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Robyn Hood Black - children's author, poet, artist

Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday - Holiday Puproar

November 30, 2023
Tags: - poetry, -Poetry Friday, Robyn Hood Black, dog poem, dog training poem
Our Keeshond pup, Rookie, in the Christmas spirit. ©Robyn Hood Black 

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  Can you believe it's December already?  I can't, though we were fortunate to have our family together for a wonderful Thanksgiving visit.

 

My days have been starting way too early and all running together lately with pup-wrangling.  We've had our new wee beastie, a Keeshond, for about four weeks now, and he just turned five months old on Thursday.  We already love him to pieces, and he loves chewing things into pieces.  ;0)  He's getting the hang of things (house training, short walks seeing other doggies, etc., car trips...), and I've got him in a puppy class at PetCo.  My daughter Morgan, who is home with 17-month-old Sawyer, and I have been comparing days!

 

Though we're taking this fella out in the back yard for house training, the process reminded me of a silly poem I wrote a gazillion years ago. (Maybe not quite that long, but it's been a while.)

 

 

I Paper-trained my Puppy

 

I paper-trained my puppy -
he reads The New York Times.
He starts at the beginning:
the news, the views, the crimes.

 

Then he reads the comics,
while rolling on the floor.
He moves on to the book reviews,
the fashion, arts, and more.

 

After that he grabs a pen
and holds it with his muzzle.
He won't get up until he's done
the daily crossword puzzle.

 

I paper-trained my puppy.
I made one small mistake.
The puddle in the corner
is looking like a lake.

 

©Robyn Hood Black. All rights reserved.

 

Usually at this time of year I'm up to my ears in Etsy orders. This year has been a little different, as with moving several months ago, traveling this fall, the new pup, and my general taking-a-while-to-get-my-act-together-in-a-new-place, I haven't done my customary making of a bunch of new things and marketing!  I've had to accept that some years I'm more together than others. 

 

I'm still happily shipping out orders, but I'm expecting to be up and running from my new studio full swing after the holidays instead of before.  Lots of new artsyletters items will be coming in the New Year! In the meantime, if you need any "regular" items from my shop, please feel free to use Coupon Code JINGLE10 for 10 percent off this month.  :0)

 

Anastasia Suen is rounding us all up this week at Small Poems - Thank you, Anastasia!  Join her on a snowy walk down Memory Lane as she recounts the sale of her first poem years ago. 

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Poetry Friday - Ella Wheeler Wilcox Thanksgiving Poem

November 16, 2023
Tags: -Poetry Friday, Thanksgiving poems, Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Plaque in Jack Kerouac Alley, San Francisco.  Wikimedia Commons; public domain. 

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers! Happy Almost Thanksgiving. 

 

I struggled with what to share this week, as I look forward to hosting family in our warm, provisioned home, while others in the world endure unspeakable pain, horror, and loss. 

 

I came across a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and I must confess I didn't know much about this American poet, who lived from 1850-1919.  Brief searches have me thinking her writing was often critically spurned but welcome by countless readers of her magazine contributions and her books.  She became associated with the Spiritualist/New Thought movement in the early 1900s. She also evidently championed animal rights and vegetarianism, causes I've held close for 35 years, so I'm inclined not to judge too harshly. 

 

Her poem "Solitude" opens with these famous lines: 

 

Laugh and the world laughs with you,
    Weep, and you weep alone;
The good old earth must borrow its mirth,
    But has trouble enough of its own.

 

 Here is her Thanksgiving poem, published in November of 1918.

 

 

Thanksgiving

 

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox 

 

We walk on starry fields of white
   And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
   We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
   To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
   Of pleasures sweet and tender.

 

Our cares are bold and push their way
   Upon our thought and feeling.
They hand about us all the day,
   Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
   We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives,
   And conquers if we let it.

 

There's not a day in all the year
   But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
   To brim the past's wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
   Who love and labor near us.
We ought to raise our notes of praise
   While living hearts can hear us.

 

Full many a blessing wears the guise
   Of worry or of trouble;
Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,
   Who knows the mask is double.
But he who has the faith and strength
   To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
   To gladden every morrow.

 

We ought to make the moments notes
   Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
   Of music we are living.
And so the theme should swell and grow
   As weeks and months pass o'er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
   A grand Thanksgiving chorus.

