dresses.
Its boots battle, abuse,
kick against courage,
against compassion.
Where is the turquoise truth
which binds with soft scarves
not rough ropes, not scars,
the pastel pastiche of tender truth
that listens and loves?

~ Wilda Morris

Marge Piercy frequently makes use of color in her work. Perhaps that is why she entitled one of her books Colors Passing Through Us (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). The title poem of the collection has a rich palette, with its various shades of purple, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and cobalt. It’s not just any yellow (for example), though, but “Yellow as a goat's wise and wicked eyes,” and the yellows of daffodils, dandelions, egg yolks, and more.

Another excellent and interesting poem with a broad palette recently won the free verse competition in the 18th Annual Illinois State Poetry Society Contest. In “Deluxe Box,” poet Kathy Cotton likens herself not to just one crayon but to the whole box of 125 colors.

Deluxe Box

Beneath this pale Caucasian skin—the skin
of my mother’s mother and father’s father,
beneath this unremarkable brown hair
and behind these ordinary brown eyes that are the eyes
of all my family, even the dog

beneath, behind, beyond this commonness, I am

the Deluxe Box of Crayons: one hundred twenty
unblended colors scribbling exotic names—
Cerulean, Burnt Sienna, Mahogany, Maize, a crowd
of immigrant pigments unwilling to melt in my melting pot.

This Deluxe Box holds Fuchsia to attract hummingbirds.
Quaker gray for silent sitting. Outrageous Orange for
stumbling over politics. In the company of Blue, I can
match that patch of sky, her silk shirt, his denim jeans.
See me here, Red as habanero; there—White as arctic ice.

Some believe I should defect from every hue but one,
become a single color’s citizen, wear its official seal.
But, no! I am the Deluxe Box, dressing my heart in tie-dye,
rainbows, confetti; waving on the hill of each moment
its hand-made, one-of-a-kind flag. I am the Deluxe Box

whose skin is red and yellow, black and white.
I am male and female, flower and beast, bright light
and midnight. Come close, look inside. Watch me pull
from my chameleon stash a deluxe handful of myself

perfectly matched to you.

~ Kathy Cotton

You might also enjoy:
* "Theme in Yellow" by Carl Sandburg at http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/carlsandburg/4696
* "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/gold.htm

The January, 2012, Poetry Challenge is to write a poem featuring a color – or colors. You may refer to paints or crayons, but that is not necessary. Your poem can be free verse or formal. If formal, please specify the form. The deadline is January 15. Poems submitted after the January 15 deadline will not be considered.

Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. Unfortunately I am unable to publish indentations, shaped poems or even extra spaces between words or phrases.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, you may submit it if you retain copyright, but please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]. Be sure provide your e-mail address. When you submit your poem, add a note indicating where you took poetic license with the facts of your life. The poem should be in first person, as if it actually happened to the speaker in the poem. 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.

© 2012 Wilda Morris

December Challenge Winner

2011-12-19T21:40:00.005-06:00

Congratulations to Judith Tullis for winning the December poetry challenge with her poem, "Lego Man." The "Lego man" in this photo, built by my grandson, would not meet the conditions for the Lego man the narrator has in mind in this quirky poem.

There were other excellent poems submitted this month, but none as clever as this one.

Lego Man

I wish I had a Lego man
a hold-tight-will-not-let-go man
a red, white, black or yellow man
a tier above his fellow man
who’d pull himself apart for me
and disconnect his heart for me.
He’d be much better than the last
who never would do what I asked
just smothered me in apathy.

I wish I had a Lego man
an Eggo-in-the-morning man.
We’d sip our coffee hand-in-hand
while brick by brick our life we planned.
He’d never cause a scream from me
nor scheme to take my dream from me.
He would love me to distraction
though he might be short on action
without his Lego battery.

~ Judith Tullis

Copyright to this poem remains with the writer.

Watch for a new challenge on January 1.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

December 2011 Poetry Challenge - a Toy Poem

2011-12-01T22:40:00.004-06:00

Eugene Field, who was born in 1850 and died in 1895, was especially known for his children’s poems. Appropriately, his boyhood home now houses the St. Louis Toy Museum.

When I was a child, I found Eugene Field’s poem, “Little Boy Blue,” in one of my grandmother’s books. I found it very touching—and very sad. I could see the dust-covered dog and the rusty soldier waiting the return of “Little Boy Blue.” Before I was born, my cousin Junior (age 2) drowned in a well. He was my Aunt Abbie’s first child, my grandparents first grandchild, and my mother’s first nephew. Perhaps that is one reason I was so moved when I read the poem, and—despite the fact that it made me sad—drawn to read it over and over.

Little Boy Blue

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.

Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
"And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;

And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue---
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place---
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;

And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.

~ Eugene Field

(This poem is in the public domain)

This isn’t the only poem by Eugene Fields which features toys. I suspect that the gingham dog and the calico cat, in his poem, “The Duel,” (another of my childhood favorites) were stuffed animals, though they might just be imaginary creatures. You can find “The Duel” on-line, along with other of Field’s poems, including “The Naughty Doll,” at http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/field01.html
“The Duel” and “The Naughty Doll” are more cheerful and less sentimental than “Little Boy Blue.”

Another favorite poet of an earlier era is Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959). Guest was born in England, but immigrated to the U.S. at age 10. Most of his poetry was not written for children, but it was generally light verse, and often sentimental. As a result, he was known as “the people’s poet.” Here is one of his poems about toys:

Toys

I can pass up the lure of a jewel to wear
With never the trace of a sigh,
The things on a shelf that I'd like for myself
I never regret I can't buy.
I can go through the town passing store after store
Showing things it would please me to own,
With never a trace of despair on my face,
But I can't let a toy shop alone.

I can throttle the love of fine raiment to death
And I don't know the craving for rum,
But I do know the joy that is born of a toy,
And the pleasure that comes with a drum
I can reckon the value of money at times,
And govern my purse strings with sense,
But I fall for a toy for my girl or my boy
And never regard the expense.

It's seldom I sigh for unlimited gold
Or the power of a rich man to buy;
My courage is stout when the doing without
Is only my duty, but I
Curse the shackles of thrift when I gaze at the toys
That my kiddies are eager to own,
And I'd buy everything that they wish for, by Jing!
If their mother would let me alone.

There isn't much fun spending coin on myself
For neckties and up-to-date lids,
But there's pleasure tenfold, in the silver and gold
I part with for things for the kids.
I can go through the town passing store after store
Showing things it would please me to own,
But to thrift I am lost; I won't reckon the cost
When I'm left in a toy shop alone.

~ Edgar A. Guest

(This poem is in the public domain)

Another famous poem about toys is “The Toy Strewn House.” Unfortunately, the author is anonymous.

The Toy Strewn House

Give me the house where the toys are strewn
Where the dolls are asleep in the chairs
Where the building blocks and the toy balloons
And the soldiers guard the stairs.

Let me step in the house where they tiny cart
With its horses rules the floor
And the rest comes into my weary heart
For I am at home once more.

Give me the house with the toys about
With the battered old train of cars
The box of paints and the books left out
And the ship with her broken spars;

Let me step in a house at the close of day
That is littered with children’s toys
And dwell once more in the house of play
With the echoes of gone by noise

Whoever has lived in a toy strewn home
Though feeble he be and gray
Will yearn no matter how far he roams
For the glorious disarray

If the little home with the littered floor
That was his in the by gone days
And his heart will throb as it throbbed before
When he rests where a baby plays

~ Anonymous

(This poem is in the public domain)

You can find other toy-related poetry on-line. “Toys in a Field” is definitely not light verse or sentimental. Yusef Komunyakaa wrote this poem out of his experience in the Vietnam war. I did not put Komuyakaa’s poem on this blog, because it is not in the public domain. You can read it at http://www.gotpoetry.com/Poems/l_op=Showpoet/Poems/l_op=Showpoems/Poems/l_op=viewpoems/lid=95758.html

Some Other Toy Poems on the Internet:

Charles Simic, “The Wooden Toy,” http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/charles_simic/poems/18118

Robert Service, “Her Toys,” a poem with a theme very much like that of “Little Boy Blue,” http://www.quotesandpoem.com/poems/SelectedPoemByTopic/Service/Children/%20%20%20%20Her%20Toys/286/

“Colored Toys,” by Rabindranath Tagore, http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/rabindranath_tagore/poems/2213

Anonymous, “Spinning a Dreidel,” http://www.4to40.com/poems/index.asp?p=Spinning_A_Dreidel

David LaRue Alexander, “Play, Way Back Then,” http://illinoispoets.org/poems0609.htm#PlayWayBackWhen

The December, 2011, Poetry Challenge

The sample poems this month, along with the poems for which links have been provided, show how poems starting with a toy (or toys) can go in a variety of directions. Use your creativity to write your own (more contemporary) toy-related poem. Will you write about toys from your childhood or those your children or grandchildren prefer? Will you be serious or humorous? Your poem may be free or formal verse.

Deadline: December 15, 2011

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. Unfortunately I am unable to publish indentations, shaped poems or even extra spaces between words or phrases.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data. Poems submitted after the December 15 deadline will not be considered.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]. Be sure provide your e-mail address. If you use a form, please specify the form used. Also indicate in your email whether the poem is written for children or for adults. 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.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

November 2011 Challenge Winner

2011-11-26T21:53:00.005-06:00

Mark Hudson took the November challenge in a totally unexpected direction. Instead beginning with a minor change in his personal life, he raises a much broader question. He assumes there is a God, and writes about the possibility of there being no God. He moves from that question to other theological speculations. Here is Mark's winning poem.

If there was no God

If there was no God,
would things be even worse?
Did we create our own problems,
or did the Devil make this curse?
If there never was a God,
would nothing exist at all?
Would particles not even be?
Would nothingness just sprawl?
If I was created by the master,
should I feel guilt over sin?
Will God give me his mercy
or is punishment about to begin?
Is it hard to get into Heaven,
and easy to get into Hell?
Is the Bible a bit too harsh
when it shows us men who fell?
What about other religions?
Doesn't God love them, too?
Aren't we all children of God?
Did Jesus die only for a few?
If I am a child of God,
can't I just be myself?
Am I actively seeking God,
or do I just want his wealth?
This may open up questions;
it may even sound like a quiz.
But the answer to the question:
Is there a God? Yes,there is!

~ Mark Hudson

Mark Hudson retains copyright to this poem.

Hudson submitted a bio: Mark Hudson is a member of Evanston Writers Workshop and Rockford Writers Guild. He is currently working on a novella for http://nanorimo.org/, national novel writing month.

Check in on December 1 for the new poetry challenge.

© 2001 Wilda Morris

November 2011 Challenge

2011-11-01T12:56:00.007-05:00

As you read the following three poems (one by Thomas Hardy and two of mine), you may wonder what they have in common. They do seem very different in content, theme and style.

The Man He Killed

Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough: although

He thought he’d ‘list, perhaps,
Off-hand-like—just like I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.

Yes, quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.

~ Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

NOTES:
A "napperkin" is a half-pint cup.
The word "'list" is a shortened form of "enlist."
"Traps" might be literally traps, if the soldier had been a hunter and trapper, but more likely are the tools of his trade as a plumber, tinker, carpenter, or whatever.

This poem is in the public domain.
From Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses. Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan and Co. 1909.

Six Years in Sri Lanka

A little luck and the money
from my father’s will
and I was touring the world.

I settled down for six years
in the Sri Lankan highlands,
married a Sinhalese artist.
We carried paint
and canvas to the rainforest,
painted bromeliads, epiphytes,
and the purple-faced leaf monkey.

At Yala, we watched a leopard
limp off the dirt road,
followed him into the jungle
till he hid himself in underbrush.

Each year we hiked to Kandy
for the Esala Perahera.
On the day of the full moon
we watched dancers, drummers,
whip-crackers, torch-bearers,
and caparisoned elephants
parade the streets, bowed
when Maligawa Tusker passed by
with the canopied reliquary
containing a replica of Buddha’s tooth.

When Tamil fighters came,
I hid my love beneath coconuts
picked from our palm trees,
told them he’d gone to India
to paint the Taj Mahal.

These are just a few
adventures in that other life
I never lived.

~ Wilda Morris

NOTES:
The purple-faced leaf monkey exists only in Sri Lanka, and is one of the most endangered species in the world. You can see pictures of these monkeys at http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/animals/individuals/PurpleFacedLeafMonkey.html
The Yala National Park in Sri Lanka is home to one of the largest concentrations of leopards in the world.
"Esala Perahera" = the Festival of the Tooth. The tooth of Buddha is considered the most sacred relic in Sri Lanka.
"Maligawa Tusker" is the elephant who carried the golden casket containing the tooth of Buddha in the celebratory parade from 1937-1988. After his death, his body was preserved by a taxidermist, and it is kept at the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy.

First published in Frostwriting, 2009 (http://www.frostwriting.com/issues/authors/Wilda%20Morris/).

On Dad’s Demolition Crew

It’s not that I minded helping Mother.
I liked hanging laundry and taking it down,
weeding the garden, slicing carrots
and stirring stew. I was mad,
though, when dad took my brothers
to work and left me behind.
No place, he said, for a girl.

Donnie described the elevator
they rode to the top after Dad
demolished the outer walls
of an office building,
the view across St. Louis
when the elevator door opened
at what had been the fourteenth floor.

Ronnie’s pockets bulged
with buffalo nickels and copper pennies
from the site of an old pub
Dad pulled down. I begged
till Ronnie shared his loot
of found treasures.

I demanded, Dad, take me, too!
till he told me one morning
to tie my shoes and hop
into the back of the truck
with my brothers.

Dust and dirt were my paradise.
The crash of falling girders,
percussion to the organ music
of tumbling timber; prisms of glass,
my cathedral windows; and Dad,
the priest preaching mysteries
and wonders of this world
so new to me.

~ Wilda Morris

Copyright to the last two poems is retained by the author. Please do not reprint without permission.

These three poems are all reminders that the reader should not assume a poem in first person is autobiographical.

Several years ago, I came across an intriguing prompt for a poem. Imagine that something in your life had been different—maybe you were born in a different state or to different parents, or went to a different college. If you are married, you might imagine yourself single or married to a different person; if you are single, you might imagine yourself married. There are endless possibilities.

Hardy’s title may be a bit of a give-away that although the poem is in first person, the poem is not autobiographical. You may have realized that Hardy is not literally the “I.” He doesn’t tell us who “He” in the title is, “The Man He Killed.” But it is not the poet himself. Hardy did not enlist, and was never a soldier himself. Nor did he ever kill anyone.

Hardy’s poem could be considered a persona poem (see the blog entries for February, 2010). However, the persona in this case is not a named individual. Rather, he is an anonymous soldier, one who was poor, and enlisted largely because he was out of work and didn’t know what else to do. Hardy himself was born, and spent much of his life, in Dorset, one of the poorer, more rural counties of England. He interviewed soldiers who survived the war with Napoleon, and spoke out against aspects of the Boer War and World War I.

The poem gains strength from the fact that Hardy puts it in first person. It is as if Hardy had imagined himself as a poor workingman, out of a job, signing up to fight—and discovering the irony that he has shot someone just like himself, except for the fact that the man he shot was on the side of the enemy. This poem, though rather light and in colloquial language, is a serious poem, a commentary on the irrationality of war.

“Six Years in Sri Lanka,” was my first use of the prompt of imagining something in my life being different. I always have wanted to travel. I studied Sri Lankan politics in graduate school, and really wanted to go there. Money was always an issue, though, and I still have not made it to South Asia. I have been in rain forests, and have become familiar with bromeliads and epiphytes, and I read with interest about the Esala Perahera, when the tooth of Buddha is brought out in solemn and joyous procession. I also read about the long-lasting civil war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka.

With poetic license, I imagined that I had inherited some money and was able to travel around the world, stopping off in Sri Lanka (“the pearl o the toe of India”), where I fell in love and married.

“On Dad’s Demolition Crew” had a different source of inspiration. My parents were divorced when I was two, so I never knew my birth father. A couple years ago, through the Internet, I got in touch with—and got to meet—two half-brothers and a number other relatives I had not known existed. I learned that my birth father had had a demolition business, though not when I was a young child (as in the poem). I loved hearing his grandson (my nephew) tell about going to work with his grandfather. The elevator story is his, though I think it was, in reality, the 9th floor, not the 14th. The coins probably made their way into the poem because I was told my birth father always had coins in his pockets. They fell into the cushions of the sofa when he napped, and his grandchildren would gather them up so they could buy snacks at a nearby store.

Remembering the prompt, I put myself into my birth father’s family, changed the timing of his demolition business, and wrote “On Dad’s Demolition Crew.”

Challenge for November:

By now, you have probably figured out that the challenge for November is to use your imagination and think about how your life might have been if just one or two things had been different. What if you had enlisted? Married or not married? Inherited some money or won big on Jeopardy? If your book had won a Pulitzer Prize? If you’d been an only child, or the youngest of nine children? Or . . . . well, you decide what might have been different and where that might have led you. The poem is not to be a persona poem speaking for some famous person, but an alteration of your own life story.

Your poem may be free verse or rhymed and metered. If you use a set form, please include the name of the form with your submission.

The deadline is November 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. Unfortunately I am unable to publish indentations, shaped poems or even extra spaces between words or phrases.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data. Poems submitted after the November 15 deadline will not be considered.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]. Be sure provide your e-mail address. When you submit your poem, add a note indicating where you took poetic license with the facts of your life. The poem should be in first person, as if it actually happened to the speaker in the poem. 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.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

Winning Poem for October

2011-10-30T18:18:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Peggy Trojan, for her poem honoring teachers. Growing up in Iowa City, Iowa, I had a mostly teachers who lived up to the standards in this poem, especially including: Miss Blessie (Mrs. Orlando, after she married), Miss Humphrey and Mrs. Moon at Longfellow School; Mrs. Heller at Iowa City Junior High; Mrs. Yearnd, Mr. White and Miss Winbigler at Iowa City High School. There were others, too. Right now, I can't remember the name of my Junior High speech teacher, but she was special, too.

My grandmother attested to the impact of teachers on her life by the fact that even when she was in her 70s she could name every teacher she had. Growing up in a small Kansas town when she did, she had the same teacher for multiple years; that gave each one more of an opportunity to impact her life. Still, I was impressed that she could name all of them.

Children with devoted teachers who love and respect their students and are excited about the subject matter they teach generally do well in school and learn a lot.

The Test

So, this is the last day.
I watch you,
anxious for the bell
that frees you into summer.
I wonder.
What will you,
in five, ten, twenty years
remember from this room?
That nouns are names
of persons and things?
That paragraphs need
topic sentences?
That Shakespeare dared
mix sadness and beauty
in one line?

I tried to teach you
more than this.
Something to help solve
the enigma of living.
Will anyone of you,
I wonder,
ever guess I gave
my heart,
and all I knew?

~ Peggy Trojan

The copyright on this poem is owned by Peggy Trojan. Do not copy without permission.

Watch for the new challenge for November.

© 2011 Wilda Morris.

October 2011 Poetry Challenge

2011-10-01T23:50:00.004-05:00

A community is made up of a variety of people with different functions and occupations. Each occupation can serve as a prompt for poems. One of the most famous poems in English paying tribute to an occupational group is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Village Blacksmith.” I remember my grandmother reciting this poem, with some wistfulness in her voice. By the time I was born, she was living in Iowa City, Iowa, and most families had automobiles or got around town on the foot or on the bus. So far as I know, there was no blacksmith in town. My grandmother had grown up in Lincoln, Kansas, a small, rural prairie town. There still was a blacksmith in Lincoln when my grandmother took me to visit. Today, though most of us know about the blacksmith only from reading Longfellow’s poem or historical novels.

The Village Blacksmith

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And bear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his haul, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote long, rhymed poems in honor of “The Ship-Builders,” “The Shoemaker,” “The Drovers,” “The Fishermen,” “The Huskers” and “The Lumbermen.” Some of these occupations have largely disappeared from the American scene. For instance, though there are still some shoe repair shops, most of the shoes we wear were made in factories—and often in factories abroad.

Whittier’s book. Songs of Labor, and other poems, is available on-line in the Google book, Songs of Labor and Other Poems by John Greenleaf Whittier, which can be downloaded at http://books.google.com/books?id=y2ERAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.

There are links to several more contemporary poems about work and workers at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/06/labor-day-poems-the-poetr_n_705337.html.

Other examples:

* Donald Hall, "The Ox Cart Man," in White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006 (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006), p. 94.
* Edward Hirsch, "The Custodian," The Atlantic (October 2011), p. 88.

In each community today—in any nations—there are people in a variety of occupations or professions. The challenge for October is to write a poem in tribute to persons who function in a particular occupation. It may be written about the occupation in general, as Whittier’s “The Drovers,” or you may use the singular, as Longfellow did, using his village blacksmith as an example of the best of the profession. The poem should not be a nostalgic look back, but deal with today’s reality. Pick an occupation that contributes to the welfare of your community today.

Your poem may be free verse or rhymed and metered. If you use a set form, please include the name of the form with your submission.

The deadline is October 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. Unfortunately I am unable to publish indentations, shaped poems or even extra spaces between words or phrases.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data. Poems submitted after the October 15 deadline will not be considered.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]. Be sure provide your e-mail address. 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.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

Post script: I've added several new links to poems of mine on the Internet.

September Blog Winner

2011-09-30T22:56:00.004-05:00

There were several excellent children’s poems submitted this month, so I asked a 4th grade teacher, Sally Dayton, if she and her class would select the winner. This is the poem they chose:

The Woman Who Weaves In The Sky

See how she spins, see her fingers fly,
that mysterious lady who lives in the sky.
She makes sunsets and oceans, and babies that cry;
makes tigers and ligers and chicken pot pie.

Hooray for the lady who weaves in the sky.
She’ll play with you too if you never ask why.
For she hates to explain whatever she does.
She is what she is, and will be what she was.

~ Judith Bernal

Copyright to this poem remains with Judith Bernal, the poet. Please do not copy and distribute it without permission.

I must admit that I learned a new word when I read this poem: “liger.” If you don’t know what it means, you can go to my favorite source of definitions and synonyms: www.onelook.com.

I suspect that the children liked the mysterious qualities of this poem, as well as the rhythm and rhyme. Also most children hate to explain what they do, and could identify with that characteristic of “the woman who weaves in the sky.” They may also identify with the last line, and want to say the same thing about themselves.

Watch for a new prompt coming soon.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

September 2011 Poetry Challenge

2011-09-01T11:34:00.005-05:00

It is September and in the United States that means the children are going back to school. As children walked by my home to the nearby elementary school, I started thinking about some of the poems I loved when I was a child.

What poems were your favorites? Styles in poetry change, and favorites vary from country to country. My children were very fond of Shel Silverstein’s poems. What were (or are) the favorite poems of your children? If you are a grandparent, what are some favorites of your grandchildren? If enough readers respond to these questions (respond to wildamorris[at]Ameritech[dot]net, I’ll publish a list of the poems mentioned most.

Maybe one reason I was fond of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was that my school was named for him. "The Children's Hour" was (and still is) ne of my very favorite . It is a poem of family love. Perhaps because I grew up in my grandparents’ home, I pictured the speaker of the poem as a grandfather—one as kind and loving as mine. Usually “The Children’s Hour” is printed with every other line indented, but this blog won’t accept indents, so all the lines in this and other poems are left-justified.

The Children’s Hour

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Here are a few more of my childhood favorites:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,--
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,--
Never afraid are we!"
So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam,--
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home:
'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea;
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:--
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

~ Eugene Field

Animal Crackers

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers, I think;
When I'm grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.

What do you choose when you're offered a treat?
When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It's cocoa and animals that I love the most!

The kitchen's the coziest place that I know:
The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me.

Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;
But they don't have nearly as much fun as I
Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
And Daddy once said he would like to be me
Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!

~ Christopher Morley

James Whitcomb Riley was one of my favorite poets. Among his poems that I enjoyed was “The Raggedy Man.” The stanzas below are the ones that were in my poetry book. By going to http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/James-Whitcomb-Riley/13678 I learned that there are several additional stanzas I did not read or hear as a child.

The Raggedy Man

O the Raggedy Man! He works fer Pa;
An' he's the goodest man ever you saw!
He comes to our house every day,
An' waters the horses, an' feeds 'em hay;
An' he opens the shed -- an' we all ist laugh
When he drives out our little old wobble-ly calf;
An' nen -- ef our hired girl says he can --
He milks the cow fer 'Lizabuth Ann. --
Ain't he a' awful good Raggedy Man?
Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

W'y, The Raggedy Man -- he's ist so good,
He splits the kindlin' an' chops the wood;
An' nen he spades in our garden, too,
An' does most things 'at boys can't do. --
He clumbed clean up in our big tree
An' shooked a' apple down fer me --
An' 'nother 'n', too, fer 'Lizabuth Ann --
An' 'nother 'n', too, fer The Raggedy Man. --
Ain't he a' awful kind Raggedy Man?
Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

The Raggedy Man's so good an' kind
He'll be our "horsey," an' "haw" an' mind
Ever'thing 'at you make him do --
An' The Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes,
An' tells 'em, ef I be good, sometimes:
Knows 'bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, an' Elves,
An' the Squidgicum-Squees 'at swallers the'rselves:
An', wite by the pump in our pasture-lot,
He showed me the hole 'at the Wunks is got,
'At lives 'way deep in the ground, an' can
Turn into me, er 'Lizabuth Ann!
Er Ma, er Pa, er The Raggedy Man!
Ain't he a funny old Raggedy Man?
Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

The Raggedy Man -- one time, when he
Wuz makin' a little bow-'n'-orry fer me,
Says "When you're big like your Pa is,
Air you go' to keep a fine store like his --
An' be a rich merchunt -- an' wear fine clothes? --
Er what air you go' to be, goodness knows?"
An' nen he laughed at 'Lizabuth Ann,
An' I says "'M go' to be a Raggedy Man! --
I'm ist go' to be a nice Raggedy Man!"
Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

~ James Whitcomb Riley

Free Verse for Children

The poems above are all rhymed and metered poems. This is not true of all poems for children. Go to http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/video/6 and you can watch a video reading of "April Rain Song" by Langston Hughes. I’m sure it would have been one of my favorites, had I heard it as a child!

NOTE: The poems reproduced on this blog entry are, I believe, in the public domain. I have given the link to Langston Hughes’ poem rather than reproducing it here, because I believe it is still copyright-protected, and because I think you will enjoy the video.

