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Friday, March 29, 2024

Poetry Friday: Animal Pantoums

My flowerpots,
pre-squirrels

March's challenge was to write a pantoum featuring an animal. Mine is a modern pantoum, which repeats lines in the right order but doesn't use rhyme like a traditional pantoum would. Usually, I love playing with rhyme (even making up words) but I kind of liked attempting this without rhyme this month---it forced me to focus on images and verbs instead of word play.

A pantoum is not complicated but it does have strict rules. If you're intimidated, or feeling stuck, you can do as some of us did, and use this lovely exercise. Just answer the questions about something "ordinary" in your life, and a pantoum practically falls into your lap. Or at least a rough draft of one!

Here's something ordinary that I mined for my pantoum:

Squirrels in the Flowerpots

Spring blooms, gone,

scattered soil on the steps,

holes big as my fist

a hail of empty walnut shells

scattered. Soil on the steps

near thin-fingered roots, torn;

a hail of empty walnut shells—

something no longer buried

near thin-fingered roots. Torn,

my hands twist and clutch;

something is no longer buried

in this broken pot that

my hands twist and clutch.

Time and earth were found

in this broken pot—that’s

nothing, really—

time unearthed; found

holes big as my fist;

nothing, really—

spring blooms, gone.

My poetry sister's pantoums can be found here:

Kelly

Poetry Friday is hosted today by our own Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

Friday, February 23, 2024

Poetry Friday: Love Letters to February

The challenge this month was to write a poem in the form of a love letter, taking a cue from Valentine's Day, I suppose. I don't have anything against V-Day, but somehow, February brings out a stubborn streak in me. In 2010, and again in 2020, I wrote a semi-tirade to this month, chastening it for its behavior. And (maybe because it's a leap year again) I'm returning to my old friend this year, too.

Here's a record of our correspondence:

(2010)

Oh, February, oh February

You make my heart sing, you do,

were it not for blinding blizzards…and the swine-iest of flu.

Oh, February, far too short the days

to count the shades of grayest grays

you send me, year after weary year.

If I were you, I'd watch my back, dear;

such nuanced love cannot last

before I exchange you for something less…overcast.

Oh, February, love is patient, love is kind;

love doesn't leave you disinclined

to climb from underneath the warmest covers

to join the bitterest, iciest, and brutalist of lovers

on the barren street, no less! to watch how much snow

you can blow and blow and blow---some beau

you are. But how can I call it quits

when you bite my cheeks and grab my wrists

kissing color into my frozen face---

Oh, February, let's March on apace!

(2020)

Oh, February, oh February

You make my heart sing, you do…

Were it not for days of sixty degrees, and nights of minus two!

Tulips bloom, then crack to ice before they can be kissed;

Lovers sweat, then freeze to death if they dare outdoor trysts.

And what’s with the extra day you want to stuff

Into a month that already has it rough,

What with viruses ravaging the land,

And Astros not apologizing for whacking on a can?

February, I know claimed I was no quitter,

But that was when I thought you merely icy, brutal, bitter—

Now you unleash forest fires, and dump tornados in my lap;

I wouldn’t swipe right on you, not on any dating app!

So cut it out, February, you heartless fool.

Be true. Be you. Go back to being cool.

And here is my letter to February for 2024:

Oh, February, oh February,

It’s been four years since my last note,

and fourteen since I first wrote—

and since your time is almost through

I really shouldn’t be emailing you—

but last night I dreamt a frost with bracing

fingers crept into my bed, lacing

the worn stairs of my cheeks with steely filigree

and veiling my silvering hair with blustery

crackling snow, until I shone slick

as glacier ice; as bright as magic—

cold breaking stone,

once again that girl, half-grown

you teased with bitter wind and bite—

oh, February, waking in slanted winter light,

I know better than to warm my heart

to you, even now years apart;

I’ll delete this letter, even if I do—

occasionally— think very coldly of you.

My poetry sisters love letter poems are here:

Kelly

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tabitha at The Opposite of Indifference.

Friday, January 26, 2024

Poetry Friday: Writing to the Art of Roberto Benavidez

It was an easy choice to kick off 2024 with an ekphrastic challenge. Writing about or in conversation with a piece of art automatically gives a poet several places to begin:

What do you first notice? What lingers with you after you look away? Is there more to the story, things beneath the surface that you're curious about? What questions would you ask the art or the artist if you could?

All these ideas (and more) were on my mind as I engaged with the work of Roberto Benavidez, who describes himself as "sculptor specializing in the piñata form." Benavidez came to my attention through my brother, John, who sent me a link to an episode of Craft in America (streaming on PBS) which featured Benavdez's amazing pinatas. I then quickly lost myself in his creations, which play with themes of "race, sexuality, art, sin, humor, ephemerality and beauty." If you can't find something to write about in that list, look again!

But what most drew my eyes were Benavidez's paper sculptures that were inspired by another piece of art, Hieronymus Bosch's famous The Garden of Earthly Delights (also concerned with above said list...heavy on the SIN part.) It was from that body of work that I found my muse, choosing to engage not so much with sin, but with the art's humor, and the ephemerality of any physical form, be it a lifetime in a rat's twitching body or one quiet moment in a yoga pose.

Please do go look around at Benavidez's work. And if you feel inspired, pick one to write to. Here's mine: (and apologies to this beast if he's not a rat...there's no tail, but he just felt like a rat to me.)

Artwork by Roberto Benavidez
from his collection "Beasts in the Garden
of Earthly Delights."

RAT YOGA

His torso is plump as an avocado,
his bandy forelegs balancing
only ripe mischief and bravado

He’s cleared his mind of the fury
of the glinting trap, the gasping terror
of a tail wrenched off in a blurry-hurry

Weightless, he’s free to grandstand,

to steady his lurching heartbeat
to a joyful march inside the bandstand

of his puffed paper chest—oh so zen,
this posing rat, only his nose
twitch-twitching now and then.