 

What spoke to me more than this poem, though, was her short quote on a plaque in Jack Kerouac Alley in San Francisco, pictured above:

 

Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.

 

-*-Sending love and light to you and yours this Thanksgiving-*-....

(Extra light to those missing someone at the table this year.  Today, Nov. 17, is the birthday of my hubby's mother, Marge, who passed away in 2019.)

 

Many thanks to someone I'm always grateful for, Irene, for rounding up Poetry Friday this week at Live Your Poem.

 

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Poetry Friday - Haiku for the Birds

November 9, 2023
Tags: - poetry, -Poetry Friday, -haiku, Haiku Society of America, bird haiku, bird poems, kukai, Antoinette Libro, Michael Henry Lee, Robyn Hood Black, Stanford M. Forrester, bottle rockets press, Johnette Downing, Nick Virgilio

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  This past Saturday, I enjoyed attending the "Almost Winter" Open Mic Zoom Event of the Southeast Region of the Haiku Society of America, organized by our fearless leader & poet extraordinaire, Michael Henry Lee.

 

Our featured speaker was the generous and gifted Antionette ("Toni") Libro, who shared her experiences with internationally known haiku poet Nick Virgilio (1928-1989), considered "a founder of haiku written in the American idiom." (More here.)   Libro invited Virgilio to speak to her classes at Rowan University when she taught there, and she published some of his haiku in Asphodel, the literary journal she founded and edited.

 

Stanford M. Forrester also shared a short presentation about Jerry Kilbride, including one of his haibun about Virgilio. Forrester founded bottle rockets press 25 years ago and is a former president of the HSA.  

 

Also at the virtual meeting, winners of our kukai were announced.  A kukai is a contest in which participants submit a poem on a theme, and then all of them judge the submissions (presented anonymously). For our contest, the three haiku receiving the most votes were the winners, with their authors receiving a copy of Nick Virgilio:  A Life in Haiku, edited by Raffael de Gruttola (Turtle Light Press, 2012).

 

Happy to report that my haiku was one of these three!  The other winners were Terri L. French and Cody Huddleston. Fine company.  The aforementioned theme was "almost winter," and my contribution was a spare one:

 

 

almost winter as the crow flies

 

 

©Robyn Hood Black

 

Thank you, HSA SE!

 

Speaking of birds (and there will likely be a raven post coming soon, after our seeing them on our Blue Ridge Parkway trip), I'm happy to highlight the latest anthology from bottle rockets press, Bird Whistle - A Contemporary Anthology of Bird Haiku, Senryu, & Short Poems, edited by Stanford M Forrester/sekiro and Johnette Downing.  The collection features bird-themed poems by more than 100 poets, including terrific haiku by the two wonderful editors.

 

The poems in the collection are by turns wistful, profound, surprising and humorous.

 

One of my favorites was penned by the above-mentioned Michael Henry Lee:

 

 

swallow tail kites

making more of the wind

than there is

 

 

©Michael Henry Lee

 

 

I have some previously published poems included as well:

 

 

one blue feather

then another

then the pile

 

 

our different truths

the rusty underside

of a bluebird

 

 

robin's egg blue

how my father would have loved

my son

 

©Robyn Hood Black

 

 

I have already bought an extra copy of Bird Whistle for someone special on my Christmas list. Maybe you have bird-lovers on your holiday list as well? Here's the link.

 

If you have a lot of them, I have some bird-y items in my Etsy shop, too! ;0) (Click  here to peruse.)

 

By the way, I wasn't able to stay for the open mic part of our get-together on Saturday, because we had to get back on the road with our new Keeshond puppy we had just picked up in Georgia that morning (pictured above).  His name is Rookie, but that's another story… ;0)

 

Flap your way on over to see Karen Edmisten, who is kindly rounding up Poetry Friday this week.  Thanks, Karen!

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Poetry Friday - Go Play in the Snow with Buffy!

November 2, 2023
Tags: -Poetry Friday

Hellooooo! Another week with a wave and a send-off; I wasn't planning on being out of town AGAIN, but then I saw an online picture of a puppy available not far from where Daughter/Son-in-Law/Baby Grand live, and, well.... Shhhh! We're going to look at a puppy.  Long(ish) story, and I'll share for sure if we come back with a new family member.  ;0)  Shhhh! 

Our talented & beloved Buffy has a first-snow-filled post and poem, and the Roundup, this week.  Go enjoy! See you next week. xo

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