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

 

Hi there - Friday snuck up on me this week, what with working on some freelance writing and Etsy orders and having a hubby under the weather and other family members farther away juggling Omicron (fortunately mild for them). But be sure to enjoy all the tasty poetry being rounded up by our fearless leader, Mary Lee, at A(nother) Year of Reading!

Stay warm and safe this weekend.  Active winter weather looks to be pretty dicey for us Southerners, after it sweeps across the Midwest and before it heads North. Brrr.

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  I hope you're having a good start to the New Year.  

 

I was too smothered in holiday Etsy orders to participate in the Winter Poem Swap this year, but I usually can't resist the call of Jone Rush MacCulloch to join in the New Year poem postcard swap. (It's a lovely way to start the year, and there's usually an optional nod to the Lunar New Year, meaning I have a few extra weeks to get my act together....)

 

What a delight to already receive two postcards from poets way more on the ball than I.  And they both celebrate one of my favorite things:  LIGHT.  (How much am I drawn to light?  I'm probably part moth....)

 

Linda Mitchell has been busy with her art supplies again, including vibrant stampings/printings on her card, and a gorgeous collaged star ornament.  On the front of the postcard, she included a mesmerizing poem by Sara Teasdale from 1926:

 

 

Dark of the Moon

 

There will be stars over the place forever;

Though the house we loved and the street

we loved are lost,

Every time the earth circles her orbit

On the night the autumn equinox is crossed,

Two stars we knew, poised on the peak of mid-night

Will reach their zenith; stillness will be deep;

There will be stars over the place forever,

There will be stars forever, while we sleep.

 

 

And on the back, an original poetic message:

 

Between joy and sorrow,

all I need to do is look up

to know the stars are above you too.

Remember to look up.

Happy New Year!

2022

 

And on the handcrafted star, a found/haiku poem also taking its inspiration from Teasdale's (direct quotes, in fact):

 

stillness will be deep

stars forever while we sleep

circles on the night

 

©Linda Mitchell

 

While Linda's gift has me gazing at the mystical and magical night sky, Mary Lee Hahn's beautiful card has me warming myself in the glow of close-by candlelight. (I love the immediacy of the flames and the texture of the bricks in the background of her original photograph on the card's front.)

 

Mary Lee's poem also takes a haiku turn:

 

each flame provides light

we illuminate this world

us all - together

 

©Mary Lee Hahn

 

Oh, how I hope 2022 can bring the world some much-needed togetherness and warmth for its human inhabitants, guided by starlight and all kinds of light.

 

For more poetic illumination, head over to Beyond Literacy Week, where Carol has 2022's first Roundup!  Thank you, Carol. 

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  I hope you are enjoying your holidays.  We are still in and out visiting family and grateful for time together.  Just a quote from a poet today - the beloved Rainer Maria Rilke. I discovered the words and their source on this curious quote-gatherer's website here.

 

Here's the whole sentence, written by Rainer Maria Rilke to his wife Clare in a 1907 letter:

 

          And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.

 

If you like the clicky-tap-tappy sound of a typewriter, feel free to check out the video I put on Instagram (artsylettersgifts) - and click the little volume symbol to unmute it -  or Facebook (artsyletters) with a portion of the above quote.  Just my wish for us all for 2022. (Note - for the first video version I posted, I used my laptop's video editor and added background music from their list of options. It was a Ravel string quartet.  I got an email saying it was removed because of a copyright violation - I didn't know those built-in tracks could violate copyright!  Wouldn't ever do that intentionally.  So, version 2 here is just the keys tapping - and an occasional bong from the windchimes!) 

 

Enjoy this week's Poetry Friday Roundup at Carol's Corner - Thanks for hosting, Carol!

Here's to good health and joy (& lots of poems!) to you and yours in the New Year.

Greetings, Friends - I'm still all wrapped up in packaging tape and bubble wrap over here, getting out holiday Etsy orders... but I was delighted to peek up long enough to enjoy Jone's double golden shovel poem, and Linda B.'s poem, over at Jone's place this morning.  She has this week's Roundup - follow the jingling to enjoy all the goodness here. 

Howdy - Still happily covered up in Etsy orders over here and burning too much midnight oil.  I didn't get a post conjured up, but I hope to drop in a few others this weekend.  Enjoy all the poetic goodness over at Merely Day by Day, where Cathy is hosting this week! 

