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Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday - "Wonder" - a Found Poem by a Young Poet

 

Last week I had the fun privilege of leading a found poem/mixed media workshop here in Beaufort, at Coastal Art Supply (Thanks, Jennifer!).  Among the folks around the table were three mother-daughter pairs.  How fun!

 

One of these included my friend Jill and her amazing teenager, Sierra, also a friend of mine.  I'm delighted that Sierra said I could share her work; she came up with such a lovely piece.  I gave participants a choice of two kinds of mid-century Edu-cards as their inspiration and "substrate" (surface to create on).  They could pick one about shells or one about butterflies, and then I supplied some vintage bookplates and postage stamps for cutting up and collaging, and bits of bling in the form of brass stampings. 

 

Seeing Sierra's creation here, you won't be suprised to learn she's quite creative and is a talented photographer.  What an eye! I love the way her color choices and composition make this found poem come to life, in a silvery, magical way.  

 

The words read:

 

 

           WONDER

 

grace        beauty                perfect

strange     

oriental

But, let's stop and think.  Maybe it is

a builder

for 

ideas

 

©Sierra W.

 

 

"Wonder" as "a builder for ideas" - that is just brilliant!

 

Would you like to see more? Click here for workshop highlights and more examples over at my artsyletters blog.  

 

My Authors Guild site here just migrated to new software Thursday.  I'm still figuring out, but it seems to be pretty smooth.  Migrate yourself on over to My Juicy Little Universe, where the ever-wonderful Heidi is going to help usher in Poetry Month, and this year's Progressive Poem! 

(PS - Once again, Jama is rounding up Kidlit National Poetry Month blog events over at Jama's Alphabet Soup!) 

[Fri. a.m. Note - I'm having a little challenge trying to respond to comments from my end... it's only semi-working, but I've emailed the Cavalry, so they should help me straighten out. Thanks! EVENING UPDATE - Apologies if you had trouble trying to leave comments as well.  The AG Cavalry did come to the rescue, and they got it fixed during the day Friday.]

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Poetry Friday - Look What I Found - the Poems You Left!


Hello from the sunny Southern coast!

It's Spring, you know, though I'm afraid many of you are eyeing snow that has perhaps worn out its welcome this year. So I brought you some azaleas.

Last week I made a found poem celebrating spring from an antique magazine passage about a different kind of spring. In an inspired moment, I asked if anyone else would like to give it a go - with that passage, or another one from the fashion section.

Some of you brave souls answered the call!

I'll re-post both passages here again, so you won't have to click hither and yon and back.

The first describes a "submarine spring" in CASSELL’S FAMILY MAGAZINE, Illustrated, Cassell and Company, Limited – London, Paris & Melbourne, featuring all the monthly issues from 1890. It's an article from a section called, “THE GATHERER: AN ILLUSTRATED RECORD OF INVENTION, DISCOVERY, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE.”

It explains:

A submarine spring forms the water supply of the
inhabitants of Bahrein Island, in the Gulf of Persia.
The climate is very hot, no rain falls, and the people
draw their fresh water from the sea-bottom by
means of divers, who fill it into goatskins. Owing to
the force of the spring, the diver uses a drag weight
to keep him down, and after having filled the skin,
he slips the drag and is floated to the surface.


And look what some of you folks came up with!


Spring
floats


©Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.

Thanks, Brenda! That one makes my haiku look wordy. (Find a few more words from Brenda here).


Next up, Kay Jernigan McGriff!


water supply forms
inhabitants of hot climate
no rain falls


©Kay Jernigan McGriff

Thanks, Kay - your poem makes me worry about those folks!


Michelle Kogan came up with something entirely different:


spring Island goats
draw from fresh
rainwater.


©Michelle Kogan. All rights reserved.

Thank you, Michelle. I'm certainly happy those goats found something to drink. I love goats!


Linda Mitchell (who has a found poem post today!) and and Matt Forrest Esenwine took the fashion bait and found a poem in the feature, WHAT TO WEAR IN APRIL. First, here's the article excerpt:


The long cloak savors of spring; it opens at the
neck and trims with close feather bands, instead
of fur. It is composed of ribbed silk and embroidered
velvet, the velvet is cut as a Bolero jacket, elongated
into panel sides over which fall the long pointed
sleeves, embroidered on the outside of the arm, and
edged like the jacket with ball fringe in character
with the hat. It is a mantle that completely covers
the dress. The muff matches the hat, and I notice
women are wearing them well on to summer, partially
because they are so infinitesimal. The floral muffs
are often carried by bridesmaids; they are made of
satin and covered with flowers so that little but of
the foundation is seen. They let the odour of the
flower be easily enjoyed by the holder, and are more
to be desired than bouquets because they have a
raison d’être.


