Poetry Friday 7/28/17 First Line Swap

Hello and welcome to Poetry Friday.  

Click to learn about Poetry Friday

It's so good to see you here. 

I will let you in on a not-so-secret SECRET.  

Come a little closer...

I really love life when Poetry Friday begins Thursday evening....like somebody saying, It's five o'clock somewhere while pouring.

Today, I wanted to use my turn as host to spark new writing.

My critique group has been working from 

         

First Line Auction*
Adapted to Poetry Friday = First Line Swap

I'm providing a bunch of first lines and image prompts from my writer's notebook.....and electronic journal. 

 Page of my current notebook

Take as many as you like from the ones I give in this post or from comments left by others--- in exchange for your prompts. Please give an equal number as you take in a comment below. 

Share what you do with the prompt when you are ready.  Or, if you would like to keep it to yourself, that's OK too. Just have fun and let the writing happen.

READY? Each bullet point is a first line prompt....each image is a prompt on its own. 

• So many steps down
• Someday, I’ll laugh
• I am obsessed with
• Peaches, ripe and sun warmed were the only items on the table.
• Clouds swam past.

• What is a house dress?
• The sign, in the shape of a…
• I met Glory after a long day and one long night.
• Crow could not find her daughter
• This poem wants writing

• Mother Nature lost her slippers
• A librarian can be
• Coffee, I need coffee like…
• I’m not going to lie
• In the sliver between twilight and night

• That’s some kind of poem
• Pieces of sea glass
• One…two….counting steps
• Inconsequential, insignificant, irrelevant…
• Peanut butter and jealous…

• Don’t worry—there are ladders
• Silver backed maple leaves
• Roxy was Mama’s best sister
• Buskers stood at the edges of the crowd
• The face of our house
• Whale Dancer

Any of these prompt stems or images are yours

Remember to leave as many prompts as you take in the comments below.

*Action: First Lines -- by the book directions

If we were face-to-face we would take turns reading a line aloud to the group. 

The group would then discuss the line in terms of what sort of poem they see coming from that opening line and why.

The person offering the line becomes an auctioneer. 

Group members make bids for the line. Each suggestion about the line and/or how it could be used becomes a bid.

The auctioneer agrees to give the line -- no strings attached -- to the person with the best bid. Best, might be a level of enthusiasm, creativity, the number of ideas....whatEVer the auctioneer likes. 

It's time to link up! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Poetry Friday -- Mid-Summer Reboot

It happens every summer

I reach summer's mid-point and realize that I have not accomplished half of what I wanted to before heading back to school. You know the gist...I want to

travel
research
write more
finish a wip
take up yoga
clean out closets
exercise an hour a day
read my entire TBR pile
live off my backyard garden
cook healthy and lose weight
keep my kids from summer slide
encourage my kids to independently fight boredom
fill up with enough peace and harmony to last all through next school year.

Ha!

This leads me headlong into that ohmygosh, ramped-up feeling. Fortunately, there is a cure--for me, anyway. I stop, drop and read. Tuesday, I cleaned up a "corner" of the basement and found some books that a teacher weeded from her classroom (she moved schools. sob). These books are not even on my official TBR pile--yet.

I sat down on the floor and began with Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People by Monica Brown (Holt 2011). This picture book is not new to me....but I've not picked it up in a while. So, it felt new framed in my current ohmygosh state.

Each page is filled with words from Neruada's  poetry and life. The love of words slowed me down. I read it again, slower...and again.

I read and loved-on the words...feeling their heft and weight and edges. And then, I went and picked up another book, You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen, by Carole Boston Wetherford....which led me to make lists of setting specific words (you can see my list here).  Then, I read and delighted in My Seneca Village by Marilyn Nelson (namelos, 2015) and enjoyed finding her playful and joyful use of form. The author notes about writing the poetry in this book inspire me to write.  

I am finding my mid-summer center and my calm. It is good. 

I'd love to know what you do when you need a re-boot!

Thanks to Katie at The Logonauts for hosting this week's Poetry Friday Round-Up. 

Poetry Friday Post B

I had an entirely different post written for Poetry Friday.....then, I was cruising through my twitter feed and came across this tweet.

G, Lakshmi, and Hi. "Poetry Prize Winner Found Beauty in Urdu Poetic Tradition."NBCNews.com. NBCUniversal News Group, 19 July 2017. Web. 19 July 2017. . 

I read the article. Some of my students are Urdu speakers and I am always trying to get to know them and find ways of welcoming them to reading in my middle school library. 

This poet, Adeeba Shahid Talukder, is a recent MFA graduate. She is certainly not writing MG that my students would read at school. But, I was curious...and google helped me find out more. I was able to find a few of her works. 

I hope to keep track of this poet as she makes her way in the world. I feel like I've already made a new friend.

Here's one of her poems...there's more out there.
http://solsticelitmag.org/content/for-qays/

Thanks to Katie at The Logonauts for hosting this week's Poetry Friday Round-Up. 

Poetry Friday 7/14/17 Where am I?

I have been traveling.....about 1,200 miles in four days but so worth it. I have collected bushel baskets full of words and am happily looking over the harvest and enjoying the fruits of my collection labors. 

One of the places I visited has been on my bucket list for a while now....and I finally got to spend some time there. Can you guess where?

trying to decide.....to the cottage or at the cottage....it's one of those grammar snafus for me!

July 12, 2017

Ah, a rendezvous in the country
to the cottage
where it is as common
to greet a king
or a firebrand
as a sugar maple.
Here, life is a
vanity fair gathering.
Walking the trail
dreaming grand dreams
playing truth or dare
with our lady who insists

“You must do the
things you think
you cannot do.”

Where am I? Update: Hmmmmmmmm perhaps I made my riddle a little too tricky. I was visiting the first National Historic Site dedicated to a US First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt's cottage, Val-Kill. If you can get to Hyde Park, NY....is just a train ride from NYC and totally worth it. At Val-Kill, ER entertained pals, royalty, political operatives and diplomats of all sorts with country charm. She made everyone feel welcome and valued as a guest. She inspires me. 

Despite the steamy heat of July....it's #NationalMacAndCheeseDay here in the US. 

Our Poetry Friday host, Tabatha Yeatts, at The Opposite of Indifference is holding a feast. Dig in!

Poetry Friday 7/7/17 Rivers are never ending construction zones

I live on the east coast but my mind and writing attention are still in my recent visit to the Northwest Pacific.

When visiting the Suquamish Museum in Suquamish, WA, I was completely taken with the small but beautiful exhibits...especially the one about the Elwah River. There was a line in the exhibit documentation that I knew immediately was going to be a golden shovel poem as soon as I saw it.....and it became the title too.

Healthy rivers are never ending construction zones

People of clear salt water well know that  healthy

dances with death and life.  Rivers

and sea, sky and forest give and partake. The Changer* knows people  are

meant to learn this with fasting, prayer, meditation and ritual.  Never

was sun to overpower moon. No  ending

forgets its start…a longhouse was red cedar, before  construction.

Each chinook thrived in salt before thrashing current to spawning  zones.

(c) Linda Mitchell

* Changer is the name of God to the First Peoples of Suquamish

"Elwah: A River Reborn." Suquamish Museum - Featured Exhibit. Https://fusioncw.com/, 28 June 2017. Web. 02 July 2017. 

Hop on over to Beyond Literacy for this week's Poetry Friday round-up with delightful Carol Varsalona. 

Tabatha Yeatts at, The Opposite of Indifference, is hosting the Poetry Friday Round-up on 7/14 which also happens to be National Macaroni & Cheese Day.....she will be playing with that as a theme and we are all invited to cook up something to bring to the party.