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

Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday: Student Haiku Poet of the Month Olivia Graner

February 12, 2015
Tags: Poetry Friday, haiku, student work, Student Poet of the Month, Poetry

Happy Valentine’s Weekend, All!

I won’t pry into anyone’s love life, but I’m glad you poetry lovers are out and about this Poetry Friday. As promised, I have much for you to love here today.

Our Student Haiku Poet of the Month series continues with Olivia Graner.

Olivia lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She is (almost) thirteen years old and is in seventh grade at The Paideia School. She lives with her mom, her dad, her nine-year-old brother, her thirteen-year-old golden retriever, and her six-year-old goldfish. Olivia is an avid writer and reader. She also enjoys musical theater, piano, ukulele, and pogo stick-ing.

“I tend to enjoy haiku because of its simplicity (or lack thereof),” Olivia says. “An American haiku must be written with fewer than seventeen syllables, which can be a blessing or a curse. Granted, with nine or ten words, not much physical writing goes in to the actual poem, but painting a scene in which to transport the reader in three or less short lines can be rather challenging (in a good way).”

I think you’ll agree Olivia is up for the challenge! Enjoy these examples of her poetry:


morning radio
voices weave their way
into my dreams


pronation
a left shoe’s sole
worn away


creak of a door
the attic’s smell
floods the hallway


silent night
wax drips from
the memory candle


frozen bird bath
feathers
atop the ice


one night only:
stage fright
killing dreams


Poems ©Olivia Graner. All rights reserved.


I’m really struck by “silent night,” though each poem “transports” as Olivia says - don't you think?

For more posts in this series featuring talented students, please click here.

And for more poetry to love this week, please visit talented teacher and author Cathy, rounding up poems to fill your heart at Merely Day by Day.  Read More 
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Poetry Friday: Ahoy! Sea Songs, Pirates, Valentines....

February 5, 2015
Tags: Poetry Friday, Poetry, sea, Etsy, art, ponderings, pirates
a peek into mini sea-themed works-in-progress.... ©Robyn Hood Black

At the beginning of last year, I shared an amazing gift sent to me by my friend and fellow writer Kim Siegelson (who has a keen antique sense and a great Etsy shop, too, Perfect Patina).

It was a nearly 700-page book – sumptuously covered and illustrated, titled:

Crown Jewels
OR
Gems of Literature, Art, and Music
BEING
Choice Selections from the Writings and Musical Productions of the Most Celebrated Authors, From the Earliest Times

compiled by Henry Davenport Northrop, D. D., and published in 1888.

(To read my post about this wonderful book from Kim, in all its over-the-top Victorian glory, click here.)

In my art life for this new year, I’m working on more locale-friendly pieces to offer in my kiosk space at Fordham Market.
As in, things that might appeal to tourists and visitors of our delightful coastal town.

Lucky for me, CROWN JEWELS has many poems and songs about the sea! Though written a hundred (or few hundred) years ago, surely the words still ring like a ship’s bell to those who dock at our lovely marina, just across the street from my tucked-away studio. I’ve got some small shadow-box mixed media pieces in the works, featuring everything from excerpts to short entire poems to found poems I’ve "uncovered" in prose passages.

This week I broke out my printmaking supplies (have stayed away from since my neck/shoulder/hand/nerves injury in the fall), and it felt wonderful to carve into a small block of wood and later to breathe in the ink, hearing and feeling its sticky snap on glass as I rolled my brayer… even if I was making just a wee image. The mini prints are backgrounds for the clipped pieces of text, and, of course, there must be some vintage-y bling involved. I usually use actual old metal pieces. Occasionally, if I find just the right element offered by an artisan, I’ll use that. Just take a look at that lovely tiny anchor in the picture – it’s blackened pewter, handmade in the USA and cast as opposed to stamped, and available from Fallen Angel Brass on Etsy. Yep, I bought a few!

For these first few mini shadow boxes, I clipped this refrain from CROWN JEWELS. Warning: if you read it more than once, it will start sailing around in your head. A lot. Come on, read it out loud in your best gravelly pirate voice:

from THE TAR FOR ALL WEATHERS

by Charles Dibdin
…
But sailors were born for all weathers,
     Great guns let it blow high or low,
Our duty keeps us to our tethers,
     And where the gale drives we must go.
….

Our Mr. Dibdin (1745-1814) wrote many songs over the course of his life and career.

Now, this excerpt, printed as a poem, is from a song. Which got me wondering about songs of the sea, which led me to looking up sea shanties. A sea shanty was a song sung by the crew of tall sailing ships back in the day – usually call-and-response, with simple lyrics. The songs helped everyone keep to the same rhythm, and likely kept boredom at bay on long journeys as well.

Hungry for more, ye say? Well, y’ave plenty of time to read up before International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept. 19), so ye might look in on this fun website I found,: The Pirate King.

