Poem: Seasonal Situation

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Seasonal Situation

How much attention do fleas have?
Because I have that.
Smaller than I can put into words
I’d say microscopic but
That might be too big
It started with,
I don’t know what it started with 
But it’s shrunk down to this
Have I read a book?
I have not, fleas don't read books
Fleas scroll through Instagram reels
And decide they want to roller skate
Because, look at all these beautiful skaters
Until a surfer rides by, all casual and cool
On the lip of a wave curling perfectly
And the flea suddenly needs a surfboard
And for that matter a wave 
Every single summer I am going
To get more done and every single summer
Instead, the flea takes over 
And hangs ten. 

—Susan Thomsen, draft 2023

*****

The Poetry Friday roundup for September 8th is at Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's blog, The Poem Farm.

Photo by ST. Seagull mural by Javier Eastman, Norwalk, CT.


Poem: Pull Up a Chair

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Pull Up a Chair

I just need to sit with a poem
Standing tires us both
Jumping demands such stamina
Whirling distracts us from the task
When we sit, we can talk
If we run, one of us is breathless
And we struggle to put syl
lables in the right pace,
Make that place,
So that’s why sitting
is going to work out fine.

Susan Thomsen, draft 2023

*****

Linda Mitchell generously offered the first line during her recent "clunker" exchange. Thank you, Linda.

The roundup for Poetry Friday on August 11th is at Tabatha Yeatts' blog.

Art: "Table and Two Chairs" (1946), oil painting by Horace Pippin, Metropolitan Museum. Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Via Wikimedia Commons.


Vermont

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Happy Poetry Friday! Today's poem is a fun one by the one and only J. Patrick Lewis. "What to Wear Where" begins,

When I was a boy
In Looziana,
We wore blue jeans
And a red bandanna.

To read the rest of the poem, do visit the Poetry Foundation. After a recent trip to the Green Mountain State, I was tickled to come across "What to Wear Where.” You’ll find the Poetry Friday roundup for July 7th at the blog of  Marcie Flinchum Atkins;  for July 14th at Linda Mitchell's place; and for July 21st at Margaret Simon's Reflections on the Teche. (Yes, I got behind! I was unable to link this on the 7th, so here it is today.)

Photo by ST. Green Mountains, Manchester, Vermont.


Moonlight Jellies

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Copyright © 2023 Kate McFarlane. All rights reserved. Used with permission. See more of Kate McFarlane's fabulous art on Instagram at @katejmcfarlane.

 

When Is the Dance of the Moonlight Jellies?


And may I attend without an invitation?
I’ve always wanted to see them dancing
And yet my schedule has not allowed it
I can bring chips, some Coca-Cola
For breaks in the dancing as I imagine
They will need some kind of refreshment
Should they prefer Dr Pepper, let me know
The Bev Barn lacks nothing at all
Once I saw them drifting, but it was sunny
So I hope that the moonlight will soon send
The message that, yes, we will dance now
And of course you can join in.

—Susan Thomsen

*****

The line "when is the dance of the moonlight jellies?" came from the autofill suggestions of a search engine when I was looking for phrases related to the moon. This one refers to an event in the Stardew Valley video game, and I thought it was irresistible. My poem has nothing to do with the game; it's just a riff on that question.

The moon-themed Poetry Friday roundup for June 30th is at author Irene Latham's blog, Live Your Poem.


Autofill Luna(r)cy


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Photo by ST: Sculpture "As Long as the Sun Lasts" (2021), by Alex Da Corte, at the Metropolitan Museum Roof Garden, NYC, Summer 2021.

On Friday, June 30th, Poetry Friday goes lunar. In association with the publication of a new book, Irene Latham, that day’s host, asks participants to contribute a “favorite moon poem (yours or someone else's), a moon story, a moon memory, a moon dream...or whatever your moon-heart desires!” (Irene’s latest picture book, The Museum on the Moon, will hit the shelves later this summer, on August 8th.) The poet would like to provide lots of moon-related poems in the educator resources she’s working on.

With great enthusiasm I went looking on various search engines for moon paraphernalia and prompts. I like to see what Google, Bing, and Duck Duck Go have in mind, courtesy of autofill, when I type in various phrases. I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s just a short list of what’s out there:

Moon is in Capricorn what does this mean

The moon in my room

Where is the moon tonight

Where is the moon NYC

Who is the moon named after

The Moonbeam company manufactures toasters

Any of these could start a poem (or short story), but one, not mentioned above, stood out. I used it for the first line, and came up with twelve more lines on my own. Although my poem is not for kids or educator resources, I have Irene to thank for the inspiration. On Friday, June 30th, I’ll include it here. I look forward to seeing your lunar poetics, too.

On Friday, June 16th, the Poetry Friday roundup is at poet & artist Michelle Kogan’s place.


Smoke

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Photo of buildings in the South Bronx and Manhattan, taken from the train on Wednesday, June 7, 2023. ST.

