Sailboat
Feeling the boat
Turn and woo
Small corrections were all it took
To keep the sails tufted
The tassels swinging
Sails lifting
And the wind pulling us further and further
From shore.
Category: Poetry
Categories
A Spell to Fall Asleep
A Spell to Fall Asleep
I step on a dream –
The poof of genies,
Sparkles and powder,
Midnight turns India
Turret colors as dizzying as a carousel.
.
Magic carpet, wind in the face,
Fun like bouncing in blow-up castles,
Riding horseback over Ireland,
Long-flowing chestnut hair falls in billows.
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Mushroom steps sound hollow,
The elves play a tapping tune,
Someone in the shade slides a lullaby guitar
Lightly like a harp winding down.
.
The eyes close and bring one to foreign memories,
Candy cane swirls, the trumpet sounds,
And morning has all-of-a-sudden awoken.
A Second Life – Green Mountain Coffee
Off their main streets
Woven through the state
Vermont basks in astute minds.
.
All that goes, all that moves,
Lily flower thoughts are allowed here.
.
Here, on a painted porch
Heavy brackets lifting an ancient roof
Painted cedar shingles
At the brow of the green mountains
Mansard roofs, cupola peaks are
Standing guard over
Everything that will be accepted.
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Try the Green Mountain Coffee yourself and enjoy the tour through Waterbury’s historic train station!
Woodstock Rests
Woodstock rests
In the hollows of Lincoln.
The inn and brewery serves the thru-hiker double rye
Greeting the kids
Walking from Georgia to Maine
When there are only four hundred miles to go.
.
We recommend Woodstock Inn and Brewery!
Categories
Woodstock, New Hampshire
Woodstock, New Hampshire
Behind our inn there are cascades
For shallow swimming and sliding.
The smooth bottom races
below your swimming feet
green algae slippery teenagers
and adults are racing back
through a pine-needled forest
–a soft carpet landing.
As the rock-slide river
delivers to shallow waters
the stream without you
we race to slide, swim again.
Categories
New Hampshire’s Streams
New Hampshire’s Streams
Sliding in the pools
Feet gripping a slimy bottom
Just to upright yourself
Before the crashing waves
Of a tumbling stream
Slow down into a swirling pool of peace.
Categories
The Lost River
The Lost River
Drip drop druid forest,
Thick white batons lay on the floor,
Knick knock in the rock,
Let’s find a face.
.
We crawled on our bellies,
Knelt before the sea alter,
Shimmied along rock crags,
–Muddy and melting between the glacier ice
That carved smooth pot-holes.
.
Lemon squeezing grandpas,
The echos filled with children’s laughter,
Climbs against boulders at your back,
Angled ladders,
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Small streams and colorful rocks crossed our pathway.
Around beaver brook’s base,
The water’s girth, a loud noise,
An incredible orchestra,
An entire journey upward,
Rock, jaded, studded waterfall,
A mountain high of meandering,
On a large rock face, over which trees had grown
Their roots had branched
And patrons had worn
Places for us to step and fall.
Categories
Wheeling and Ohio
Wheeling and Ohio
In these western foothills
Appalachia trembles,
Tiny bombs detonated,
Shaking the river for oil.
.
Small orange bags filled with
Radio signals, computer equipment
Driven down by communication cords
Hang loose from helicopters wings above to the gas
Miles below our surface-land.
.
Tearing through the mountains,
Toppling the ancient rock,
Shaking the pockets below to the
Pockets walking the street
–Gold coins are spilling.
Into the cracked waters,
Returning,
To pay off the liquid we’re pulling
To provide everyone on earth above
Good living.
.
Why don’t we just crawl down into the caves
To drink the liquid directly?
One month ago there was a great art event in St. Clairsville, Ohio. Musicians, painters, photographers, professional, and amateur poets got together and shared the evening. The turn out was overwhelming. Our community that night was flourishing.
The gallery decided to open the doors a little wider and invited 15 people to participate in a poetry and photography show. It was titled ‘Journeys: an exploration through photography and poetry,’ and was defined by each individual in their own creative way. There was a photo of a bright horizon in Aruba, one taken at a silence retreat in front of a fire, and another of a stairway strewn with over-growing vines. Our work looked lovely, floating in the low-lit room before everyone arrived. Our collaborative was successful in many ways. The participants were filled with anticipation and pride. There is an entire new perspective of what you feel you can do when your work hangs up on a wall.
The positive response came from the excitement in the artists that had never had the chance to ‘show’ in a gallery, and their many friends who came to support them. Many people there that night had never attended a Main Street Gallery function, but were eager to come back again. The discussions lasted until 11 in the evening, but the memories made a lasting impact on me.
Thanks Josie, for the wonderful panoramic and collage photos above!
~
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Our floating work and conversations as the gallery filled with people.