Now, where were we?

Oh – CROWN JEWELS!

In honor of Valentine’s Day coming up, here’s another poem from this literary treasure chest. I might just have to tuck it into my hubby’s Valentine – shhh; don’t tell!

Associations of Home

by Walter Condor

That is not home, where day by day
I wear the busy hours away;
that is not home, where lonely night
Prepares me for the toils of light;
‘tis hope, and joy, and memory, give
A home in which the heart can live.
It is a presence undefined,
O’ershadowing the conscious mind;
Where love and duty sweetly blend
To consecrate the name of friend
Where’er thou art, is home to me,
And home without thee cannot be.

Wishing you the comfort of “a presence undefined” among friends and loved ones this month.

Be sure to row back over next week, when we’ll enjoy some lovely haiku from our February Student Haiku Poet of the Month!

And now please visit our always-original Liz (Elizabeth) Steinglass, rounding up the fleet of Poetry Friday posts today at her blog .
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Poetry Friday: Birthdays, Cont...

January 29, 2015
Tags: Poetry Friday, songs. ponderings
From 2009: Morgan and Mom - NY Trip! It was a "girlfriends" weekend, and we all saw WICKED for the girls' 16th Birthdays!

Quick wave from the road, on our way to the upstate of SC to visit Morgan (birthday girl last Friday) on my BDay today! We have a pretty full weekend planned, so please forgive me if I don't make too many rounds. I'll try to pop in here and there.

I leave you with a few words from one of my favorite songs from the show, "For Good."

WICKED
from "For Good" (Glinda and Elphaba)

...
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
(Glinda)
Because I knew you
(Both):
I have been changed for good
...

Well, I hope any changes on your end are for the better as well as for good. :0)

Paul has the Roundup today over at These 4 Corners.  Read More 
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Poetry Friday - Celebrating a Birthday, Beatrix Potter Style...

January 22, 2015
Tags: Poetry Friday, Poetry, nursery rhymes, ponderings
Top: Morgan and her supervising teacher from last year, Susan Gray, as they prepare for this school year. How special that they are now teaching on the same hall!Bottom: Morgan's First Birthday, over-the-top Beatrix Potter. And lots of pink.

Happy Birthday to my Firstborn!

Shortly after midnight twenty-three years ago, when January 22nd became the 23rd, I became a mom. I was blessed with a healthy dose of those new mommy hormones, for no amount of exhaustion could dampen the shine on my amazement at our little bundle. I was awestruck.

In the years between then and now, there were a few more emotions, too. (Mothers of daughters? You know….) But now that I’m the proud mom of a grown-up young woman, I’m awestruck once again.

I remember being so excited to celebrate Morgan’s first birthday that I could hardly sleep the night before. Beatrix Potter theme – cake, wrapping paper, coordinating ribbons and decorations, and the obligatory pictures of cake smeared on the faces of our little one-year-old and her baby buddy, McCamy.

So I thought it would be fun to share a few verses from Beatrix Potter today, from CECILY PARSLEY'S NURSERY RHYMES For Little Peter in New Zealand (Frederick Warne & Co., Ltd., 1922).

After all, Morgan’s middle name is Cecily, and she’s been to New Zealand!

Here we are:

Cecily Parsley lived in a pen,
And brewed good ale for gentlemen.

Gentlemen came every day
Till Cecily Parsley ran away.


Hmmmm. On second thought, perhaps not the most appropriate poem for a mother to honor her daughter on her birthday? Well, for one thing, Morgan is far too busy teaching her third-graders and juggling her masters degree classes to have time to brew ale, and I don’t think her honey would like all those gentlemen callers.

Have no fear, Beatrix Potter included lots of fun verse in her little volume, and it’s worth clicking over to The Gutenberg Project to enjoy the illustrations.

You might know that our Beatrix had quite the life beyond Peter Rabbit. One of my most treasured books is
Beatrix Potter's Art: A Selection of Paintings and Drawings by Anne Stevenson Hobbs (Warne, 1990).
Though out of print, you might find a used copy here .

Its description reads:

“As the creator of one of the world's most celebrated children's characters, Beatrix Potter has rarely been seen as a talented and versatile artist in her own right as in many ways the outstanding success of her 'little books' has overshadowed her other achievements.” The book offers an array of beautiful paintings and studies of The Lake District and also sheds light on the author’s work for conservation.

So, hearty cheers for Beatrix – and even more for our Morgan Cecily today. We are all in awe of you.

Speaking of wonderful teachers, you can keep the poetry party going by hopping over to A Teaching Life, where the terrific Tara is our host this week!
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Poetry Friday: Won’t you toss me a line?

