January 2013 Challenge Winners - Shoes

The January challenge gave poets the option of writing about shoes or about siblings or both. Interestingly, more poets chose shoes.

Merle Hazard, final judge for the January poetry challenge, selected two winners, both shoe poems. Concerning “Shoes” by Jackie Langetieg, she says, “The images are crisp and fresh, and the poet uses many senses to create his/her message. . . . it is a warm poem. . . .”

Shoes

My father's shoes--

like twins 

or seeds of popcorn--

developed independently of each other.

A dimple on the left

a round home for a bunion 

on the right,

the top chewed on by the dog.

Shaped by forays through mud
 

dried in a radiator's heat,

their aroma was the woods,

the damp marsh.

With care and caressing ,

they developed a rich inner glow.

Age softened them.

Abandoned now in the closet,

they recall for me his smile

cold red cheeks

and falling asleep in his lap.

~ Jackie Langetieg

Jackie Langetieg, Madison, writes poetry and fiction and has published her work in small journals and anthologies. She served as co-editor for the 2004 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets’ Calendar. In 2000, a chapbook, White Shoulders, was published by Cross+Roads Press. She received the 1999 Excellence in Poetry award from the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and the 1999 Jade Ring for poetry. She has received the Joyce C. Webb poetry prize. She has two additional books: Just What in Hell is a Stage of Grief and Confetti in a Night Sky.

Concerning the other winning poem, “Shoes, secret face of an inner life,” Merle says, “I like this poem because I become the shoes.” She likes the “sparse and terse use of the words that tell so much.”

Shoes, secret face of an inner life

shy and quiet,

sitting in the corner,

with mouths open dry―

waiting to be put on,

pacing mile after mile,

wondering who will

spare a glimpse at you,

and demand another pair.

~ Anna Yin

Anna Yin won the 2005 Ted Plantos Memorial Award and 2010 MARTY Award for her poetry. Her poems in English & Chinese and ten translations by her were in a Canadian Studies textbook used by Humber College. She has written three chapbooks. Her book, Wings Toward Sunlight, was published by Mosaic Press in 2011.  You can find her website at annapoetry.com.

Copyright of these poems is retained by the authors.

Merle Hazard, the final judge this month, is author of the “example poem” for January. She lives in Georgia. She is a well-published poet whose work appears regularly in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Calendars (she lived Wisconsin twice, for a total of 26 years).

© 2013 Wilda Morris

January 2013 Poetry Challenge

For several years I have participated in a small poetry group which meets in a small sandwich and bakery shop. Each month when we meet, one person brings a poem they have read somewhere (usually in a book or journal, but sometimes on–line). The poem is read aloud and discussed for a while, then we close our mouths and take up our pens or pencils. I am continually amazed by the variety of poems which result from the inspiration of one interesting poem. Each poet brings her (yes, this group is only composed of females, but that would not have to be the case) own life experiences, interests, prior knowledge of poetry and of the “world” inhabited by the poem.

The January Challenge invites you to read and enjoy a poem by Merle Hazard. Read it aloud as well as silently. Discuss (if only with yourself) whatever strikes you about the poem and what it reminds you of. Then follow the further instructions below:

Little Brother

He tripped on
the loose laces
of banged up
brown oxfords,
socks slopped
around his ankles.

Those leather toes were
scraped and scuffed,
battle-wounded
from hours of
make-believe war
waged in the weedy
vacant lot behind
our house.

Shoes, covered in oozy
brown mud, shed
by the kitchen door
where the dirt dried,
caked and peeled
off cryptic notes
on the door mat.

Little boy shoes
dodged a ball and ran
the bases, raised
dust sliding home.
And on Sunday
those brown oxfords, that
no polish could redeem,
kicked and thumped
the pew back
during too long sermons.

Once my brother
and his friend lured me
beyond my fear of heights
into their tree house.
They scurried down the stick-
and-board ladder, pulling it
after them, leaving me
stranded like Rapunzel
on an ash tree.

The next day I hid
those brown oxfords.
They lurked in the dusty
corner of my closet
while he had to pad
about the house
in bare feet, unable
to set foot outdoors.

The punishment
was a perfect fit.

~ Merle Hazard

© Merle Hazard. This poem was first published in The Scene, May 2001.

January Poetry Challenge

“Little Brother” has a lot of inspirational possibilities.

