Greetings, Poetry Lovers! Bonjour, Mes Amis! Welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup, where you can peruse a grand assortment of poetry posts across a variety of wonderful blogs. Newcomer or veteran, feel free to add your own link and topic in the comments, and I'll round up the posts old-school today. (We have a couple of rounds of family visiting; I will be dipping in and out here as the day goes along!)
Perhaps you're a fan of grand slam tennis as I am, and your eyes have been turned to London for Wimbledon this fortnight. (Finals are this weekend.) Soon our attention will drift to Paris, where the Games of the Summer Olympics begin July 26. The Paralympic Games begin August 28.
The River Seine will be the focus of many athletes and countless spectators and tourists in coming weeks. From National Geographic, I learned that this river had (has?) an ancient Celtic goddess, Sequana. I found some lovely lines about the river quoted by Elaine Sciolino in a 2019 article on a site called Literary Hub. She is the author of a book called The Seine – The River that Made Paris (Norton). She shares this beautiful poetic passage:
She goes to the sea
Passing through Paris. . . .
And . . . walks between the quays
In her beautiful green dress
And her golden lights.
–Jacques Prévert, "Chanson de la Seine"
Jacques Prévert was a celebrated French poet and screenwriter who lived from 1900-1977.
I'm adding more items to the French corner of my Etsy shop in celebration of the Olympics. Lately I've returned to an old love from my childhood, wax seals.
Any other fans of Victoria Magazine, dear readers? I've been a devotee forever. The January/February 2024 issue featured odes to correspondence, including a feature on Kathryn Hastings, who takes correspondence to a new artistic level (and offers wax seal products for sale). I might have succumbed to purchasing one of Victoria's lovely books, The Art of Correspondence. The photography is gorgeous, of course!
I've also discovered a wonderful supplier called Letterseals.com, which features lots of irresistible items and waxes, including vegan options and sticks from a company in Scotland, Waterstons, which has been creating sealing waxes the same way for 300 years. And on Etsy, I happened upon a small business in Seattle which has made letter seals products since 1998 – BeeImpressed.
Vintage brass stamps from Etsy and Ebay have made their way to my doorstep.
I altered a wax seal that came with an order and used it inside a little book I made last week for an online workshop. I know there are many mixed media artists among us; if that means you and you don't know of him already, I highly recommend Seth Apter as an instructor and curator of many enticing items in his online shop. (When I started my artsyletters business more than a decade ago, I stumbled upon his books and videos.)
Last year, I participated in Seth's "Mixed Media Mechanics" monthly workshop series. And a couple of weeks ago, I created along with "Double Jointed" – a simple bookmaking class. Six hours flew by! (Here's my Instagram post (@artsylettersgifts) featuring the book, which took me a couple more days to finish.)
My apologies if any of these links cause a dent in your wallet, as they have in mine! Too good not to share. But hey – Poetry Friday is free! Thank you for sharing your wondrous poetic adventures with the world this week. I look forward to sealing this post with their goodness.
[Thanks to you Early Birds who left links when I put up my placeholder post Thursday night... I'll get the Roundup list together ASAP!]
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Laura Purdie Salas starts us off with a journey! Join Laura and illustrator Kayla Harren on a fun-filled, yummy promotional trip to Duluth, Minnesota for Oskar's Voyage. (Looks like Oskar had a blast!) Then enjoy one of Laura's original poetryaction poems, "We Sleep," in response to the book, Sweet Dreamers.
Love is in the air over at Karen Edmisten's place - she offers a gorgeous 10-line poem with all kinds of surprises, "You and I," by Jonathan Potter.
At The Opposite of Indifference, Tabatha shares an ethereal textile-themed cento stitched together by Elinor Ann Walker, "Dew Dresses." (PS - Only a "half-birthday" for me... but the baby grand just turned two, the pup just turned one, and Jeff's birthday is in a couple of weeks! ;0) )
Denise at Dare to Care checks in from her travels with a thoughtful and ultimately encouraging poem, "I Don't Know."
Over at Teaching Authors, April is celebrating that amazing group's 15th blogiversary! (Cue the confetti!) Go, Teaching Authors. You're still "blooming in the blogisphere/post by post, year by year."
Lots of talk about different kinds of intelligence these days - human vs. artificial. Mary Lee offers her mindful, poetic take on the topic at A(nother) Year of Reading.
The world-weary among us (isn't that just about all of us these days?) will find a refreshing pause with a classic William Stafford poem, "You Reading This, Be Ready," over at TeacherDance today. Thank you, Linda, for bringing out this treasure at a perfect time.
The OH-so-creative Michelle Kogan is spinning lots of colorful plates herself, but lucky for us, she took time to share a wonderful plein-air pen-and-ink drawing and a summery haiku that will leave you smiling with appreciation! Good medicine, both. :0)
When Irene Latham lives her own poem and tells you it has "grapes and angels and a turtle in it," you can't resist clicking over. See? Yep. (It has some magic in it, too.)
At There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town, Ruth reminds us that school will start soon enough, but there's still time for delighful summertime imaginings with Frank Asch's poem, "Sunflakes."
Inspired by a line from Naomi Shihab Nye's "Kindness," Margaret at Reflections on the Teche has a breathtaking poem about grief and sorrow, with some light in it. The title, "You Must Know," was borrowed from the line.
So, one thing I didn't know was that "I Don't Know" was a prompt/theme... offered by Ruth (see above!) for Spiritual Thursday. I am definitely out of the loop and sleep-deprived lately. ;0) Patricia J. Franz has some musings (so specific and lovely!), photographs, and her own poetic considerations of "I Don't Know" - prayer as well as poem.
Last week's Poetry Friday host and one of the world's finest humans Jan kindly links her post from last week at bookseed studio - it's still watermelon time! And some of us were too busy eating watermelon elsewhere to be able to savor recent Poetry Friday picnics, so we appreciate it. ;0) Thanks, Jan!!
In Carol's original poem, "What I Didn't Know," at Beyond Literacy Link (another in the Spiritual Thursday theme), she conveys a harrowing medical experience following what she thought would be a simple outpatient surgery. Even in the midst of her very real struggle, she still somehow found a way to let the light in, and to share it with us.