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

 

I hope you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday last week.  Had such a good time with my kin I didn't even get a chance to check into Poetry Friday!  

 

One of the highlights for our gathering - at our new place on the other side of our state (SC), up in the hills - was that our daughter Morgan and hubby Matt brought a special little box for us to open.  Hint:  they had filled it with items either pink or blue!  And - drumroll.... - it had blue goodies!  We are all expecting the next generation to arrive at the beginning of June, which is convenient for Morgan as a third-grade teacher. ;0)  And we are all grateful for faith and for science and medicine, as that wee little one has been more than three years in the making. 

 

So Jeff and I are about to enter the adventure of grandparenting, and we couldn't be more thrilled. 

 

Naturally, a recent Poem-a-Day from poets.org in my inbox caught my eye.  Maybe you saw it? The title is "no more grandma poems" by Yolanda Wisher. 

 

Here is the opening, and a link for the rest....

 

 

no more grandma poems

 

by Yolanda Wisher

 

they said
forget your grandma
these american letters
don't need no more
grandma poems
but i said
the grandmas are
our first poetic forms
the first haiku
was a grandma

...

 

click here for the rest. 

 

 

My grandmothers were very different from each other.  I loved them both dearly, and see glimpses of both of them in the mirror these days. And I just recently heard about the anthropological research suggesting that grandmothers have been very important in evolutionary history, helping to get the youngest generations on their way to adulthood.  Also, I hadn't even heard of "The Grandmother Hypothesis" - but evidently it's been around as long as I have, (since the '60s).  Just Google it if you're intrigued.

 

Here's to the next generation, and the ones after that.  Let's try to keep the world habitable for them, shall we?

 

Many thanks to my fellow Etsian Michelle Kogan for hosting Poetry Friday this week, with her usual creative panache!

 

PS - I did manage to get an artsyletters newsletter out - Click here if you'd like to read.  And though the CyberWeek savings are over, feel free as a Poetry Friday friend to use Coupon Code NEWSY10 for 10 percent off in my Etsy shop. ;0) It's been a busy place this season!

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  Oh, I've missed you so.  I'm still spinning more plates than logistically possible, but I wanted to express my GRATITUDE for Poetry Friday peeps new and old right here before Thanksgiving, and offer a glimpse into a new book I'm grateful for, too.

 

Last weekend we made a trip over to our new-to-us second home (for which we are beyond thankful) in the colorful foothills of the SC Upstate.  We bought a place on two acres last summer as a way to more readily connect with our busy grown kids, not too far from Asheville (where our son and his girlfriend are) and just a couple of hours up the road from our daughter and her hubby's home in north Georgia.  It's become a welcome respite, not terribly far from civilization but woodsy enough to evoke a sigh, rocking on the front porch gazing at the trees.  Trees which were still blazing gold and red and magic last weekend.

 

I had tucked into my bag the copy of WILD PEACE I'd just bought, written by our own wonderful Irene Latham and illustrated by Il Sung Na (Roaring Brook, 2021.) Our last morning there, though I needed to get back to beat the post office closing time because of Etsy orders, we scheduled a Spectrum repair/service call because that's when we could make it happen.  After the young man left, I stole away for a scant few moments of quiet outside, Irene's book in hand.  (We'd actually spent the whole weekend catching up with friends and family who were either coming through, staying nearby, or otherwise free to meet up in the area.  Blissful visits, but not much downtime!)

 

On a previous trip I'd discovered this random little rock outcropping in the front yard, crouched near trees. I dubbed it "Frog Rock" because, to me, it calls to mind a frog - what do you think?  Anyway, it makes a handy seat for resting and solitary pondering, so I claimed it.  (Though I'd share, too, if you ever come to visit....) I took WILD PEACE down the hill to read and savor it there, even if only for a short time.

 

When the world fills with noise and fury,

and the days pass, 

all rush and scurry, it's time to step into the forest.

 

So begins our character's escape from her busy home - with her loud and busy siblings - into a joy-filled journey through the natural world. The illustrations lead us on, from initial surroundings rendered in gray, into the child's colorful and exubrant artwork, which leads us further still into the vivid, wild woods.

 

I love that all creatures are celebrated:

 

Peace rises on

spindly legs

and coils around

a nest of eggs.

