Poetry Friday Is Here Today!

Welcome to The Drift Record - It's Poetry Friday!

Today (a bit early, actually, it's Thursday night) I'm your host for 

the Poetry Friday Round-Up. 

Since I'm not using Mr. Linky, just doing it the old-fashioned way, please leave the name of your blog plus your URL links/descriptions in the Comments section and I'll gather them together here during the day (one early morning gathering, one mid-morning, one afternoon, and - if needed - a final evening gathering)  I'm hoping you'll check other links out over the next few days, and you'll let individuals know if you've enjoyed what they posted. 

I'm posting a strange little poem of mine (do I have any other kind lately?) It's a bit of fizz based on an article I read in The Smithsonian magazine about a "disappearing" river. Wonderful magazine, The Smithsonian, so support it and the important museum it represents, if you can. I've linked the title of the poem to the article this was based on, as a way to acknowledge that inspiration can come from unpredictable sources.  Hope you will read both poem and article.

 "The Mystery of Minnesota's Disappearing River" - The Smithsonian, July, 2015

Her family never realized that half of her was missing. 

Most likely, half of her was enough for them, most likely 

some thick knuckle of something had split her in two, 

that’s all, and before anyone knew it,  half of her

disappeared – it was right where her bed dropped out 

from underneath her. 

                         Half of her fell right into the hole there,

and half of her just kept on flowing, there was a rift 

she couldn’t handle, it was that simple on the surface of it, 

and down she went, at least the half of her drawn that direction, 

toward disappearing.

                         Those who noticed long suspected

that caves were to blame, a shift in the continent,

an underground channel where the Devil kept his kettles 

and cooked his meals, but the mystery remains. 

Few call for help, so no one quite knows how it happens, 

the long drop -- some say they heard a part of her 

shout goodbye but most say the roar was too loud that day.

Besides, half of her is still a river, which some say

is all that matters. 

Devil's Kettle Falls, Minnesota - Here, She Disappears

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P.S. I've put up a new post over at Books Around the Table, all about the power of non-fiction. Check it out here. 

Now, on to Poetry Friday links, filled with Memorial Day reminders and creative poetry challenges:

EARLY BIRDS

1. At Friendly Fairy Tales, Brenda Harsham offers us two tanka about lilies of the valley and the memories they inspire.

2. Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink shares her responses to Laura Shovan's challenge to write a persona poem (the challenge appears on Michelle H. Barnes's Today's Little Ditty blog.) And don't miss Linda's invitation to contribute a poem to her Spring's Seeds Gallery.

3. Linda Baie posts a contribution to Michelle and Linda's persona poem challenge, too, at her blog, TeacherDance.

4. Robyn Hood Black helps us remember that Memorial Day is on Monday with her tender haiku at Life at the Deckle Edge.

5. Over at Sally Murphy's blog, you'll find a lovely David Attenborough video plus an original poem based on the song A Wonderful World. Sally challenges you to write a poem using a song's title, with individual words of the title opening each line of your poem. Go on, give it a try!

6. Fats (via Myra Garces Bacsal at Gathering Books) shares a poem titled "Looking Like Me," from a book of the same name by Walter Dean Myers (illustrated by his son Christopher.)

7. Tabatha Yeatts posts the poem "To a Child," by the 19th-century New York poet Sophie Jewett. You'll find it at her blog, The Opposite of Indifference.

8. I'm so excited to see that Mary Lee Hahn is sharing pre-publication news of the new verse novel by Skila Brown titled To Stay Alive.  I loved Skila's first book, Caminar, and I expect this next one will be equally good. Go to A Year of Reading for Mary Lee's review of it (paired with a review of Nathan Hales' Hazardous Tales:  Donner Dinner Party.)

9. Matt at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme shares his poem, "Spring at Pond Meadow."

10. And Laura Shovan shares odes to shoes written by 3rd graders in her poetry workshop at Northfield Elementary. Go to her website at http://laurashovan.com/2016/05/poetry-friday-shoe-odes/ to read them.

11. Check out Laura Purdie Salas's sad haiku over at Writing the World for Kids - it's about standardized testing in schools today.

12. Irene Latham's new book, Fresh Delicious, has inspired a poem about blueberries by 10-year-old Rebekah. Read it at Live Your Poem today. 

MID-MORNING (on the Pacific Coast!)

13. Penny Parker Klosterman hosts author Brenda Harsham and her daughter, Anna, for a collaborative project (art by Anna and poetry - "Anna's Cats" - by Brenda.)