September Poetry Challenge

For September, write a poem for children between the ages of six and eleven. Your poem may be free verse or formal verse. If you use a form, please specify what form you are using. If you invent your own form, please include the rules of the form.

The deadline is September 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. Unfortunately I am unable to publish indentations, shaped poems or even extra spaces between words or phrases.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data. Poems submitted after the September 15 deadline will not be considered.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]. Be sure provide your e-mail address. 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.

NOTE TO POETS: The Illinois State Poetry Society has an annual contest for poets. If you are interested, you can find the rules at http://illinoispoets.org/contest.htm.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Let me know if your class would like to submit poems on this challenge, or if you would like to work with me on selecting a challenge for later in the school year.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

August Challenge Winner

2011-08-28T22:24:00.003-05:00

The winning poem for August is by Caroline Johnson, who says her hero is her sister Debbie, who died of osteogenic sarcoma. After her poem was selected, I asked her to explain in more detail why she considered her sister her hero. Here is what she wrote:

I admired my sister Debbie for many reasons. She had a talent of playing the piano, she was the first in the family to have a boyfriend, and she even smoked out on our front porch once with her friends--with my parents watching! However, the biggest reason I admired her was for her fortitude and strength when facing her illness, osteogenic sarcoma, or bone cancer. This cancer caused her to have her leg amputated, and later on, it metastasized to her lungs. It was the same kind of cancer that Ted Kennedy's son had. She even wrote a letter to him, and he replied, telling her to "never give up." He would survive the tragedy, while she didn't

She would tell my mom not to worry about what kind of casket to choose, while my mom couldn't hold back the tears. Debbie accepted her death in the same way she accepted her life; she reacted calmly with the cards that were dealt to her. Though her death at 15 affected us all greatly, it was really the memory of her life--the way she lived her life--that would chase us for years afterwards, like a ghost.

Her is Caroline’s tribute to her sister:

Poem about Hair

I remember when she lost it.
The memory is almost as vivid
as when she played with Barbie,
holding it with both hands,
moving it here and there
admiring the doll’s long hair.

All those months of chemotherapy,
the nausea, and then, suddenly,
she had beautiful, silky locks.
It was a dark wig, of course,
that I saw my 14-year-old sister comb.
At night it would sit on a Styrofoam head, propped.

She wore the wig and her prosthesis
every school day while climbing the steps
of a crowded yellow bus,
using crutches or sometimes
a cane.

The last time I saw her
we each put a single red rose
on her casket.
Father said he hoped he’d see her again.

Mother, like me, said nothing,
her dyed blonde hair
whipping in the wind.

Caroline Johnson Caroline Johnson
http://jupiter-caroline.blogspot.com

Copyright to this poem belongs to the author.

Watch for the September Poetry Challenge coming soon.

© Wilda Morris

July Children's Winners

2011-08-08T10:50:00.002-05:00

Students in Mapua School in New Zealand accepted the July challenge and wrote night poems, which their teacher, Struan McKenzie, submitted for them. The children, who are in year 3, are 6 and 7 years old. They all did a fine job. With some difficulty, I have selected three of their poems as winners to publish. Congratulations to these young poets—and to the entire class! Keep writing!

Black mist- By Ben

Night is a black mist.
Floating around the house.
It's creeping up to me.
Oh no! A ghost is coming and the owls are howling
and the leaves are blowing in the trees.
Morning.
I'm glad the night is over.

I love night- By Eden

Every kid at night blows their candle out.
It goes dark.
You snuggle up to your blanket.
You hear funny sounds (hoo, hoo) goes an owl.
(scratch, scratch) goes a black cat.
Fall asleep.
(I love night!)

The Night by Rayek

The night is a black blankey with lots of holes
The wind outside sounds like a owl howling
The smell of night is some crispy fish and chips
The feel of night is a big icecube melting in the sun.

Don't forget to enter the August Challenge! Who is your hero??

© 2011 Wilda Morris

August 2011 Poetry Challenge

2011-08-01T11:26:00.008-05:00

Most of us have heroes. Not movie stars or ball players who make a living from the sport, but real heroes. People whom we admire and respect and would like, in someway to emulate. People who have given large parts of their lives to help others. Some are heroes from the past, people we studied about in school, church, synagogue, temple or mosque. Some are more contemporary heroes.

One of my heroes is my own mother, Woodye Kessler. When my grandmother was a patient in Mercy Hospital, nearing death, Sister Rosemary McManus began regular visits to converse and pray with my grandmother, and with Mother who kept vigil in my grandmother's hospital room. Sister Rosemary was getting ready to begin a new jail ministry, and asked Mother (a Baptist) to consider joining her in that endeavor. Mother was very reluctant. Sister Rosemary kept asking, even after my grandmother’s death. Mother finally agreed to give it a try, because she felt indebted to the persistent nun. The picture above shows Mother outside the jail on the day the sheriff and jail staff honored her for her years of service. Here is the poem I wrote about my mother and her ministry. It is pretty close to the actual facts, as Mother told them.

Woodye Kessler at the County Jail

She tried to hold fear
in her hands but it spread
like melted butter
from her white hair
to the soles of her arthritic feet.
Even the Bible she carried
trembled as the sheriff
locked her in with Sister Rosemary
and a dozen inmates.

She shuddered when Eddie
opened his vile mouth,
cursing her, Sister Rosemary,
God and his cellmate.
But she came again each week,
studying scripture with the men,
sitting as close as she could
to the locked door,
as if it might provide escape,

till the day Eddie asked,
Why do you come here?
Without thinking, she replied,
Because I love you.
At that moment her fear
took flight and she knew
she did love him, knew
he was a child of God

and Eddie began a long journey
back toward the self
he’d abandoned in the pain
of abuse, disrespect,
dehumanization.

~ Wilda Morris

First published in Rockford Review, XXVII:2 (Summer-Fall 2008).

Woodye Kessler continued in this jail ministry for at least 27 years. When Sister Rosemary retired and returned to Chicago, she turned the ministry over to Woodye. As long as her health allowed, Woodye also corresponded with persons incarcerated in several states. An inmate from the county jail would be convicted and sent to prison. He and Mother (Woodye) would correspond. Then one day, he would write, "my cellmate (or someone down the way) never gets any mail. He would appreciate it if you would write to him." So she would begin a new correspondence. For a long time, she wrote as many as 100 letters a month to lonely men and women who had lost their way in life and needed a friend. She also visited inmates in penitentiaries in several states.

Woodye Kessler is my hero because she was willing to undertake a challenge which frightened her, but through which she felt she could do good for others. She touched many lives and helped many people (mostly men, since there were not many women in the county jail while she volunteered there). The sheriffs under whose supervision she worked, as well as the chaplain of the state penitentiary, testified that she helped many of these men turn their lives around. (I should say, too, that Sister Rosemary McManus, a gentle, loving woman with a great sense of humor, is also one of my heroes.)

Three Other Heroes

Two of my poems about heroes whose lifetimes overlapped with mine, are included in the current issue of Voices on the Wind. The poem at http://www.voicesonthewind.net/thistime.html honors Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rabbi Abraham Heschel. Bonhoeffer was a protestant pastor in Germany who opposed the Nazi regime, and ultimately lost his life as a result. Heschel was a rabbi known as a great teacher and as a deeply spiritual man. Yet he stepped out of his classroom and his comfort zone to participate with Martin Luther King, Jr., in the march to Selma, because he felt called to act for racial justice.

Also on the same website, at http://www.voicesonthewind.net/yearsmiles.html, is my poem, “Years, Miles,” about another of my heroes, one who is still living. Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar (formerly called Burma). Her husband, who was of British background, was in London. He was diagnosed with cancer and given a limited time to live. The government of Myanmar would not allow him to go see his wife one last time. She might have been able to join him in Great Britain, but would not have been allowed to return to her own country. Thus, they had to suffer though the weeks of his physical decline and death half a world apart.

August, 2011, Poetry Challenge

The poetry challenge for August is to write a poem about a hero of yours—a hero whose lifetime overlaps (or overlapped) your own lifetime. Think about what, for you, constitute the characteristics of a hero. Your poem may be free or formal verse (if formal, please designate the form).

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. Unfortunately I am unable to publish indentations,shaped poems or even extra spaces between words or phrases.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data. Poems submitted after the August 15 deadline will not be considered.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]. Be sure provide your e-mail address. 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.

The deadline is August 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

NOTE: An elementary school teacher submitted poems written in class for the July Poetry Challenge. The elementary school winner or winners will be posted soon. Teachers: This month’s challenge would be an excellent one for children or youth. If you wish your class to participate, give your students the challenge to write poems about their heroes. Send their poems to me by August 15. Be sure to include the name of the school, your name and the grade level and ages of the poets. Also, send only the first names of the children or youth, unless you send evidence that the parents have given permission for their last names to be published.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

July Challenge Winner

2011-07-26T13:55:00.003-05:00

Thank you to the poets who submitted "night poems" for the July Challenge.

Thank you, also, to the four judges, each of whom is a contributor to the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar 2012. They are Doris Bezio, Susan Gibson, Charlotte Johnson and Mary Cleary Krauss. Selection of the winning poem was not easy, as evidenced by the fact that three different poems received first place votes.

Congratulations to Gail E. Goepfert, whose poem was selected as first by two of the judges and second by the other two.

Nightly in the Summer Garden

Let’s walk the plantation, she said--
such a grand name
for their early evening stroll
to admire all that she had planned
all that he had planted
to survey all that spoke
green in the summer garden.

Her words carried by fireflies
mingle with the garden perfume

Breathtaking lavender-
blues of the hydrangea blooms.

A pink gerbera daisy is poking
through its tunnel of leaves.

Look—violet clematis weaving
along the fence and
five buds on the tea rose--
I’ll cut one for the morning room.

Ivy just creeps across the cocoa beans
Honey, the impatiens need a drink.

Oh, we’d better go inside--
mosquitoes are starting to bite,
and you know how they love you,

and nightly, the door closes behind them.

~ Gail E. Goepfert
Poets published on this blog retain copyright to their poems.

Here are some of the comments made by the judges concerning this poem:

“I like this woman who loves her garden.”
“The shared conversation is a nice touch.”
“Love the phrase ‘all that spoke green’”!

If you are interested in purchasing the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar 2012, go to http://wfop.org/ and click on the cover picture.

I will try to post the August Challenge on time, but it is likely to be delayed, due to the death of my mother.

© Wilda W. Morris

July 2011 Poetry Challenge

2011-07-01T10:32:00.007-05:00

Night has long been a favorite subject of poets. Here are three old, serious poems about night, followed by a contemporary, whimsical poem of mine. The older poems are all rhymed and metered; mine is free verse. Each creates a different mood. Longfellow’s is more metaphoric than that of Wordsworth or Browning. Wordsworth’s has a somewhat pastoral feel, which Longfellow’s poem does not have. Browning’s poem is a narrative love poem. To what lengths will the poet (or his persona) go for a night tryst with one he loves?

My poem takes off from the idea found in children’s stories (books and movies) that the nursery toys come awake at night. I didn’t think children should have all the fun of imagining what might happen in the house after all the lights are out and the human beings are asleep.

The Sun Has Long Been Set

The sun has long been set,
The stars are out by twos and threes,
The little birds are piping yet
Among the bushes and trees;
There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,
And a far-off wind that rushes,
And a sound of water that gushes,
And the cuckoo's sovereign cry
Fills all the hollow of the sky.
Who would "go parading"
In London, "and masquerading,"
On such a night of June
With that beautiful soft half-moon,
And all these innocent blisses?
On such a night as this is!

~ William Wordsworth

Hymn to the Night

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care
And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Meeting at Night

The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low:
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

~ Robert Browning

The three poems above are all in the public domain. The poem below is copyright-protected.

Night Life

Here it’s not nursery toys
that come alive in the night
but clothes in the closet.
Your coveralls and my denim jacket
leap through the window
to rock on the porch swing.
They sidle over to the garden,
take nips from a bright red tomato
before joining neighbors
in a square dance.

One of your brown leather boots
gives a playful kick to my sneakers
which string along.
Didn’t you notice those footprints
leading out to the pasture?
All their eyes look skyward,
finding Cassiopeia’s Chair.
If the inside of your shoe is damp
in the morning, it may be milk
spilled from the Little Dipper.

Your Sunday suit slides
off the hanger, offers an arm
to my flowered silk dress
with the white lace collar.
They dine formally on prime rib
and baked potato, using our silver,
then waltz through the house.
Listen! Don’t you hear
the echo of Strauss?

© Wilda Morris

Published in Prairie Light Review (Fall 2008).

More Night Poems:

For more poems on the theme of night, go to http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20416
There you will find “The First Night,” by Billy Collins (from his book, Ballistics). To the left of the poem you will find links to other poems about night.

Other interesting night poems include:
* “Nativity,” by Li-Young Lee, in Book of My Nights
* “It’s Always Darkest Just Before the Dawn,” by Kay Ryan, in The Best of It: New and Selected Poems
*“After Dinner,” by Philip Levine, in A Walk With Thomas Jefferson
*“Night: December 15th,” by Alfred Dorn, in Flamenco Dance And Other Poems
*“Night,” by Kazim Ali, in The Far Mosque
*"At Night in the Everglades," by Robin Chapman, in The Only Everglades in the World

July 2011 Poetry Challenge:

The challenge for July is to write a poem about night. Does night bring you pleasure or fear? Does it elicit memory of a special occasion? How did you experience night as a child? Have you heard a child speaking about the night? Your poem may be formal or free verse. If using a form, please identify the form. The winning poem will be published on this blog.

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. Unfortunately I am unable to publish indentations or shaped poems.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data. Poems submitted after the July 15 deadline will not be considered.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog if it is a winner. The deadline is July 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

June Challenge Winners

2011-06-30T21:06:00.008-05:00

Colorado poet Katie Kingston selected “How to Make Blueberry Pie” by Peggy Trojan as winner of the June Poetry Challenge. Kingston said she chose this poem “because of the poet’s generous appeal to the senses and attention to dialogue. The poem is deeply rooted in a strong sense of place.” She added, “I thank the poet for giving me the opportunity to ‘Enter Quinton swamp at last year’s faded marker.’ It’s a place I won’t forget.”

Here is the winning “How to” poem:

How to Make Blueberry Pie

Enter Quinton swamp at last year’s faded marker.
Keep up with Pa, in his eighties and leading.
Deep in woods, where berries hang like grapes,
powdery blue, warm, kneel.

Listen. “When I was six we took the horses….
water got warm and butter melted on the bread….”
Pretend you never heard of the 1918 fire.
“Dad put us eight kids in a circle in the field ….
My pet ram was killed because he was burned black…”

When your pail is full, blindly follow Pa
through brush slapping your face. Have faith.
You come out right in front of the truck.
Admire the pickings. “By God, we did pretty good.”

Clean berries at picnic table under the pines.
Make crust while Pa makes filling.
Talk about how great berries were last year,
or was it the year before? “Man, it was just blue…..”

Let Pa slice it. “Gramma Uitto cut hers in four…..”
Put ice cream on your piece to cool it,
use a spoon for juice. Smack your lips and laugh
when Pa scrapes his plate, says again, “That’ll sell!”

~ Peggy Trojan

Kingston selected a second place poem also, “How to Rebuild a Head” by Bakul Banerjee, “for the poet’s originality and willingness to experiment with form while dealing with weighty subject matter. The framing reference to ‘cumin in the curry’ successfully creates a sense of the cyclical, a sense of entrapment which is key to the urgency in this poem."

How to Rebuild a Head

The husband smashed her head
against the mantle, the chart said.
Not enough cumin in the curry –
He complained and tried to pour
the hot soup from the stove on her
splashing part of it on himself
then escaping to seek his doctor
as she managed to run outside.
“It was her fault – should have kept
her mouth shut.” Her sister informed.

She laid on the freshly mowed lawn
in front of her fancy mansion.
The morning sun kissed her face
through the plum tree as it shed
purple flowers oblivious to the dog
barking next door. Paramedics came.

Construction
Deconstruction
Reconstruction
Iteration

Stabilize
Analyze
Anesthetize
Cauterize
Catheterize

Cut scalp
Pick fragments
Take pictures
Connect nerves
Drain brain

Months later, she returned
to the mansion promising
more cumin in the curry.

~ Bakul Banerjee

Winning poets retain copyright to their own poems. Do not copy without their permission.

About This Month's Judge:

Katie Kingston has published two award-winning chapbooks

• El Río de Las Animas Peridadas en Purgatorio, White Eagle Coffee Store Press, 2006, First Place White Eagle Coffee Store Press Chapbook Award,available from www.members.aol.com/wecspress .

• In My Dreams Neruda, Main Street Rag, 2005, Editor’s Choice, available at www.mainstreetrag.com .

Kingston, who has won a number of other awards also, is a recipient of the Colorado Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals including Atlanta Review, Blue Mesa Review, Great River Review, Green Mountains Review, Hunger Mountain, Margie, Puerto del Sol, Nimrod, and Rattle.

You can learn more about Kingston at http://www.coloradopoetscenter.org/poets/kingston_katie/bibliography.html.

Watch for the July Challenge, which will be posted soon.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

June 2011 Poetry Challenge

2011-06-01T01:15:00.004-05:00

Three example poems will provide inspiration for the June challenge: a “how to” poem. Each of these poems is quite unique. The first poem was inspired by the photograph by John Brunelli which appears above.

How to Build a Bedtime Story

All it takes is a flicker.
Someone to loosen the spigot of night.
The current will do the rest.

Or the wind ruffling colors
as two strangers approach
from opposite directions,
unaware of each other’s existence,
but destined to meet
where the road splits in two.

And the owl deep in his tree kingdom,
passing judgment in the dark.
Silent witness and executioner.

~Andrei Guruianu

From How We Are Now, Poems by Andrei Guruianu; Photography by John Brunelli (Vestal NY: Split Oak Press, 2010). All rights reserved. Used by permission of the author and photographer.
http://splitoakpress.com/

The second poem is rather whimsical. It was selected for inclusion in the Poetry 180 project designed by former Poet Laureate of the US, Billy Collins. Collins selected 180 poems, one for each day of the average school year, and recommended that they be read aloud to (and by) high school students. The poems were not to be analyzed in detail, but simply read and enjoyed.

How to Change a Frog into a Prince

Start with the underwear. Sit him down.
Hopping on one leg may stir unpleasant memories.
If he gets his tights on, even backwards, praise him.
Fingers, formerly webbed, struggle over buttons.
Arms and legs, lengthened out of proportion, wait,
as you do, for the rest of him to catch up.
This body, so recently reformed, reclaimed,
still carries the marks of its time as a frog. Be gentle.
Avoid the words awkward and gawky.
Do not use tadpole as a term of endearment.
His body, like his clothing, may seem one size too big.
Relax. There's time enough for crowns. He'll grow into it.

~ Anna Denise

from The Poets' Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm's Fairy Tales (Ashland OR:
Story Line Press, 2003). © 2002 by Anna Denise.
All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission of the author.

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/176.html

The third poem is of a more serious nature. It is from a collection of poems by an American poet (a Chicago native currently living in Wisconsin), who began visiting Amsterdam in 1960, and lived in Amsterdam from 1994-5 and 1999-2000.

How To Be An Immigrant

Arrive with a suitcase of dreams.
Wrestle with a language and strange sounds
not in your mother tongue,
be seen only as other.

Stand in a long line in the rain
hours before office for foreigners opens.
Red numbers flash on two screens
in a sea of cubicles, Kafka echoes.
One door opens, then another,
people disappear inside with police.

Know rejection by the native born
brushing aside your credentials.
Feel the pain of discrimination
for the beauty of your chestnut brown skin
even though the country professes
to need trained nurses like you.

Create a home of love in your family
the outside world never sees.
Adopt society’s labels – “zwart,” black
for schools where foreign tongues predominate
unconsciously soaking in derogatory
images of yourself and your loved ones.

Question, challenge if this country
values the strengths and dignity of every one.
Must you give up your dreams
for yourself and your children?

~ Judith Zukerman

From Amsterdam Days: a journey through poetry (McFarland WI: Community Publications, Inc., 2004). All rights reserved. Used by permission of the author.

You can contact Judith Zukerman through the following link:
http://www.bookthatpoet.com/poets/zukerman.html

June Challenge

The June challenge is to write a "How to" poem. The title should begin with those two words. It might be "How to Bake Bread," "How to End an Engagement," "How to Get a Job," "How to Teach a Toddler to Tie Shoes," "How to Jump Over the Empire State Building" - possibilities are endless! Be creative. The winning poem will be published on this blog.

Due to formatting restrictions on the blog, all poems should be left justified. Unfortunately I am unable to publish indentations or shaped poems.

You may write in free verse or use a form. If you write in a form, please specify the form used. Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data. Poems submitted after the June 15 deadline will not be considered.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog if it is a winner. The deadline is June 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

May 2011 Challenge Winner

2011-05-29T20:12:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Kongyin, who won the May poetry challenge. This is the first time the same poet has won two months in a row. The consulting judge, Floridian David Roth, explained his decision, saying, “I suspect that it was the little bit of whimsy in the ending that appealed to my softer, gentler side.”

Marissa, Where Are You?

“Marissa! Marissa!
Where are you?”
Mom searched the bedroom.
“Ah, no, Marisa isn’t hiding in the wardrobe
as usual,
wearing my favorite white dress,
pretending to be the princess of the ball.”

“Marissa! Marissa!
Where are you?”
Mom examined the basement.
“Ah, no, Marisa isn’t riding her toy car
as usual,
hitting her dad's bookcase.”

“Marissa! Marissa!
Where are you?”
Mom rummaged around the bathroom.
Ah, no, Marisa isn’t hiding there as usual,
holding the glass jar, munching on candies stolen from the cupboard.”

“Marissa! Marissa!
Where on earth are you,
and where is my white dress
and your toy car
and the jar filled with chocolate almonds?”

Mom hurried into the playground
where children swing with excited screams.
Ah, what is this by the golden daffodils on the wet ground –
a dress no longer white,
a toy car stuck in the mud,
an empty candy jar?
And what else?
A little girl with messy braids
holding a slim daffodil,
whispering,
“Hush, Mama,
I’m listening to the story told by the daffodils. ”

~ Kongyin

Poets retain copyright of their poems.

Thanks to the consulting judge, poet and author David (not Lee) Roth, Roth began his personal journey of words during a late night online chat sometime in the mid 1990’s. He has since gone on to complete Forcas III, the epic story of the Klingon Bet’leH tournament set in the Star Trek: the Next Generation universe; poetry collections Sometimes I Hear Voices and Alice’s Goldfinch; Christmas Eyes, a poetry chapbook with a Christmas theme; and The Adventures of the Magnificent Seven, a series of stories in tribute to his children and grandchildren. His current project is Legends of Greenbrook Park, a whimsical childhood autobiography.

David lives and writes and blogs from the relative obscurity of New Port Richey, Florida, with the love of his life, Linda, their two fur children: Ms. Skittle and the Jazzy Cat; and his mother-in-law and her pet (Kelsey the Stink-dog).

Links

I have added some links, most recently a link to my poem, "Wild Roses," which appears in the current issue of A Prairie Journal, and a link to two Magnapoets anthologies in which my poetry appears.

The next poetry challenge will be posted on June 1.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

May Poetry Challenge

2011-05-01T21:10:00.002-05:00

Spring has arrived and summer is on the way here in Illinois. Children don’t have to bundle up in boots, gloves and heavy coats to go outside with their friends. The playground beckons.

Sometimes we are nostalgic about playgrounds, as in the poem below:

The Playground

It happens every time.
I enter a playground
as if walking on hallowed ground.
Birds chirp, boys spring
from the jungle gym.
Little girls swing
like a fast spinning top.
Children go down
the slide in magnetic
attention, the joy
of the moment
their only thought.

If only I could
re-enter that world,
emerge anew
and let my past go.
I need to listen to the whispers
of yesterday’s ghosts,
let myself be tackled,
play freeze tag on the lawn.

With one big whoooosh
I could spring
into the frenzy of youth,
and remember how to dream
again.

~ Caroline Johnson

From Where the Street Ends A Poetry Chaptbook, Poetry by Caroline Johnson, Paintings by Darlene Norton (Jupiter Publishing, 2010), p. 19. © Caroline Johnson. Used by permission of the author.

A less nostalgic look at a playground, more specifically at a boy on a swing, is “Playground” by Adrian Mitchell. The poem was written during the invasion of Iraq, so the boy may be a boy in a war zone. It is also possible to imagine that the child is a homeless boy in North America. The poem is posted at http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=66.

Frank O’Hara looked back on the playground of his childhood in “Autobiographia Literaria,” another poem lacking in nostalgia. See http://poemelf.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/art-in-the-playground/.

You can find two playground poems for children at http://www.wtmelon.com/a12Poems.html. Another children’s poem, “The Dragon on the Playground” has been posted at http://www.poetry4kids.com/poem-67.html.

May Challenge

The challenge for May is to write a playground poem. Your poem can be literal or metaphoric (or both). You may reflect your experience as a child on the playground or share observations/reflections as you watch children play. You may want to focus on just one piece of play equipment, such as the slide, swing or sandbox. Visit a playground—literally or in your imagination—and let a poem emerge.

You may write in free verse or in a form; if you write in a form, please specify the form used. Specify if your poem is primarily for children or for adults. The winning poem or poems will be published on this blog.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If you poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is January 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

April Challenge Winner

2011-04-29T22:24:00.003-05:00

It is never easy to select the monthly winner. The poem selected this month is a very short, evocative poem one. The poet chose the first of the options listed for this month - a poem about a spring bulb flower.

tulip

A palm-folded tulip am I

under the moonlight on my knees,

quietly and sweetly facing afar,

praying for a secret dream.

~ Kongyin

Copyright of the poem is retained by the poet.

Kongyin's books, Gooby and the Dream-Walker and Sun Grass (both in English) have just been published by Kima Global in South Africa, and are sold on amazon.com. Her bilingual poetry collection, The Lantern Carrier, will be published this month by a Chinese press in USA.

Consulting judge this month was Caroline Johnson, Workshop Chair of Poets and Patrons of Chicago.

The next poetry challenge will be posted on May 1.

© Wilda Morris

April Poetry Challenge

2011-04-01T07:48:00.007-05:00

For those of us in the US Midwest (as well as most people at approximately the same degrees of latitude around the globe), April is the month when spring makes itself manifest.