"I've Been Burned," by Jeannine Hall Gailey, seemed like the perfect, sad poem to go with the week that the East Coast and now other areas have been having, given the effects from the wildfires in Canada. Yesterday New York was glowing orange when I was there, as was my town in Connecticut when I got home. As I write this, our air quality is rated only unhealthy instead of yesterday's hazardous. The West deals with haze and smoke from forest fires far more often; now I know what it's like. One of my second-grade friends reminded me today, "Be sure and wear a mask outside!" Such caring advice. (And I do.)

You can read "I've Been Burned" at Chestnut Review.

The Poetry Friday roundup for June 9th is at Buffy Silverman's blog.


2023 Poetry

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It's June! And here in Connecticut, it's almost summer. I always look forward to the Sealey Challenge in August, which is an endeavor to read a collection of poetry a day. Plus, after next week, I'll have more time in general for hunting down books and reading. Sometimes it can seem hard to track down lists of what's been published and what's on the horizon. Maybe you're searching for new titles, too. Here are some poetry-book resources to check out:

Spring 2023 poetry books, Publishers Weekly 

Fall 2023 poetry books, Publishers Weekly

Best Poetry 2023, Book Riot (from March)

Best New Poetry Books for Adults, New York Public Library (books from 2022)

Best New Poetry, Winter, 2023, bookshop.org

2023 Forthcoming Poetry Books by Queer People of Color, Shade Literary Arts

HipLatina's list for 2023

BuzzFeed's "13 New and Upcoming Poetry Collections"

Lambda Literary Awards, Finalists in four categories: lesbian poetry, gay poetry, bisexual poetry, transgender poetry (scroll down)

New Black Poetry Books, Book Riot

New Canadian poetry collections, CBC

Poetry Book Society (UK)

Ms. Magazine

NetGalley

Lantern Review Blog, "An Asian Poetry Companion: Future Titles to Dream Toward"

Southern Review of Books, recent and forthcoming poetry collections

Literary Hub: 7 Poetry Books to Read in June

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The Poetry Friday roundup for June 2 is at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

Peony photo by ST


Portraits of Harriet Tubman, in art and words

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Above is "I Go to Prepare a Place for You" (2021), Bisa Butler's quilted portrait of Harriet Tubman, at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, in Washington, D.C. Last weekend I saw it in person, and it's stunning.

From the artist's website: "Using vibrant colors, Butler transforms photographs that capture the souls, personalities, and humanity of Black men, women, and children into vibrant textile quilts that offer an in-depth, alternative portrayal of the Black experience while uplifting and celebrating the American popular art of quilting."

A new exhibit, "Bisa Butler: The World Is Yours," is up at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York through June 30th. I hope to go soon.

I chose Sonia Sanchez's series "Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman" for a fitting accompaniment to this portrait. Here is an excerpt:

 
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Picture her saying:
You have within you the strength,
the patience, and the passion
to reach for the stars,
to change the world    ...    
 
 
*****

The Poetry Friday roundup for May 26th takes place at Patricia Franz's blog, Reverie.

Photo by ST.


Bilingual Cento, Gracias a Gabriela Mistral

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Centón: Mi antorcha vieja

El mundo fue más hermoso
Este verde campo tuyo
Esta verdad con frescura de flor
Siempre dulce el viento
La rosa colorada 
y el pez de luces
color de sol y de azafranes
No es un cuento, es verdad
El mundo fue más hermoso.

*****

Cento: My Old Torch

The world was more beautiful
This green countryside of yours
This truth of a flower in bloom
The wind always sweet
The red rose
And the glittering fish
The color of sunlight and saffron
It’s not a story, it’s the truth
The world was more beautiful.

—Translated from the Spanish by Susan Thomsen

Source: Various poems in Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral: A Bilingual Edition Translated and Edited by Doris Dana, Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. I used my own translation for the English version here, not the one from the book.

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945. She was the first Latin American author to do so. The name Gabriela Mistral was the pseudonym used by Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean diplomat, poet, and educator. I was working on another project and came across the book referenced above again, and decided to use it to create a cento, or in Spanish, un centón. Each verse and the title are from Selected Poems, though I did tweak a couple of the lines for better continuity.

Photo by Susan Thomsen of the NYC public-art installation "Flowers of Turtle Island" (2021) by fiber artist Naomi Lawrence.

The Poetry Friday roundup is at Robyn Hood Black's Life on the Deckle Edge.


April 28th Haiku Report

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Streamside echoes of
waterthrush singing spring notes,
seeking company

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One of our earliest avian migrants in the spring is the Louisiana waterthrush, and like a Carolina wren, it's a tiny bird with a big voice. Seeing one last week inspired this haiku. I have written a haiku almost every day in April, and while I don't have a perfect record, I'm glad that I've continued through the month. Word choice, syllable count, and reining in silliness have all been challenges that I've enjoyed wrestling with.