14. We get a breakfast buffet at Alphabet Soup, the ever-delicious blog of Jama Kim Rattigan.

15. Double the pleasure: Diane Mayr offers up an original poem about Marc Chagall over at Random Noodling,  plus posts a poem ("The Laughter of Women") which celebrates Amelia Bloomer over at Kurious Kitty.

16.  At Today's Little Ditty, Michelle Barnes posts a real treasure trove of persona poems written by Poetry Friday friends over the month of May in response to an earlier challenge sent out by Linda Shovan. Don't miss the giveaway of a signed copy of Linda's book, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary - you still have time to enter by posting a comment on Michelle's round-up.

17. Catherine is sharing a persona poem for Michelle and Laura's Ditty Challenge, "Through an Open Window," inspired by Winslow Homer's "Morning Glories." Read it at her blog, Reading to the Core.

18. You can read Emily Dickinson's poem, "Just lost when I was saved...." at Little Willow's live journal post today. I love Dickinson's line, "Next time, to stay!"

19. Doraine Bennett posts a poem about wandering by the ever graceful and passionate John Masefield over at Dori Reads.

20. Student poems honoring veterans on this Memorial Day weekend, posted by Jone MacCulloch at Check It Out. 

21. Karen Edmisten is sharing "In the Middle," a poem by Barbara Crooker ("Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach....")

22. Steven Withrow offers us an original poem, "Mosquito Season," over at Crackles of Speech. Well done, and welcome back to Poetry Friday, Steven!

23. Adelaide Crapsey's poem, "The Properly Scholarly Attitude," appears on Kelly Fineman's live journal, Writing and Ruminating.

24. At Carol's Corner, Carol has posted three poems by a very talented first grader.

25. Margaret Simon reflects on joy and the gift of touch in an original poem titled "the butterfly" at Reflections on the Teche.

26. At Pleasures from the Page, Ramona takes a look at Bob Raczka's fabulous new book of concrete poems, Wet Cement: A Mix of Concrete Poems.  

I think that's all for this week though I'll check again before bed for any late links.

THANKS everyone for your wonderful posts!  

Poetry Friday: A Nice Surprise

First, a confession: I cringed a little when I saw the subtitle of Leave This Song Behind: Teen Poetry at its Best. My assumption was that the book would be filled with a certain sentimentality, with prose broken into random lines, with poems unmindful of the music of language, and with poems over-saturated with sex, self-doubt, self-infatuation and angst. I assumed, too, that the poetry would feel "forced,"  that is, it would be the kind of poetry wrung out of bored teens by well-meaning English teachers trying to keep a love of poetry alive in 21st-century America.

Second, a correction: All my assumptions proved wrong. This is an exciting book, filled with strong poems. It makes me hopeful about that "keeping poetry alive" dream. I hope high-school teachers reading this post will take a look, and, if they like it, will share it with their colleagues and students. All the poems were published in Teen Ink, a magazine of teen writing which has been published since 1989. The editors of both the anthology and the magazine are Stephanie and John Meyer, who must be doing something right - it isn't easy to keep a poetry journal alive for 27 years.

I found plenty of favorites, and the poem below is one of them - it's the first poem in the book, and it got me turning the pages. Just look at its attention to the sound of the words. It engages the three elements Ezra Pound found most essential: melopoeia (words charged with a certain musicality which further affects their meaning), phanopoeia (the effect of image on the imagination), and logopoeia ("the dance of the intellect.") See what you think:

 Clothesline

She liked to sit in the backyard
And watch the neighbor's laundry
Swing on the clothesline, crisp pale
Blue button-downs of the husband
Wrinkling in the half-wind, Summer
Sighing across the silky surface of
The twisting sundress, first one way,
Then the other, like soft hips
Swinging, one way, then the
Other, and when they were just
Washed and still wet they would
Flap and flick beads into the grass
That would flash fast down like
Little silver raindrops, one way,
Then the other.

                      Ariel Miller

That's a lovely poem, and (minus a few idiosyncratic line breaks) I wouldn't mind having my own name at the bottom of it.

The anthology divides poems into categories that can help teachers explain what makes a good poem tick (strong images, sensory details, clear language, playing with structure, establishing a narrative, metaphorical thinking, wit, and "fresh takes on the familiar.") So it would make a great textbook without feeling dusty or dull. And what better way to motivate teens than giving them a book of poems written by teens?

Let your students know that submissions can be made at the website for Teen Ink (click here for the link.)

The poetry of a clothesline.....

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted today by Violet Nesdoly - head over to her blog to see what other people have posted.