I know I’m not the only person who eagerly awaits the appearance of the crocus and other early bulbs (which sometimes bloom in late March here in the Chicago area). Then we look forward to tulips and other bulbs. My very favorite spring flower is the daffodil, which is one reason I have always loved this poem by William Wordsworth.

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

~ William Wordsworth

Any poem can be used as a prompt for more poems. In fact, the trouble with poetry, as former poet laureate Billy Collins, wrote “is that it encourages the writing of more poetry.” (http://www.edutopia.org/trouble-poetry)

You can read a poem like that of Wordsworth and say to yourself, “Maybe I should write a poem about daffodils.” But this poem could also send you in other directions.

Exercise: Use this poem as your inspiration. You have several options:
1- The most obvious, is to write about daffodils or other spring bulb flowers.
2- Write about something you have come upon unexpectedly, and the effect it had on you.
3- In the last stanza, Wordsworth says that often he sees the daffodils with his “inward eye.” What have you seen that reappears to your “inward eye?”
4- Write about something else that is bound to gladden the heart of a poet.
5- Borrow a line from this poem and use the borrowed line in your poem – but make your poem original, not just a paraphrase of Wordsworth’s.
6- Use this poem as a structural model. Write at least three stanzas in which you have a rhymed and metered quatrain followed by a rhymed and metered couplet. Use Wordsworth’s meter.

Or perhaps Wordsworth’s poem inspires you in a different way. If so, submit your poem and explain it’s connection with the prompt poem.

Your poem can be rhymed and metered, as is “The Daffodils.” It could be as formal as a sonnet. Or, if you prefer, it could be well-crafted free verse. Submit your poem by April 15.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Be sure include your name and e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is April 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month in the US. I hope that, wherever you live, you will immerse yourself in poetry this month. If you would like to receive one, two or three poems a day, sign up with http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/ and/or http://yourdailypoem.com/ and/or The American Academy of Poets at http://www.poets.org/.

Knopf only sends poems out this way during National Poetry Month. Your Daily Poem gives you the option of receiving a poem every day, every Monday or once a month for as long as you wish. You can unsubscribe at any time. The Academy of American Poets will leave you on their list as long as you wish. They have April-only subscribers and year-round subscribers. None charges for this service, though The Academy of American Poets and Your Daily Poem happily accept on-line contributions. The Academy website has many other resources you may wish to explore.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

March Challenge Winner

2011-03-30T22:58:00.004-05:00

The challenge for March was to write a poem about a deep and sincere longing, something which is compelling you, something you feel you MUST do or someplace you MUST go. Or to express the compulsion of someone else as if it were your own.

The two winning entries are very different from “Sea Fever”—and very different from each other. Mary Cohutt’s poem expresses the longing for the simple life, but more specifically, for the past. Cohutt started a company which works with the elderly. In this poem, she expresses the feelings of a client who is dealing with much loss as she ages.

A Simple Life

All I ever wanted was a simple life
She said with a far distant gaze
A husband
A home
Some good-hearted friends
Children to fill up my days

My husband is gone now
So too my friends
My children have all gone their way
My house with dark windows
Is empty and cold
I sit, I remember,I pray

Her chair slowly rocks
Leaving marks on the floor
Telling stories of time gone by
She flutters her fingers
And looks for her words
But all that she finds is a sigh

Shadows grow long
On the living room floor
The light in the window grows dim
Night time she whispered
Is good time
Night time I dream of them

Her head on the pillow
Soft smile on her face
Her years fall like silk to the floor
She’s running, she laughs,
She’s dancing, she loves
It’s a simple life once more

~ Mary Cohutt

Only in sleep can the person described in this poem return to the past for which she longs.

The second winning poem is by Francis Toohey.

I Want to Be in Pictures

I want to see it on the screen--
of a brand new Cineplex
or at an oil-leaky, weedy
Drive In under stars

or in a downtown mildewed
Vaudeville Hall reeling porn
to sleep off all illusions from better days.
I know my movie. What is yours?

How long has mine been running?
Will anybody come to cry or laugh
in my private Hollywood?
I understand your concern because

I love to hear applause.
Other hands appear bringing forth awards.
I will write to please my audience:
happy end or one to break your heart.

Please, allow my drums to beat me.
Fiddle my feelings using your own violins.
Watch my face as I radiate with light:
I promise to surprise--

~ Francis Toohey

My first reaction to this poem was that the poet had gone too far, willing even to be in pictures in the musty “Vaudeville Hall reeling porn.” As I lived with the poem for a few days, however, I began to realize that it expressed the desperate need for acceptance, recognition and affirmation which many people feel at some time in their lives. Lacking an adequate sense of self-worth, feeling unsuccessful and unappreciated, the persona expressed here wants to appreciation, applause and awards.

In the United States, the culture seems to be obsessed with celebrities. Many people cannot get enough news about the current stars and their personal lives. Their pictures fill magazines. We watch the winning actresses and actors receiving and clutching their Oscars. It all seems so magical. Why wouldn’t someone want that kind of recognition? Many performers are willing to sacrifice principles (or their families) to further their careers. They hope and pray for the big break. Winning the accolades doesn’t always fulfill this desperate need. But that doesn’t prevent people from thinking it will. And if a performer wins recognition and finds it wasn’t enough, that unfulfilled need may become even greater.

Congratulations to the two winners for March. Sorry, though, this recognition won’t get you into the movies.

Poets whose poems are posted on this blog retain copyright. Please do not copy their poems without permission.

April is National Poetry Month

A new challenge will be posted on April 1.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

March 2011 Poetry Challenge

2011-03-01T14:11:00.005-06:00

Do you sometimes feel an absolute compulsion to do something? Do you feel your life will be incomplete unless you do some particular thing or go some particular place? Do you absolutely have to sky dive; ski in Aspen, Colorado; take a gondola ride in Venice; make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Mecca or the Ganges; or walk on the Great Wall of China before you die? Do you just have to see the US Capitol building or go to the top of the Washington Monument?

Or do you feel compelled to do something you used to do—roll down a hill in spring grass, sit with the one you love on the shore of a lake as the sun sets, rock a new-born, or walk across a field on what used to be your grandfather’s farm?

In what is probably his best known poem, John Masefield described a compulsion:

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

~ John Masefield

This poem is in the public domain.

On her website, http://www.yourdailypoem.com/, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer recently provided a brief biography of John Masefield:

John Masefield (1878-1967) was an English poet, author, and playwright. Both his parents died while he was a child, and at the age of thirteen, annoyed with John's "addiction" to reading, the aunt in charge of caring for him sent him off to train for a life as a sailor. Although his experiences at sea provided much material for the stories and poems he would later write, John soon tired of that harsh life and, on a voyage to New York, he jumped ship. For two years, he worked at odd jobs in that city, using his free time for reading and writing. He eventually returned to England, married, had two children, and established himself as a significant literary talent. As his stature as a writer continued to grow, John became an internationally successful lecturer and was appointed as England's poet laureate, a position he held for nearly forty years. He actively wrote and published until he was 88 years old.

Perhaps in his later years, though happy to have escaped the life of a sailor, Masefield may sometimes have felt a yearning to return to the ocean. After years on land, he may have idealized his memories. Or perhaps, looking back, he was happy to be where he was, but understood how some of the men he had worked with loved the life of a sailor and would feel a deep psychological need to return to the sea if they had left it. Poetic license would allow him to express those feelings in first-person, even if they were not actually his own feelings.

March Poetry Challenge:

The challenge for March is to write a poem about a deep and sincere longing, something which is compelling you, something you feel you MUST do or someplace you MUST go. Or you can express the compulsion of someone else as if it were your own.

Your poem may be rhymed and metered, as is “Sea Fever.” Or, if you prefer, it may be well-crafted free verse. Put the compulsion into poetry and submit it by March 15.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is March 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

To read more of Masefield's poetry or learn about his life:

February Challenge Winner

2011-02-23T13:55:00.005-06:00

Congratulations to Marcia J. Pradzinski, winner of the February Poetry Challenge.

The Red Flannel Shirt
After William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

the red flannel
shirt

iced in moon
light

beside the empty
bed

~ Marcia J. Pradzinski

Copyright to this poem belongs to its author.

The images are interesting. We can see that red flannel shirt in moonlight, and the empty bed. Yet the poem is a bit mysterious; there are a number of possible explanations for the emptiness of the bed. In addition, it is a word-count poem, as is Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow.”Both “The Red Wheelbarrow” and “The Red Flannel Shirt” are written with three words in the first line of each stanza and one word in the second line.

Thanks to Barbara Larsen for serving as consulting judge.

Watch for a new challenge on March 1.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

February Poetry Challenge

2011-02-01T20:46:00.003-06:00

For forty years, William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a pediatrician. Perhaps his medical education and practice trained him to observe details and see their importance. That skill served Williams well as a poet.

Williams’ earliest work was heavily influenced by two poets with very different styles--John Keats and Walt Whitman. The differences between the poets who most influenced him may have helped Williams develop his own unique voice.

Williams was also strongly influenced Ezra Pound, whom he met during his student years at the University of Pennsylvania. A leader of the Imagist movement in England, Pound emphasized direct, clear and sparse language and the juxtaposition of objects. Unlike the Symbolists, he believed poetry should allow objects to be signs, like x in algebra, which can have different meanings. The purpose of the image is to help the listener or reader see with new eyes, not to insist that the image symbolizes one specific thing. The Imagist poem generally pictures a particular instant, asking the reader to visualize the juxtaposition of objects. If the poem succeeds, the reader “sees” the image and gives it meaning—or at least continues thinking about it. The poet does not tell the reader what to feel.

Williams initially responded positively to this movement, but later broke with it. Williams became convinced that American poets—even Pound and T, S. Eliot—were too dependent on European Culture. He sought a distinctively American voice. He objected to the frequent use of allusions to classical verse and the salting of many poems with phrases in other languages. Williams determined that American poetry should focus on everyday circumstances in the lives of ordinary people. He is also known for the axiom, “No ideas but in things.”

Williams proposed that succinct language and abandonment of formal rhythm and meter fit the American culture well. Williams experimented with line breaks in order to reflect American speech patterns. Some of his poems have been called “chopped-up prose.” Yet, they read as poetry. Williams wanted readers raised on European poetry to find their expectations counted by his unusual line breaks.

Barbara Larsen has written three poems (more accurately a triptych) heavily influenced by the style of William Carlos Williams, and, in fact, copying the structures of three of his poems.

Three Poems After William Carlos Williams

1.

As the snake
slithers across
the path

before me
one sinuous segment
sliding

into the next
like strung
S’s s

I recoil

2

so much depends
upon

a morning cup
of tea

cradled in hands
as I study sky

reflected
on water

3

This is just to say

I have taken
a walk
instead of
getting supper

for which
you are probably
ravenous
and eagerly waiting

Forgive me
it is what I needed
and I’m trying not
to feel guilty

-- Barbara Larsen

From All in Good Season: New and Selected Poems by Barbara Larsen (Beach Road Press, 2005), p. 66. Used by Permission of the author.

In a sense, what Larsen has done is un-Williams-like, since his intent was to break from traditional and expected forms, and thus be more spontaneous. On the other hand, when Williams began writing poetry, he depended to some extent on the forms of others for inspiration.

Section I of Larsen’s poem mimics the pattern of Williams “Poem (As the Cat),” Section II reflects off “The Red Wheelbarrow” (Williams’ most frequently anthologized poem); and III borrows from “This Is Just to Say.” The second and third of these poems can be accessed from the Website of the American Academy of Poets at http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/119. The AAP Website, which is a treasure chest for lovers of poetry, publishes only poetry for which they have permission from the copyright owner. “Poem” can be found at http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/williams/4510; it is not clear whether or not this Website obtains copyright permission, as it should.

The Challenge for February

Write one or more poems in the style of these short poems by William Carlos Williams. You may follow Larsen’s example and create a triptych, or may write a poem inspired by only one of William’s short poems. The language should be clear and concise. The winning poem or poems will be published on this blog.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is February 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

NOTE: It should be said that Williams did not write only brief poems in this style. In his later life, he frequently preferred to create more regular stanzas of three stair-stepped lines.

If you would like to learn more about William Carlos Williams and his place in the history of American poetry, you may want to purchase The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry

Books by William Carlos Williams:
The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. 1: 1909-1939
The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. 2: 1939-1962
William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems (American Poets Project)
Selected Poems (William Carlos Williams)
Paterson (Revised Edition)

© 2011 Wilda Morris

January 2011 Challenge Winner

2011-01-17T13:33:00.004-06:00

Congratulations to Sandra Fees, winner of the January challenge, to write a poem about prayer (but not itself a prayer).

The Sloping Room

When he pulled down
the rotted porch,
my father discovered
why the front bedroom
sloped, as it did,
not from settling,
after all,
or from the gremlins
roiling under my bed,

but because a log
was missing,
as if in building
there were some hurry
or a timber shortage,
as if the poor man’s
farmhouse
would naturally
lean a little,

deserve a little less,
to keep him honest,
and always on bended knee,
just the way my father taught me
to bend my knees
toward the rough planks,
to press palm to palm,
my small body,
a pew wanting to be a steeple,

a 90-degree angle
forming squares
and quadrangles,
when all I really wanted
were hula-hoops
to swing around my hips
and little wheels
to spin their o’s
in the sloping room.

~ Sandra Fees

I like the indirect approach to prayer in this poem, how it works its way in between the sloping floor and the child's wish for play rather than prayer. I was especially moved by these lines:

just the way my father taught me
to bend my knees
toward the rough planks,
to press palm to palm,
my small body,
a pew wanting to be a steeple,

There is a seeming contradiction between the desire "to be a steeple," and the conclusion, wanting only hula-hoops and little wheels. The narrator wanted to play, but evidently also wanted to please her father by praying sincerely. Isn't that the kind of contradiction we all experience in life, often wanting contradictory things?

Sandra Fees retains copyright to her poem; please do not copy it without her consent.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

January 2011 Poetry Challenge

2011-01-01T02:00:00.007-06:00

A new year is a good time to stop and think about one’s spirituality. What is expected of us as spiritual beings? What nurtures our spirits?

Prayer is perhaps the most common of spiritual practices, and one that originated very early in human history. Prayer plays an important role in both Eastern and Western religions. There are a variety of practices—prayers may be individual or communal; spoken, sung or silent. In various traditions, those who pray may sit, kneel, stand and sway, bow heads, become prostrate on the ground, or assume any of a number of other postures or movements. In some faiths, there are prescribed times each day when the faithful are expected to pray.

The challenge for January is to write a poem about prayer. Several years ago, William M. Ramsey wrote the following unique and thought-provoking poem about prayer:

Wild horses

Prayers are not predictions.
They are hardly contracts
binding gods and events
to the tether of our will.
They are wild horses.
The cures to our pains
and soothing of our losses
graze with unconcern
on slopes in the distance.
Some are spotted,
others solid bright or dark—
all free as ragged wind
on an upland range.
As we near them
they raise their head,
catching scent of our desire,
deciding whether to run,
whether to await us.

~ William M. Ramsey

Copyright © 2001 by the Christian Century. Reprinted by permission from the September 28-October 3, 2001, issue of the Christian Century. Subscriptions: $59/yr.
at http://christiancentury.org

This poem has more than just an interesting idea. It also exemplifies poetic artistry. I admire the extended metaphor, which begins in the second sentence with the word “tether” and continues to the end of the poem. Ramsey makes us see those wild horses. In addition to metaphor and image, this poem sings with assonance and is punctuated with subdued but effective alliteration.

Tania Runyan is the author of another thought-provoking poem, this one from a woman’s perspective. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" is more specifically Christian in its language than Ramsey’s poem. Runyan speaks of “the capital LORD,” which I take to be a double entendre referring both to the practice of use of the word “LORD” (in capital letters) to translate the name for God in the Hebrew Scriptures (which most Christians refer to as the Old [or Older] Testament), and to God’s transcendence. After drawing the reader in with domestic images, the poet transitions to images related to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Blessed are the poor in spirit

I am not made to pray. I close my eyes
and float among the spots behind my lids.
I chew the name God, God, like habitual
gum, think about dusting the shelves, then sleep.

It is hard to speak to the capital LORD
who deals in mountains and seas, not in a woman
rewashing her mildewed laundry while scolding
her toddler through gritted teeth. I should

escape to the closet and kneel to the holy
singularity who blasted my cells from a star.
I should imagine the blood soaking
into the cross's grain, plead forgiveness

for splintering my child's soul. But the words
never find their way out of the dark.
Choirs and candles shine in his bones
while I doze at the door of his body.

~ Tania Runyan

From Simple Weight (FutureCycle Press, 2010). Copyright © 2009 by the Christian Century. Reprinted by permission from the March 10, 2009, issue of the Christian Century. Subscriptions: $59/yr.

The first sentence of this poem has a wonderful ambiguity. It can be interpreted to mean that the poet was not created to be a praying person, that it isn’t her nature to pray. Or is the narrator saying that she is not compelled to pray? And if not compelled, does she mean that God does not insist on it? Or that she doesn’t feel “driven” to pray?

I suspect many readers—at least those who make it a practice to pray after they go to bed at night—can identify with experience beautifully expressed in line two, of floating “among the spots” behind their eyelids,” as they struggle to concentrate on God and to stay alert and awake enough to pray sincerely.

The simile in stanza two is interesting and fresh. The guilty repetition of “I should” adds power to the poem, as do some particularly powerful word choices (such as “rewashing,” “mildewed,” “gritted teeth, and “splintering”). Runyan also makes a judicious use of alliteration.

Some other interesting poems about prayer include:

Khalil Gilbran, “Prayer,” in The Prophet

Imtiaz Dharker, “If,” in The Terrorist at my Table

Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” in New and Selected Poems: Volume One

Charlene Blue Horse, “Wagluh’ TaTapi,” in Dreaming History: A Collection of Wisconsin Native-American Writing

Pattiann Rogers, “Before I Sleep,” in Song of the World Becoming: Poems, New and Collected, 1981-2001

Mary Karr, “For a Dying Tomcat Who’s Relinquished His Former Hissing and Predatory Nature.” in Sinners Welcome: Poems

Deborah Garrison, “Into the Lincoln Tunnel, in The Second Child: Poems

Marge Piercy, “Time of Year, in Colors Passing Through Us

Mary Oliver, “Praying,” in Thirst: Poems

Emily Dickinson, # 437 and # 623 in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

The January Challenge

The challenge for January is to write a poem about prayer—not a prayer, but a poem which says something about the poet’s (or narrator’s) experience of prayer. The poem should reflect a faith tradition with which the poet is familiar. You may write in free verse or in a form; if you write in a form, please specify the form used. The winning poem or poems will be published on this blog.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is January 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

December Poetry Challenge Winners

2010-12-19T18:31:00.006-06:00

The December Poetry Challenge was to write a letter in poetry to someone who has been gone from your life for at least a decade. I sent four poems to Jared Smith and asked him to pick the winner or winners. Here is part of his response:

“These poems are so far above the normal standards of poetry--so attuned with the individual, honest and unposed nature of the authors--that they ring out with their own unique visions and nature. The images, line lengths, metrics, and tone are perfectly crafted in each of the poems. What this demonstrates--and it is very important to understanding contemporary poetry--is that if one writes with true, deeply felt intensity and the feeling that the words in a poem really do matter--then that poem finds the "craft" that it should have...what the editor of The New York Quarterly, William Packard, defined as "organic" form. With further explication, what this means is that every emotion or state of mind one goes through has its own "natural" emotion and metrics of thought: and the very best poets can find and recapture that metric of thought and put it down on paper when they write. As Ted Kooser has said, placing a poem within any standardized form may be difficult and one has to have the control over language to be able to do so, but it is like putting eggs in an egg carton. It is harder to look at the infinity of words and images one has to work with--like Michelangelo looking at an uncut slab of marble--and then draw the vision or the poem out of it.”

Jared Smith declared a four-way tie for first place. I think you will find these poems moving, too. Congratulations to Judith Tullis, Mary Cohutt, Peggy Trojan and Gail Goepfert. Their poems are presented here in the order in which they were received.

If you are a poet, and did not have time to try the December prompt, this might encourage you to give it a try one of these days!

Mom,

I wanted to brush your red hair
and wish for the millionth time it were mine

to look in your dark eyes
and be glad I have them too

to have your smile land on me
and feel the warmth

to make you laugh
and be filled with the joy of it

to take your arm and help you walk
the way you did for me so long ago

to reminisce about the times good and bad
that only we have shared

to hold your hand while we compared
the thrill of romance, the ache of lost love, the loneliness of widowhood.

But I could only release you from the place that stinks of age and pain
and carry you to the hallowed ground of your family.

~ Judith Tullis

To My Brother

I remember our wagon of sun-faded red
With wheels that wobbled and bowed
We were short-shadowed seekers
On long winding lanes
Our newly found treasures in tow

I see our new bikes
Yours red, mine blue
With the store shine glint on the bars
Sunny day summers, with wind in our hair
Like birds on the wing we flew

Springs turned to summers
Summers to falls
Winters completed the turns
We lived to life’s music, high notes and low
Shoulder to shoulder through all

The darkness that came
With the fading of light
Was a shade pulled on what I’d held dear
My colors were dimmed, my music was stilled
No respite lay in sight

and I wondered…
just where…had you gone…

but then…

The sun’s on my face like warm molten gold
The wind whispers your name through the trees
A robin takes flight in a sky of deep blue
And flowers gift colors to me

Clouds roll and cast shadows
On hills painted in hues
Of purples and deepest green
My skin is caressed by an angel wing breeze
And I envision all that’s unseen

And then…I smiled…
for I knew…

You’re still pulling our wagon
You’re riding your bike
You’re holding your first born son
You’re drawing your first breath
Releasing your last
You are He
He is All
All is One

~ Mary Cohutt

Surrender

After ninety-three years,
we reversed roles.
Remember? You were brought
to the table and sat waiting.
It was right before you gave up
eating all together,
putting your arm across your mouth
to make the point.
You were agreeable,
smiling and patient.
I was the one mashing the food
and feeding you cheerfully,
coaxing you to take
just one more bite.
I had assumed that I would do
the works you didn’t have time
to finish….sorting your photos,
publishing your journal,
doling out your treasures.

In a flash, I realized you were also
giving me Pa,
though we had competed
for his attention
almost seventy years.
The look on your face
I had waited for all my life,
that trust, and adoration.

~ Peggy Trojan

Dear Aunt Nernie,

I think the secrets
sprouted from good intention—
parents, grandparents, protecting.

Unease filled my plate
and followed my food down my throat
each time grandma and grandpa
rose from the table
and led you from the room
without a word
in the middle of mashed potatoes
and homemade applesauce.

Grandma saw the signs
that something was amiss
and rushed you to a backroom
while cold lumps, each one a question
congealed on the china before me.

Years later, I realize you felt shame
not knowing what happened--
during epileptic episodes
beyond your control.

I’m sorry I didn’t know more,
have the words to comfort,
but I’m sure I didn’t mind so much
that you smelled of Noxzema
that the hair on your upper lip,
half-plucked, bristled
my cheek when I kissed you goodnight.

~ Gail Goepfert

Copyright of individual poems remains with the authors.

Check back at the beginning of January for a new challenge.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

December 2010 Poetry Challenge

2010-12-01T12:28:00.010-06:00

Many times since the death of my grandmother I have wished I could sit down with her and talk as we used to talk. There are questions I wish I had asked her, and things I would like to tell her. I’d like to discuss some of the ways she impacted my life, tell her about some of the decisions I made, and introduce her to my children and grandchildren (none of whom had the privilege of meeting her). Some day maybe I’ll write her a letter. It would be especially appropriate for me to write the letter as a poem, since my grandmother loved poetry. One of the main reasons I was attracted to poetry is that she recited poems to me from memory, and also wrote a few poems of her own.

Jared Smith has authored at least six books of poetry, and has had his work adapted for the stage at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, as well as in the Chicago Suburbs. He has served as a screener, board member, and advisory board member of The New York Quarterly and as poetry editor of Trail & Timberline.

Smith says it took him thirty years to find the right words and the time to write the following poem, addressed to his father. The lines do not appear quite as they do in Smith’s book, because he writes in longer lines than this blog permits. Consequently, I have double spaced the lines and let the longer lines fold into the next line. Those spaces thus are the line breaks. Where Smith put a stanza break, I’ve put two blank spaces, to distinguish it from a line break. Also, in the published version, the title appears farther to the left on the page than the rest of the poem.

Father,

your grandson is struck sterile

among choices you have left behind.

The compass that carried you through Eagle Scouts is gone;

the badges worn across your chest, dust like the degree from Harvard.

I am a cold point beneath the winter sky,

a dust mote upon a string played obbligato between galaxies,

and soon enough there will be no mountain meadows

for your descendents to walk among.

Darkness burns away on the wings of a moth

flaring itself into a place you have come to know.

The maples I climbed on have gone,

with no more power in their roots to shade your window.

The driveway I carried your suitcase along that last day

has been blacktopped three times that I know

and the weeping cherry you never knew was planted

by my son whom you never knew

and dwarfs a house on the other side of town.

You knew the lady slippers and May apples,

showed me where tiger salamanders lay beneath logs,

called ground cover by all its varied names

spoke 16 languages and read from the books of the dead,

strode with an urgency through urban forests

and took the train to work each day. Tickets, getting

tickets please. Sandwiches in paper bags.

The aurora borealis blows through the cells of my bone,

igniting them so that they are torn apart and scattered in the solar wind.

What was it that you wanted to achieve? Why

did we wear our tight shirt collars to expensive hotels

or spend long years sweating our fears into foreign sheets?

I am older now than you were on that day

when you lay down in a blueberry patch and died

on vacation beneath a Minnesota sky.

After the stroke, we had three days before you rose,

and the light in your eyes seemed to go on forever without finding words.

In listening ever since among the stars, I have been paralyzed

and have raised flawed children who are as wise as you

with no desire to pass it on.

~ Jared Smith

© Jared Smith. From pages 4-5,

You can purchase Jared Smith’s latest book, Grassroots, from
http://windpub.com/books/grassroots.htm

There is a review of Grassroots at http://www.bigcitylit.com/bigcitylit.php?inc=fall2010/reviews/wallace

Other books by Jared Smith:

Lake Michigan And Other Poems

Looking Into The Machinery: The Selected Longer Poems Of Jared Smith

Walking the Perimeters of the Plate Glass Factory

The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations

The December 2010 Poetry Challenge

The challenge for December is to write a poem as a letter to someone who has been physically gone from your life for at least a decade, but still impacts your life. You may write in free verse or in form. If you use a form,specify the form you are using.