January 15, 2015
Tags: Poetry Friday, Poetry, haiku, ponderings
photos ©Robyn Hood Black


Help! Nothing leaves me less inspired than being covered up in tax stuff. The hubby is way better at numbers, but these kinds of things don’t make it to his “urgent” list, and since I do all the household money wrangling anyway, I just scramble as best I can.

So scrambling right now I am, generating mounds of (recycled, but still…) paper spewing out of my temperamental printer, tracking down receipts from what seems like eons ago in another state but was really just last year, etc. etc. We’re both more or less self-employed, and that makes everything complicated! We DO have a great accountant, but I have to give them something to work with.
Here’s a little haiku I wrote in my journal last year:


15 April
Titanic and taxes
start with T…

©Robyn Hood Black

(I’d recently read Allan Wolf’s compelling verse novel, THE WATCH THAT ENDS THE NIGHT, about that dreaded night of April 15, 1912.)

Enough of all that. Don’t you feel dusty and sluggish just having to read it? I do. So, I’m tossing out a couple of pictures that I posted on my my artsyletters blog this week. – this wonderful old typewriter sprouting pansies in the garden of a local antique shop (Bay St. Trasures), and antique buttons from another shop (Reflections Old & New).

Do either of these pictures inspire something poetic – even just a turn of phrase? When I linked the post on Facebook, our wonderful Diane Mayr
commented: “Buttons = character. Find which go with which (in your mind's eye) and write about them.” I think Button Queen Amy Ludwig Vanderwater
would like that idea! She started a “Button Project” about this time last year on The Poem Farm.

Well, if a blooming typewriter or some hundred-year-old buttons lead to a line or two or a few from you, please share below! That would be so much more fun to read than (– Sigh –) the most current calculations for mileage expense.

Thanks!!

And for lots of truly inspiring poetry, please visit the ever-dreamy Irene at Live Your Poem. She has the MLK edition of Poetry Friday today! Thank you, Irene.  Read More 
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Poetry Friday: Student Haiku Poet of the Month Pearl Sullivan

January 8, 2015
Tags: Poetry Friday, Student Poet of the Month, student work, haiku, Poetry

Greetings, haiku lovers! I hope this new year continues to sparkle with new inspirations for you. There's a guaranteed shine from my blog each time I get to share a student poet and his or her work.

Today, we have a special luster to enjoy - our Student Poet of the Month is Pearl Sullivan, a former student of Tom Painting's at The Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia.

Pearl is 15 years old and a sophomore at Paideia.

She has lived in Atlanta for most of her life but she lived in Dublin, Ireland, for two years, moving there with her family when she was five and moving back at age seven.

"I like hanging out with my friends and family, reading, and playing sports," she says. "I started writing haiku in 7th grade as homework and grew to really love how every poem is simple but also has a deeper meaning."

Here are some of Pearls' wonderful poems:



my excuse
to rise from slumber
blood moon



raindrops
slide off the shingles
singing in the rain



history class
I discover
myself



an old song
on the radio
my breath quickens



new snowfall
blood red berries
among the thorns



frozen mid-laugh memories



Poems ©Pearl Sullivan. All rights reserved.


Many thanks to Pearl for sharing her thoughtful poetry with us today. Which ones especially strike you? [I'm a sucker for the punch of a great one-line haiku (sometimes called a monoku), and the final poem here I find very effective!]

For more posts in this series featuring talented students, please click here.

To continue our journey in a new year of wonderful poetry, please make your way to The Opposite of Indifference, where the ever-shiny Tabatha hosts our Roundup today.
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Poetry Friday - a Haiku for the New Year

January 1, 2015
Tags: Poetry Friday, Poetry, haiku, ponderings, birds, awards
Yay Images
Happy New Year!

I hope you and yours have enjoyed a lovely holiday, and you are ready to leap head-first into a new year filled with poetry. Like my crazy hubby and son leaped into the chilly Atlantic today as part of the "Pelican Plunge" at Hunting Island....

Last year, I was still in the foothills of north Georgia, where I'd penned the following haiku:


new year
the twitter of a hundred robins
in the oak


Modern Haiku, Volume 45.1, Winter/​Spring 2014

©Robyn Hood Black. All rights reserved.


I haven't seen those huge flocks of robins here in my new yard near the coast, but there is plenty of wonderful bird life. And it's very nice to greet the new year from the same nest this year, rather than two different locations on the map!

Please make a migratory stop here next week, as we'll celebrate our January Student Haiku Poet of the Month. Such a treat for me to feature the work of these fine young poets.

Rounding up our first Poetry Friday for2015 is the wonderful Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Be sure to also check out her post featuring the Cybils finalists for poetry - the rounds have included books by some of our own amazing Poetry Friday community. Congratulations to all the nominees! [If you're a PF regular, you'll recognize the talented judges' names, too.] The incomparable Syliva Vardell has featured the shortlist at Poetry for Children, and there you can also find all of the 36 nominated poetry titles for 2014. I'll take one of each, please.
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Poetry Friday - Found Poem for Friends Old and New

December 18, 2014
Tags: Poetry Friday, found poetry, Poems, ponderings
©Robyn Hood Black. All rights reserved.
Greetings, Poetry Friday-ers!