Shoes. All sorts of stories could be told about shoes. I remember those high heels

that made me feel sophisticated during my late teen years. The shoes my four-year-old son couldn’t find when it was time to go to church. Baby shoes I put on my first granddaughter’s precious little feet. My nephew having a lot of stitches in his had because he tripped on his shoe laces (a cautionary tale for those of you who don't tie your shoestrings!)

The kind of shoes someone wears may tell you a lot about them. Shoes can be a metaphor for something else. Or you might use metonymy, and let a particular kind of shoe stand for a group of people.

Or little brothers. I have a lot of memories of my “baby brother” Tom, though most don’t have much to do with shoes. I was in high school when Tom was born in December. My older sister and I wrapped him in a blanket and put him under the decorated tree to take his picture, because we thought he was the all-time best Christmas present anyone in the family had ever received. Once Tom scared me by riding his trike too close to the end of the sidewalk – and somersaulted it down into the driveway below. He liked for me to read and reread the same Little Golden Book. I believe the title was Roddy, the Cement Mixer. Tom spent some time with my husband and me after we were married. He played with toy soldiers, using the books off my shelf to build forts – and after he had gone back home, I found a small pair of white socks behind some of the books [That experience shows up in a poem I wrote about war].

These are only some for the prompts that come to me as I read this poem by Merle Hazard. There is also the mud, the tree house, the simile of Rapunzel. . . .

The challenge for January gives poets a lot of options. Write a poem inspired by the poem, “Little Brother.” You can write about shoes, or siblings (during childhood), or anything else mentioned above. Or if inspiration takes you in a different direction, that is also okay, so long as you add a note to explain the relationship of your poem to this one.

Your poem may be in free or formal verse (if you use a form, specify which form it is). It may be a serious poem or a light one. A poem with both depth and poetic artistry will have the best chance of winning.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Please put your name at the bottom of the poem (note the format used above). 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 January 15 deadline will not be considered.

I reserve the right to declare no winner, if the judges for the month do not believe any poem submitted is quite good enough. Decisions of the judges are final.

Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]). Put "January Challenge" in the subject line of your email. If you want a bio published with your poem should it be a winner, please include put a brief bio below your poem. 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, 2012. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2012 Wilda Morris

December 2012 Challenge Winner - The Wind

Thank you to those who entered the December Poetry Challenge. Congratulations to Taoli-Ambika Talwar, the winner this month. Here is her poem:

Crafty Wind!

                Crafty Wind! You
carve lands mountains
deserts that sway across vast sky
covering hidden oasis
               You, Evocateur!
Of desire pulse through
terrible moments
           birth love betrayal
             Yes, You!
Sing through leaves
newly awakened
carry tunes through fires
roiling across summer landscapes
             You!
Hardly so surreptitious
carry away lover’s notes
lawyer’s sheaves of analyses
             You wild and naughty
a drunken man’s breath
sodden on windy wet pavement
Awakener! Annihilator!
You make things fly
houses in tumult,
stillness where breath
suddenly laughs…
How shall I contain you
moving passionately through me?
A song wishing to sing itself
softly as breath, a wild Ave Maria…
God smiles through me,
who also birthed you…
Windows swing wide open,
I am spun around: shall we dance?
I am breathless.
Shape me with your craft!
Or contain me on your palms,
whisper to me words of love.
Set me sail on a boat
leeward where beloved awaits
and doors awake with light.
~ Taoli-Ambika Talwar

Copyright of the poem remains with the author. Do not copy without permission.

Talwar shows the wind in its many moods and activities, from whispering and singing to roiling across landscapes leaving destruction in its wake. Yet, the poem seems to indicate that even when it appears to destroy, the wind is creating, for it carves new landscapes of land and mountain.
To what extent is this “Awakener! Annihilator!” literally the wind, and to what extent is it metaphoric? And if the later, for what is it a metaphor. Since Talwar writes in the ecstatic tradition, the reader must ask, “who is ‘the beloved’ who awaits?” Is the beloved a human partner, or the divine? Or, in some mysterious way, might it be both?
Read the poem several times to capture the many moods of the wind, and ponder who, for you as the reader, is the beloved, as well as the metaphoric possibilities of the poem.