The Poetry Friday roundup is at the blog There Is No Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town.

Image credit: Louis Agassiz Fuertes (artist), Frank M. Chapman (author)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons


Traveling Poetry

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Love this poem! I saw it in the shuttle that connects Grand Central Terminal and the equally enormous Times Square subway station. "Passage" is a good title to adorn that particular train; for one thing, it connects the east and west sides of Midtown Manhattan. Victoria Chang is the poet; her most recent collection, from which the poem is taken, is The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon, 2022). I haven't read that one yet but was moved by her 2020 book, Obit (also Copper Canyon). To learn more about her, read Chang's profile in the New Yorker, written by Kamran Javadizadeh.

The poster's art is by Firelei Báez; you can see the large original tile mosaic at a station further uptown. Its title is "Ciguapa Antellana, me llamo sueño de la madrugada (who more sci-fi than us)," 2018.

Sponsors of Poetry in Motion, the project behind "Passage" on the Times Square shuttle, include the Poetry Society of America and the MTA Arts & Design department.

The Poetry Friday round up is over at Karen Edmisten's place on April 21st.


Erasure Poem: We Will Flee

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We Will Flee

The riotous crew shivered,
took an ax and a light.
One called out, “Run away,
Step over the sleepers
Without mishap.”
The peas and lentils
Shot up in the moonlight.

—Susan Thomsen

*****

This poem comes from a challenge by Jone Rush MacCulloch to use a classic text and create a new poem from it. I opened an old copy of Grimms' Fairy Tales to a random page, and it turned out to be the disturbing "Robber Bridegroom." I xed out the more grisly references, and like how the weird ending popped up.

You'll find the Poetry Friday roundup and Classic Found Poem Palooza at Jone's blog on April 14th.

*****

Source text: Grimms' Fairy Tales, by the Brothers Grimm. Translated from the German by Mrs. E.V. Lucas, Lucy Crane, and Marian Edwards. Illustrated by Fritz Kredel. Grosset & Dunlap, 1945.


Pooch Haiku

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Remarkable breed

the Short-haired Barka, he is
no Miss'ippi stray

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My husband and I talk to and about our dog a lot, so it's only appropriate that the pooch is my muse this week. During National Poetry Month, I'm going for a haiku a day, but I'm sure not publishing them all. I've kept up with quantity so far, but quality remains an issue.

The Poetry Friday roundup is at Margaret Simon's Reflections on the Teche on April 7th.


Lists

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The following is an excerpt from "Every Poem Is a List Poem," by James Davis, which I really liked in a recent issue of the Nashville Review.

[...]Every poem
is about life, especially the ones about death, and life
is a list of lists: A and D, bucket and shit,
top tens and next-ins, and the list
goes on [...]

 

To read the rest, click here.

*****

As a big fan of lists, list poems, lists of lists, listings, list-making utensils, etc., I chose this poem to highlight today. Mary Lee Hahn hosts the Poetry Friday roundup at the very fab A(nother) Year of Reading on March 31st. We're on the verge of National Poetry Month, and while I feel great enthusiasm about it this year, I have nothing planned so far. I better start making a list.


Street Guide

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A Guide to Composing Street Poems

Street poems are what I call the found-language poems I've put together from lines I've overheard. They come from not only the street but also restaurants, museums, theaters, subways, etc. Examples are "Fix This One Thing,""A Day Like Any Other," and "Now or Later" (PDF; in the journal Streetcake). I overheard my lines in New York, but anywhere is good.

In cities we are used to blocking out what is not necessary for us to know getting from Point A to Point B, but unblocking is the first step to listening for lines.

Material must come from people you don’t know. You may use questions strangers ask you directly and things they say to you. Those are fine.

You can’t make up any sentences, but you can break them up and add conjunctions if you like. It’s permissible to remove uhs, likes, ums, sos, etc. 

Walk slowly and stop often. Take the train and the bus. Eat by yourself. Drink coffee alone. Linger by the information booth. The people nearby are your collaborators.

Take care with names. Your goal is a poem, not libel.

Honor your collaborators. Remember what Grace Paley said, something along the lines of, “Every character deserves the open destiny of life.”

Keep an ear out for loud, one-sided cell-phone conversations. 

If you hear something that makes you think, “I want to hear the rest of that story,” that kind of line is gold.

The more languages you know, the better. Include non-English verses in a regular font, not italics.

Announcements, transit and otherwise, are always welcome. You will hear a lot of announcements. 

Cursing is okay but only in moderation. Same with snooty remarks.

Fill up a big cache of lines before you start putting together the poem. That way, they’ll rumble around in your head for a while and make connections on their own.

Finally, make up your own rules, of course!

*****

The Poetry Friday roundup is at author Laura Purdie Salas's blog on March 17th.

Photo by ST. That sculpture is Jim Rennert's "Listen" (2018). Sixth Avenue and 55th Street, NYC.