Clunker Exchange: Poetry Friday Starts Here

Hello Poets,

What is Poetry Friday? Click here to find out more

Welcome to Poetry Friday. I'm thrilled to host this first Friday of summer. I hope some joy for warm days and sunshine, flowers, fireflies, travel, camp fires and kicking-back comes right out of your screen and surrounds you this very moment. 

Recycled book art by Linda

I'll be collecting your link for our poetry exchange, the old fashioned way-- in the comments section. 

Please leave a word or two about what you are sharing and a link to your blog in a comment to this post. I will summarize links as they are added (or, you can scroll through the comments section to find links I haven't caught up to yet) in bunches of ten.

I hope you go from here to blog posts of old friends, find new friends and, I invite all to leave comments on blogs you visit to let poets & writers in our community know they aren't just whistling in the dark. 

Poetry Friday Posts

• Carol at Beyond Literacy is celebrating grand-daughter Sierra's love of reading in a poem that fits TLD's monthly challenge.
• Mary Lee offers a multi-media post I wish I had written about our new Poet Laureate Joy Harjo at A Year of Reading. Don't miss this one!
• Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference shares some really lovely lines of poetry from D.H. Lawrence
• Kimberly Hutmacher Writes shares a review of Memphis, Martin and the Mountaintop by Alice Faye Duncan that has me putting the book on hold at my library right now.
• Cheriee has found a treasure trove of logging poetry and is sharing some on Library Matters--which you know is super for her if you've been following her poems.
• At Writing the World for Kids Laura Purdie Salas shares a riddle-ku as she's flying off to ALA.
• Michelle Kogan introduces a Joy Harjo poem that is stunning and then mirrors the tone with an original. WOW
• Catherine at Reading to the Core shares Joy Harjo's Eagle Poem and it is absolutely amazing. 
• Matt at Radio Rhythm & Rhyme has much to celebrate with books on summer reading lists and poems coming out in two new anthologies. Congrats, Matt!
• Michelle at Today's Little Ditty, shares a gorgeous poem, When You Wish Upon a Star that also fits Karen Boss' monthly challenge at TLD.

summer bike by Linda

• Jone Rush McCulloch turned a request for toast making into a fabulous 'We Come From' poem for a class reunion (totally stealing this idea should the need arise to make a toast). 
• Little Willow shares The Widening Sky by Ed Hirsch.
• Rebecca at Sloth Reads shares a dreamy original poem celebrating midsummer.
• Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe grew a poem from a kindergartener's seed...just the way poems should grow. LOVE it.
• At Bookseedstudio, Jan has some great summer shorts for us!
• Live Your Poem poet Irene pops in to share one of her favorite Joy Harjo poems as well as a rec to read Crazy Brave. I'm on it!
• There is No Such Thing as a God Forsaken Town gives us some thoughts on just how April-ish June has been. Don't miss the Langston Hughes poem link near the end. Thanks, Ruth.
• At A Journey Through the Pages, Kay has taken a clunker and turned it into a shining line of an original poem--that I love! Thanks, Kay. I knew some of these clunkers had some life in them.
• Robin at Life on the Deckle Edge shares a super cute photo of her and her husband on their wedding day with some lines from Browning. sigh.
• Carol's Corner is celebrating our new Poet Laureate with some of her work: 

Almost to the beach by Linda

• At The Poem Farm, Amy  shares an original poem, There Was a Time, that also celebrates Joy Harjo. Make sure you stop by there and listen in.
• Ramona gives us a beautiful quote by Joy Harjo that I quickly copied into my journal for future contemplation when writing. Stop by Pleasures from the Page to see it.
• Sylvia at Poetry for Children celebrates 50 years of the Coretta Scott King Awards of poetry. What a stellar reading list for any of us! 
• Christe of Wyman's Wonders took a clunker and turned it into a delightful original poem involving a cardinal that has been visiting her classroom.   
• Fats shares a fairy tale inspired poem by Nakita Gills that makes me smile.
• Reflections on the Teche by Margaret is full of joy over hatching ducklings. Precious!
• Susan continues the adventures of Wondermonger, Tear Drop and Sleepy Knight. 

Re-cycled book art by Linda

I've combed through my journals and lifted a few dozen to share today. Clunkers are lines, thoughts and bits of poems on my cutting room floor. I can't do anything with them. But, maybe you can in today's... 

CLUNKER EXCHANGE

Directions:

1. Take as many clunkers as you like
2. Leave at least one clunker from your journal or files in exchange as a comment to this post.
3. Use the clunker(s) you took as a prompt 
4. Give permission for your shared clunker to be used as a prompt to make something new--even if the exact words are used.
5. I/we would love to see your shiny new poem when you've finished--but its not necessary. Just knowing that the words are getting new life is reward in itself.

Clunkers I'm giving away for free

*Come here, let me tell you what it’s like

*I am self-taught in opportunity

*my hands are finely trained

*A graduation cap waits in your room

*our fortune teller waits

*A tale as old as time these two

*I had named them before turning

*foil wrapped treat 

*two feet free -- from shoes

*We poems, we’ve been around

*then, stars call

*the comfort of my bed at home envelopes me

*they will laugh with joy

*What if this poem didn’t care?

*then, stars call

*there’s always one… 

*As a ______, your ______ consumption should not be     

*Never did say after

*I retrieve these things from my future

*Think of it this way…

*As she walks the road 

*An out of shape poem went to the gym

*I, June, gave her to rest and picked up the pen.

*between paragraphs of parenting

*I am the sound of

*Here lies Shirley Shopper

*Pine boughs sweep green beyond

*handkerchiefs fall from laps of trees at a banquet

*Nellie was born in 1896

*the defense of personal space even if in a crowd

*a veil that comes with pulling an apron over one’s head.

*be changed

*80% of college freshmen change majors at least once

*Fresh dressed boys walked along the tracks and away from school

*wonders of a beehive

*first ___________ of summer

*flitting, fluttering, flying

*a recycled tin, a can of spray paint and some_____

*these old weeded books

*words spilled across the page, dark ink

*The kind of kid that inspired me to teach

*listened to the locking of belts and unlocking of breaks of the gurney

*the command, "next", was too big, too loud, to alive for the small crowded room

*white hair and glasses did not disguise the fun in his blue eyes

*made you believe you were as good as she saw you

*given as a birthday gift