AMBIKA TALWAR is an educator, published author and artist, who has written poetry since her teen years. She has authored Creative Resonance: Poetry—Elegant Play, Elegant Change, 4 Stars & 25 Roses (poems for her father) and other chapbooks. Her style is largely ecstatic, making her poetry a “bridge to other worlds.” She is published in Kyoto Journal, Inkwater Ink - vol. 3, Chopin with Cherries, On Divine Names, VIA-Vision in Action, in Poets on Site chapbooks/collections, St. Julian Press, and other journals; has been interviewed by KPFK; has recorded poems for the Pacific Asia Museum; and has won an award for a short film at a festival in Belgium. She also practices IE:Intuition-Energetics™, a fusion of various modalities, goddess lore, sacred geometry and creative principles for health/wellness. “Both poetry and holistic practices work beautifully together, for language is intricately coded in us. In resonance with our authentic self, we experience wholeness & wellness,” she notes. “I love to work with people to help them discover their unique creative purpose.” Look out for the new site: creativeinfinities.com. She has taught English at Cypress College, Cypress, California, for several years. She is originally from India.
Sites: http://goldenmatrixvisions.com & http://intuition2wellness.com Interview: http://www.timothy-green.org/blog/taoli-ambika-talwar/ Check this blog on January 1 or soon thereafter for the January Poetry Challenge. Happy New Year!

© 2012 Wilda Morris

December 2012 Poetry Challenge - The Wind

The wind has always fascinated me. Perhaps it is because we cannot see the wind, but can only see and feel its effects. Wind can cool you on a hot day or chill you in a cold rain or snowstorm. It can blow branches from a tree, pull a balloon or kite string from the hand of a child, ruffle the waters of a river or bay, or—as I learned in my teen years—embarrass a young woman by blowing her skirt up. Wind can be quite destructive when it take the form of a hurricane or tornado. On the other hand, wind spreads the seeds of wildflowers, enhancing the beauty of woodland or prairie.

I was quite young when I first learned to love Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, “The Wind.” I liked the idea of the wind singing “so loud a song.” In his poem, “The Wind at Vinci,” English poet Michael Hulse, doesn’t exactly say the wind sings—at least not in those words. But does it?

The Wind at Vinci

The magi of day left their gifts and departed,

    and for a little while I lay awake

    as your breathing beside me rose and fell

        and the wind across the vineyards

shrilled and then keened and then darkened into a moan.

And the wind was as old as my fears, and it said:

    a man who has not learnt to know his home

    in an hour such as this will lie alone

        for the rest of his mortal days.

I thought of my dying father, one August night

unseasonably cold, that last of his summers,

    lost for his words and wanting to tell us

    the weather was wintry, instead (poor man)

        declaring in confusion: What

a horrible night! – it’s like Christmas! And I thought

of my mother, a teenager after a war,

    thrilling to Mozart where fountains play in

    a courtyard amid the rubble, knowing

        that this was the meaning of peace.

So quickly a future is over; so quickly

the home we imagined we’d live for is lost; so soon

    the words and the music are wind. I thought

    of Leonardo too, his boyhood spent

        in the olive light of the groves,

accepting in manhood commissions to image

the Baptist inward and radiant with knowledge,

    the Saviour calmly foreknowing it all

    as he breaks the bread in the company

        of the man who will betray him.

It may be nobody has a home in the world

but that is the way of the little night music,

    that is the point of the wind in the hills.

    Love (so the wonderful man from Vinci

        said) is the offspring of knowledge.

You smiled in your sleep; and I… I knew I was home.

~ Michael Hulse

From The Secret History (Arc Publications, 2009), pp. 99-100.

In this poem, the narrator lies awake listening to the breathing of the one who lies beside him and to “the wind across the vineyards.” The wind keens and moans but by the end of the poem, “the wind in the hills” turns into “night music.” In the meantime, it has blown his thoughts in several directions—his dying father (the wind of aging has deprived the poet's father of his ability to use language to express his thoughts and feelings), his mother (thrilling to Mozart amidst rubble from the war), to Leonardo and his paintings. When the poem circles back to the wind, it also circles back to the one lying beside the narrator.

The poem forces me to reflect on that future that is so quickly over (stanza 4) in a world where “the words and the music are wind” (stanza 5), and to ask myself how I, too, have found satisfaction in a relationship which has become home.

I was drawn in by the first line of the poem, with its creative reference to “the magi of the day” leaving their gifts (one of those futures which is so quickly over, if I am not mistaken). This biblical reference forms an additional envelope for the poem, connecting subtly to the biblical references in the next to the last stanza. Also, when the magi bring gifts, they are away from home, which links them thematically to the poet's finding home in the conclusion.

The "Author's Note," in the front of The Secret History enhances the reader's understanding of this poem and the others in the book. There Hulse speaks of "coming to terms with the difficult legacies of the two nations, England and Germany," his parents' homelands. The resulting struggle to determine his identity led him to explore his parents' lives as he sought to understand what for him was and is "home." This is his only essentially autobiographical book, and it is very nuanced.