The deadline is December 15, 2010.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If you poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is December 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

November Challenge Winners

2010-12-01T07:55:00.006-06:00

It was difficult to judge the November poems - there were a number of excellent submissions. The two winners are both free verse, but written in very different styles. Congratulations to Mary Cohutt and Jean Waggoner! Mary took a scientific concept with which most people are familiar and lets us view some ways it plays out through the seasons. There may not be anything in the poem we did not already know, but her images help us see gravity in new ways. Jean's poem, on the other hand, may teach many of us something as we read about two related trees.

Gravity

Spring....
A single plump raindrop
Gathering its friends
As it travels the curve of an umbrella
Then hangs like a tear on a lash
Before its watery free-fall

Summer....
Late blooming tulips
Of red and yellow
Drop petals
One by one
Weaving a carpet of color
For daisies to come

Fall....
Mini-bomb acorns
And leaves of umber and gold
Travel to land
In their singular style
Coming to rest in fragrant beds of pine

Winter....
Crystals of white
In their slow silent dance
Drifting
From a steel-washed sky
Blanket the ground
With a casual grace

And I....?
I wander and witness
Each step firmly fixed
For earth calls each of us to her

~ Mary Cohutt

Two Fabaceae

Asia Minor’s acacia is praised in song,
Akasya Kolulu Sabahlarlinda,
“Acacia-Perfumed Mornings.”
Taller than Bosporus roofs, bristling
and swooshing in high summer winds,
It drinks modestly of autumn rains,
thriving in earth starved of nutrients,
yet graciously hosting the bulbul’s nest
amid a sweet pea scent
so redolent of green Byzantium.

Its cousin, Southwest mesquite,
so much smaller in leaf and twig,
sequesters debris from its windy terrain,
and savors a crush of agave at its roots.
A dusty vaquero of high chaparral,
it repels avian histrionics with a forbidding
scratch of thorns and cook-fire brush,
while the flavor it imparts to barbecue
insinuates a deadly carcinogen
into biped carnivores’ meals.

Both arbors are Fabaceae,
subfamily Mimosoideae --
Fabaceae, Mimosoideae,
Mimosoideae, Fabaceae --
and here’s the rub: while
both engender beans;
one is host to the nightingale,
the other a repellent shrub.

~ Jean Waggoner

November 2010 Poetry Challenge

2010-11-01T15:56:00.012-05:00

Science plays an important role in modern societies, as do many of the phenomena which scientists attempt to describe and understand. Sometimes we may be tempted to think everything that can be known is known, but biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and the other sciences keep evolving. The wedding of science and poetry can create very interesting results.

Larry Turner’s sonnet, “Biology Class: Her High-School Teacher is Filled with Certainty (1985)” is part of a small chapbook entitled The Girl with Blue-Eyed Parents (Fredericksburg VA: 2001). This collection has ten poems, all about Susan and her family. Two of the poems, including “Biology Class,” were reprinted in Turner’s later collection, Eden and Other Addresses.

Biology Class: Her High-School Teacher is Filled with Certainty (1985)

Another student, Tim, lifts up his hand.
“You talk of dominant, recessive genes,
And which is which, but I don’t understand.”
The teacher speaks, “I’ll tell you what it means.
Since brown is dominant, if parents’ eyes
Are brown, their child’s can still be blue.
From blue-eyed parents never will arise
A brown-eyed child. That should be clear to you.”
Then Susan says, “I mean you no defiance.
But sometimes when the parents’ eyes are blue…?”
“No. Never could that be. We’re talking science.
What science says is absolutely true.”
Stifling sobs, she turns her young face down,
And tears flow from her eyes of deepest brown.

~ Larry Turner

Used by Permission of the author. From Eden and Other Addresses (West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing Company, 2005), p. 55.

Turner, a retired physicist who worked many years at Argonne National Laboratory (a U.S. Department of Energy lab run by the University of Chicago) drew on the science of genetics for “Biology Class.”

The next poem, “Inertia,” is by Robert M. Chute, Professor Emeritus of Biology at Bates College. For this poem, Chute draws on a theory from physics. The collection in which it appears has poems dealing with chaos, chance and randomness. Evolution, quantum theory and geology inspired Chute to write some of the poems. Ants and homing pigeons appear together in one poem; the human heartbeat and a mating Mayfly, in another. Chute reveals in the introduction that he goes to the periodical section of the library not to read Poetry, but to read the British periodical, Nature (and its North American cousin, Science). It was difficult to select just one poem from his book, Reading Nature.

Inertia

It doesn’t take a Newton
to know nor a Sartre to see
how my life might go if
the universe were frictionless,
if I were free—a little push
and then eternity.

~ Robert M. Chute

Reading Nature (Topsham ME: Just Write Books, 2006), p. 14.

Permission granted by the publisher and the poet, Robert M. Chute.
To buy the book: http://jstwrite.com/products/ProductDetails.asp?ISBN=978-0-9766533-8-7

Robin Chapman, Professor Emerita of Communicative Disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has won a number of awards for her poetry, including the Posner Poetry Award for her collection, The Way In, and the 2007 Cider Press Review Book Award for Abundance. Julien Clinton Sprott, a plasma Physicist, at UW-Madison, is the author of hundreds of papers on such topics as chaos, fractals and complexity. He has also published as several books. Chute is also known for his video series, Wonders of Physics, a total of 22 hours of programming.

At UW-Madison, Chapman and Sprott partnered in a weekly interdisciplinary Chaos and Complex Systems Seminar, in which many colleagues participated over the years. Topics taken up ranged from chaos in plasma and the spots on buckeye butterflies to chaotic compositions for string quartets and the dynamics of happiness. The seminar led to collaboration on a book filled with Sprott’s stunning computer-generated images that follow from chaotic attractors and dynamical systems along side Chapman’s arresting poems, inspired by the seminar, Sprott’s images and scientific theories. The authors help the scientific layperson by including definitions of such terms as dynamical system, attractor, bifurcation and entropy. However, you don’t have to understand fractals to appreciate the beauty of Sprott’s images, nor do you have to be a Ph.D. scientist to appreciate Chapman’s poems in this amazing coffee table book.

Dynamical Systems

What’s not changing in time?
The glass in the window pane
sags slowly, the sunlight
streams through the glass, the cat
washes her face with her paw,
the house gathers dust motes,
the geraniums we brought in
before frost take root and flower.
Outside, a wind is blowing the leaves about.
The universe we once thought steady-state
is flying apart. Inside, we are waltzing,
laughing, to the music of the nickelharppe.
And you, reader, anchored by gravity
and oxygen and eye, thinking now
of the sky full of stars, dancing, house repairs –
what strange, unpredictable pattern is yours?

~ Robin Chapman

Used by permission of the author. From Images of a Complex World: The Art and Poetry of Chaos, by Robin Chapman and Julien Clinton Sprott (World Scientific, 2005), p. 4.

A different kind of collaboration led to Two Off Q: a conversation in poetry, by June Nirschl, a retired English teacher, and Judy Roy, retired from careers as a psychologist and then as a French teacher. Two Off Q received an Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award from the Wisconsin Library Association.

Many of us have tried to understand what we have heard about string theory, and have contemplated what it might mean in practical terms. Judy Roy put her thoughts into a very interesting poem which takes us from contemplation of her parents and grandmother to a surprise ending.

String Theory

Physics proposes seven or perhaps eleven
dimensions which may mean that you,
Mother, around an unseen corner,
are dusting the very toby jugs
which I have just dusted. Daddy
is once again, or still,
smoking his pipe and reading Life magazine,
stretched out on the green couch
which I gave to Goodwill years ago.
Grandma is adding a pinch of lemon peel to her cake batter,
and I, aged four, am sitting on Grandpa’s lap
during a WWII air-raid drill,
all of us trailing strings which vibrate
in a celestial music which one of us hopes
may be God’s voice, singing.

~ Judy Roy

Used by permission of the author. Two Off Q: A Conversation in Poetryby June Nirschl and Judy Roy (Marshfield WI: Marsh River Editions, 2008), p. 13.

Other unions of science and poetry:

* Judith Strasser’s collection, winner of the 2006 Lewis-Clark Expedition Award from Lewis-Clark Press, The Reason/Unreason Project.

* Kurt Brown, ed., Verse & Universe: Poems About Science and Mathematics

* Roald Hoffmann (Nobel Prize Chemist), Gaps and Verges (Contemporary Poetry Series)

* Song of the World Becoming: Poems, New and Collected, 1981-2001
* Kimiko Hahn, Toxic Flora: Poems

* “Science Experiment,” from Breaking the Mapby Kim-An Lieberman.

* I Marveled at How Generally I Was Aided,” from The Best of It: New and Selected Poemsby Kay Ryan.

* “String Theory,” from Broken Strings, Missing Notes: ...Strengthening Democracy and Seeking Justice inby Larry J. Eriksson. Republished in Peninsula Pulse at http://www.ppulse.com/Articles-c-2008-09-03-80111.113117_String_Theory.html.

* Ronald Wallace, “String Theory,” Redactions (2009).

* Website of the Center for Poetry and Science, University of Liverpool, at http://www.liv.ac.uk/poetryandscience/poems/index.htm

The November Poetry Challenge

The poetry challenge for November is to write a poem related to, responding to or reacting to, a scientific theory or principle. You may write a formal poem or free verse. The deadline is November 15, 2010.

Poems published in books or on the Internet are not eligible. If you poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is November 15. Winning poem or poems will be published on this blog.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

October 2010 Challenge Winners

2010-10-29T20:34:00.004-05:00

The October challenge was a popular one. There were more entries than any previous two months combined. The poems, including the four printed below demonstrate that the prompt, to write a poem on the subject, “where I come from,” can inspire an interesting poem regardless of the poet’s cultural context.

The poems were judged by Barbara Eaton, Vice President of the Illinois State Poetry Society and Contest Chair for Poets & Patrons of Chicago. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. She teaches part time at the College of DuPage and serves as a dramaturg for the First Folio Shakespeare Company in Oak Brook, Illinois. She picked winners for first, second, and third place and, as we discussed the poems together, we agreed to add a fourth place winner.

Note that two of the lines in the fourth place poem, "I Come from the Grace of a Farm," were too long for the blog format and folded onto the next line. Also, the uncapitalized lines in the third place poem, "Maddening," should be indented. Unfortunately, I am not able to indent on this blog.

The poem has some rich images and an ending which fits very well. It was one of several poems with rural backgrounds.

I Come From the Grace of a Farm

Small hands lie gently over a trembling sparrow trapped in the barn window
Fragrant hay dust dances in the shaft of sunlight
The low bellow of steer and muffled stomp of cows
Accompany the flutter of the sparrow’s wings as I release her to the day
I am witness to her flight

I walk, knee deep in color
Daisies tickle my fingertips
Indian paintbrushes flutter their reds and golds to the wind
Buttercups tell me their story
I gather them to me

Bare feet on sun-warmed stone
Rock hopping the length of a friendly creek
Lacy sprays from tiny waterfalls make my toes dance
The swift sound of clear running water
I listen to its traveling song

Sleepy heat from a wood stove
The dinner time clink of crockery
My drink still warm from the milking
Head bowed, words spoken,
I eat

A tin roof worn smooth with time
A rising wind and maple branch lullaby
Sun dried bedding
A soft edged quilt
I sleep

~ Mary Cohutt

Third place goes to “Maddening,” which the judge said “has great images and imagination.” There is a haunting quality about it.

Maddening

I am the ripped out pages and calendar leaves
I am husband and socks, office and bamboo
I am burst-open white iris, roadside apparitions
I am unwound watches behind the mirror
jasmine and bridal veil blooming
I am only a voice, only the skin of an all-night city

I was half-way night to nightmare
wicked days, poised on the edge of stagnation
the mattress on the curb, stained
the trash men, diapers and melon rinds
ground together, I was the unpaved road
and the hand I held so like mine

I am inflamed passage of bronchial tubes
the garden bed shriveling
morning dull and ill fitting clothes

It is only the person I cannot call
I am calling out in prayers nailed to doors
I lie down soft, it hurts to lie at all
it’s my unkissed mouth,
I hang beyond the confession of not this again
it’s thin wonder in the cul-de-sac
all the eggs in my basket of how can I

~ Ann-Marie Madden Irwin

The second place poem has an interesting and appropriate title and an especially strong ending.

Yin and Yang

When I was little, Dad explained to me
the meaning of my name: the first character,
firm on the ground; the next two,
dazzling vermilion. Thus, a land
under the reflection of a red sun.

When I grew up, I learned
how he, with a deep-rooted
southern accent, pronounced land
as green, that sets off the rebirth
of flowers in a bird chirping spring
along thousand miles of the Yangtze River.

Now, the red and green swim
side by side like two fish, head to tail
in a globe, where I see
moonrise and sunset,
west wind chasing east rain,
and rivers embracing mountains.

~ Lucy Lu

“Golf Clubs and Hugs” was chosen as the first place winner in part because it was so well integrated and coherent. The poet made excellent use of repetition; when a word or phrase was repeated, the context often changed just enough to make it interesting. The ending of the poem circles back to the mother’s hands and the father’s golf clubs, both of which played a part in the first stanza.

Golf Clubs and Hugs

I am from the bleached-out hands of a mother
whose slap started my wail to wanting
hugs from a father whose hands held a golf club
and ignored my mother.

I am from the tired womb of too many daughters
who spit us out for wanting
hugs from a father whose hands held a golf club
for his sons and ignored the daughters.

I am from a land of oranges and roses,
where the white hairs played with the brown skins
and my father held a golf club and a drink,
while we ran for candy to Prontos,
our cheeks full of roses.

I am from a higher education than most,
straight A’s and stellar at running sport
and many awards in academia... in search of
hugs from a father whose hands held a golf club
where he stroked and swung and bested most.

I am from the land of wheat and honey,
where Dad answered an ad in “The Wall Street Journal”
and quoted his salary, working for nuclear war;
left my mother to weep and wail,
“Please come home, honey.”

I am from a man who hugged his scotch and water
and cried for losing wives and distant daughters;
who struck a deal with a honey and held his shotgun straight
into his mouth that wailed and wept,
returning to dust and water.

I am from the earth you see,
born of blood and water.
I am now my own to be
and getting my hands dusty,
weaving wheat into roses for you to see.

I am from an equal union
buying golf clubs for my honey
wailing at wars and nuclear nightmares;
hugging my sons and daughters,
praying for the Union.

And there’s my mother, my friend now
she has silvered, raises her bleached-out hand
in a wave and a grin
Gone is my father, gone are the clubs and slaps
I am my best friend now.

~ Sandra Sloan

Congratulations to the four winners!

The poems remain the property of their authors, and should not be copied without their consent.

Blog © 2010 Wilda Morris

Dorn Septet Winner

2010-10-24T15:01:00.002-05:00

Glenna Holloway, who wrote the sample (prize-winning) Dorn Septet posted in June, has selected a winner for the Dorn Septet Challenge. Congratulations to Indiana poet, Reason A. Poteet.

This I Am with No Remorse

At home I had no fears,
in school, my trust in God was taught as truth.
Now teacher's work requires that I have hope,
my church, the place I go as wonder perserveres.
And when I'm done with my career, I'll cope
with constant faith and coaching ne'er to quit
when Satan interferes.

At home I passed the test,
in school complied with ev'ry task assigned.
Now work I leave with obligations filled,
attend a church where needy folk complete their quest.
May I retire with passion, free to build
a channel for my Father's love which leads
to heav'n where all can rest.

The Bible is my source
of truth from youth to everlasting life.
When Christian faith and actions intercept
from James I know that faith without good works of course
is sheer perversion, trust denied - inept.
My God in times which threaten toil and trust -
my Hope without remorse.

~ Reason A. Poteet

Poem © Reason A. Poteet

Blog © 2010 Wilda Morris

October, 2010, Poetry Challenge

2010-09-30T21:05:00.016-05:00

In 1999, George Ella Lyon published a book entitled,Where I'm From (Writers' & Young Writers' Series #2) (Writers & Young Writers Series, #2). On her Website (see http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html), Lyon says she wrote her poem which begins, “I am from clothespins,” after being inspired by Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet: Selections from the People Pieces by Jo Carson. The “prompt” has been picked up by numerous teachers and writing instructors, including those at the Neighborhood Writing Alliance (NWA) in Chicago, Illinois.

According to Carrie Spitler, publisher of the NWA’s literary journal, Journal of Ordinary Thought, the NWA invested six months on the theme of “where I am from.” As a result, they selected “Whistle Talk: JOT Writes on Where I’m From” as the theme of the Winter 2010 issue of JOT. The sample poems for the October Poetry Challenge come from that issue. As Ronne Hartfield wrote in the introduction to the issue, “the simple-seeming question ‘Where are you from?’ is, of course, not so simple after all.” I found it difficult to select only two poems from the issue to share, because so many of them were powerful.

I’m From Arkansas

I am from the land of hot sun, using lard and Vaseline to grease my ashy arms, legs, and feet.

I am from a shotgun house covered with a tin roof, newspapered walls, linoleum flooring, sheltering me from the rain and cold.

I am from hot fields of cotton, with rows of thorny white bulbs neatly planted for picking.

I am from the banks of the mighty Mississippi River watching fisherman who provided the “catch of the day” for the hungry.

I am from the “Blue Hole,” where sinners dressed in white were baptized in the name of the Lord.

I am from the ones who loved me and called me their “Sugar Baby” and taught me to say “TaTa.”

I am from the Baptist church, where Sunday preaching, Gospel singing, and shouting saved you from the Devil.

I am from Helana, Arkansas, where fried chicken, neck bones, collard greens, chitterlins, sweet potatoes, cha cha, corn bread, and biscuits were a must for breakfast, supper, or dinner.

I am from Sammie, who found and cultivated plants that produced herbal medicine to heal the sick.

I am from Fred and Ora, who watched me grow and play games such as “Ring Around the Roses,” and “Aunt Dinah Is Dead, and “Hide and Seek.”

I am from ancestors who took pictures dressed in their finest clothes, looking into the camera without a smile, silenced to the world of their “deferred dreams.”

I am that girl from the uplifting light of above goodness…where Alpha and Omega reside…No beginning, no end…

I Am.

~ Charlene K. Smith

Journal of Ordinary Thought (Winter 2010), page 45. © 2010.

I Am Their Story

I am from the descendants of slaves
That lineage that survived the horrific passage across the Atlantic
To the shores of these Americas. . .
I am the griot that will tell the tales
Of the 1,000 lashes that sliced their skins
Burned their flesh
As they labored from sunrise to sunset
I am from blood spilled upon urban streets as they walked peacefully
For justice
In unjust times
I am the daughter of a dying breed of men
That cherished and celebrated their women
With honor and respect
Protected her from the chaos of the world
Nourished her spirit
And relinquished in the sacredness of her temple
I am Daddy’s girl
And I wear that crown with honor
For my father breathed and embodied the definition of being
a Black man
And the foundation he built
The standards that he provided
Others have failed to measure up to
He exhibited a quiet strength
That I will forever admire
Though his physical presence is not here
His external essence
Continues to flow through me
He exhibited a quiet strength
That did not waver
During battles with my mother
She taught me the power of words
For she can lace words together that could penetrate the strongest
Armor of man
He stood during her season of verbal warfare
Strong
And silent
And silent
And strong
Never leaving his imprints upon the side of her face
Nor bruising the flesh of her skin
She taught me that words can wound
But her love for my father was stronger than her sporadic
temper tantrums
And she adored him
Allowed him to reign as king
I am from a union
That honored their vows, only through death they parted
A love that spanned 40 years
A love that withstood the trials, tribulations, and temptations
that life hurled in their path.
I am from this picture of family
That I have tried to recreate with my daughter
Absent her father
But loving her just as strongly
With the strength of my father’s determination
And the fire of my mother’s presence
I am their history
I am their story

~ Felicia Madlock
Journal of Ordinary Thought (Winter 2010), pages 28-29. © 2010.

The October Poetry Challenge:

For October, write your response to the question, “Where are you from?” (or the closely-related question, “Who are you?”). Are you, like George Ella Lyon, are “from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride”? Are you, like Felicia Madlock, “the daughter of a dying breed of men”? Or like Charlene K. Smith, are you “from a shotgun house” and “hot fields of cotton”? Your story is unique, one only you can tell. Your title does not have to begin with “I’m from. . . .” or “I am. . . .” but the poem has to be a response to one of the two questions.

Poems published in books or on the Internet are not eligible. If you poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is October 15. Winning poem or poems will be published on this blog.

Dorn Septet Challenge:

The Dorn Septet Challenge is still open because there has not been a winner. The septet must reflect all the qualities of a dorn septet as described in the June Challenge, and must have a minimum of three stanzas. To find the June Challenge, scroll down and look for Blog Archive on the right-hand side of the page. Click on June.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

September 2010 Challenge Winners

2010-09-22T13:48:00.006-05:00

John Lehman, poetry editor of Wisconsin People and Ideas (and the founder and first publisher of Rosebud), judged the poems for the September blog challenge. He selected three winners.

Firefly Summer

my fifth summer
was light rain
and heavy mosquitoes
cold sprinklers
and hot dogs on the grill

twilight brought fireflies
all the droopy-bottomed blinkers
my sticky fingers could capture
Nature’s purpose arrested
in a glowing pickle jar

when the crickets’ bedtime
signaled a new day
the lights were out
life in the jar was gone
and wonder faded to guilt

~ Judith Tullis

Of the first place poem by Judith Tullis, “Firefly Summer,” Lehman says, “I love this poem’s directness. It is the essence of summer and the end of childhood. How can someone accomplish that in three short stanzas? But this poet does. Beautifully.”

Stung
Chocó, Colombia, 2003

They like white meat, your new friends joke:
your legs are the fresh banquet bars
of biting flies, mosquitoes, ants,
and so you learn the rhythmic towel
leg-swatting that might mitigate
the map of dots and welts that throng
across your shins and ankles now,
district of angry villages, absurd
itch for friction, nail claw-sharpness,
pink profusion, seven daft demons,
you an addled magdalene.

~ Ruth Goring

Ruth Goring’s second place poem, “Stung,” gave the judge “the creepy-crawlies.” And, he said, ‘“Addled magdalene’ is a loaded term that takes the physicality of this gem to a whole different level.”

Ruth Goring is the author of Yellow Doors: Poems

An Invisible Cocoon

I dislike caterpillars.
They cling to fresh leaves, as if come
from nowhere.
Crawling or curling up,
they seldom fear my coming near.

I must confess- I envy them:
Leisurely they nibble green foliage
with an indifferent look.

I want to get rid of them,
but fear to touch their droopy bodies.
With a stick, I fling them
one after the other into the air.
Where do they land? In the bushes or on the soil?
I don’t care.
“Good bye!” I wave to the little noodles.

In the early summer, hot winds blow.
I almost forget them--
near my garden, under threads,
green and light cocoons dangle,
all wrapped inside silence.
So so they don’t bother me,
and I let them be.

On the hottest morning, the air is still.
A yellowish pouch drops and cracks.
Something trembles and unfolds.
All of a sudden, wings flutter
and take off.

I only catch a glimpse of a butterfly.
I want to call, “Wait.”
The empty crust rolls aside,
"Too late!” as if a sigh falls upon my own skin.

~ Anna Yin

Lehman liked the movement of “An Invisible Cocoon,” the third place poem, and the “payoff” at the end. He especially like the unforgettable metaphor of displaced caterpillars as “little noodles.”
Each poet retains copyright to her poem.

No one has yet submitted a winning Dorn Septet, so that category is still open. Refer to the directions given in June for more information.

The October Challenge will be posted on October 1.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

September 2010 Poetry Challenge

2010-09-01T13:33:00.011-05:00

According to insectzoo.msstate.edu/Students/basic.numbers.html, an insect which scientists call Eopterum devonicum lived 350 million years ago—before the dinosaurs and even 349,900,000 years (give or take a week or two!) before human beings appeared on earth. The same Webpage estimates that there are 20-30 million species of insect on the earth today. In fact there are more different species of dragonflies than there are mammals. It should not be a surprise then, that poets through the ages have written about these small winged creatures.

Poets have admired, complained about and cursed insects. William Blake, a English poet who died in 1827, wrote an empathetic apostrophe to a fly:

The Fly

Little fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

-- William Blake

The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake

Contemporary poet, Alice D’Alessio, has a different take on the insect she writes about, the pesky Asian Ladybeetle. Where I live, the Asian Ladybeetle hasn’t been as omnipresent as in some previous summers—for which I am grateful!

Uninvited Guests

For instance, the Asian Ladybeetle
smug as an orange pearl

in its vinyl exoskeleton
dotted, determined, has come to stage

a wild reunion, bringing myriad friends.
They swarm out of window casings, motor

about the floor, climb the walls,
linedance along the bookshelves; take

a quick dip in dishwater and scotch;
make side trips along the couch, inside

my collar and book, wander through hair,
dive in eyes and mouth. It’s a road race

with mini VW’s, a plague, an invasion,
a terrorist plot, a bad dream.

Nature slyly lifts the lid and looses
Pandora’s hordes to teach

humility. We who imagine ourselves
just slightly lower than the gods, cower

before this orange revelry, huddle
in corners, stinking of bugspray.

~ Alice D’Alessio

From Woodlands and Prairie Magazine

Though many people despise flies, mosquitoes, ants, Asian Ladybeetles—and many other insects, the dragonfly is often the object of admiration and fascination, as is evident from John Lehman’s poem:

Dragonfly

It anchors to the sail of our skiff,
clasps a world of detachable wings
and the scent of almonds and coconut
oil dancing in the sun.

It is ancient, the iron rod of a distant
weather vane, leaves of a book
riffling in the wind.

Gulliver borne on one more voyage
it asks, what is the governing body here
that pulls these lines and hums
to the hum of the wind and glides
yellow and white so low
between the mirrors of lake and sky?

I am real and you are not, it spins
as we turn about —
the snap of our sail recalls the flap
of Pteranodon wings.

~ John Lehman

Shrine of the Tooth Fairy (Poems by John Lehman; Illustrations by Spencer Walts)

The cricket is one insect that is better received in some cultures than in others. This is reflected in my poem:

The Cricket

I didn’t mind sleeping
on a cot in the basement
until the cricket moved in,
made his home under
the water heater. How
could anyone sleep
when that cricket shrieked
all night, notes reverberating
off the tile floor and the metal
above his small back?
I kept throwing my shoe
at him, missing again and again.