 

Peace expresses itself in all kinds of wondrous ways in the wild - you'll have to read the book yourself to discover more! Here's Irene's post about it from a few weeks ago. 

 

While enjoying the lilting and energetic poem-story, I also thought this book would pair perfectly with (again) our own wonderful Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's FOREST HAS A SONG, illustrated by Robbin Gourley (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013). Learn more about this book here.

 

So I'm grateful to Irene for encouraging me to pause this week for some colorful, quiet moments out in the "wild" - which always take me back to the childhood I've never outgrown, in which I rambled for endless hours in the scrubby, piney, perfect Florida woods. 

 

In our mountain house, which is kind of a Celtic Cabin as it were (rustic decor with nods everywhere to our Scottish, Irish, and British roots), I put up the picture of an excerpt of the Hopkins poem I've shared before, delighted to have discovered it in a public space in Edinburgh during our 2018 family trip. I never tire of it, so please indulge me in another sharing.  (We had the good fortune of visiting Loch Lomond, the site of this poem's subject.)

 

Inversnaid

 

by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)

THIS darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth 
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through, 
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet; 
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Yes - Long live the weeds and the wilderness!  

 

Wishing you and yours a Thanksgiving of joy and good health, or comfort in the absence of those.  If you need a little peace, I know just the book to suggest... it would make a great gift! And Irene kindly sent on this link which includes WILD PEACE, FOREST HAS A SONG, and more woodsy wonders.

 

(Speaking of gifts, I'm still planning on getting a holiday artsyletters newsletter out - I've been covered up in orders for weeks, but want to wave hello!  If you'd like to sign up, just click here.)

 

The multi-talented Carol has our Roundup this week at Beyond Literacy Link - Thanks, Carol!  She also has a dazzling autumn gallery to share with contributions from many talented folks, and this Wordsworth quote in the mix:

"Wild is the music of autumnal winds amongst the faded woods."

Hi, Friends - First, don't give up on me! ;0). I'm once again tapping out a howdy from the road but plan to be back on track next week. Happily covered up in Etsy orders & trying to get a wee newsletter out. I hope your November is going well! 
Matt has this week's Roundup over at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme: https://mattforrest.wordpress.com/

Thanks, Matt! 

Hellloooo!  I'm waving from piles of artsyletters stuff.  Had every intention of putting up a real post this week, but....

 

Thanks for the good wishes for Literacy Week last week.  Great week as always, and - exhausting! I did 20 presentations from Monday through Thursday, and another longer one at a special needs school on Friday.  Then got outta town just before the World Series traffic came in. (Go, Braves!) 

 

Instead of putting my Etsy shop on vacation last week, I kept it open but extended shipping times.  Whoa, Nelly!  I'm still covered up in orders.  (Happily!  But I haven't had time to list new items, send out my artsyletters newsletter, or attend to Poetry Friday.) Will try again next week.  In the meantime, HAPPY NOVEMBER!  And please visit the ever-amazing Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference for this week's Roundup.  See you next week!

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  

 

Just a wave this week, as I'm on the way to my annual week of author visits in schools in North Georgia, as part of Cobb EMC & Gas South's Literacy Week.  The picture above is from our last time all in-person-like, in 2019.  (Some authors have always presented virtually, but most of us travel from school to school.)  Last year, it was all virtual - a challenge, but we did it!  Though that was interrupted by severe storms which wiped out power across counties for days, so that "week" stretched into November, too.  

 

This year, most of us are in-person, but there are several who will present virtually as well.  It's always a blast, and always completely exhausting. I look forward to sharing the poetry love with hundreds of kids. Or more - I'm not even sure of the exact counts this year on my schedule!

 

In honor of the vital work our energy companies and co-ops do to keep our lights on and our heat going in the winter, here's a poem by Emily Dickinson for the week:

 

The Poets light but Lamps — (930)

 

by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

The Poets light but Lamps —
Themselves — go out —
The Wicks they stimulate
If vital Light

 

Inhere as do the Suns —
Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference —

 

(Remembering two giants of children's literature whose lights now shine through their many works and the people who loved them - Gary Paulson and Jerry Pinkney.)

 

Here's to letting your own light shine....

There is always something bright and beautiful over at Jama's Alphabet Soup - head over for the Round-up.  She & Mr. C. have pretty pumpkin cookies....

(& Let me go ahead and wish you a Happy HALLOWEEEEN - I'll be back in touch after that!)