I have read many poems about the wind, but few with the breadth, depth and subtle complexity of “The Wind at Vinci.”

Michael Hulse is an associate professor at the University of Warwick in England, where he teaches creative writing and comparative literature. He was international poetry editor for Arc from 1993 to 1999 and general editor of a literature classics and a travel classics series for Könemann from 1994 to 2001. He co-edited the best-selling Bloodaxe poetry anthology, The New Poetry (1993), ran Leviathan poetry press, and has edited the literary magazines Stand, Leviathan Quarterly and The Warwick Review. He received a Cholmondeley Award in 1991. In 2011, he co-edited The Twentieth Century in Poetry.

His poetry collections include Eating Strawberries in the Necropolis (1991); Empires and Holy Lands: Poems 1976-2000 (2002); and The Secret History (2009). Another book of poems, Half-Life, will be published in 2013. Hulse, who has lived in Germany and The Netherlands as well as England, is internationally recognized not only as a poet but also as a translator. You can read more about his work at http://literature.britishcouncil.org/michael-hulse.

Other Interesting Poems Inspired by the Wind:
* Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Wind,” A Child’s Garden of Verses, rev. ed. (Star Bright Books, 2008).
* Ellen Kort, “Five Ways of Listening to the Wind,” Notes From a Small Island (Appleton WS: Fox Print, 1994), pp. 4-5.
* Robin Chapman, “Wind in the Boundary Waters,” Abundance (Cider Press, 2009), p. 25.
* Kwesi Brew. “The Earth,” African Panorama: New Poems by Kwesi Brew (Greenfield Center, New York: Greenfield Review Press, 1981), p. 46.
* Sidney Hall Jr., “Something About the Wind,” Fumbling in the Light (Hobblebush Books, 2008).
* Ted Kooser, “In an Old Apple Orchard,” Flying At Night: Poems 1965-1985 (Pitt Poetry Series; University of Pittsburg Press, 2005).
* Georgia Ressmeyer, “Wind Lover,” Wisconsin People & Ideas, 53:4 (Fall 2007), p. 43.
* Christina Rossetti, “Who Has Seen the Wind,” The Golden Book of Poetry, 1947.
* A. A. Milne, “Wind on the Hill,” http://allpoetry.com/poem/8518981-Wind_On_The_Hill-by-A.A._Milne.
* John Masefield, “The West Wind,” Poems (Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2005); There is a Youtube video of Ethel Barrymore reading “this poem at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qwmAKj4QnU).
You can find a collection of wind poems at http://www.poetandpoem.com/wind_poems.html.

December Poetry Challenge

Write a poem inspired by the wind. Your poem may be in free or formal verse (if you use a form, specify which form it is). It may be a serious poem or a light one. A poem with both depth and poetic artistry will have the best chance of winning.

Please put your name at the bottom of the poem (note the format used above).

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.

I reserve the right to declare no winner, if the judges for the month do not believe any poem submitted is quite good enough. Decisions of the judges are final.

How to Submit Your Poem:
Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot]). Put "December Challenge" in the subject line of your email. If you want a bio published with your poem should it be a winner, please include put a brief bio below your poem. 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, 2012. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2012 Wilda Morris

November Challenge Winner

Congratulations to Eve Lomoro, who submitted the winning poem this month.

Kelsey

I’m seeking your vote as the Nanny of the Year.
Here’s why:

The youngest one, they said
can be a handful. Has tantrums,
doesn’t cooperate, she’s stubborn
as a donkey straining
against his owner’s rope.
That’s what they told me, going in.

At preschool she hangs her head down
to her chin, and refuses to speak.
Driving home, I ask about her day,
she drops her head lower.
Petrified, I stop talking.

Do you want a snack? I ask.
She shakes her head.
A response – real progress.
Do you want to play? A silent no.
She’s tough, I think,
but I’m tougher.

She mumbles something. I lean down.
I can’t hear you, I say.
I want to go downstairs – by myself.
Emphasis: By myself. She goes.
I consider my next move.

She jumps from the back of the couch
into the seat. Stop, please. I want to talk.
She sits down, and I sit in a child’s chair,
facing the little darling.
We’re going to be great friends, you know,
so why not start now?

I hide behind my hand,
peek through my fingers,
and hear a very small giggle.
I duck behind a pillow, and hear
more giggles, louder, more
and more giggles.