Now I know Chinese families
buy small cages, keep crickets
as pets to hear them sing.
How long would I have to live
in China before I understood this,
before I’d harmonize
with their night music?
How long before I’d learn
to distinguish the chirps
of the yellow bell cricket,
from the broad-faced and bespeckled,
till I heard in their songs the loneliness
of the emperor’s concubines?
How long till I internalized
the cycle of their lives,
from nymph to white maggot
to singer of soft summer songs,
to the high pitched cheep
of autumn, the laying of eggs
and death before spring?

~ Wilda Morris

Rockford Review, XXV:2 (Summer-Fall 2006), p. 57.

September Challenge

One thing each of these poems has in common is that they reflect on some aspect of insect-human interaction. The challenge for September is to write a poem reflecting on some kind of interaction between a human being (or human beings in general) and an insect (or insects). Your poem can be free verse or formal, serious or humorous.

Poems published in books or on the Internet are not eligible. If you poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is September 15. Winning poems are published on the blog.

Dorn Septet Challenge:

The Dorn Septet Challenge is open until September 15. The septet must reflect all the qualities of a dorn septet as described in the June Challenge, and must have a minimum of three stanzas. To find the June Challenge, scroll down and look for Blog Archive on the right-hand side of the page. Click on June.

A Few More Insect Poems and Where to Find Them

Anne Sexton, "Hornet," "Cockroach" and "June Bug" in The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton

Ted Kooser, "Grasshoppers," in Delights & Shadows

Emily Dickinson, #677 ("Least Bee that brew"); #1224 ("LIke Trains of Cars on Tracks of Plush"); #1405 ("Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles")

Richard Wilbur, "A Grasshopper," in Collected Poems 1943-2004

Jean de la Fontaine, "The Grasshopper and the Ant," translated by Richard Wilbur, in Collected Poems 1943-2004

Stanley Kunitz, "The Dragonfly," in The Collected Poems

Yusuf Al-Sa'igh, "Ants," translated by Diana Der Hovanessian with Salma Khadr Jayyusi in Modern Arabic Poetry

Khalil Khouri, "Ants and the Sun," translated by Sharif Elmusa and Christopher Middleton, in Modern Arabic Poetry

William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," (Several insects play a role in this poem, but the poem doesn't center on insects inthe way expected of poems in the September challenge. See The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Don Marquis has a number of insect-related poems in his Archy and Mehitable books (Actually, Archy is a cockroach). See: Archy and Mehitabel or The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel (Penguin Classics)

Enjoy!

© 2010 Wilda Morris

August 2010 Challenge Winners

2010-08-30T23:00:00.002-05:00

Two winners were selected this month, one in which flowers are a metaphors. Lucy Lu’s poem was selected in large part because of the imagery and the flow of the couplets.

In Ann-Marie Madden Irwin’s poem, the narrator is planting daffodils. The experience of the narrator is specific and individual, but in another way, it is universal. It is not unusual to experience a sense of the presence of a loved one in a way that seems very real.

Congratulations to both of the winners.

Snow Flowers

Gathering their last strength
they flutter softly to the earth

with an infinite tenderness.
One petal, then two, then three

dotting over pines, cypresses,
aquiver with such gentle touches.

Patch by patch, crystal hexagons
unscroll a silverscape.

Is it snow that decorates April,
or April that beautifies snow?

A skittery squirrel, searching
acorns, yields no answer.

A sudden bird's call shakes
the last snowflakes from treetops.

~ Lucy Lu

Death Mask

She remembers how her face
set, the feeling of death so new
the way she felt on the inside.

Tinker, she heard it only
in her mind, something she’d be
forever and yet not ever again.

She heard her name called
as she planted daffodils
in the side garden, the bulbs

promise of trumpets come spring.
Tink! She heard her father
calling so clear she turned

from her task to see
only air, the neighbor’s red house
the pines and dogwood.

There it was, an understanding
of forever and never again in her bones
as her face set, she continued digging.

~ Ann-Marie Madden Irwin

Copyright on these poems belongs to the poets who wrote them.

Thanks to the consulting judge for August, Kathleen Gustafson.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

August Poetry Challenge

2010-07-31T21:37:00.017-05:00

There is a long tradition dating back at least as early as the Song of Solomon (6:2-3) of using flowers in love poetry. A favorite song from 17th century Scotland begins “O my Luve's like a red, red rose/That’s newly sprung in June.” Robert Burns was concerned to save the folk music of Scotland. According to one account, he heard a country girl sing these words, and recorded them for posterity.

One of the best known poems about flowers is by William Wordsworth, written after he and his sister took a walk in the Lake District of England.

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

-- William Wordsworth
The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth (Wordsworth Collection)

During her lifetime, Emily Dickinson was probably better known as a gardener than as a poet. It is said that she sometimes worked in her garden at night. Many of her poems include flowers. Dickinson’s poems, including those with roses, daisies, lilies and other flowers, are not “simple nature poems.” They tend to be cryptic. More often than not, the flowers are symbolic as in this sample:

The Dandelion's pallid tube
Astonishes the Grass,
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas --
The tube uplifts a signal Bud
And then a shouting Flower, --
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o'er.

-- Emily Dickinson

Flowers appear in so many of Dickinson’s poems that the New York Botanical Garden developed a show entitled “Emily Dickinson’s Garden: A Poetry of Flowers” last spring. Thirty-five of Dickinson’s poems were printed on placards and placed next to the plants and flowers they mentioned. Two major books discuss her interest in gardening: The Gardens of Emily Dickinson and The Gardens of Emily Dickinson

Contemporary Poets

It is easy to become sentimental when writing about flowers, or to fall into the use of clichés. Here are three contemporary poems which avoid these temptations:

Dandelions

overnight hundreds came
found a crevice
a tuft of green
an obvious spot on the grass

and settled in, unpacked
nuzzled in
comfortable now
yellow joy content

squatters all
these bright strewn puffs
scattering like golden pearls
singing the praises of spring

then leaving overnight
just like they came
floating off to new territory
forgetting to pack up
and throw away their trash

where it still sits
on the lawn
trying hard to blend in

-- Susan B. Auld

From VISITING MORNING AND OTHER QUIET PLACES (Tradewinds, 2008).

Note that Auld is neither sentimental about the beauty of dandelions, nor cranky about their presence on her lawn. The tone of the poem is, on the one hand, matter of fact: the dandelions come, stay for a while and leave as suddenly as they had arrived. Within this staid framework, however, Auld uses imagistic and metaphoric language to make us see the dandelions in a new way. They are “squatters” who “unpack” and “nuzzle in.” The “strewn puffs” are “golden pearls.” And when they float off, they leave their “trash” behind.

CX Dillhunt writes about prairie flowers. There is deep feeling underneath the words: The prairie “takes me in,” the poet says. It tells him to stay, and he stays. There is an element of the list poem here, as he names various kinds of flowers and, later, varieties of Asters. He uses both scientific names and casual descriptions, such as “stars” and “little white bread ones.” The ending is a surprise, as he addresses the flowers, asking what name—if any—they would like to be called.

Aster

The prairie

takes me in this morning gets me wet with turkey feet
little bluestem cord grass switchgrass Indian grass in this fall
called
Indian summer and I am
surrounded

showy goldenrod field goldenrod stiff goldenrod more
goldenrod and yellow
cone flowers almost gone and clover

some asters and always-forget-your-first-name gentian
other plants of prairie and parts of prairie
prairie pleasing prairie and prairie singing prairie

stay

says the prairie
surely you are some sort of aster

and your composite heart belongs to us

I stay.

I pray to see Aster azureus
lucidulis
paniculatus--

I think I see two or three varieties
asters I call New England (pink-to-purple)

and a couple of white kinds

stars

blue ones bright ones little white bread ones

what name I say do you prefer—your Latin name?
a common name? any name at all?

-- CX Dillhunt

The poem appears in the box above to show the lay-out Dillhunt chose for his poem. Unfortunately I am unable to retain that layout in this blog. Does the layout remind you of a stretch of wild prairie?

"Aster" is from Girl Saints (Madison WI: Fireweed Press, 2003), p. 19.

Judy Roy’s poem “White Lilacs” can be called a love poem. It is also, however, ekphrastic poetry. Roy is responding not to lilacs in the garden or in a vase on the piano, but to lilacs (and burgundy roses) in a painting by Marc Chagall.

White Lilacs

after a painting by Marc Chagall

I am white lilacs
You are burgundy roses
I float on the newness of spring
held aloft by the dark beauty
of your essence
Eternal in our embrace
we soar from earth to sky
arch across the lingering river
dissolve petal by petal
into the soft womb of time

-- Judy Roy

Two Off Q: A Conversation in Poetry by June Nirschl and Judy Roy (Marshfield, Wisconsin: Marsh River Editions), p. 50.

The August Poetry Challenge:

The challenge for August is to write a poem about a flower or flowers without being sentimental or trite. Will your poem be a formal poem or free verse? Will you use scientific or every-day terms or both? Metaphor or simile? Alliteration or assonance? Will the flower or flowers be symbolic? What new thoughts will the reader have about flowers after reading your poem? Poems published in books or on the Internet are not eligible. If you poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you may send your poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is August 15.

Dorn Septet Challenge:

The Dorn Septet Challenge is open until September 15. The septet must reflect all the qualities of a Dorn septet as described in the June Challenge, and must have a minimum of three stanzas.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

July Challenge Winner

2010-07-29T11:13:00.005-05:00

Reason A. Poteet is the winner of the July poetry challenge, to write four short poems on a related theme, each representing a different season. Her haiku sequence invites us to view waterfalls in spring, summer, autumn and fall:

Waterfalls
triplet series

riding the rapids
mom films from the shore
springtime cataracts

amusement park flume
summer's gonna-get-wet ride
no cam'ras allowed

windy fishing spot
autumn's cascade of leaves
fall at the falls

winter ice sculptor
dad picks his way to the top
frozen falls

-- Reason A. Poteet

Poteet shares many of her poems on her website at http://www.wordchimes.com/poetry/Index.php?viewpoet=514.

The runner-up this month, Francis Toohey, submitted an evocative poem about what the hand does in each of the four seasons:

The Seasons

Winter/ My hand rings the bell--
the echo dissolves, the bell leaves its ghost in my palm.

Spring/ My hand lifts one finger, but the wind dissolves--
the finger folds back to my uncharted lines.

Summer/ My hand grasps a world, grim plum in my grip--
its flesh dissolves to free its single sleeping seed.

Autumn/ My hand counts the birthdays while ten fingers fly--
another year dissolves, weightless at each breath.

-- Francis Toohey

Copyright on posted poems remains with the poets who wrote them.

Thanks to Katie Kingston, who judged the top poems for this month’s blog. Katie is an award-winning poet. Her books include In My Dreams, Neruda (in English), In My Dreams, Neruda (Spanish Edition) and El Rio de las Animas Perdidas en Purgatorio.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

July Poetry Challenge

2010-07-02T10:38:00.018-05:00

William Marr who was born in China and lives in Illinois is a very prolific poet. He has published numerous books of poetry in his native Chinese, under the pen name of Fei Ma. He is quite well-known as a poet in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. His work has even been included in textbooks on poetry in China. Marr has also published two books in English. His work has found homes in over one hundred anthologies. Most of Marr’s poems are short, concise and thought-provoking. Some are humorous. In addition to writing and translating poetry, Marr is a painter and sculptor. You can read many of Marr's poems in Chinese or English, and see some of his art work by clicking on the links to the right on this blog.

From 1969 until his retirement in 1999, Marr (who has a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin) did research in energy and environmental systems at Argonne National Laboratory.

In his book Autumn Window, Marr has a set of four poems about birds, each reflecting a season of the year.

Birds * Four Seasons

Spring

If you wish to know
the shortest distance
between two trees
on this bright, enchanting day
any of the small, swift birds
can tell you with their twitter

It’s not a straight line

Summer

At noon
struck by a flaming light
a small bird
plummets through
dense leafy shade

Until slowly awakening
to discover himself
standing on a tree
lush and luxuriant

All that can be green
is green

Autumn

When did the eyes
become so blurry

A bird flying higher and higher
discovered
its own reflection in a pond
the smaller the clearer

Winter

The last thread of mist
drifting in the air
finally joins
the icicles beneath the eaves

In this winter
how can I criticize
a small bird’s song
brief and evasive

-- William Marr

From Autumn Window

Marr’s most recent book of poetry in English, Between Heaven and Earth, can be purchased from at www.publishamerica.net/product91300.html.

A much longer cycle of four seasonal poems is “The Seasons" by Kristijonas Donelaitis found at www.efn.org/~valdas/seasons.html. Donelaitis, a Lithuanian poet, wrote this sequence about the lives of peasants in the mid-eighteenth century in hexameters (a total of almost 3000 lines!).

The July Challenge

The challenge for July is to write a series of four brief poems representing the four seasons. There are to be no more than 12 lines in each poem. Select a theme which will tie the four together (in the way birds tie Marr’s poems together). You may use free verse, haiku, or a rhymed form. Poems published in books or on the Internet are not eligible.

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure to give me your e-mail address so I can respond. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner.

Some Seasonal Poems You Might Want to Read

* Haiku generally includes seasonal references. See for instance: The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa (Essential Poets); and Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku
* "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth, in William Wordsworth - The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)
* "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" by William Shakespeare, in Shakespeare's Sonnets (Yale Nota Bene)
* “in Just” by E. E. Cummings in E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems, 1904-1962 (Revised, Corrected, and Expanded Edition)
* “Spring Comes to the Suburbs,” “Good Humor Man,” and numerous other poems by Phyllis McGinley, in Times Three
*“The Fifth of July, by Grace Schulman, in The Broken String
*“Returning Birds,” in Wistawa Szymborska’s Nobel Prize winning book (translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh, Poems New and Collected
* “Snow,” by Naomi Shihab Nye, in Fuel: Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

* Numerous poems by Mary Oliver, including “Summer Story” and “Summer Morning” in Red Bird* Many poems by Jane Kenyon, including the series, “Walking Alone in Late Winter,” in Collected Poems and The Boat of Quiet Hours (Poems)
* The akam poems, which (like haiku) have seasonal references, in Poets of the Tamil Anthologies (Princeton library of Asian translations)
* “Cottonwood” by William Stafford, in Even in Quiet Places: Poems and History is loose again: Poems
* “November Bargain,” and “Winter Etude” by June Nirschl, and other poems in the joint collection by Nirschl, Nancy Rafal and Judy Roy entitled Slightly Off Q
* “April Fools,” by Christine Swanberg, in The The Tenderness of Memory: New and Selected Poems
* “Language of the Birds,” by Gladyce Nahbenayash in Dreaming History: A Collection of Wisconsin Native-American Writing
* “Kamperfoelie” (and translation, “Honeysuckle,” by J. C. Bloem, in Turning Tides: Modern Dutch & Flemish Verse in English Versions by Irish Poets
* “The Fall” by Heather McHugh in Hinge & Sign: Poems, 1968-1993
* “September afternoon at four o’clock,” and “Snow, snow,” by Marge Piercy, in Circles on the Water

July Challenge Deadline: July 15, 2010

Dorn Septet Challenge: A rhymed Dorn Septet with a minimum of three stanzas. No poems previously published in books or on-line. Deadline September 15, 2010. See the June Challenge for the rules of the Dorn Septet and an example by Glenna Holloway.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

June Challenge Results

2010-06-29T22:58:00.000-05:00

When I posted the challenge for June, I neglected to include the rhyme scheme for the Dorn Septet. I apologize for that omission. I added the rhyme scheme to the challenge later, but all of the submissions I received were written by poets who read the challenge before that addition was made. I considered selecting a winning unrhymed Dorn Septet, but wasn’t sufficiently satisfied with any of the entries.

I’m leaving open the challenge to submit a rhymed Dorn Septet with a minimum of three stanzas. See the June Challenge for specifics of how the Dorn Septet is constructed. This challenge will be open at least until September 15. That will give you a chance to draft and perfect your poem. This challenge is in addition to the monthly challenges.

Wilda Morris

© 2010 Wilda Morris

June Poetry Challenge

2010-06-01T03:00:00.001-05:00

Glenna Holloway, Senior Poet Laureate of Illinois, and founding President of the Illinois State Poetry Society, used a sophisticated modern form, the Dorn Septet, for her award-winning poem, “Losing the Farm.”

Dorn Septet: Each stanza has seven lines, all iambic (each foot has two syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed). However, the first and last line of the stanza are iambic trimeter (three feet); the middle (fourth) line is iambic hexameter (six feet); and the rest (2,3,5,and 6) are in iambic pentameter (five feet). Note also the rhyme scheme: Lines 1, 4, and 7 rhyme and lines 3 and 5 rhyme. There are no rhymes for lines 2 and 6. This metric and rhyme pattern was devised by Dr. Alfred Dorn, a New York poet.

Losing the Farm

This shaggy hump of land
Comes down to settle at the shallow pond
Like our old dog, paws in his water dish.
The man I married was my father’s only hand.
His first job was to stock the pond with fish.
Young Phil was smart. Why he would work for us
Was hard to understand.

He built a barn without
Much help that March my father hurt his hip.
Spring’s greening nap resembled sheared chenille,
Our fields embroidered by the tractor’s seeding route
Like Mama’s bedspread pattern, wheel-in-wheel.
She died that June, then Phil was hired full time.
Sometimes he cleaned my trout.

I asked him how he knew
So much, and why he didn’t take a job
With more to offer. Phil said he loved farming.
Before the corn grew ears he said he loved me too.
At first, my father found the thought alarming,
But soon he recognized his stroke of luck—
What blessings could accrue.

And so they did. The years
Were mostly kind, the rains and Phil were faithful.
He turned the scrub to terraces of grapes
Where domes of purpling autumn almost vanquished tears.
Now neighbors’ spreads are gone, the city rapes
Its way toward us, my parents’ hilltop graves,
And all our gravest fears.

Besides the pond, our lane,
The graveled last ditch lifeline left to drive
The truck to market, movies, church and vet—
Was just condemned—last ploy to make us sell. The pain
Of isolation’s grip, our drought-grown debt
And kneeling crops conspire to push us out
Of our homemade domain.

With arteries now closed,
The heartbeat stops in this uneven Eden.
No mall, no high-tech electronics plant
Compares with tasseled corn, or beaded arbors posed
Against a moiré quilt in day’s last slant.
Bulldozers quickly level secret places
Where the dying dog once dozed.

Glenna Holloway

From www.poetryfish.com/archives/holloway/index.shtml

You can read more of Glenna Holloway’s poems in, Never Far From Water and Other Love Stories (PublishAmerica, 2009), available from www.publishamerica.net.

In addition to the form, Holloway’s poem is rich in narrative which tugs at the heart. The details she uses bring the narrator and her family alive.

Holloway makes excellent use of similes and metaphors, as when she likens the way the “shaggy hump of land” comes down to the pond to the way a dog sits with paws in a water dish. The pattern of the fields is like that of her mother’s quilt. The tractor’s work of dropping seeds is pictured as embroidering. These figures of speech subtly draw attention to the ways in which the outdoor farm work and the domestic work in the house are tied together in the traditional farm family. At the end, when the lane into and out of the farm is condemned, it becomes a clogged artery, another powerful metaphor.

Holloway pleases the ear of the reader with effective sound combinations: “Shaggy” and “shallow” in the first stanza; the assonance of “stock” and “pond” a few lines later; “sheared chenille” in the second stanza; “drought-grown debt” in the fourth; and so on.

Strong verbs, well-placed, also contribute to the impact of the poem. In addition to “embroidered,” which was mentioned above, notice “conspire” in the fifth stanza. The strongest verb, however, is in the phrase, “. . . the city rapes / Its way toward us. . . .”

Every other stanza ends in some way with death. Stanza two ends with trout being cleaned. Here the dead fish provide sustenance, so the image is positive. The fourth stanza, however, ends powerfully with “hilltop graves” and “gravest fears.” The poem ends with a sadness to compound that of losing the farm (and having previously lost mother and father)—the dog is dying.

Challenge

The challenge for June is to write your own Dorn Septet. Your poem can be about any topic you choose, happy or sad, serious or funny, so long as it follows the rules of the Dorn Septet (see above). Enrich it with alliteration, assonance, images, metaphors and/or similes, and other poetic techniques. No poems already published on-line or in books, please.

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech[dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Be sure to include your e-mail address so I can respond. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

Middle School Winners

2010-05-29T15:28:00.000-05:00

Students at Sam Rotolo Middle School, Batavia, Illinois, took the April Challenge to write a food poem. They were given a special deadline, which fit their school schedule. It was hard to pick only three winners out of the wonderful pile of poems submitted. Here are the three winning poems.

If Potatoes Ruled the Earth
By Owen C.

You can mash ‘em,
You can boil ‘em,
You can stick ‘em in a stew;
But what on earth would happen if
Potatoes gobbled you?

Potatoes munch on people chips
While being very lazy.
Some don’t eat meat with humans,
For reasons, some say hazy.
People chopped up thinly,
And always salted well,
No one would think it crazy,
Like any form of hell.

No more time to write now,
I wish you’d let me be;
I hear a tater coming,
The cook is here for me!

Plate of Squiggles
By Sarah K.

It takes water and heat to conceive
Depositing the brittle stick into the mix
Sizzling sounds like a round of applause
Floppy-like laces spit and your face
Until the oar of the gods
Makes a whirlpool

The pale ladies nuzzle themselves in a round pool of blood
Turing and mixing till sun-burnt red
A very light coat of snow falls
And rests over their bodies like a blanket

The swimmers go for their last dive
To the empty pit of life’s end
The stomach

Grape Casserole
By Alec C.

Grapes
I open the fridge and find a bag of grapes in the door.
They are a mix
Red, sweet grapes
Tart, green grapes
Perfect, black grapes.

In the bag I find
Large grapes, with seeds
Old, moldy grapes
Some small, some big
Some crisp, some soft
A grape casserole.

I eat them all together:
Split them with my teeth
Devour them whole.
Squish them with my feet.
They complain by letting out a little whine.

In this selection of poems we have examples of rhymed and unrhymed poems, use of imagination, appeal to a variety of senses (taste, sight, sound), metaphor, and pun.

If you are a teacher and would like your students to participate in an upcoming poetry challenge, contact Wilda Morris at wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot} net. Remove the spaces and brackets in the e-mail address and change the "at" to @ and the word dot to the period.

Poets own full rights to their own poems.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

May Challenge Winners

2010-05-22T23:30:00.000-05:00

There are two winners of the May Poetry Challenge. In both, the concept of the map is used both literally and metaphorically.

The Map Home

Around the globe, you search
for two dots, connected
by a flight line. Distance
becomes a long string
to knot nostalgia;
fingers nudge a blue
sphere – home beckons
like an aching moon.

Your son asks
to map the family tree.
You surprise him, draw
concentric circles. Your pen drifts,
traces solar systems,
that revolve around the same point –
That’s our home!

Laughing at your crazy map,
your son prunes the growing tree.
He does not see
rings rippling across
your night river,
and leaves fall to roots.

Anna Yin

Anna Yin blogs at http://anna.88just.com.

Yin’s blog says she was born in China and immigrated to Canada. This might help explain the poignant declaration in her poem that “Distance / becomes a long string /to knot nostalgia.” The mapping of the family tree by use of concentric circles with home in the middle mirrors the mapping of growth from infancy through adulthood. First the infant relates only to parents and others in the home; then the sphere of the child widens to include teachers and schoolmates. As the individual grows, the spheres in which he or she lives widen further. Yet, for most people, home remains central. The last stanza of the poem has several possible interpretations. It could represent the way the world ultimately narrows for one who has aged.

A dory trip down the San Juan River from New Mexico into Utah, where she hiked to the top of Comb Ridge, inspired Karla Linn Merrifield to write her map poem, “Anticline Tao: One Night at Comb Ridge.” The climb was “about 400 feet, almost straight up, and then we were on top of the world overlooking the southern Utah redrock landscape and the green snaking river," Merrifield told me when I e-mailed to ask if she had actually climbed Comb Ridge. “The geology of the place moved me as did the spectacular view,” she added.

The poem is dedicated to R. J. Johnson, one of the dory boatmen, who is also a geologist. Johnson educated the poet concerning the origin and development of the ridge. The poem's use of geological vocabulary and detail reflect Johnson's influence. Merrifield also provides information regarding invasive species of plants which need to be pulled or dug out if the landscape is to maintain its natural character.

Anticline Tao: One Night at Comb Ridge

Once over the top,
off the flat map,
down the collapsed jumble
of rocks of varied ages and depths,
I go the deeper 3-D way.
Like a grain of quartz sand,
a dustling of garnet,
a fleck of schist,
I tumble backwards
into the diatreme venting tube.
I spiral along that ancient pipe,
ignoring my rumpled Utah topo-atlas,
my damp San Juan River chart,
because it is possible to journey
freely to the center of the Earth.

Transporting myself I in turn
transport what evil I am able.
This time I take with me only aliens:
tamarisk, Russian olive, camelbush.
It’s hard work, hard work,
for one flecked particle
of polished hope to do.
But over and over I remind
my fearful phenomenal self
I do this in…this is…
the compassless geography of hope.
I travel deeper into the molten core.

for R.J. Johnson
with a line from Wallace Stegner

Karla Linn Merrifield

Merrifield begins the poem with the narrator “off the flat map.” Although her poem includes literal maps (the topographical map of Utah and the “chart” of the river, there is no map to direct the metaphoric tumble into the volcanic core.

The rich phrase "geography of hope" is from Wallace Stegner's The Sound of Mountain Water.

Merrifield is co-editor (with Roger M. Weir) of The Dire Elegies: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America (available at http://www.foothillspublishing.com/id115.htm).

She blogs as “The Vagabond Poet,” at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com.

Poets retain copyright on their own poets.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

May 2010 Poetry Challenge

2010-05-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

A Map of Texas

Dallas is allotted no more ink
than any other city, but my childhood
was drawn inside that spot, moving
vans drove its thin ink streets, and death
scrawled its signature in narrow alleys
that never made it onto maps. I can
buy a map of only Dallas, all its streets,
and still could not convey how big it is—
how even from a dot across the country,
it’s so much harder to erase than this
small circle. It’s the place I widened,
crawling out of my window—direction,
destination, left in my room
next to schoolbooks. I set out to stretch
that dot to eruption. I never could
reach the edges. But that didn’t keep me
in my room, even when my mother’s
sleeping breath floated down the hall
and up the sidewalk behind me, to whatever
car I thought might drive me to the farthest
corners of that ink spot that I cover, now,
with one fingertip.

