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

 

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.

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  This week I had the wonderful opportunity to present a workshop for the young creators of the 2020 Camp Conroy. Pat Conroy was a devoted and lifelong teacher at heart, as you might know about the acclaimed author, beloved around the world as well as here in his own Lowcountry. For the third year, the Pat Conroy Literacy Center has assembled a team of top-notch creative teachers  who spend a couple of weeks in intensive workshopping and creating with eager participants.  An extra person is brought in here or there, and I got to be one of those folks this year!  Of course, when I signed on months ago, who knew we would all be doing these things v-i-r-t-u-a-l-l-y.....?  

 

But Center Director Jonathan Haupt and his fearless Camp Conroy team - Miho Kinnas, Lisa Anne Cullen, and Robin Prince Monroe - (three amazing published writers, poets, teachers and visual artists - look 'em up!) embraced the challenge and have been offering a lively and nurturing experience via Zoom.  One bonus of this arrangement this year is that a few young creators are chiming in from other parts of the world, contributing their own creations to what the local Campers will produce as group projects and collections. 

 

"This is our chance to share a little bit of Camp Conroy's Great Love with all of those sheltering and educating at home this summer," they say. Plans are for local participants to gather in July for an in-person event celebrating the unveiling of this year's "Camp Conroy Book."

 

I led a Found Poem Mixed Media Collage workshop, much like the one I led for Poetry Camp out in Bellingham, Washington, a few years ago, and have since offered in Beaufort, too.  But how to do this from a distance?  Now, that was a little trickier. 

 

First, I made supply kits for each participant and added them to the big pre-Camp mailing the Center was doing. Check.

 

Then, I recorded a how-to video - my first time trying such a thing. Should be a piece of cake, I thought, having posted all those poem-reading videos on my Robyn Hood Black YouTube Channel in April.  Right?  Well, the recording part took a while (this is usually a 90-minute to two-hour workshop, after all), but thanks to my new little phone tripod, I got it done. 

 

Then I put all the pieces parts together, editing and chopping, editing and chopping.  Then I tried to upload the video. 

 

"Mwaaa - haaaa - haaaaa" laughed all the invisible techno-gods in unison at my hubris. I tried uploading to YouTube, on my heretofore unused artsyletters Channel.  Hours and hours (a couple of different overnights, even....) - No Go.  Stuck at 99 percent and then - failure.  I tried uploading to the Center's Dropbox.  Hours and hours... well, you get the picture.  

 

So here's a tip, stumbled onto after bleary-eyed days of looking for some magical virtual key - worth your reading of this post, if nothing else:  to upload a video longer than 15 minutes to YouTube, you have to have a verified account.  What's a verified account?  You go to settings (I think - it's all a blur) and look around for the "Verify account" option.  Then, you simply type in your cell phone number or email address and wait for one of those handy six-digit codes banks often use to make sure you are you and not a robot.  Type in the six numbers, and  - poof!  You're verified.  And your - cough-cough - 48-minute cinematic feat might just upload in less than two hours, and process fairly quickly after that.  (Insert emoji with hand slapping forehead right about here.)

 

Back to poetry.  So the video was made accessible, and the young campers had a day or two to work on their collages before we all "met" on Wednesday afternoon.  As always when working with kids, I was amazed at their creativity and fresh perspectives.  Some were still working on theirs, but several pieces were to a finished or at least share-able stage.  Such talented writers and artists!! I'm always energized seeing what creative young folks come up with. Oh, and the three teachers played along in a closing found-poem activity, too - I can tell they are all having as much fun as the kids.

 

Above you see the collage I made as a sample.  The text is from a 1960-ish EduCard featuring a science experiment.  I "found" a poem about balance because:  1.) There's a wonderful yoga studio above the Literary Center; 2.) I've been inspired by so many people taking a Stand lately; and, 3.) I probably - nope, definitely - need a little more balance in my life.

Anyway, here is the poem:

 

 

 

Keep in Balance

 

 

 

earth pulls       everthing

 

     to center.  This place

 

    will not fall

 

when your body is 

 

    "base"

 

  You will

 

Stand

 

         bring your center 

and see what happens.

 

 

Poem found by Robyn Hood Black. 

 

 

If you're looking for a creative project to wile away a summer day, or if you need an activity for kids or grandkids or such, feel free to have a look at the video I made! There's a mini studio tour at the beginning.  It's a bit choppy, with my crazed efforts at making it shorter so it would load somewhere, etc., but you'll get the steps.  You can adapt this project to materials you have handy, and improvise away, too!

Here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVo_d5CqgBs

 

Wishing you a balanced weekend during which you find lots of poetry... you can start over at The Miss Rumphius Effect, where the lovely Tricia has our Roundup this week!  (Program Note - I'll be taking a wee little break for the next couple of Fridays, but see you in July!  And, if you don't get my quarterly(-ish) artsyletters newsletter, I'll be sending one out soon; you can sign up here. )  Thanks, and take good care!