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

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers - and Happy New Year!  I've missed you.  We've been happily covered up hosting family for the past couple of weeks (everyone from the wee 18-month-old baby grand to my folks from Florida, who hadn't been on a plane in decades.  They survived!) Keeping the six-month-old pup in check was an extra adventure, with additional people around.  He loved the attention. We also had a small overnight trip in the middle. 

 

Said trip was to be in on the surprise for our future daughter-in-law, Ginnie, when our son Seth asked her to marry him.  He cooked up a warm event with friends and family on a very chilly night in Asheville, in the same little city park where they had their first meeting/date.

 

He told her,

 

•I promise to love you a forever full of tomorrows•

 

(Pretty poetic if you ask me.  He's quite the able wordsmith, crafting regular sermons and a witty family text here and there.)

 

I didn't have to look far to find a poem to share in their honor this week. You've likely seen it, or at least parts of it.  It's from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, published in 1923, 100 years before these two got engaged.

 

 

On Marriage

by Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931)

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master?
      And he answered saying:
      You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
      You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
      Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
      But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
      And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

 

     Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
      Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
      Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
      Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
      Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
      Even as the strings of the lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

 

     Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
      For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
      And stand together yet not too near together:
      For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
      And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

 

(Here's the link from poets.org.)

 

My hubby Jeff and I will celebrate our 40th anniversary in June, and I'd say that from my perspective anyway, these poetic words above contain sound advice!

 

Jeff's parents are no longer with us, but I would imagine they would share with Seth and Ginnie the same sentiment they gave to many other grandchildren about to marry:  love is not a feeling, but a commitment.

 

When my folks got married in 1980, it was a second marriage for both of them.  They'll celebrate 44 years next month.  I asked them for a gem to share, and they offered a couple of shiny nuggets.  From my mom, Nita, "Of course, have Jesus in there somewhere leading the way."  And from Jack, "Each one putting the other one first.  Respect, trust, and putting the other first."

 

We've seen these traits alive and well with our oldest, Morgan, and her hubby, Matt (world's best son-in-law).

 

Every couple finds their own way, and we'll be cheering on our young 'uns with love and support, from a respectable distance. ;0)

 

Congrats, Kids! 

 

Any pearls (or diamonds, or sapphires) you'd like to add? Please do, and then be sure to visit Marcie Flinchum Atkins for the first Poetry Friday Roundup of 2024!  Thanks, Marcie. 

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  Here we are at the doorstep of Christmas, and this week I received the most wonderful group of poems and gifts from the multitalented and generous Denise Krebs. We both participated in the magic that is the Winter Poem Swap, spearheaded by the also ever-generous and talented Tabatha Yeatts .

 

When I opened my box, my eyes were not dry for long.  Denise had taken the time to peruse my blog and celebrate some of the highlights of my fall, including a 7-mile round-trip hike with my hubby to the top of Table Rock here, where he proposed exactly 40 years ago in September.  She also captured the spirit of life with our new puppy, Rookie, a Keeshond who is growing by leaps and bounds, emphasis on the leaps and the bounds. These surprises took the shape of items in a handmade "Make it Merry" Christmas journal, full of pockets, hidden bookmarks, a tatted ornament, and such, and lots of blank pages among the decorated ones. In addition to these oh-so-personal touches, Denise gifted me more beautiful pieces of her handiwork - gorgeous dish towels with crocheted tops, and matching pot holders/mats with a couple of different kinds of stitching.  In our mostly darker kitchen, I  have just a few hints of teal peeking out and these are perfect.  Also, it was time for a refresh over here, so these are more than welcome!

 

The Poetry Friday community has helped sustain me for years, inspiring me and dazzling me with people I'd love to have long chats over tea with, if we lived closer.  Like many of you, I've had the good fortune to share real space with some folks from time to time.  But what I love about PF is that distance doesn't matter.  Denise and I are across the country from each other.  And, new folks are always welcome to pull up a chair and bring more poetry love to the gracious Poetry Friday table!

 

Thank you, Denise, for flooring me with your attention to detail in these wonderful gifts.  

 

Here are the poems she brightened my day with.