Deborah Rossel

Texas Poetry Calendar 2008, edited by Scott Wiggerman and David Meischen (Austin, Texas: Dos Gatos Press, 2007). Used by permission of the author and publisher.
You can purchase the 2010 Texas Poetry Calendar through the Dos Gatos Press Website at http://www.dosgatospress.org/).

What irony that the poet’s little finger can cover a whole city on a map! Symbolically, that finger can cover the narrator’s whole childhood and youth—including moves (within the same city), her home and school. Even the far edges of her youthful existence—driven by car, can be covered.

Part of the mystery of the poem, as I read it, is that we don’t know whether the narrator wants to cover (hide) her childhood and youth and to forget it. Perhaps she is hinting at that is so when she says “I set out to stretch / that dot to eruption.” When the narrator crawled out the window, was she trying to get away from something at home, or just seeking for something? Was she a rebel? An adventurer? Or is crawling out the window, wanting to “reach the edges” primarily a metaphor for the ways in which we “widen” our lives? In what ways did the narrator fail to reach the edges? If I substitute Iowa City for Dallas, I can read aspects of my own story into all the words of this poem as I ponder possible meanings.

Rossel uses a fairly literal description of a map, then moves to the level of metaphor. I suspect that most, if not all, of us, at some time in our childhood or youth tested the limits, moving toward the edges of what was known and what was permitted.

Another approach to maps comes from Brandel France de Bravo. France de Bravo has lived in several countries and is familiar with several languages. Perhaps that is one reason for her keen interest in the origin and history of words. In Provenance, France de Bravo provides the reader with a poem for each letter of the English alphabet and, in the back of the book, an abridged etymology of each of the 26 words chosen as titles for these poems.

Map

Mommy stone, daddy stone, and baby stone.
This is how my daughter ordered the world at two,
the family her unit of measurement.
Even the penny nails procreated, but it was she
who swaddled with maternal care
her plastic porpoise in wet washcloths.
By six she was compiling long lists of possible names
for her possessions or what she someday hoped to have:
play horses, pussy willow buds—each in its own
velvet-lined ring box—and a real dog.
Now that she is nine she makes maps:
her newspaper route, the four miles to school,
a diagram with “treasure buried here.”
In bed, the sheet over her bent knees a topography
of cotton, she sees all the mountains, river beds,
and canyons she could ever need in her own body.
She wipes her mouth and the napkin is a watercolor
of fractured countries and continents adrift in a sea of white.

Her father, on one of his trips, bought her an old Soviet compass
with a wristband but she seems to know where she’s going.
My husband and I are still trying to get our bearings,
figure out which place to call home.
I lived in Egypt once, and for a while it was the right place to be.
In Arabic, Cairo is called “Mother of the World,”
which always makes me think of my nursery school teacher.
In a room with pink-curtained light, she cut apples,
knit, and washed placemats while we played at her feet,
tugged on her apron—cloth of the world.
She was our mother for the morning, or at least a representation.
At noon she would tuck her needles into her apron pocket
and take us by the hand for Ring around the Rosies.
After ashes, ashes we all fell down and went home.

It isn’t long before we realize the world is bigger than a room,
a person, and understand that things will go un-named.
We stop going home at the end of the day and venture
farther and farther from it, carrying a map,
which some of us turn in our hands, and others in our heads.
After years of use, it’s difficult to fold up this spreading
map, blurred at the creases like memories, impossible
to return it to its neat beginnings: when it was obedient,
small enough to fit into a glove compartment.

-- Brandel France de Bravo

Provenance(Washington, D.C.: Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2008), pp. 40-41.
Mexican Poetry Today: 20/20 Voices, edited by Brandel France de Bravo, has just been published by Shearsman Books. France de Bravo, who is a health educator as well as a poet, is also co-author with Jessica Teich of Trees Make the Best Mobiles: Simple Ways to Raise Your Child in a Complex World.

France de Bravo begins by giving showing us that a map is just one of many ways of ordering the world, and that one can find figurative maps in many places, even in the stains on a napkin. The sheet over a person’s body can be a topographical map. The narrator’s daughter, the poet tells us, seems to know where she is going, whereas the narrator and her husband still have not gotten their bearings.

The poem takes an interesting turn when the narrator says she lived in Cairo. which in Arabic is called “Mother of the World.” This leap provides the poet an opportunity to skillfully lead us to a section reflecting the etymology of the word “map,” already hinted at in the reference to the stained napkin.
The abbreviated etymology at the end of the book tells us the word map “comes from the Latin word, mappa, meaning cloth, sheet or towel. Apron and napkin are closely related to this word.” The poet moves from the “Mother of the World,” to recollections of a mother stand-in, her nursery school teacher. France de Bravo writes, “we played at her feet, / tugged on her apron—cloth of the world.” Here the apron of the mother/teacher becomes a map which orders the preschooler’s world.

This poem, rich with images, especially of childhood, also holds mysteries. I’m still pondering, for instance, the last line of stanza two: “After ashes, ashes we all fell down and went home. “I know the song and the game, in which children sing, “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” But I’m puzzled by the way the line ends with that matter-of-fact way: “we all fell down and went home.” Perhaps it is only a reference to another way of ordering the world, in this case the world of time, or perhaps another meaning will display itself as I continue to live with this poem.

As in Rossel’s poem, the map becomes a metaphor, a complex metaphor for the mapping of our lives. And we all know how difficult it can be to fold up that tattered map and put it back into the glove compartment, “blurred at the creases,” as it is, “like memories.”

Other map poems to inspire you:

Kim-An Lieberman,Breaking the Map. The title poem is an especially powerful expression of what happens when the map changes because a country is split in two.

Shahid Ali Agha, A Nostalgist's Map of America: Poems

Lucille Clifton, “What the Mirror Said” in Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 (American Poets Continuum)

Elizabeth Bishop, “The Map” in The Complete Poems, 1927-1979 (also available on-line)

Alan Kaplan, “The New York Times Weather Map,” The Nation,(July 3, 1967), p. 22.

May Challenge – A Map Poem

The May, 2010, challenge is to write a poem about or involving a map. It may be a narrative poem in which a map plays an important role, or the map may be used metaphorically. But there should be a literal map clearly behind the metaphor. You may use any form you choose, free verse or formal. If you write a formal poem, include a note designating the form. No poems already published on-line or in books, please.

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech[dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Be sure to include your e-mail address so I can respond. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

Winning Poem for April 2010

2010-04-27T22:03:00.000-05:00

The consulting judge for April, Iowa poet and writer Lorene Hoover, selected “Will Write for Canapés” as the winning poem. Hoover liked the narrative approach and said she was sure “there are many people like Thurston.” Maybe you know some of them!

Will Write For Canapés

Thurston grew thin and brittle, no longer
able to hover, elbow his rivals away from
the hors d’oeuvres. Instead he lingered
hopefully in an overstuffed chair for dainty
bits—barely enough to sustain a beetle—
on a smallish plate fetched for him by young
lady poets with svelte figures and large
appetites for encouragement, whose fathers
had urged them to become secretaries.

We called him The Cleanup Man since in
his prime he never missed a writers' reception
or awards banquet where he deftly reduced
the food tray to a wasteland, vanished like a
giant chipmunk with bulging cheeks, pockets.

In his lonely room, propped up by four pillows
on his Murphy Bed, he worked on five poems
side by side, skipped meals, munched on stale
crackers, moldy cheese leftover from his last
triumph, rummaged trade invitations to the
next small press award or writers' benefit
whose notices he pasted on the wall with
rancid peanut butter.

Thurston's work had its interest and its audience,
well-crafted, if predictable, poems about winning
motorized wheelchair races at zero-to-sixty miles
per hour down the corridors of the Indy 500
Nursing Home, fights to the death with tentacled
respirators, but nothing of the poetry to be found
in a lightly sauced Lobster Newburg or a hearty
Eggs Benedict because his stomach would howl --
it was like trying to chew recipes.

His poems got him into the worst
and the best receptions in the city:
from the upscale congregation of Poetry,
to the Jiffy Peanut Butter with Gallo Jug
Wine buffet for donators to the latest
desktop collector’s issue—Friends of
the Poet, Volume One, the One and Only.

It was not that he lacked discrimination,
it was just that he had to eat. Social Security
barely covered his rent, and Thurston
was serious when he joked that he was
the only one of us who actually made
a living off his poetry.

And so he accepted The Final Invitation
with a shriveled grin in an overstuffed
wing chair, teeth clenched on a shrimp
scampi, and when the proofreader who
moonlighted as a mortician, couldn't pry
the cheese ball loose from his grip,
we gave up and buried Thurston with it,

but for a year afterwards, no one had any
appetite for canapés, and the piled up
leftovers had to be shoveled into bins
for the homeless.

-- Tom Roby

Tom Roby, who is the President of the Poets Club of Chicago, is the author ofShape Shifterand other books of poetry.

Among the phrases which boosted this poem to first place in the April challenge are “elbow his rivals” and "appetites for encouragement” in the first stanza, which help draw the reader in. The idea of attending poetry events primarily for the refreshments and thus to "made / a living off his poetry" is a clever commentary on the fact that poets are often "paid" only in copies. Hoover says that the conclusion is “yummy, satisfying.”

Students at a middle school in Batavia, Illinois, took the challenge. They were given a different deadline, one which fit their class schedule. Thus, a Junior Winner for the April Challenge will be announced soon.

NOTE: Winning poems posted on this blog are sole property of the poets who submitted them.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

April 2010 Poetry Challenge

2010-04-01T12:40:00.000-05:00

“Animal Crackers” by Christopher Morley was one of my favorite poems when I was a child. The idea of having nothing but animal crackers and cocoa for supper appealed to me, because I was quite fond of both. I also liked the rhythm and the rhymes of the poem.

Animal Crackers

Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers, I think;
When I'm grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.

What do you choose when you're offered a treat?
When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It's cocoa and animals that I love most!

The kitchen's the cosiest place that I know:
The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me.

Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;
But they don't have nearly as much fun as I
Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
And Daddy once said, he would like to be me
Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!

by Christopher Morley

At a later age, I became enamored William Carlos Williams' poem, “This Is Just To Say,” from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. 1: 1909-1939. The poem takes the form of a note, in which the narrator apologizes (sort of!) for having eaten the plums from the refrigerator. When I read this little imagist free-verse poem, I can almost taste the plums and feel their cold skin and flesh in my mouth.

A few years ago I was introduced to another poem focused on food – “The Showdown,” by Marilyn Taylor, who is the current Poet Laureate of Wisconsin. When I asked for permission to use "The Showdown" on this blog, Taylor told me this poem resulted from a workshop exercise. Each participant was asked to bring some kind of food to the session. Members of the group swapped food items, and Taylor was stuck with a zucchini. When I see a listing in Poet's Market which says not to submit workshop poems, I think about this poem and ponder what delights may be missed! If all workshop poems were as good as this one, editors would be begging poets to send them! Taylor’s poem instantly made my list of favorites.

The Showdown

Okay, Zucchini,
with your sleek Sicilian good looks –
I know all about you and the rest
of the Zucca family, how you start out
small, in the corner of some
respectable old giardino (nobody
eve notices) and then you spread,
don’t you, till you’ve moved in on
all the little guys, the beans
and the carrots and cukes,
and pretty soon you’re in charge
of the whole damn fattoria, right?
Well, I’ve got news for you, pal,
you’re past your prime. You’re ripe
to spend the rest of your natural life
in the cooler. Think I’m kidding?
Listen, either play along or its
Ratatouille! Ratatouille!
-- a year in the jug for you, Zuke.
And your little tomato, too.

-- Marilyn L. Taylor

Used by permission of the author. From Exit Only(Milwaukee, WS: Prelude Publishing, 2003), p. 16. The poem has been so popular that it also appears in Taylor’s Shadows Like These: Poems,and Greatest Hits, 1986 - 2000.

NOTE: The third line from the bottom of the poem should be indented.

Another food poem which appealed to me from the first time I read it is Robin Chapman’s “For Dinner We Had Potatoes.” This is both a food poem and a list poem. It reminds me of my grandmother’s cooking. Potatoes could easily be grown in the garden, or, if purchased from the grocery, were not very expensive. Having grown up on the Kansas prairie, married a rural, small-church pastor who was often paid in kind, and lived through both the depression and World War II rationing, Zam (as I called her) knew a lot about economical cooking! And it was Zam, not my mother (who worked full-time when I was a child) who taught me to cook.

For Dinner We Had Potatoes

Boiled, baked, fried, mashed,
Peppered, with onions, hashed,
Parsleyed, whipped, buttered, creamed,
Cubed, scalloped, cheesed,
Twice-baked, pancaked,
New in their skin, vinaigretted,
Moat to hold gravy---my mother
Made them in endless variety.

And I learned to peel,
Mastering the rhythm,
Long strokes of skin, not slicing
The thumb knuckle, a knife
For sunscald spots,
Dimples that could be navels
Called eyes---must be
Looking in---I dug them out,
No omphalosceptic, knowing
We wanted two each,
More for the pot.

-- Robin Chapman

Used by permission of the author and publisher. From Abundance (Winner of the 2007 Cider Press Review Book Award; Halifax PA: Cider Press, 2009), p. 7. Abundance can be purchased through www.ciderpressreview.com/bookstore/.

Note: According to www.medterms.com, “Omphalo- is a combining form that indicates a relationship to the umbilicus (the navel).”

In addition to the memories this poem elicits, I appreciate the word combinations Chapman uses, such as: “Boiled, baked,” “Peppered. . . Parsleyed,” “Cubed, scalloped, cheesed,” and best of all, “Twice-baked, pancaked.” Her play on words and ideas with eyes, dimples and navels is clever. And due to some overlap in sounds, “omphalosceptic” makes me think of the vocabulary of optometry, which brings me back to those eyes, which in the case of the potato, are, as Chapman says, “Looking in.”

Chapman is a scientist (maybe you guessed that from her use of the word "omphalosceptic") and painter as well as poet. She was given an Outstanding Achievement Poetry Award from the Wisconsin Library Association. Her gifts for science and poetry are linked in Images of a Complex World: The Art And Poetry of Chaos.

White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006by Donald Hall, includes a number of interesting food-related poems, including, "O Cheese," "Eating the Pig," "Wolf Knife," and "Beans and Franks."

Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetrycontains a wonderful variety of food poems, including "Coca-Cola and Coco Frio" by Martin Espada; "Mama" by Claire Kageyama, "Preparations for Seder" by Michael S. Glaser; "Rib Sandwich" by William J. Harris and "Chinese Hot Pot," by Wing Tek Lunn.

If you enjoy food poems, you will find more poems to chew on in the following books:

Food Fight: Poets Join the Fight Against Hunger With Poems to Favorite Foods

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Poems About Food and Drink (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)

O Taste and See: Food Poems (Harmony (Bottom Dog Press)

The April Challenge

The challenge for April is to write a food poem. Your poem can be free verse, or you can use a form (sonnet, villanelle, etc.), but include a note saying what form you are using. Poems of 40 or fewer lines have a better chance of being selected, but longer submissions will be read and considered.

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech[dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure to give me your e-mail address so I can respond. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

Winning March Poem

2010-03-31T22:22:00.000-05:00

Caroline Johnson, Vice President of Poets and Patrons of Chicago, served as consulting judge for March. Here is the winning poem:

Why I Collect Cats

because her many teats
hang from a rib-revealing
frame, and six kittens
call with mewling bleats
from the window well next door

because, with an abscess over one eye
and another behind his ear, he prowls
the neighborhood, trilling yowls
and he still has balls

because he is eating scraps and bread crumbs
meant for birds

because she’s a calico
because he’s long haired
short haired, a gray tiger,
an orange tiger
she’s a brindle, a tortie
black with white markings
white with blue eyes

and deaf, blind in one eye
sick with feline aids
weak with anemia
dying of leukemia
because he limps on two paws, broken
long before he appeared at my home

because they absorb sun on the sidewalk
or in the window sill, or on the kitchen floor
and power warmth to my feet in bed
pour heat against my back
purr on my head
and in my lap while I nap

I collect cats
not because she sprays the coffee pot
when my sister visits
not because he vomits on the pale carpet
not because she shreds the furniture
nor because I have to wait until she weans the kittens
before I have her spayed

I keep cats
because they have lived with me
longer than my husband
after my children left home
more faithfully than my ex-lover

I keep cats
because after eighteen years
or twenty, or fifteen
I want to hold the ex-tom
paralyzed by a stroke
the sway-backed mama
consumed by a tumor
when I help them die
when I tell them goodbye.

I collect cats one at a time
because he came to me wounded
because she was pregnant
because he was hungry
and so was I..

-- by Susan Fleming Holm

Of this poem, Johnson said, “It is compassionate and real. It is beautifully detailed and shows an obvious love for the subject matter. The poem itself is almost a metaphor for the imperfections of humans. It also has a beautiful rhythm as well. It brought tears to my eyes, especially the lines:

I want to hold the ex-tom
paralyzed by a stroke
the sway-backed mama
consumed by a tumor
when I help them die
when I tell them goodbye.”

The narrator values cats for their loyalty and for the warmth they bring (literally and figuratively) into her life. Part of the appeal of the poem is that the narrator collects cats for the very reasons why many people don’t keep cats: cats sometimes vomit on the carpet, tear up the furniture, yowl as they prowl the neighborhood Beyond that, the narrator of this poem is especially drawn to cats with abscesses or leukemia, hungry cats, needy cats.

In a strong ending, the narrator reveals that she needs the cats which needs her.

NOTE: Winning poems posted on this blog are sole property of the poets who submitted them.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

Poems on the Internet

2010-03-17T08:25:00.001-05:00

I've added links to more of my poems on-line, most recently "Woodye Kessler at the County Jail," "Stafford's Poems," "Holding Hands on the Greyhound," and five poems published in Eye on Life. Scroll down and click on the links if you would like to read them. "Woodye Kessler at the County Jail" is embedded in a blog entry entitled, "A Poet . . . and a Saint?"

March 2010 Poetry Challenge

2010-03-01T21:53:00.000-06:00

Richard Vargas, who was born and raised in Southern California, currently lives and writes in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He first gained a measure of fame by publishing and editing The Tequilla Review from 1977-1979. Since then, he has published two books of poetry, Mclife, published by Main Street Rag, and American Jesus: Poems, published by Tia Chucha Press.

His short poem, “why i feed the birds,” is an example of the challenge for March: to write a poem explaining something about yourself.

why i feed the birds

once
i saw my grandmother hold out
her hand cupping a small offering
of seed to one of the wild sparrows
that frequented the bird bath she
filled with fresh water everyday

she stood still
maybe stopped breathing
while the sparrow looked
at her, then the seed
then back as if he was
judging her character

he jumped into her hand
began to eat
she smiled

a woman holding a small god

---Richard Vargas
© Richard Vargas. Used by permission of the author

Vargas gives us an image we can see. I can almost hear the narrator’s grandmother’s breath stop as the sparrow eyes her. The last line is a wonderful surprise.

John Lehman, the founding editor of Rosebud, lives and writes in Wisconsin. Hi is currently the poetry editor of Wisconsin People and Ideas. Lehman has a wry sense of humor. Many of his more recent poems, including many of those in his book, Shorts: 101 Brief Poems of Wonder and Surprise, are quite short and are printed as small rectangles, reminding me of little boxes or Post-it® Notes.

In the following poem, which is longer than his “Shorts,” Lehman uses an unusual metaphor to explain his poetic habit.

Why I Write Poems

It’s like cutting grass
after dark
pivoting the old mower’s
wheel around the end
of each line
to make a pattern of
textures
you can’t see
but sense
by the sound
(of blades)
by the feel
or the constellation
of fireflies
that dance above it
when you’re done.
I’ve experienced both
and there is
one difference,
it’s when morning comes
the lawn
a splendid
glistening present
wrapped in dew
and the other
less real than
imagined
the gift you seek.

-- John Lehman
Shrine of the Tooth Fairy(Cambridge, Wisconsin: Cambridge Book Review Press, 1998), p. 83.

Note # 1: This book was illustrated by Spencer Walts. On amazon.com, Walts is erroneously listed as the author.

Note # 2: Lines 2, 4-5, 7-12, 14-16, 18-19, 21-24, and 26-27 should be indented, but the blog does not seem to provide that option.

Note # 3: If you click on an underlined book title, it will take you to that book on amazon.com.

Do you hear the sound of the blades (and the poet's alliteration? Do you see those fireflies dancing above the dew-wet grass?

The Challenge for March is to write a poem with a title which begins, “Why I” (or “why i”). Explain why you drive a 1957 Mustang, why you walk to the mall, why you prefer your oatmeal cold, or . . . . well, you decide what to explain about yourself! Your poem can be as serious as the one by Vargas, or it can be humorous. Follow Lehman’s example and build your poem around a metaphor, if you wish. You have poetic license, so you can explain why you boogie with the baby, even if you don't really do it.

Your poem can be free verse, or you can use a form (sonnet, villanelle, etc.), but include a note saying what form you are using. Poems of 40 or fewer lines have a better chance of being selected, but longer submissions will be read and considered.

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech[dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces. Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure to give me your e-mail address so I can respond. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner.

Challenge Deadline: March 15, 2010.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

February Poetry Challenge Winners

2010-02-26T17:36:00.001-06:00

Two poems were chosen as winners of the February Poetry Challenge. Although both poems are free verse, they are quite different, because the chosen personas are different. In “Final Stage,” Peggy Trojan speaks for Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Ross studied the psychological process of preparing for death. She concluded that it was normal to go through “stages” of denial, anger, bargaining and depression before coming to acceptance. Trojan focuses on Kubler-Ross’s biography, especially in relationship to her father.

Final Stage

It’s Elisabeth, Father.
Yes, work is good.
I feel I am helping many.
There is fear, much sadness.
I have started work on a book.

Three sisters could not live
in the same womb after birth.
I had to go my way. Not your office.
You were fierce. A child cannot
be bent to a parent’s choosing.

Oh, I forgave you long ago.
It was cruel to kill my pet hare.
I could never again eat hasenpfeffer.
It only strengthened my resolve.
Everything happens to teach our purpose.

I still have the doll you bought me
when I was five and ill.
I remember often your songs, our walks.
I share your need for forest quiet.
I have kept our Kubler name.

Life on this earth is only one stage.
We will meet again in brighter light.
I love you too, Father.
Hush now. I will stay with you.
The butterfly will come.

-- Peggy Trojan

A different vocabulary and style of speech is used by Anna Yin, as she voices Sylvia Plath’s thoughts in the night. Yin began with “Lament” as the title, in part, because Plath has a poem by that name. Plath also titled a poem, “Insomniac,” from which Yin drew the title, “Insomnia.”

Insomnia

I cut an echoless love
in pale moonlight.

Ashes of stars slip
from my face.

You remain in a secret garden.
My shadow clings to the splitting wall.

The taste of blood edges
up my bleeding fingers.

Water rises on a lake
and the moon drowns.

--Anna Yin

Thanks to the others who entered this month. I enjoyed reading all the poems. Thank you to the consulting judge, Judith Infante, author of Love: a Suspect Form — Heloise and Abelard(Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2008), p. 35.

February 2010 Poetry Challenge

2010-02-01T11:31:00.002-06:00

A number of contemporary poets have been writing persona poems from the perspective of individuals from the past. These poems are written in the first person, as if they were written by the historical character him- or herself. The poet gives voice to the character, usually someone who is no longer living. In order to be effective, poets have to do research the biography of the person they select and the time period in which that person lived.

One poet who has been successful in writing persona poems is Jennifer Clement. She has written in the voice of Albert Einstein, as well as Marie Curie. Marie Curie and her husband Pierre pioneered research on radiation. In a series of seven poems, written as letters from Marie to Pierre Curie after his death, Clement express Madame Curie’s grief, and also Marie’s deteriorating condition.

Seven Letters Written to Marie Curie
to Pierre Curie After His Death

Letter I

Kindled by uranium
the great room glowed.
Even from two streets away,
as we walked to the laboratory,
we could see the matter
through the window’s seams.
Inside, your chair and lab coat
grew sheer, green, phosphorescent,
pencils were luminous.
Albino rays appeared
in the decimals of our cells
as we quietly became radioactive.
You said, “polonium, radium,”
and your tongue and teeth were yolk opalescent
as if your speech were lit.
I wrote, “I extracted from the mineral
the radium-bearing barium and this,
in the state of chloride,
I submitted to fractional crystallization,”
and the paper warmed
to 98.9 degrees Fahrenheit.
In that room,
black and white
had left the world.

--Jennifer Clement
New and Selected Poems (Exeter: Shearsman, 2008), pp. 71-72).

Judith Infante’s book, Love: A Suspect Form, has been called a novel in verse form. Infante follows events in the lives of the 12th century philosopher Peter Abelard and his student, Heloise, a story which has fascinated people for centuries. The love that developed between them was forbidden by culture and church (and more specifically, the Pope). After the birth of their son, Astralabe, they were secretly married, but did not live together. Abelard sent Heloise back to the convent where she had grown up. In revenge, Heloise's uncle had Abelard drugged and castrated. Many of Infante’s poems are persona poems, told in the voices of Abelard, Heloise, Astralabe and others. Infante weaves elements of the myth of Atalanta into the story.

Here is an early poem in the sequence, when Heloise has just become Abelard's student. The setting for this poem is Canon Fulbert’s residence, Close of Notre Dame, Paris.

Heloise: Lesson

vellum from a goat’s skin
bound into books

quills and ink on a table
first lesson

at midnight listen
my master climbs the stair

a mother might have taught me
the signs of a snare

who can tutor me now
in the art of breaking free

--Judith Infante
Love: a Suspect Form — Heloise and Abelard (Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2008), p. 35.

In his book, Tongue of War: from Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki, winner of the 2009 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, Tony Barnstone's poems represent the viewpoints of people involved in or impacted by World War II, in particular, the Pacific theater. The original impetus for the book was a dinner with Brigadier General Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane which dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. One of the poems is from his perspective:

The Pilot’s Tale

In the plane’s glass nose the whole sky
lit up the beautifulest blue
you ever seen, bright blue, but I
did not react when the bomb blew.
Not right away. Then I turned round
and saw the cloud of boiling dust
bubbling upwards from the ground
where I guess Hiroshima must
have been, and felt the silver fillings
electrify my teeth. They sent
the chills all through me, boots to hair.
We wiped ‘em out. And as for killing
the ones they say were innocent—
that’s their tough luck for being there.