I hope your holiday season is full of rich time with family and friends and a few too many calories. Thoughts and prayers for those going through difficult times in this ramped-up season.

My post today is simple. Here's an image I used on our personal Christmas postcard this year, a found poem I highlighted from LITTLE FOLKS - A Magazine for the Very Young, London, Paris & New York, Cassell & Company, LTD. (Bound collection from the late 1800s.)

It reads:

To My Readers

Once more, friends, looking back over
the past year, I
fancy each one of you, and express my hopes
that you
understand more and more fully
something of
old friends and
new ones too.

[Those are old typewriter and watch parts adding bling to the text, by the way. Might be hard to see in this picture, but one is providing a cradling branch for the illustrated bird.]

To say it's been a year of moves and transitions for our family this year is putting it mildly. But each one of us (hubby, me, recent-graduate-new-teacher daughter and recent-transfer-to-a-new-college son) has made new friends in new places, while appreciating even more our special friends who share our history.

This poem is my wish for online friends, too! Thank you for so much inspiration, fun, comfort and challenge. I look forward to a new year of poetry after the holidays. We'll be on the road next Friday, so I'll see you back here in the new year.

Safe travels and blessings to you and yours!

Lighting up Poetry Friday for us this week (it's almost the Solstice, you know!) is friend and talented writer Buffy over at Buffy's Blog.  Read More 
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Poetry Friday: Student Haiku Poet of the Month Carson Race

December 11, 2014
Tags: Poetry Friday, Student Poet of the Month, haiku, student work, Poetry

Happy Holidays, Poetry Folks!

Today I invite you to take a wee break from the hustle and bustle, and have a long sip of short-form poetry with our Student Haiku Poet of the Month. I’m delighted to share the work of Paideia student Carson Race.

Carson was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1999. The middle of three children, he has an older brother and a younger sister. He started at The Paideia School in the third grade and has attended there ever since. His interests include soccer, football, and mock trial. He’s been writing haiku for three years since his 7th grade year.

“Why haiku?” for Carson? He writes:

Haiku is a poetic form than can be written anywhere and about anything. This is the main reason I like it. I enjoy haiku because it doesn't require much effort to get one started, but to end up with a good haiku, you need to put something into it.

(I say Amen to that.) Please enjoy some of Carson’s fine poetry:



winter morning
a bird
picking at its bath



road trip
fog rolls
over the mountains



summer lake
a crawfish
clouds the water



so full of leaves
so full of air
the tree



new moon
darkness
overcomes me



late winter day
the first cineraria
slowly rises


Poems ©Carson Race. All rights reserved.

Many thanks to Carson for sharing his poems with us today. Which ones most resonate with you today?

For more posts in this series featuring talented students, please click here.

And for more rejuvenating poetry in this hectic season, please visit our host Paul at These4 Corners.

[If you have any time after making the rounds, I’m delighted I'll be a featured guest today on the Nerdy Chicks Rule blog – with huge thanks to Kami Kinard!]  Read More 
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Poetry Friday: Keats's "In drear nighted December"

December 4, 2014
Tags: Poetry Friday, poets, ponderings
Keats portrait by William James Neatby

Greetings, Poetry Peeps!

Can you believe it's December already? In hunting up a December-ish poem to share, I came across Keats. If I studied this one in college, I'm afraid I don't remember. Do you?


In drear nighted December

by John Keats, 1795 - 1821


In drear nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity—
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.

Ah! would ‘twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy—
But were there ever any
Writh’d not of passed joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.

Click here for the Academy of American Poets and a bit more on the English Romantic Keats.

Well - a bit depressing I guess. The natural world has forgotten how happy it was in warmer months of the year, but we remember and feel loss? The poem has such a modern sensibility to me - "The feel of not to feel it" - I wouldn't guess that line to be almost a couple of centuries old. (It was composed in 1817 and first published in 1829.)

I hope your week has not been dreary! And if anyone tried found poem projects with kids or students, I'd love to hear about them. :0)

Next week will NOT be dreary here... We'll have our Student Haiku Poet of the Month, so circle on back between your holiday errands.

For the Poetry Friday Roundup today, hop on the nearest flying sleigh and make your way to Booktalking #kidlit where Anastasia is hosting! Thanks, Anastasia.

[NOTE: I'll be flapping around all day Friday getting ready for "Night on the Town"- businesses stay open late downtown to ring in the holidays, and I'll open my studio. I might be scarce until later in the weekend! :0) ]
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