.
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The deep fluid sound of trombone and keyboard held together the mood that night.
A few artists took a moment to explain their ‘Journeys.’ It was an impromptu and informal presentation that the entire gallery paused to be apart of. Marc Harshman shared poetry from his newly published collection ‘All That Feeds Us‘ and unraveled his poem ‘Why Not Wish’ with animation, that was printed for the evening’s event. Local painter, Melanie Steffl-Thompson encouraged everyone with her words of soothing advice. Creative things are happening here, positive things are happening here, here where we live in Ohio. She encouraged the young and old people listening; people listening and playing their own part in the evening where we all came together to share art.
Categories
Poetry for Dummies
I’m currently reading Poetry for Dummies published in 2001 and have given myself Saturday afternoon homework.
In the middle of chapter 9, a chapter describing Open-Form poetry, there is a great open verse tutorial. I’ve found it online as well at the Dummies website too and have copied it below.
Think of open-form poetry as a way of thinking — an especially intense awareness of every single aspect of the poem, from subject and tone to music and rhythm, from the physical shape of the poem to the length (in space and in time) of the lines, from the grammar you use to the parts of speech.
When you write an open-form poem, try to be very conscious. Everything in the poem, every feature, every aspect, must have a reason for being there. Be conscious of the following:
- Economy. Cram as much energy as possible into each word. Cut everything that doesn’t absolutely need to be there.
- Grammar and syntax. Are you always using complete sentences? Well, that’s fine — but you could also do it another way. Decide whether you have a reason to write in complete sentences for this poem. If you can come up with a reason, fine. If not, consider alternatives — bursts of words, single words, word fragments. And who says you have to use “proper” grammar? Or punctuation? Try breaking a few rules, if that improves the poem.
- Parts of speech. Some teachers say you shouldn’t use adjectives or adverbs; they prefer nouns and verbs instead. That’s an excellent starting point: Use only the words you need. If all you’re doing is prettifying something, forget it. Use adjectives only when they’re surprising (“your green voice”), contradictory (“aggressive modesty”), or give information the reader simply can’t get elsewhere (“It was a Welsh ferret” — how else would we know a ferret was Welsh?).
- Rhythms. Look at the rhythms in your lines. Does the rhythm of the line contribute to its meaning? Anything sing-songy? If so, is it good that it’s sing-songy?Often, open-form verse falls into iambs (a group of syllables consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in “alas!”) and dactyls (one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed, as in “penetrate”). Don’t let this happen unless there is a reason for it.
- The physical lengths (the number syllables and the actual length) of the lines you use. Avoid falling into exactly the same lengths. Every length should have a reason behind it.
- The length (in time) it takes to read each line aloud. If each line takes about the same number of seconds, figure out whether there’s a reason for it. If there isn’t, consider other shapes and lengths.
- Line endings. Poets realize that line endings carry a certain emphasis or pressure. Your lines should end where they end for some reason. The way a line ends — where, and after what word or punctuation mark — should be the best way to end. Do you want a pause there? What’s going to happen when your readers go to the next line? Something unexpected? Some surprise?Read a lot of open-form verse, and you’ll notice that poets use a great deal of enjambment, winding the words around the ends of lines in gorgeous and meaningful ways.
I have so many half-formed poems that need to be worked on. I brought one of them to the table with me and tried to think of its’ form and consider it in the light of each of the bullet points above.
My poem went from this:
The Rush of Wings
.
Each day that passed she fell in order with living
The resonance of time, individual
The light of the sun
Counted on
.
The rush of wings
Shook loose the snow
Buried on top of the earth
.
Dreams of her mother
Visited at night
Awaking other thoughts that had been lost
friends,
taking care of yourself,
cleaning the closets,
using glasses from the cupboard,
time alone
.
When quietness had come.
To this:
The Rush of Wings
.
Death is a gaping hole
A limp lived with
In the wake of a loss
Someone is left alone
.
Each day passed
Living fell in order
Time, individual
Half-paralyzed
The movement of the sun
Counted on
My grandmother smiled.
.
The rush of wings
Shook loose the snow
Buried in the earth
.
Dreams of her mother
Visited at night
Awakening lost thoughts
Friends
Taking care of yourself
Cleaning the closets
Using glasses from the cupboard
Time alone
.
When quietness had come.
~
Other quotes I’ve picked up in my reading are below:
More meaning, fewer words. pg 10
Use vowels, consonants, sounds as a rhythm to the music of your poetry. pg 69
An intricate braid of poems. pg 103
Let the natural poem breath make the line break. pg 163
One thing I don’t do very often with my poetry is to speak it aloud. Joining a writers group allows this verbalization, which in turn informs my poetry by the way I hear myself and the way others describe understanding my poems.
Passive Architect 