--Tony Barnstone
Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki (Winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry; Kansas City MO: BkMk Press, 2009), p. 80.

Barnstone was not content to view the war only from the viewpoint of U.S. officers. For fifteen years, he read transcripts of oral histories, letters, and books about World War II, and conducted interviews, in order to gather experiences and opinions of soldiers and civilians from both sides. A piece of him wanted to abandon the project – it was painful to read and write about the impact of the atomic bomb on the survivors, the Bataan Death March, cannibalism, and other aspects of the war. But, he says in the introduction to the book,“the voices continued to clamor about what they had seen.”

Here is one of the poems voicing a Japanese perspective, based largely on an oral history with a naval officer, who (after the war) recorded his feelings at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor:

They Could Have Given It to Us

but they kept every drop of oil.
That’s why the need to kill flared up
like hot gas in our blood and boiled
all Buddhist conscience out of us.
Today I am a priest, and still
I use the discipline I learned
at the Academy. To kill
is wrong. I know. But then I burned
for it. Pearl Harbor made me burst
with joy. We needed oil, just that.
We had no choice but to strike first.
A cornered mouse will bite a cat.

--Tony Barnstone

Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki (Winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry; Kansas City MO: BkMk Press, 2009), p. 27.

Here are some additional books of persona poems which you might find interesting (If you click on the title of a book on this blog, it will take you to amazon.com, where the book can be purchased).

* Six by Eve Wood Persona poems from the perspectives of the six wives of Henry VIII.

* Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York (Kentucky Voices) by Eve Wood. Poems from the perspective of York, who played an important role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Enslaved, York asked Clark for his freedom after the expedition.

* Commonwealth of Wings: An Ornithological Biography Based on the Life of John James Audubon (Wesleyan Poetry) by Pamela Alexander. Persona poems fromt he perspective of the most famous of all North American Ornithologists.

* They Shall Run: Harriet Tubman Poems by Quraysh ali Lansana. Persona poems telling the story of Harriet Tubman, who led so many slaves to freedom. Some are in her voice and others are from other perspectives.

The February 2010 Poetry Challenge

The challenge for February is to write a persona poem from the perspective of someone in history. You can pick a pharaoh or slave from ancient Egypt, a monk from the Middle Ages faced with the impact of the plague, an ancient emperor of China or India, a former president or First Lady of the U.S., or . . . . well, you decide!

You may use (or bend) a form (label it as a sonnet, triolet, or whatever), or write in free verse. Poems of 40 or fewer lines have a better chance of being selected. I still have not figured out how to post shaped poems or poems with indents, so it is best to submit a poem with every line starting on the left margin. The winning poem or poems will be posted before the end of February. Sign your poem with your name as you would like it to appear on the blog if you are a winner. Winners retain rights to their own poems. Send your poem to wildamorris [at] Ameritech[dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces. Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure to give me your e-mail address so I can respond.

Challenge Deadline: February 15, 2010.

© 2010 Wilda Morris

January 2010 Challenge Winner

2010-01-28T10:48:00.001-06:00

Thanks to those who entered the January challenge. There were several interesting poems in contention. The following, a Shakespearean sonnet, is the winner.

My Mother Sang To Me

A minstrel's lyric on a city street
Betrays a moment past, a memory
Held captive by a siren's song: retreat
Is my indulgence, to a panoply
Of silver maples scattering the sun
Upon my eyes like tiny dancing sprites,
The specters of my boyhood beasts undone
By strains from Orpheus and the delights
Of Pan's seductive reed, the sounds adrift
On perfumed breezes in the melodies
My mother sang to me; and they shall lift
Me on my wistful passage, and appease
My soul. For past and present, both, I yearn;
To neither am I able to return.

-- Paul Buchheit

Congratulations, Paul!

January 2010 Poetry Challenge

2010-01-01T14:26:00.001-06:00

During the December holidays there is a lot of focus on children, which causes many people to think back on their own childhood. Some people have a Disneyesque view of childhood, as if it were all fun and play. I’ve always know that is not the case, but the truth was pounded into me one day when I was leading a workshop for a small group of persons working with children in their churches. I asked the participants to think quietly about one time or space in their childhood when or where they felt especially happy, safe, warm and loved. One man became very morose. When it came time to share, he said that he realized during those quiet moments that there had never been a time in his childhood when he felt really happy and safe in his own home. He had to place his young self mentally in a friend’s home to find a safe and warm spot. I fear that there are many people who can identify with his experience.

My own childhood was a more normal mixture of happy and unhappy experiences. There were members of my family whose love I never doubted—and a missing father whom I never knew and of whom I have only one traumatic memory. There was the apple tree where I had my own special branch—and occasionally switches broken off to be used when I was naughty. There was a lengthy separation from my older sister and my grandparents (in whose home I lived)—with the resulting adventure of six months in New York where Mother helped care for cousins and my uncle did rounds of the neighborhood when there were brown-outs due to World War II. There were good childhood friends as well as teachers at church and at Longfellow School in Iowa City who took a special interest in me—and a few boys who bullied me.

One of the wonderful things about poetry is that all these experiences, both the good ones and the bad ones, can inspire us to write. Writing can help us re-experience the good times and heal from the painful ones.

Here is a poem based on one of my powerful childhood memories, the first time I was allowed to go to the neighborhood store alone. It was an experience from which I learned an important lesson about people.

Neighbor

I squeezed the loaf of bread tighter,
as tears burned a path down my
dirty cheeks. Here I was,
in the middle of the block,
on the right side of the street,
exactly where my house should be.
But it was not. What evil magic
had changed the world?
Where was my home, with Grandmother
waiting for bread? My head
turned to the ground. I shrank,
my wails now larger than I.

Hearing something, I looked
through the fog of tears
and there you were.
You - the wolf who ate
Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother,
Peter, Peter who kept his wife
in a pumpkin shell, the witch
who tried to push Hansel in the oven.
I'd known who you were since I was four!
If I peeked between lilac bushes
and saw you in your garden, I would run.
Fridays, I saw taxi drivers bring you home,
help you stagger to the door.
I heard your wife crying in the night,
your son's shrieks, saw welts
and bruises next day - and his eyes.

And here you were.
You knelt, and with a tender voice
I'd never heard you use,
asked, What's the matter, Billye?
How could you understand the words
I sputtered, saying I was lost?

And yet you did. And with one hand
lightly on my shoulder, the other
pointing, said, Look,
you can see your house from here.
I bolted across the weedy field,
still clutching the bread,
not saying thank you.

Wilda Morris

Published in Prairie Light Review XXIX:2 (Spring 2009), p. 6.

Helen Degen Cohen recently published her book, habry, a memoir in poetry of growing up Jewish in Eastern Europe during a frightful time in history. Her father was a barber, which gives hair special metamorphic significance, even as it brings back tactile memories. In this powerful and poignant poem, she braids father, mother and child, head hair and underarm hair, into one family. The poem combines realism with something somewhat mysterious, which represents well the fact that often a child intuits the fact that something important is happening, but doesn’t know or understand what is going on.

Here is what the poet herself says regarding this poem and the book it appears in: “First of all, many Habry poems were inspired by my writing of the novel, The Edge of the Field, several pieces of which were published (with awards) over the years (the latest in Where We Find Ourselves in 2009) -- poems wafted up AS I was writing that book decades ago. “Hair” is one of those concrete, tactile, and I'd say physical/emotional more-than-images, about which many writers (including myself) have written. For me it had an added meaning, given that my father was a barber all his life and through the war. It actually helped to save our lives. Ah, but there was more (there always is): he said he married my mother because of her ‘red hair’.”

If your mother braided your hair, or if you ever curled up in the arms of your father, smelling his underarm hair, you will find this poem especially moving!

Hair
For Joseph and Bella, on the eve of War

That is my pale, orange mother
Crinkling the pert panienka’s hair.
Her own, an abandon of warm silk
To and fro. Then it fades away.

Sometimes she braids my hair into circles
And hums, as if ours were a place for humming.
What is it mothers know?
What is she braiding into my hair?

The sun is shining. There’s a bird in the window,
There are voices in the street, in our old village, there is
Darkness around us, yet everything is bright,
Stars seem to shine through the very daylight.

My father’s hurt eyes come closer,
Closer, he takes me into his arms.
I lie beside the fragrance of his underarm
Hair, his warm, moist turnings, the stars.

Soon I will be almost five years old.
And still, what I know hides behind the star.
So said the gypsy, long ago,
Your father the barber is going to war.

Up and back he walks, to the door.
He carries me on his back, we laugh,
And still, curled in his eyes are ghosts.
He touches my crib, my toes, my ear,

Knowing that without me there will be no world,
No scissors, no long black combs, no hair,
No brown strap to carry the razor
Up and back, up and back.

Up and back, he walks to the door,
The gypsies stirring the hair on the floor

And that is my pale orange mother
Suddenly trying to fade away.
She braids her humming into my hair,
Her silence into my wild hair.

Helen Degen Cohen(Halina Degenfisz)

Habry
(Chicago: The Puddin’Head Press, 2009), pp. 8-9.

Helen Degen Cohen has also just published another highly regarded book of poetry, On a Good Day One Discovers Another Poet

JANUARY CHALLENGE:

The challenge for January is to think about your childhood and write a poem about a particularly poignant memory (happy, sad, scary, or whatever you come up with). You may, of course, take poetic license and change names, details, locations, and so on. Let the memory lead you into poetry and let the poem take you where it will. The poem, however, must be based on your own childhood, not a reflection on childhood in general, or on other children.

In addition to the poems above, you may draw inspiration from "My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow" by Robert Lowell (In his Selected Poems: Expanded Edition: Including selections from Day by Day), “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas (n The Poems of Dylan Thomas, New Revised Edition [with CD]). Christopher Merrill’s poem “Childhood,” has an interesting combination of realistic detail and more emotional (and mysterious) content. You can find the poem in his book, Watch Fire.

You may use a form (label it as a sonnet, triolet, or whatever), or write in free verse. Poems of 40 or fewer lines have a better chance of being selected. I still have not figured out how to post shaped poems or poems with indents, so it is best to submit a poem with every line starting on the left margin. The winning poem or poems will be posted before the end of January. Sign your poem with your name as you would like it to appear on the blog if you are a winner. Winners retain rights to their own poems. Send your poem to me at wildamorris [at] Ameritech[dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces. Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure to give me your e-mail address so I can respond.

Challenge Deadline: January 15, 2010.

©2010 Wilda Morris

December Challenge Winner

2009-12-29T11:50:00.001-06:00

There were several good attempts at providing advice for the new year: advice to a husband, to a nephew, and to people in general. The winning poem describes life through a series of metaphors: a movie in fast-forward, musical chairs, a tunnel, and so on. The judges weren’t totally convinced by the title and end line, but nevertheless, the poem offers some good advice. Congratulations to Jason Sturner for submitting the following poem:

Trout Swimming Upstream for Nickels & Dimes

The world outside my window
moves like someone hit fast-forward
and broke off the pause button.

We race for our seats
on musical chair mornings,
jump in the ring with clocks.

But today my soul pinched me,
woke me up with a beautiful, simple idea,
and I'm here to share.

My friends,
one word
foraged
into a sword—

"Enough!"

Like drought in a rose garden,
like sour on a sweet kiss:

We tolerate too much,
we tunnel drive through life;
each of us holding an entire world on our shoulders.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We can spread our arms, ride the wind, enjoy life.
Remind ourselves that money is not air,
that computers will never hug us.

So write a list of things you love,
things that make life good for you.
And tape it to your forehead if you must.

For a daily pinch is a daily reminder
that you're NOT a fish
swimming upstream for peanuts.

Jason Sturner

The consulting judge this month was Beth Staas, President of Poets and Patrons of Chicago. There is a link to the Poets and Patrons Website on this blog (upper right).

Watch for a new poetry challenge to be posted on or near the first of January.

Happy New Year!

December Poetry Challenge

2009-12-01T07:07:00.001-06:00

According to the calendar most widely used in the Western world, a new year will begin on January 1. Traditionally New Year’s Day has been a time for celebrating and for making resolutions. The two poems below, both by Wisconsin writers, are not written as resolutions; they provide advice to others as they begin the new year.

This Year ...

Borrow from the Universe
an elixir of choice.
Interpret your dreams
as Daniel did for Nebuchadnezzar.
Startle your partner
with open mouth kisses.
Memorize poems and
think in foreign phonemes.
Shake the shoulders of silence
while you deadhead the dianthus.
Harvest forgiveness and
bundle the benefits of doubt.
Crumble purple lavender
into an alchemy.
Coax the bell of morning glories
to ring mid-afternoon.
Clap the hens from the
cool weather garden.
Feel the flesh of words
as you pray without ceasing.

Jenna Rindo

First published in Free Verse.

Jenna Rindo suggests that we have choices in how we meet the new year--why would one give advice if one did not believe that? Alliteration, assonance, interesting images and Biblical allusions enrich her poem. The juxtapositions of lines (such as moving from interpreting your dreams to startling your partner) are interesting. Beginning with the ninth line, Rindo uses a lot of gardening (or farming) imagery.

All Year Long

This year as the world comes apart…bit by bit
day after day…give your heart away
remembering that the watered-down light
of the moon is stronger than darkness

This year when the lines in your face outnumber
those in the palm of your hand or the ones
you meant to put on paper…do not have them notarized

When the lock on your door finally gives out
and everyone comes to sleep in your living room
turn over the deed for your house to the first one
willing to make coffee or a pot of soup

This year when you plant your garden…hold the seeds
carefully in the womb of your mouth…Spit them
one by one into the welcoming earth in the name
of everything you have done or failed to do

This year as the world becomes larger and you shrink
to the size of the small winter sapling in your backyard
know that the skeletons of trees still hold the breath
of your grandmother and need no disclaimer.

Ellen Kort

Wisconsin Poet’s Calendar: 1999, edited by Yvette Viets Flaten (Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, 1998), p. 125.

Ellen Kort, who was the first poet laureate of Wisconsin, generally does not use punctuation. She substitutes extra spaces where other poets might use periods, commas or dashes in the middle of a line. Unfortunately, blogspot will not print extra spaces, so Kort gave me permission to substitute the dots.

Kort’s poem seems to assume that, to some extent at least, the world will come apart. Indeed, all of us experience disappointment, loss, and even tragedy, often through no fault of our own. We have no choice about that. But Kort, like Rindo, reminds us that we can choose how to respond, and find meaning in our lives as we give our hearts away. This idea provides a central focus for the poem.

“All Year Long” has rich metaphors and images. It makes excellent use of repetition, without overdoing it (note that the third stanza – the one in the middle – does not use the repeated phrase “This year”). Kort also makes good use of comparisons: “the watered-down / light of the moon” is compared with darkness; the number of lines on your face versus those on your palm; the world growing as you shrink. There is also the juxtaposition at the end of the fourth stanza of “everything you have done” with what you have failed to do.

December Poetry Challenge

After reading these poems, I’m determined to coax those morning glory bells to ring—and to appreciate “watered-down light.” I’m also wondering what advice I might offer to others, advice that might make help 2010 a memorable year.

The December poetry challenge is to write a poem of advice for the new year. It may be advice for anyone who might read it, advice to a particular group (department store clerks; members of a sports team; poets or novelists; students at your school or those with whom you work; all the members of your church, mosque, synagogue or temple; etc.) or individual (such as your spouse or children, or a new-born). Or perhaps you could combine the New Year’s resolution idea with the advice idea, and write advice for yourself. You may use a form (other than a shaped poem, considering that blogspot doesn’t accommodate the needed spaces) or free verse. Your poem may be serious or humorous. Just make it poetic and 30 or fewer lines!

Entries must be submitted by December 15. Submitting a poem implies permission for the poem to be posted. Authors retain ownership of their own work.

Submit your poem through the comment feature below (be sure to include your name and e-mail address), through my Facebook page, or via e-mail (remove the spaces from the following address: wildamorris @ ameritech . net). At least one winning entry will be posted on “Wilda Morris’s Poetry Blog.”

© 2009 Wilda Morris

November Challenge Winner

2009-11-28T10:51:00.001-06:00

Larry Turner who lives and writes in Fredericksburg, Virginia, judged between the top three poems for November. Turner is author of Eden And Other Addressesand Stops on the Way to Eden and Beyond.

Here is the winning poem:

MY FATHER’S HAT

Felt fedora
soft and gray
traveled into
town each day
sheltered Dad from
snow and rain
brought my father
home again
used a stepstool
by myself
and plopped his hat
atop the shelf

My father’s gone
I kept his hat
my little boy
knows where it’s at
first day of school
we have a spat
he’ll only go
in Grampa’s hat
I watch him go
lunch in his sack
my father’s hat
will bring him back

-- Judith Tullis

One thing I like about this poem is the way the hat moves to a third generation. After a time on the shelf, it gets a "new life." The ending of the poem is a bit of a surprise. Poems about the hats of deceased fathers are sometimes maudlin; this one is upbeat. The rhyme scheme also helps keep it light.

Larry Turner, made the following comments on "My Father's Hat": “Good concrete images. Conciseness good. Good portrayal of the passing on of family tradition generation after generation. “used a stepstool / by myself” is a little awkward without the “I.” Perhaps another quatrain would give freedom to fix that and to tell both what the son did and why.”

Congratulations to Judith Tullis! And thanks to Larry Turner.

The next poetry challenge will be posted on December 1.

© 2009 Wilda Morris

November Challenge: A Poem About a Fashion Accessory

2009-11-01T19:45:00.001-06:00

Two women may purchase and wear the same dress or pants suit—with a totally different effect. What makes the difference? The accessories, of course. One woman in a plain black dress will wear a bright red scarf and red slip-in shoes, and add a large red and black purse to her ensemble. Another will select a silver necklace with matching earrings, black pumps and clutch bag, and a black hat with a silver butterfly pin on one side. You might not even notice that their dresses are identical.

Identical male twins men may wear similar slacks and shirts, but if one wears a bolo tie, cowboy boots and a belt with a large buckle, he won’t look much like his brother who chooses black dress shoes, a belt with a subdued buckle and a bow tie.

Chaucer’s poem, “The Complaint of Chaucer To His Purse,” may be the first poem in English about a purse. Chaucer chose this light-handed way to ask his patron for more money, so it would be a stretch to consider “The Complaint” a poem about an accessory. Edgar A. Guest entertained his generation with “The Lost Purse,” a poem in which the mother is more upset on the numerous occasions when she can’t find her purse than when one of her young children wanders away. Again, the purse is not so much an accessory as a stand-in for the money it contains.

One of the most famous poems actually involving clothing accessories is “Warning: When I Am Old, I Shall Wear Purple,” by Jenny Joseph, the poem which spawned the Red Hat Society. “Warning,” which was voted Britain’s best loved poem by those who view “Bookworm” on BBC, is available as an illustrated book. See Warning: When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.

Two recent Poet Laureates of the United States have written poems about accessories. In Ted Kooser’s brief poem, “The Necktie,” a man stands in front of a mirror, as he finishes getting dressed. You can find the poem in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Delights & Shadows

Billy Collins has two hat poems in Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems. “Candle Hat” is about the artist, Goya, who devised a hat that allowed him to paint after dark. “The Death of the Hat” describes the prevalence of hats in a previous generation, when they were an almost-mandatory part of men’s daily attire. At that time, men could make a living blocking hats for others, and there was a hat rack in every office. No man went out bare-headed on a cold night. The poem turns into a remembrance of the poet’s father, who wore a hat to work every day. At the end, the hat becomes a powerful metaphor for the earth, cloud and sky which now cover his father, and we realize that the title has a double meaning.

A brand new book, Empty Shoes: Poems on the Hungry and the Homeless, edited by Patrick T. Randolph, has several poignant poems referring to accessory. They include: “Empty Shoes,” by Patrick T. Randolph, “Feet on the Subway,” by Wilda Morris, “Designer on the Street Corner,” by Gretchen Fletcher, and “The Bracelet” by Mary Jo Balistreri.

Below are two poems about accessories. Marilyn Huntman Giese writes about a “ho-hum” interview with an editor. The hat only appears in the last stanza. Social commentary is much more blatant in William Marr’s little gem about a man’s tie.

The Editor Speaks

The editor
smiled
sipped her coffee
Stepped out, came back
sat down. . .

“Tell me about
your book—
What do you want
to say?”

My twenty-five minutes
tumble away
as I mumble incoherently
wondering
if she is thinking about
her kids as I try
to recall the vision
that inspired me.

“What is different
about your novel?”
she asks, redraping
her legs before her.

I muddle details as
hours of tireless research
becomes a molten mass
of ho-hum.

“Promising,” she says,
looking at the clock.

I lift my broad sunhat
to my head.
The jaunty wide brim sways
with a southern flavor.

At last, she gives me her
full attention.
With a burst of enthusiasm
she exclaims, “GREAT HAT!”

-- Marilyn Huntman Giese

© Marilyn Huntman Giese

Necktie

Before the mirror
he carefully makes himself
a tight knot

to let the hand
of civilization
drag him
on

-- William Marr (Fei Ma)

Autumn Window, 2nd edition (Arbor Hill Press, 1996), p. 16. For those of you who read Chinese, Fei Ma has published the original version on his bilingual Website at http://home.comcast.net/~wmarr9/pautumnbig5.htm#Necktie. Autumn Window can be purchased through William Marr’s Website listed on the sidebar to this blog.

November Poetry Challenge

The challenge for November is to write a poem about a fashion accessory: a hat, scarf, tie, belt, pair of shoes, jewelry—whatever you pick. You can write about an accessory for a man or for a woman. You may write a formal poem or free verse. Your poem may be humorous or may involve serious social commentary. However, the accessory should actually BE an accessory, unlike the purses in Chaucer’s and Guest’s poems.

Submit your poem through the “comment” feature below, through my Facebook page, or through wildamorris(at)ameritech(dot)net by November 15. I will select one or two winners to post on this blog. Submitting a poem implies permission for the poem to be posted. Authors retain ownership of their own work.

Wilda Morris

© 2009 Wilda Morris

October Challenge Poems

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Two sonnets are winners of the October Poetry Challenge. The first is “Fancy on the Kingdom Come,” by Robert Klein Engler. It is a love poem, which fits well with the sonnet tradition. Words such as “worthy” and “purity,” not to mention “angels,” remind us of more traditional sonnets. However, the use of rhyme, which is casual, unobtrusive, and sometimes absent, marks this as a modern sonnet, as do more contemporary references, such as that to Benny Goodman. Use of enjambment (where sentences are continued on the next line, and sometimes end in the middle of a line) contributes to making the rhyme unobtrusive. The poem takes interesting turns, as it moves from Benny Goodman’s song to the references to Russia and Turgenev, and then to the Eucharist, Rome and the Pope. The ending couplet is humorous.

The second winner, “Sonnet for the Season,” by Jennifer Dotson, is less complex and more straight-forward. It is readily accessible for a generation not well schooled in the history of English poetry. It is seasonal and relevant. It is more a poem of social commentary than a love poem, though it may be motivated by a love for a more traditional and less commercial celebration of Christmas. Dotson’s sonnet follows old rules of rhyming, but most of her rhymes are fresh, not those repeated since the time of Sidney and Shakespeare. Of course they did not have TVs (flat screen or otherwise). Unlike Engler, she end stops most sentences. It is primarily the content that makes this poem a “modern” sonnet. The closing couplet is not very surprising, perhaps, but is quite appropriate.

Here are the winners:

.FANCY ON THE KINGDOM COME.

First, is to be worthy. That, I suppose, means purity
in love. Then, Benny Goodman plays, "Memories
of You." Suddenly, we stand together in the unity
we shared before we were soiled by the world.

The "I love you," said when I was a fool, I repeat,
but in harmony with the angels. We could be alive
in a Russian dacha. The summer garden is replete
with greenery, just like in a novel by Turgenev.

A rider comes from Moscow. Michael with his cello
joins us for the weekend. The days have new axles.
I touch light in your hair. Hunger finds the eucharist.
Meanwhile, in Rome, the Lord appears. Cardinals

pester the Pope, "What to do? It makes us dizzy."
He replies with his paternal love, "Just look busy."

Robert Klein Engler

Sonnet for the Season

Appearing just seconds post Halloween
were the jingle bells and Kris Kringle elves.
Thanksgiving got lost somewhere in between
as merchants eagerly stocked up their shelves
with holiday gear and bargains galore.
Customers greedy for flat screen TVs
and video games lined outside the store,
shoving and pushing without saying please.
Folks feel compelled to consume to excess
in this time of little sun and cold chills.
We think more stuff will buy us happiness
but the hangover comes with January's bills.
This is my prayer for such chaos to cease.
Light the heart candle and hope for world peace.

Jennifer Dotson

The November Poetry Challenge will be posted on November 1.

Susan T. Moss helped to judge the September Poetry Challenge. Barbara Eaton helped to judge the Challenge for October. Thanks to both of them.

Poets whose work appears on this blog retain copyright to their own poems.

© 2009 Wilda Morris.

October Challenge: A Contemporary Sonnet

2009-10-01T16:47:00.002-05:00

Tony Barnstone begins his essay, “A Manifesto On The Contemporary Sonnet: A Personal Aesthetics,” published in The Cortland Review,* by quoting Ezra Pound, “Make it new.” The sonnet is an old form (or perhaps I should say “forms,” since there are differences between Petrarchan (or Italian), Spenserian and Shakespearean sonnets. One major difference is in the rhyme scheme (including whether the sonnet is composed of an octave and a sestet, as in the Petrarchan sonnet, or four quatrains and a couplet as in Spenserian and Shakespearean sonnets. Another is the location in the sonnet where the volta or turn takes place.