From Linda:


Feather bands
Compose a
Bolero Ball


©Linda Mitchell. All rights reserved.

Oh - I want to go to the Bolero Ball, don't you? Thank you, Linda!


And appreciations, Matt, for offering these lovely images and little story in yours:


Spring opens,
edged with character;
summer bridesmaids' flowers,
little bouquets'
raison d’être.


©Matt Forrest Esenwine. All rights reserved.


Isn't it delightful to see the variety that can be mined from the same passages? Many thanks again to these poets for playing along! I'll catch up on Poetry Friday later; today I'm leading a found poem/mixed media workshop downtown. It'll be a full room, and I can't wait to see what folks conjure up!

But you go on over and start enjoying the Roundup at Writing the World for Kids, where the amazing Laura is gathering all the goodness this week.
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Poetry Friday - Submarine Spring: Join in the Found Poem Fun!


Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

While searching for a spring poem that might cheer those of you digging out of another Nor’easter, I came across something in an 1890 book I had to investigate. The book is a bound volume of CASSELL’S FAMILY MAGAZINE, Illustrated, Cassell and Company, Limited – London, Paris & Melbourne, featuring all the monthly issues from 1890. “Submarine Spring” in the contents caught my eye. Well, it wasn’t a poem – turned out it was a little article from a section called, “THE GATHERER: AN ILLUSTRATED RECORD OF INVENTION, DISCOVERY, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE.”


It explains:

A submarine spring forms the water supply of the
inhabitants of Bahrein Island, in the Gulf of Persia.
The climate is very hot, no rain falls, and the people
draw their fresh water from the sea-bottom by
means of divers, who fill it into goatskins. Owing to
the force of the spring, the diver uses a drag weight
to keep him down, and after having filled the skin,
he slips the drag and is floated to the surface.



Hmmm. Well, no worries – you can always FIND poetry if you’re looking. Linda Mitchell tagged me on Facebook this week with a micro found poem she created after reading my monoku post last week. Plus, next Friday I’m leading my found poem/mixed media workshop here in Beaufort, so I’m getting ready for that. I couldn’t help myself…


Submarine Spring

spring forms
rain falls,
fresh from the sea-bottom
after having
floated to the surface



poem found by Robyn Hood Black


I am hoping that spring will float to the surface SOON for all you Northerners! Now, the actual visual presentation of this is on the sloppy side, as you can see, and wouldn’t make the artsyletters cut, but I hope you enjoyed.

Don't you want to have a go?

If you’d like, in your comments, leave a found poem either from that same passage OR the one below by next Monday (March 19), and I’ll assume I have your permission to share in next week’s post. You might want to do a blackout-type poem like mine here - where you are constrained by the order of the printed words on the page - OR, you might give yourself more breathing room and create a poem only from words in the passage, but in any order you choose. (These are the kinds of poems I wrote for Georgia Heard's THE ARROW FINDS ITS MARK, the first time I had work in an anthology.) Any takers? (If you have any issues leaving a comment, you can email your poem through my contact page.)


Because we all need to be ready for National Poetry Month, here’s an excerpt from the Fashion Section,
WHAT TO WEAR IN APRIL. Have fun!


    The long cloak savors of spring; it opens at the
neck and trims with close feather bands, instead
of fur. It is composed of ribbed silk and embroidered
velvet, the velvet is cut as a Bolero jacket, elongated
into panel sides over which fall the long pointed
sleeves, embroidered on the outside of the arm, and
edged like the jacket with ball fringe in character
with the hat. It is a mantle that completely covers
the dress. The muff matches the hat, and I notice
women are wearing them well on to summer, partially
because they are so infinitesimal. The floral muffs
are often carried by bridesmaids; they are made of
satin and covered with flowers so that little but of
the foundation is seen. They let the odour of the
flower be easily enjoyed by the holder, and are more
to be desired than bouquets because they have a
raison d’être.


If poetry is your raison d’être, head over to Teacher Dance, where the very lovely Linda is celebrating Spring and always finding poetic magic.
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Poetry Friday - Monoku Times Two (or Three...)


Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

Recently I sent my semi-regular batch of new haiku submissions off to journals, and one of the acceptances that came back this week was for a very short monoku. What's a monoku? A one-line haiku. In English-language haiku, this approach has been around for decades. There's something about how condensed and compressed such a poem is, how crystallized, that - as long as it does its job with juxtaposition and layered possibilities of meaning, - I just love.

