September Blog Winner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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