Poetry Friday HQ &. Clunker Exchange

 Welcome poets!

It's good to see you ready to kick off your weekend with some poetry. 

Mr. Linky is all the way down at the end of this post if you would like to skip to it. I  have a couple of items to share.

1. 

I double booked. Oi! About the end of winter, I was pining for my college friends. I got in touch and begged for a get together...asap..no matter what! As you can imagine, the schedules of busy women including a college professor, school administrator, public school librarian, and full-time mother--teaching a full schedule of private piano lessons are not easy to line up. So, I quickly agreed to the first weekend that we could all meet.

annnnnnd that's this weekend. Gulp!

I thought about switching Poetry Friday hosting duties with someone else. I've done that before. But, honestly, there's never a time that doesn't impact something else. 

You might wonder, "Why are you telling me this?" 

I'm actually out-of-pocket right now. I'll be reading posts as I can get to them. Please understand it might be later than the typically punctual visit of a Poetry Friday host.

2. 

For the past couple of years, I've held a clunker exchange. It's pretty fun and the rules are simple.

I'm offering you as many of my clunker lines listed below as you would like to tinker with in exchange for one (or as many as you wish) of your clunkers. Your clunker might be a pot of gold for me! Please drop your donated clunker in the comment section below. 

I'd love to know what line you are taking from me. But, it's not necessary. I'll see if I can wrangle some verse from clunker lines that you all leave.

Clunkers: Take some ... leave some ... make them work!

• my parents wanted to see Gerald Ford speak from the steps of a plane 
  
  
• August is long of light
  
•  In a large stockpot
• Hog farmers and hop growers
• a toast of fine India rum 
• debutant called forth 
• presented as woman-ready 
• first, of the catechism, I read 
• I shake the flame out of my matchstick 
• Sun sings, give me some sugar 
• This moon has stayed out late again 
• A year, or maybe a century ago 
• Trees turned so orange the road looked blue 
• Look at these names, these fames, these… 
• Hungry wolves howl 
• Susan B. Anthony’s gravestone is covered with “I voted” stickers 
  
  
• The half-life of Halloween 
• The price tag always lies 
• what she heard fell “far short” of 
• sycamore roots gossip 
• found a bit of sunflower 
• Sometimes, rules are laid down 
• Gardeners and poets shuffle 

3. Hamish plods on into summer. He's visited with poet-politician, Sorojini Naidu in India. See at his padlet.

Found on Pinterest

Close to the Sun

 Ahhhhhh Friday!

The first summer weekend has me thinking about the sun.

Thank you, Buffy Silverman, for hosting this week. If you haven't sampled Buffy's poems...hurry up! She's one of my favorites. And, she has lots more poets to visit too.

Generalic, Ivan. “Ivan Generalic.” Studio Generalic, Studio Generalic, 24 Nov. 2019, www.generalic.com/ivan-generalic/nggallery/artworks-by-ivan-generalic/artworks-1950es-by-ivan-generalic

Close to the Sun

Icarus soars
doesn’t he?
no wax melting
burning
into crisp
shining moments--
flight!
defy father’s gravity

escaped boundaries

until…

…Until

boundaries escaped
gravity, fathers defy
flight
moments shining
crisp into
burning

melting wax -- NO!
he doesn’t
soar – Icarus!

(c) Linda Mitchell

Hamish really enjoys a bit of history--especially if it's of my hometown. Have a peek at his padlet. 
https://padlet.com/mitchellhubeimom/Ox 

Annnnnnnnnd...I'm hosting Poetry Friday next week with my sorta-kinda-yeah annual CLUNKER EXCHANGE! I'll give you lines of mine that just clunked in the last year to see if you can breathe life into any in exchange for a line from your poetry. Look for something fun! I LOVE getting the party started early so look for my post Thursday evening. 

How I Learned About the Snail with the Right Heart

Hello Friday, Hello Friends,

It's the last Friday of the school year for me and I am so ready for a summer break. Thank you, Carol, for hosting our round-up this week at Carol's Corner.

Sometimes, I look to my Twitter feed for inspiration.

This article from Maria Papova's blog is a pinned tweet on her feed.

https://twitter.com/brainpicker/status/1345436684763222017?s=20

Because the story is hers and she is donating all proceeds from The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story (Enchanted Lion Press 2021) a good deal of the story makes up the post at Brain Pickings.org. 

I hope you will read it. I have the book on an order-wishlist for my middle school library.

The article's text about how the book came to be is a rich language for finding haiku such as these:

an invitation 
for basic soul maintenance
the language of children

 

sure soft-footed gait
at the heart of the story
elemental truths

an invitation
poetry of existence
as nature's fulcrum

Hamish has wandered off toward the Drava River in Croatia this week. He's learning some of the language. Polje means field in Croatian. Hamish likes a nice, grassy new field. Some new friends have joined him on his padlet. 

These photos become poems

 Happy June to You,

If you haven't checked out Reflections on the Teche lately, have a peek. Margaret has been creating and sharing lots of beautiful writing and opportunities to share among friends. 

She responded to our SWAGGER prompt that hit a glitch--mostly from the tired brains of teachers at the end of the year. I responded to the prompt here: 

I  enjoy the This Photo Wants to be a Poem prompt on Wednesdays. In fact, that's where my poems today sprang from. 

(c) Linda Mitchell. Photo: Morning sunrise on the bayou, Margaret Simon

Photo: Dragonfly by Lory Landry
Instagram @loryla63

This week, Hamish and I collaborated on a mindful poem of affirmations after A Center by Ha Jin. It's on his padlet...which is halfway through a year of a poem-a-week centered on the theme of ox. Way to go, Hamish!

Spiritual Thursday, June

Hello Friends,

Ruth has provided a prompt to check in with our one-little-word for 2021. 

In years past, I've selected an action word I hope to make part of myself such as patience, or play.

This year, I went in a different direction. I chose the word ox. Yes, ox. It is the year of the metal ox on the Chinese calendar and...well, why not? 

“Antique Cattle Prints, Cow and Bull ... - CollectorsPrints.com.” Collectorsprints.com, CollectorsPrints.com, 2021, www.collectorsprints.com/antiqueprints/cattlecowandbull/2623.

Also, I wanted to challenge myself to write and post a poem a week centered on my OLW in the same way that Irene Latham, a writing hero to many of us,  has posted to her Artspeak padlets for several years. 

My first ox poem on the padlet in January was a golden shovel from words on a sign at a petting zoo. The sign at the pen read: "Do not grab Hamish by the horns." 

From then on, the weekly poems have been a collaboration between Hamish and me. Each new poem inspired by ox art or references from historical literature or news articles becomes a new friend.

A few Poetry Fridays ago, when Irene introduced her newest book, D-39 to us, she referenced, A Center, by Ha Jin.  Ha's poem is spiritual in nature.

I played with his lines, turning them into affirmations for Hamish and myself.