I'll share the mentioned poem after it's published. Modern Haiku accepted it with a nice note. I can share two others MH published in the current issue, though:



one door closes morning glories



after the hurricane leaf blowers



Modern Haiku, Vol. 49.1, Winter-Spring 2018
poems ©Robyn Hood Black. All rights reserved.


Looking back, one of my earliest published haiku was a monoku:



rush of wind my imperfect t'ai chi



A Hundred Gourds, March 2012
©Robyn Hood Black. All rights reserved.


Several one-line haiku I've had published since then are among my favorites, if I had to pick from my own.

Most of us travel paths in children's lit, and usually I prefer a good book for young readers to a book for adults any day. Books for kids must be precise, concise. Of course, that's something I love about poetry - and, to me, the most concise kind of poetry is haiku. (Maybe the most concise type of haiku is a monoku?)

My personal preference is not for one-word poems or something that seems to be simply a clever word trick, though some of these are published with special formatting and such. I generally hold to the notion that a haiku should contain two juxtaposed images.

The one-line haiku that have come to me have always arrived all in one piece, in a singular, fleeting, but palpable moment. They've been little gifts. No haggling, no teeth-gnashing for just the right word, or tweaking and playing with lines and breaks. Just two images fully formed into a little handful of words, drifting down like the surprise of a feather.

(PS/pssst - In case you're a haiku fan stocking up on short poems for Poem in Your Pocket Day, I've got ISSA Seasons mini haiku cards for sale in my Etsy shop here. If you need a different kind of discounted amount, just give me a holler.)

Now, drift on over to Today's Little Ditty, where the ever-surprising Michelle has this week's Roundup, complete with tons of poetry teaching tips from PF regulars and guests, just in time for April. (Be sure to catch the March challenge from Nikki Grimes while you're over there, too!)
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Poetry Friday - Reading Across America - from Go Dog Go to Grad School


Happy Poetry Friday, and Happy Read Across America Day!

Every year on or near March 2, the National Education Association sponsors a day to celebrate reading, marking the birthday of beloved children's author Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904-1991), aka Dr. Seuss. Today I'm joining a few other children's authors (including my kidlilt partner-in-crime Kami Kinard) for an event sponsored by our local United Way. It's geared for pre-schoolers through third graders, and I'm not sure exactly what to expect, but I hope to hear some of the college students reading Dr. Seuss books in other languages!

A favorite in our house was always The Foot Book, which begins:

Left foot left foot
Right foot right
Feet in the Morning
Feet at Night...


It's the fiftieth anniversary of The Foot Book this year!

Thoughts of Dr. Seuss this week reminded me of when our son, Seth, first learned to read. (Warning - some parental bragging ahead.) His older sister Morgan - our amazing daughter who teaches third grade in Georgia - was practically born knowing how to read and required frequent trips to libraries to quench her book thirst. Now she's passing that passion along to the next generation in a very direct way. She's a Poetry Friday Anthology practitioner in the classroom, too.

Seth came along and wanted to keep up, but he had to work a little more at the mechanics of it all.
I'll always remember the day a book "clicked" for him. It was Go, Dog, Go! by P. D. Eastman (1909-1986). Eastman wrote for Giesel's Beginner Book series at Random House, after serving under Giesel in the army in the 1940s. (Pretty sure I still have my own childhood copy of Are You My Mother?.)

A couple of decades ago, there was a commercial on the kids' TV channels for "The Phonics Game." (Maybe there still is?) Evidently Seth had paid attention to this commercial. One day when he was five, he ran up to me, clutching Go, Dog, Go!, and announced, "I can read! I don't need The Phonics Game!"

Thus began his journey with the written word. In recent years, I've had to consult a dictionary or two when reading some of his academic papers. He graduated at the tippy top of his college class last May and has been working in an urban ministry internship with homeless folks in Asheville since then. This fall, he'll enter Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, pursuing a Master of Divinity degree.

Just last week, Seth found out he's been offered a Robert W. Woodruff Fellowship in Theology and Ministry, named for the businessman and philanthropist who headed up Coca-Cola for many years. Full tuition and fees and a nice stipend for each year of the program. (Yep, we're pretty proud.) Seth turns 23 in about three weeks - what a wonderful birthday present.

Go, Seth, Go!

(Click here for more on Read Across America Day.)

Now, grab your gondola and paddle over to Italy, where the ever-bella Renée is rounding up for us at No Water River this week.  Read More 
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