Possibly as a result of the chaos created by World War I, many poets writing in English forsook formal poetry, including the sonnet, to write mostly free verse. Barnstone believes that the sonnet has a future—if it is modernized. Updating may involve both writing about contemporary subjects and bending some of the rules. In 2005, Barnstone published Sad Jazz: Sonnets. This book begins in the marriage bed and proceeds through separation, divorce and its aftermath, and ends with hope that one can make a new life for him- or herself. Here is a sonnet from Sad Jazz: Sonnets:

Zero at the Bone

And now she takes her chance and blows like wind
out through the door she’s ripped out of his life.
And now his spirit clamps around the wound
and seizes up like flesh around a knife.
And now he feels an anger that could crush
the bones of planets, hates his worried face,
his roll of fat, the strands of hair his brush
picks up from his scalp. And now she’s gone. No force
can fetch her back like Lazarus from death.
She’s in the undiscovered country where
she’s free of him. And now there’s only love
to love, invisible as God, as breath
siphoning from a hole. What’s left of her
for him? An absence in which to believe.

Tony Barnstone
© Tony Barnstone, Used by permission.

Three of the first five lines and two sentences later in the sonnet begin with the words “and now.” This is something I normally would eschew in poetry, but here, it works well. The words “and now” seem to me to serve two functions. First, “and now” announces this sonnet as a continuation of the “plot” of Sad Jazz. More than that, however, the repetition of these words emphasizes the narrator’s feeling that everything (even his own anger) is happening to him, and is beyond his control. He is incapable of stopping the tsunami turning his life upside down.

Another characteristic of the poems is the use of strong images. Because of its subject and language, the poem seems “modern,” even with the biblical reference Lazarus).

Barnstone suggests in his Cortland Review article that, in making the sonnet new, the poet should use rhyme to “open the poem to wildness,” instead of allowing rhyme to make it predictable. English does not have the wealth of rhyme found in French, Spanish or Italian, so the same rhymes have been used over and over through the centuries. In “Zero at the Bone,” Barnstone uses true rhyme (life/knife; crush/brush and death/breath) and slant rhyme (where/her). But he also uses what he calls “full consonance” rhyme, in which the consonants are the same but the vowels are different (wind/wound; face/force; love/lieve [in “believe”]). In Sad Jazz, Barnstone uses a number of other variations which are not “true rhyme.” These forms make the sonnet less predictable, while creating a “poetic” sound.

Another poet whose sonnets are contemporary is Marilyn L. Taylor. The following poem, from Subject to Change, is part of a seven-sonnet cycle, in which the last line of one sonnet morphs into the first line of the following sonnet. The last line of the last sonnet is almost the same as the first line of the first sonnet. The cycle, called “Notes from The Good-Girl Chronicles, 1963,” narrates events from the time “when the friendly skies were full of virgins.”

Celebrity’s Mother

I’ve slapped myself three times across the face,
so I know it’s not a dream, I swear—
my babygirl has really won first place
in the beauty pageant at State Fair.
Look how she slinks on those high heels,
cranks her little hips just like a pro
down that runway—honey, she’s on wheels,
she’s headed for the Johnny Carson show.
Come on, sweetheart, talk a little louder,
bat those lashes, lick your lips a lot;
make your poor old mama even prouder—
grab for what your mama never got.
Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Maidenform!
Just watch my baby take the world by storm.

Marilyn L. Taylor
© Marilyn L. Taylor, Used by permission.

This sonnet is accessible. The subject is modern. The language is conversational—especially “honey,”“babygirl” and “mama”. The reference to Jesus may elicit memory of more classic sonnets, but it's use is contemporary, and is paralleled in an ironic way with the Maidenform bra. References to popular culture (of 1963) abound: “the beauty pageant at State Fair,” “the Johnny Carson show” and “Maidenform.” Taylor sticks to true rhyme in this poem (though she doesn’t always do so), and there is a turn after the second quatrain, but she takes liberties with iambic pentameter (some lines have only eight or nine syllables).

Sonnets which break the traditional rules, as by adding a line, changing the rhyme scheme or abandoning iambic pentameter, come under criticism from purists. But Barnstone and Taylor are not alone in bending the rules. In her book, Nomina (American Poets Continuum), Karen Volkman has a “sonnet” of fourteen iambic lines, but there is only one foot in each line. If one is entering a sonnet contest, some judges would throw such poems out without reading them.

In Nomina, labeled “poems” on the front cover but “sonnets” on the title page, Volkman’s almost seems to be writing in a different genre than Barnstone and Taylor. Despite the fact that Barnstone deals with sadness, anger, even bitterness, most of his sonnets, like Taylor's, are accessible, and have a playfulness about them. Volkman’s are elusive and full of obscurities. Often after reading one of her sonnets, I an unable to say what it is about. There are no titles to provide clues. On the other hand, Volkman’s poems are full of word-play, assonance and alliteration. Volkman is much more likely than Barnstone or Taylor to stick faithfully to iambic rhythm (though not necessarily to pentameter) throughout a poem (Barnstone argues for including some non-iambic feet so the sonnet doesn’t become sing-song). Reading Nomina aloud is a good way to get iambic pentameter into your head. If you enjoy poems for their sound, totally apart from their meaning, you may find Nomina very enjoyable.

CHALLENGE FOR OCTOBER:

For October, write a sonnet which follows most (or all) of the rules of the Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnet, but sounds contemporary because of the subject matter, language, etc. Bend a rule or two if you wish, but don't break them - your poem should be recognizable as a sonnet. If you don’t know the traditional rules, borrow a book on poetry from your public library, or Google “sonnet forms.” Read Barnstone’s article for additional ideas, if you wish. Please, no pornography or objectionable language. Submit your poem by October 15 by clicking on “Comments” below. If you are using Foxfire and have trouble posting, try Internet Explorer (or vise versa), or send me a message through my Facebook page. Winner or winners will be posted by the end of October.

Poems posted on blogs are considered published and can be included in your resume.

Notes:
* www.cortlandreview.com/features/06/december/barnstone_e.html

© 2009.

September Challenge Poem

2009-09-23T22:24:00.003-05:00

The winning poem of the September Challenge is dedicated to Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), and written in her style. Most of Dickinson's poems were brief and compact. Many deal with nature, especially her garden; many deal with physical, spiritual and/or psychological realities. Dickinson used a lot of dashes (many of which were removed by editors of early editions of her work). She used end rhyme much of the time, but often used off- or slant-rhyme, as in the poem which begins, "His mansion in the pool" in which "chagrin" and "green" are the rhyme words of the last stanza. Dickinson titled only a few of her poems.

Congratulations to Wisconsin poet, Robin Chapman, for winning the September Poetry Challenge.

FOR EMILY

Wisdom-- is knowing what comes after--
The point in every run--
When the Body says-- let's quit--
And the Will-- move-- on--

Robin Chapman

-from Distance,Rate,Time (Fireweed Press).

Copyright remains with the poet.

The next Poetry Challenge will be posted October 1.

September Challenge: Poems in Honor of Poets

2009-09-01T23:09:00.001-05:00

Poems in Honor of Poets

Sometimes poets write poems in memory of—or in honor of---other poets. One of the best known examples is “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” by W. H. Auden www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15544). This poem is interesting not only for its content but also its style. The first section has neither rhyme nor regular meter. The second section has rhyme and near-rhyme, but not in an easily recognized pattern. Section II, unlike the others, is addressed to Yeats himself. The last section is in quatrains composed of much shorter lines than those in the previous two sections. The rhyme scheme is easily recognizable as aabb. The rhythm is regular (iambic, except that the first syllable of each line is accented, so there are seven syllables in each line). Undoubtedly Auden picked this form for the last section because Yeats often wrote in metric quatrains.

Yeats died at age 73, a fairly advanced age for a man of his time. One might think a celebration of his life and work would be more appropriate than an elegy lamenting his passing. Part of the darkness of the first section of the poem is probably due less to the death of the poet than to the conflict about to engulf Europe at the time (1939). Europe had been so devastated by World War I that the threat of another major conflagration could not help but influence poets sensitive to world events. This socio-political situation likely impacted Auden’s poem and helped to determine its direction.

Phyllis Wax has written a more up-beat and celebratory poem in memory—and in honor—of a poet she admires. Stanley Kunitz, one of the leading English-language poets of the 20th century, was 95 when he was appointed Poet Laureate of the US, a post in which he served for one year. His last book,The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden(by Stanley Kunitz with Genine Lentine), was published by W. W. Norton in 2005, to celebrate his one hundredth birthday. Instead of an elegy, Wax has written what she terms “A Love Poem.”

A Love Poem
Stanley Kunitz, 1905-2006

Every night I go to bed with Stanley.

I enfold his frail bones
in my arms and am warmed
by his breath in my ear.

The cool pima we lie on
is transformed by his whispered words
to a wooden boat bobbing at sea.
I lick the brine from his face.

Some nights the flowers of his garden
surround us. Lavender suffuses the air.
Seashells crunch as we shift
and the light shining in the window
is the moon tugging the tide
the way we tug the sheets wrapped about us.

The linens wrinkle like the wind-swept beach,
like the wave-furrowed sand, like the rhythmic
grooving on the shells he loved to collect.

Even though the poet has thrown off
his own worn-out shell
he joins me every night
and I fall asleep with his words
lapping the shore of my mind.

Night after night with Stanley.

--Phyllis Wax

From Wisconsin Poets' Calendar 2009, ed. Kathy Dodd Miner and Nancy F. Rafal Published by the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, 2009), p. 60.

Kunitz was known for his exquisite gardens. On his Wormwood Hill farm, Kunitz created a garden surrounded by woods. He fashioned a different kind of garden on flat, fertile soil in New Hope, Pennsylvania. At Provincetown, near the tip of Cape Cod, Kunitz tamed a sand dune as he poured his energy and creativity into fashioning a garden near the water. Kunitz designed his beach garden to reflect many elements of the sea, including its fluidity. Kunitz routinely spent summers at his beach home, and had an enduring love of the sea.

Wax’s tribute to Kunitz is an extended metaphor of two people (the narrator and Kunitz) sleeping together on cool pima sheets which become transformed into a wooden vessel (presumably “The Long Boat” [www.americanpoems.com/poets/Stanley-Jasspon-Kunitz/18275] of Kunitz’s poem).

There is a paradox in Wax’s poem, for the narrator tells us she is “warmed / by his [Kunitz’s] breath in my ear.” Later in the poem, we are told that he has “thrown off / his own worn-out shell.” How can both be true? Is Kunitz alive or dead? In this paradox, Wax reflects a central theme of Kunitz, namely that life and death are simultaneous and interrelated. In The Wild Braid, Kunitz says, “. . . death is absolutely essential for the survival of life on the planet” (p. 121). He also said that “Every time we read a poem from the past we resurrect the poet, so that he or she is a presence just as much as anyone living. . . .” (p. 100). Kunitz would be pleased that the narrator of this poem “resurrects” him night after night by reading his poems, and thus hearing “his whispered words.”

That Wax herself reads the poetry of Stanley Kunitz is clear from the metaphors, similes and images she uses in the poem. Most of these reflect the role of gardens and the sea (and beach) in his life and poetry. Light and windows also appear in many of his poems. The moon also plays a significant role in some of Kunitz’s poems, most notably in “Father and Son,” where night is “nailed like an orange to my brow” (On the moon in this poem, see Gregory Orr, Stanley Kunitz: an Introduction to the Poetry (Columbia University Press, 1985), pp. 96ff).

The erotic element in the poem is also appropriate, in light of Kunitz’s declaration that “So much of the creative life has its source in the erotic” (The Wild Braid, p. 105). He goes on to say that “There is always an element of the erotic in a poem about death,” and that to at least some extent, there is an elegy for the erotic in poems about age and death (Ibid.).

Wax has resisted the temptation to bring too many details of the poet’s life into her poem. The last line of “A Love Poem” is a repetition of the first, in slightly different words, forming an envelope for the poem. This is also appropriate in a tribute to the poet who said that repetition, if not overdone, “can unify an experience. . . .” (The Wild Braid, page 74).

For more poems written in honor of other poets see the April 2008, edition of Quill and Parchment at archives.quillandparchment.com/vol82.html.

The Challenge for September: Write a poem in honor of another poet whose work you appreciate. Your poem can be an elegy, an ode, a love poem, or whatever seems appropriate. It can be in honor of a poet who is still living or to one who has died; a contemporary poet or a poet from another era. Use rhymed and metered verse or free verse; the form is up to you. Submit your poem through “comments” (below), by September 15. Winner or winners will be posted by the end of September. Poems posted on blogs are considered published and can be included in your resume. If you have trouble posting using Foxfire, try Internet Explorer (and vise versa).

© 2009.

August Challenge Poems

2009-08-21T15:47:00.001-05:00

This month, I have selected two poems on the theme of memory. Remember that the poets still own copyright on their poems, so these works of art cannot be used without permission of the writers. The September challenge will be posted on September 1.

Wilda

Mother in May

Amid forests of prescriptions she rests,
past knowing the purpose of any,
propped up by bed crank and pillows, and
wrapped in linens of estranged belonging.

On a rolling table a pitcher waits
water for thirst, and musak T.V.
Pink roses crowd her life’s haul of vases
with the bounty of her third daughter’s yard.

Awash in flotsam of photographs,
she sees faces and scenes lost to time.
All talking’s too late to reclaim “the boy,”
her ministering son, or to moor her.

At youth’s bloom she was Queen of the May
in an old crown-the-virgin church rite.
Dare we pray? Dear Mother of Mercy, recall
her the visions and sounds of that day.

-- Jean Waggoner c. 8/2/2009

Jean Waggoner speaks in the voice of a son or daughter (or perhaps, daughter-in-law) whose mother is aged, fragile physically, and “beyond knowing.” This mother, who was once the Queen of May, is again surrounded by flowers. Is it “too late” to reclaim “the boy,” because mentally she has gone backward in time, already passing through the years when she was a young mother and her son was a child? If so, maybe it isn’t yet too late to pray for her to have the pleasure of once again seeing herself as Queen of the May. This is a poignant end-of-life poem.

Perhaps You Forgot

When I was alone and the days were endless,
perhaps you forgot
the feverish, sleepless nights I held you close.

When you said you were coming that day but didn’t,
perhaps you forgot
how you scanned the bleachers ‘til you saw me always there.

When I needed a familiar voice and you screened calls,
perhaps you forgot
that I always answered and gave what I could.

When the day comes that I have forgotten everything,
perhaps you’ll help me remember.

--Judith Tullis

In this piece by Judith Tullis, the narrator speaks as parent (probably the mother) to her adult child who has grown distant. In this poem, it is the son or daughter who has forgotten – forgotten what the mother did for him or her over the years: cuddling on sleepless nights during childhood; showing up to cheer at her child's games; and always doing what she could to meet his or her needs. This mother, who is feeling neglected, wonders if, when her memory is gone, her child will finally remember all this. The conclusion to this poem is a bit of a surprise, however. She doesn't say, when I'm gone, you'll remember and be sorry you didn't take better care of me in my old age. Rather, she says, when I have forgotten, perhaps you will help me remember.

Tullis has made excellent use of repetition in this poem. Addressing the grown child as "you," instead of using a less personal format, gives this poem emotional punch.

(c) 2009 Wilda W. Morris

August Challenge

2009-08-01T21:09:00.001-05:00

Memory loss is not a new subject for poetry. Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) wrote that “You cannot make remembrance grow / when it has lost its root.” She went on to indicate that when you don’t want to remember something it keeps popping up in your mind. You can read her poem at www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/11460.

Katie Kingston deals with memory loss in a unique way in the first stanza of her poem, “When I Clap.”

When I Clap (Excerpt)

My right hand reaches for the feather of memory
that fell from my mother’s hat as she bent to get out
of the car, down-tugged away on wind, not unlike
the pigeon, roosting now above the church door, satisfied
with alcove. Everything I touch is the texture of oven bread,
round like my mother’s voice as I teach her conversation again.
The scent of empaňadas lingers in the blue opal earthstone
of her earring when she leans to say Goodnight, God bless,
until morning, but now, I say the words first because she
has forgotten even the sound fire trucks make outside our window.
What’s that? she asks, her palms pressed to her ears.

-- Katie Kingston

From In My Dreams Neruda (Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Choice Chapbook Series; Charlotte NC: Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2005), p. 12. © 2005 Katie Kingston. Used with permission of the author.

Katie Kingston uses interesting details and metaphors to turn the mother’s memory loss into poetry. There is special—and unexpected---poignancy, when the narrator says her mother “leans to say Good Night, God bless,” and only afterwards tells us that she (the narrator) had to say it first, so her mother could repeat it. Her mother is like a child, having to be taught again and again. Like the pigeon, the mother has to be satisfied with little. There are hints her mother once liked to cook and bake bread, and perhaps that she was an elegant woman (note that blue opal earring).

The late Judith Strasser also had a unique take on forgetfulness.

Memory Lapse
For an older friend

I am prepared, when you don’t show up. For three days
and three nights, I have been watching
the War in the Gulf. I baked a cake while we bombed
Baghdad. I set the table; they shelled Tel Aviv.
You are like one of the casualties. All fall,
during the build-up, panic rattled the telephone lines.
You boiled pots dry, missed appointments, lost
your wallet, your checkbook, your keys. You made
company meals for guests you did not invite.
We worried the facts to shreds: drug interactions,
Jack Daniel’s blackouts, Alzheimer’s disease.

The commercials come back. I run to the kitchen
to turn off the coffee pot. The calendar on the wall
targets your visit in red: 1:00 P.M. Saturday, next week.
I see the error is mine. I didn’t expect the shock
of war. I didn’t think of battle fatigue.
I never considered grief.

-- Judith Strasser

From A Chorus for Peace: A Global Anthology of Poetry by Women
ed. by Marilyn Arnold, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill and Kristen Tracy (Iowa City IA: University of Iowa Press, 2002), p. 39.
© 2009 by The Estate of Judith Strasser. Limited Warranty mss. will be posted at http://www.judithstrasser.com/.

Judith Strasser relates incidents at the start of the first Gulf War. The narrator’s life goes on more or less as usual, except that she is constantly watching the war on television. It is obvious that the news of the war interests her, but we can almost believe she is unmoved by it. She bakes a cake during the bombing of Baghdad, sets the table while Tel Aviv is shelled. Meanwhile, her older friend, who exhibits the ravages of memory loss, is like a war casualty. She misses appointments, loses things, forgets to invite the guests for whom she cooks---her life has become chaotic. The narrator and her friend have worried over possible reasons for her memory loss, all plausible. We are no more surprised than the narrator that this older friend has not come as scheduled. But wait---the narrator suddenly sees the calendar, and it tells her something unexpected. Their appointment wasn’t this week, but next. She has been so upset and grief-stricken over the start of the war, that she got confused. Now we don’t know for sure if the panic on the telephone lines had more to do with lost property and pots burned dry or bombing. Looking back, we see that Strasser says “we bombed Baghdad,” which suggests that, as a citizen of the U.S., she has to take some responsibility for what the government does; likely is one source of “battle fatigue” and grief for her.

August Challenge

The August Challenge is to write a poem concerning memory loss (or take a clue from the end of Emily Dickinson’s poem and write about unsuccessfully trying to forget something). Submit your poem by clicking on “comment” (below this posting). Only poems sent in that way by August 15, 2009, will be considered. At least one poem will be chosen for posting on this blog. Posting on a Website or blog constitutes publication.

Keep writing,
Wilda Morris

(c) 2009 Wilda W. Morris

Winners of the July Poetry Challenge

2009-07-24T15:32:00.001-05:00

Thank you to all who entered the July Poetry Challenge. There are two winners this month - one is free verse; the other is a rhymed poem. In each case, the form of the poem matches the content well. There were other poems which came close, so if you didn't win this time, try again another month.

Copyright remains with the poets who submitted the poems.

Avoid-dance

I awoke feeling it
would be a writing day
but couldn’t get down the hall
I finished a book I was reading
played on the computer
phone called and fiddled around
ignored the siren of the page
the lure of my desk in its
quiet corner
I went to the grocery
came home to make chicken soup
cranked the stereo
to drown the muse
instead she danced
while I chopped and stirred
measured and mixed
she waltzed me through the soup
and Billy Collins
pushed me into a
lemon pie
at midnight I made
Strawberry Jell-O with pears
to try to shut
them up
but they woke me
in the dawn
to pin my day
to the page

--bam

I like the clever title of this poem, which uses dance as a metaphor. The layout is appropriate for the way the day went - one thing after another. Short lines fit the "hyper" avoid-dance. The poet included interesting details and used alliteration sparingly, but effectively. I can certainly identify with the experience described in this poem, and I'm sure that is true for other writers also.

Ballroom Dancing

I showed up looking sharp and clean,
Arriving for my date.
I had prepared with ample time,
So not to show up late.

All decked out in my rented suit,
Her flowers in my hand,
I had a regal evening set,
Each detail mapped and planned.

There, proud I stood, top hat and tails,
A trussed up teenaged clown,
And gazed in awe at how she looked,
In her new ballroom gown.

I held her door, she climbed inside,
We started on our way,
And headed for the concert floor
To hear the big band play.

But this would be a different date,
For more than happenstance,
Tonight we’d spread our wings and fly,
Tonight we’d ballroom dance!

We’d taken classes, practiced hard,
Gone over every step,
The time had come to take the floor,
And validate our prep.

Tango, Foxtrot, Waltz and Swing,
Spin and turn and dip,
Round and round the floor we'd glide,
At a frantic clip.

Minutes turned to passing hours,
Moments quickly spent,
Every pattern crisply cut,
Joyful and content.

When at last the night gave way,
And the band went home,
We stood on the polished floor,
Beneath a golden dome.

Here we danced the night away,
And we made our fate,
In a spinning ballroom dancing way,
On this special date.

By David Roth
© 14th January, 2005

This poem is more rhythmic, like dance. Here again we see some interesting details, including the fact that his suit is rented. Many people will be able to identify with the experience of having taken dancing lessons and finally having an opportunity to try out those steps in a ballroom - with a special date.

Congratulations to bam and to David Roth.

Check the blog again on August 1 to find out what the next poetry challenge will be.

Keep writing!
Wilda

(c) 2009 Wilda W. Morris

Let's Dance - The July Challenge

2009-07-01T10:18:00.001-05:00

Dancing in the Dark

Tonight the band blares, “Celebration!”
then stops, and plays
a set of Golden Oldies.
All the aging couples rise
as one, drawn to the Maestro’s baton
like children, to the Piper’s tune.
He stands aside, a shadowy Timekeeper,
putting us through our paces,
“Ah-1, Ah-2, Ah-1-2-3-4!”

When we were young, we danced everywhere –
weddings, ballrooms, the Chez Paree.
Or we danced at home, while
Kate Smith sang, “Shine On, Harvest Moon!”
her voice amplifying the radio,
God and America. Later, exhausted,
we fell asleep on Kate’s bosom,
full-fleshed as the moon.

In World War II you danced
in a Texas bar if your boot-camp
was lucky and got a weekend pass.
At Normandy, you danced ashore,
dodging artillery. Back home,
I went solo to the local USO.

But tonight, we dance together.
And though your expression is remote
as the Man in the Moon’s, there’s
electricity in your arms. I dangle,
like Gepetto’s Pinocchio, obeying
every dip, every curve of your body.
For this strange blue dress I am wearing
has a wicked flounce that unlocks
my resistance. Yes tonight, we hear

strains of Sammy Kaye, Kay Kyser,
Count Basie and the Duke. Tonight,
we will show our children, our
moon-begotten children, our rhythm
& blues, rock & roll children –
(“Ah-1, Ah-2, Ah-1-2-3-4!”)

how we danced.

-- Gertrude Rubin

From A Beating of Wings
(Deerfield, IL: Lake Shore Publishing, 1991), pp. 62-63. Used with permission of the author.

Dancing in the Dark: I recommend reading this poem several times, before reading my commentary on it. It has several layers. There are undoubtedly more subtleties than I discovered!

Dance is a popular theme among poets. Sometimes the poet uses the term metaphorically, as for instance, when waves or leaves dance. In other poems, what we find is a fairly straight-forward description of a dance, or a narrative of a specific experience of dancing.

In “Dancing in the Dark,” Gertrude Rubin’s narrator addresses her life partner, cataloguing times when “we” danced, usually together, but during World War II, apart. The poem seems at first glance to be a straight-forward record of a relationship told through literal dance. But there are other things going on, too. The line, "At Normandy, you danced ashore/dodging artillery" is metaphoric and hints that there were other metaphoric dances in their lives, other dangers to be dodged. One has to wonder, for instance, why the man, who is much older now, dances with an expression “remote as the man in the moon.” Is dementia now the enemy shooting bullets they try to dodge? This is one possible reading.

In the last stanza, the narrator says that tonight they will show their children how they danced. Not only is “how we danced” on a line alone; it constitutes the entire stanza, which gives it special strength in the poem. Here again there are levels of meaning. The couple literally shows their children how they danced, but they also model a life style in which they “danced” through difficulties and now they keep dancing, despite their age. Here is a subtle way of saying that they have maintained—and still maintain—their joy, intimacy, and love through all the seasons of life.

A well-written title can add power to a poem. Ellen Kort, who was the first poet laureate of Wisconsin, has said that often when a person finishes reading a poem, he or she may go back and reread the title. That is what I did with this poem. The title, “Dancing in the Dark,” furthers my sense that the poem is a metaphor for how this couple live their life together. There is no mention of “the dark” in the poem itself. Darkness is only hinted at in the mention of Normandy and the fact that the man’s facial expression is remote as they dance. The title, however, suggests that they did not know where the dance of life would take them or what steps they would need to learn, something which is true for all of us.

With that in mind, the Maestro takes on new meaning. The literal Maestro who directs the dancers and counts time (“Ah-1, Ah-2, Ah-1-2-3-4!”) may also stand for God or a “higher power” who is also a “shadowy Timekeeper.” In my reading of the poem, it suggests that the dancers live their lives with a theological and/or ethical compass, and accept the fact that the end of their earthly life together is approaching.

In regards to the artistry of the poem, it is interesting to see the repetition of the moon throughout the poem. Note also the spare use of adjectives, which gives more strength to the few which are used. I’m still pondering the “strange blue dress” and the “wicked flounce.”

My Papa’s Waltz—Another Dance Poem: One of the most famous poems on a dance theme is “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke (gawow.com/roethke/poems/43.html). Some interpreters give this waltz a positive meaning; others see it negatively. Is this a happy memory of a boy having fun with his father? Or an uncomfortable dance into which the boy is forced by his drunken father? You be the judge!

The Challenge: The challenge for July is to write a poem somehow related to the theme of dancing. Your poem may use the concept of dance literally or figuratively. It’s up to you. To enter the challenge, use the “comment” feature below. The deadline is July 15.

(c) 2009 Wilda W. Morris