Poetry Friday June 1, 2018

Happy June, poem-lovers 

Welcome dragonflies, hello beach...campfires and late nights....summer thunderstorms and steamy streets.

Buffy Silverman kicks-off Poetry Friday Summer Edition. She's graciously hosting Poetry Friday. Click on her gorgeous dragonfly photo below to visit and congratulate her on a recent poem acceptance for Cricket Magazine.

photo by Buffy Silverman (c) from her facebook page May 22 at 10:19pm 

A couple of weeks ago a writing activity from Evolving English Teacher caught my interest. In essence, students

• Matched a fine art painting to a poem and shared
• Responded to the pairing with an original poem 

I want to do that I thought. Then, soon after I saw this neat resource in my twitter feed:

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/05/16/inside-poetry-series-where-find-poems?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

The resource links in the above article are plentiful and I've happily gone off in search of poets and poems in them.  

One link led me to John Masefield (1878-1967) poet of Sea Fever. He had a birthday on June 1st and an interesting life described by John Flood at the link above. I begin with his poem,

Sea Fever

BY JOHN MASEFIELD

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again,

(read the rest here)

I searched Library of Congress for a photograph of where I first

remember falling in love with the sea, Watch Hill, Rhode Island.

Watch Hill light house, Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

All there was to do next was write a poem in response. Rhode
Island is one of the oldest resort destinations in America. When my
family visited in the 1970s, not only did we play on the
beach and in the chilly Atlantic, we appreciated history there....lots
of folks came before us that felt the joy we did at the carousel and
salt water taffy shops. Our memories linked arms with theirs.

I just so happen to have an old poem ripe for revision and fit
Glenda's challenge. 

Seaside

Why don’t we

go down to the sea?

Steal kisses from the sun.

Run with gulls.

Play in cold tumble surf--

sand pulling between our toes.

We'll catch and release

songs we know by heart into

swelling tides

           and suck on salt water taffy

pulled in shops 
cured by hurricanes

and boiling squalls.

We'll sail along the coast
tacking against the breeze 
of our shiny compass points

jib full to bursting.

(c) Linda Mitchell

My grandparents, my sister and me down at the sea