We watch a cartoon,
but not really—she’s jumping again.
Jump on me—I’ll catch you.
She looks at me, deciding if she can trust me.
I won’t drop you, I say. I promise.

She dives, and I catch her,
put her upright again. She giggles.
We do this over and over.
She’s beginning to like me, I think.

Third day, she comes back
for more jumps—ten and then
one more. This time, when I catch her,
she stays, squiggling into the curve of my arm.
We cuddle and watch the cartoon.

This is why I should win your vote – I’m Mary Poppins.

     ~ Eve Lomoro

Eve Lomoro retains copyright on this poem.

Judges for November were again Jim Lambert and Jacob Erin-Cilberto. The judges said their favorite part of the poem was the last line.

Jim lives lives with his wife of 47 years and two 28 year-old desert tortoises near Carbondale, IL. He is active in community theater. His poetry book Winds of Life was published in 2007. Jacob lives and teaches in Southern Illinois. He has been writing and publishing poetry since 1970. His 12th and most recent book, Used Lanterns is available from Water Forest Press, Stormville, NY. Jacob has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry 2006-2008 and again in 2010.

Thank you to the judges, and those who entered the September challenge. Congratulations to the winning poet.Stop by soon to see the December challenge

© 2012 Wilda Morris

November 2012 Poetry Challenge - Nominate Yourself

George W. Bush was president of the US when Jim Lambert wrote his poem, “Jim Lambert for Poet Laureate.” Only one line of this poem would have been different had it been written during the Obama Administration however.

Jim Lambert for Poet Laureate

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Committee
I come before you today
To nominate Jim Lambert and to
Embellish his resume.

A superior poet laureate
He would most assuredly make.
It is a grave responsibility
He is more than willing to take.

Academia is normally the source
Of most of your nominees.
Usually published poets
With fancy schmancy degrees.

But let us consider Lambert
For the reasons detailed below
He’s a real sore-fingered poetic machine
With loftier places to go.

From humble rural beginnings,
He was raised down on the farm.
Though he attended public schools,
He suffered little apparent harm.

He served in the U. S. Army--
That should be considered a plus.
Although we admit he was drafted
He refrained from making much of a fuss.

While serving in the Army
He met his beautiful wife.
They went from love at first sight
To together for his entire life.

Mr. Lambert has vast experience
In the outside of government world.
He’s played the corporate game for years
Waiting for his talents to be unfurled.

He’s lived all around the country
And what may interest you the most
Is that he’s never had a permanent address
Any where on the eastern coast.

Lambert has no skeleton to hide
That might provoke political attack,
But be advised that he may very well be
A tiny percentage Black.

No forebear of his was ever a cad
And certainly none were schrewish.
One was a Native American lass
And one of the guys was Jewish.

But in these enlightened modern times
We’re certain that you will feel
The fact that he is multi-ethnic,
Just adds to his appeal.

So cast your vote and select this man
Who deserves this lofty position
He’ll find for you the perfect rhyme
And in its best rendition.

Say that you want the rich to have
A massive tax reduction,
He’ll write a poem just for that
It’ll be a voter rhyme seduction.

Perhaps you’ll want to go to war
Whether justified or not
He’ll produce a poem in support
He’ll give it his very best shot.

But if he does not succeed at this
Perhaps butchers a Terza Rima,
Then President Bush, without batting an eye,
Can make Lambert the Director of FEMA.

~ Jim Lambert

Jim Lambert 9/10/05 Used by Permission of the author.

The challenge for November is to nominate yourself for some kind of major award or position. Maybe you will follow Jim Lambert’s example and nominate yourself for Poet Laureate. Maybe, though, you’d rather win a Pulitzer Prize, a place on an Olympic team, the presidency or premiership of your nation, a MacArthur Genius Award or a Nobel Prize. Or perhaps you would like to be named Mother, Father or Grandparent of the Year. Whatever award you dream of winning, write a poem nominating yourself. Your poem might be serious, or it might be tongue-in-check.

Your poem may be in free or formal verse (if you use a form, specify which form it is). Please put your name at the bottom of the poem (note the format used above).

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

Poems must be in English (due to my lack of skills in other languages), original and property of the poet making the submission. 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 17 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 want a bio published with your poem should it be a winner, please include put a brief bio below your poem. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog if it is a winner. Due to the fact that I did not get the Challenge posted until November 3, the deadline is November 17, 2012. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2012 Wilda Morris