 

First, a pantoum (a pantoum!) celebrating Rookie, who was very excited to star in a poem:

 

 

Rookie

by Denise Krebs

 

the Rookie of the year is here

at times life is in a puproar

toddler chews and chases tails

he makes hearts merry

 

at times life is in a puproar

potty training and car trips

he makes hearts merry

doggy academy at PetCo

 

potty training and car trips

yearns to meet more puppy pals

doggy academy at PetCo

neighborhood scouting strolls

 

yearns to meet more puppy pals

will we ever sleep again?

neighborhood scouting strolls

love in a four-legged bundle

 

will we ever sleep again?

toddler chews and chases tails

love in a four-legged bundle

the Rookie of the year is here

 

 

And, honoring our celebratory hike, a haiku:

 

 

table rock speaks

horizon of peace

life-hope is here

 

Denise Krebs

 

What a special way to remember that day!

 

And this year.  Thank you again, Denise, and wishing all of you fond remembrances as you gather for the holidays and inspirations as you look toward 2024.  We are feeling very blessed to have family coming and going over the next couple of weeks, so I'll see you on Jan. 5!

 

Our amazing Jone Rush MacCulloch has the Roundup this week, leading us in a celebration of the Solstice - Thank you, Jone!

Waving from streams of shipping tape!  Happy Poetry Friday.  After a manageable flow of Etsy orders last week, I've had a lovely small pile-up this week, so I'm admiring the Roundup from a afar today. I'm also looking forward to making and sending my Winter Poetry Swap goodies before next Poetry Friday.  Please take your sleigh on over to see my last year's swap partner (I think it was last year?) - the lovely and oh-so-talented Patricia at Reverie. See you next week!

 

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. 

 

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.

 

 

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!

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

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  I'm finishing up my annual crazy week north of Atlanta doing school author visits, as part of Cobb EMC & Gas South's Literacy Week.  More than a dozen authors and illustrators fan out across the region reaching around 20,000 kids.  My personal tally this week is more than 2500 students, in 24 presentations.  Whew! (It's been fun sharing the new book of Fables I wrote for Core Essential Values with all these young readers & writers.)

 

So a very short post today, with an even shorter poem. Next week brings us All Saints Day on Wednesday. 

 

This haiku appears in the most recent issue of bottle rockets.

 

 

all saints day a trickle of wax

 

 

©Robyn Hood Black

bottle rockets, #49.  Vol. 25.1, August 2023.

 

Enjoy all the wonderful poems over at The Apples in My Orchard, where Carol is kindly hosting the Roundup today. Wishing you and yours a fun Halloween, and also comfort as we remember our own "saints" especially missed this time of year. 

Hello, Friends - I had a post in my head for this week but it didn't make it out of my fingers.  Freshly back last weekend from a week-plus glorious trip to the Interntional Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough followed by all 469 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway with my hubby, Jeff -- and now getting ready for my annual author school visits trip for Literacy Week near Atlanta. I have trip pics on Facebook. 

 

Besides being just, too busy, I've had a hard time focusing because of the horrific news I've caught up on this week, and the divisions and danger each day seems fraught with.  (We didn't have cell service for much of our trip, and WiFi was spotty.) But Bridget has struck a welcoming chord in the midst of all of this over at her Poetry Friday Roundup post at Wee Words for Wee Ones, and she's got some content to make you smile.  Also, wish her Happy Birthday!

(And a heads up - not sure I'll be able to wrangle a post for next Friday as I've got four full-full days of presentations, plus the travel.  But I so treasure all of you & will be back ASAP!)

Greetings from the Road! I haven't made as many Poetry Friday rounds in the last couple of weeks as I'd like; sorry to miss some fabulous posts! Hoping to catch up a bit.

This weekend and next Friday finds me on a literal road trip, so I'll be back to Poetry Friday-ing on the 20th.  Hubby Jeff & I are headed to the International Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, this weekend, and then we'll trek up to Virginia to hop on the Blue Ridge Parkway and go the whole way down.  It ends in Cherokee, NC, and we'll hop off and go bunk in Maggie Valley before heading home, which is only a couple of hours from here. (Yes, it's a crazy time for both of us to take a vacation.  Really.  But the leaves are calling....)

Taking my pens, paper, sketchbook - Happy Octobering to you & yours, and see you soon! Matt has the Roundup over at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme - stop by and get the backstory on his hot-off-the-press picture book, The Thing to Remember about Stargazing.  Congrats, Matt! And next Friday, be sure to track down Heidi, who will host over at My Juciy Little Universe.