My Turn: The 2014 Kidlitoshpere Progressive Poem

Welcome to Day 19 of the Kidlitosphere PROGRESSIVE POEM, organized by the lovely and talented Irene Latham (click here to see how she sets it up each year - thank you, Irene!)  I've been watching the poem grow day by day for the last eighteen days - we've got a rhymed-couplet thing going so far, and there's a menagerie of sorts (elephant, peacock, eagle, hen and jellyfish - fun!) I appreciate the energy infused on Day 9 by Diane Mayr as well as the practical/tactical inner rhyme on Day 10, thank you, Tabatha! Tamera on Day 15 added a charm to the mix, Robyn got the poem moving toward the coast on the 16th. Now it's my turn to either go with the flow or set the poem on its ear. The former choice is a little safe - my natural inclination is to shake things up a bit. But shaking it up is risky. I do it with my own poems - look for unexpected directions, complicate the rhyme or rhythm, reach for the surprise. I don't want to get too abstract or large in scope - my own work usually goes after small details (and maybe way too often, goes for an elbow in the ribs and/or a pun.)  Hmmmm....do I want to change directions or tonal registers when the effort is collaborative? Well...ummmm.....hmmmmm....should I rock the boat or glide? What's it going to be, Julie? It's down to the wire....

Okay now, I've made my decision and put my line in at the bottom, bolded so you can see what I contributed. It's a little dreamy, maybe, but I want to hold on to that mystery Irene injected while still helping the narrative move "to the coast."  Buffy Silverman, it's your turn next. And thanks to all of you for the creative nudge(s) and the willingness to put yourselves out there and have fun together!

Sitting on a rock, airing out my feelings to the universe
Acting like a peacock, only making matters that much worse;
Should I trumpet like an elephant emoting to the moon,
Or just ignore the warnings written in the rune?
Those stars can’t seal my future; it’s not inscribed in stone.
The possibilities are endless! Who could have known?
Gathering courage, spiral like an eagle after prey
Then gird my wings for whirlwind gales in realms far, far away.
But, hold it! Let’s get practical! What’s needed before I go?
Time to be tactical— I’ll ask my friends what I should stow.
And in one breath, a honeyed word whispered low— dreams —
Whose voice? I turned to see. I was shocked. Irene’s
“Each voyage starts with tattered maps; your dreams dance on this page.
Determine these dreams—then breathe them! Engage your inner sage.”
The merry hen said, “Take my sapphire eggs to charm your host.”
I tuck them close – still warm – then take my first step toward the coast
This journey will not make me rich, and yet I long to be
like luminescent jellyfish, awash in mystery.
I turn and whisper, "Won't you come?" to all the beasts and birds,

Below is the chronology of contributors. Take 10 minutes and see how the poem morphed from one day to the next by clicking on the daily link - it's fascinating to have so many poets working to shape a poem, in terms of structure, technique, sound, heart, and head. Enjoy!

1 Charles at Poetry Time
2 Joy at Joy Acey
3 Donna at Mainely Write
4 Anastasia at Poet! Poet!
5 Carrie at Story Patch
6 Sheila at Sheila Renfro
7 Pat at Writer on a Horse
8 Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
9 Diane at Random Noodling
10 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
11 Linda at Write Time
12 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading
13 Janet at Live Your Poem
14 Deborah at Show--Not Tell
15 Tamera at The Writer's Whimsy
16 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
17 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
18 Irene at Live Your Poem
19 Julie at The Drift Record
20 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
21 Renee at No Water River
22 Laura at Author Amok
23 Amy at The Poem Farm
24 Linda at TeacherDance
25 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty
26 Lisa at Lisa Schroeder Books
27 Kate at Live Your Poem
28 Caroline at Caroline Starr Rose
29 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
30 Tara at A Teaching Life

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P.S. Head over to Books Around the Table to see some of my musings this week about reading Marcel Proust for the first time.  And I'm proud to say that Doug Glover, the editor of Numero Cinq ("a warm place on a cruel web") published five of my poems for adults this month - here's the link.

My Turn! The 2013 Progressive Poem

It's April 8th! 

My turn to add a line to Irene Latham's Progressive Poem 2013

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[Click on the poet name below to see how the poem grows day-by-day through April]

So far, seven  Kidlitosphere poets have posted their contributions to the growing poem.You can find my first post about this on Friday, March 29th.

Here is my thought-process as a contributor:

I've watched as the poem opened with a possibility (when you listen to your footsteps) and moved quickly into dreamier metaphorical territory (words become music), then got rhythmic with a clever line by Matt (rapping and tapping feet/fingers.)

In Line 4, what feels almost like a new stanza equates the pen to a dancer, with the fifth line adding types of dances, and the exuberant sixth line picking up on and continuing the rhythm Matt introduced in Line 3. I'm not quite sure where the dancers have gone, though.That word "love" worries me - love is always a loaded cannon, it makes a lot of noise if named, and I get a little weird with big emotions in a poem.

My line is coming soon, and I can feel the urge which comes over me (when things get dreamy) to put the brakes on and bring the poem back to the real world.Wind whispering, maybe, but to what? To water? I will try to resist the urge to darken it up because, after all, it's spring, why not save the dark lines for winter and go for something cheerful? a little voice inside says, "Love is quite nice in the springtime, Julie." But I don't know if I can do dreamy.

My line is coming soon. What will Line 7 do?

Line 7, it turns out, begins a new stanza. It's sweet and floaty, too - dreams and whispers. So now I have to choose -  push the poem back into the real world (can we get those dancers back, can we take the poem outside for some fresh air, forget words on paper and forget about metaphors that are self-referential to what we do when we write?) or should I try stay with the idea of words whispering?  I can feel the normal panic and pressure of trying to find the poem's proper direction, only I can't go back and revise as I do constantly (as I compose) to make everything line up with my own choices! That's what the roller coaster ride is all about - letting go. Right?

I'm still hoping the rhythms of Lines 3 and 6 can be maintained at the proper intervals. But letting go, letting go.  Hmmmm. A shortish line is needed now, no rhyme at this point (though could there be an internal rhyme? I do love rhyme....) What to do?? Well, since I'm not the Lone Poet here and here are a lot of lines to come, lots of poets to add twists and turns, I'm going to relax. Forget wind whispering. Forget  about taking the poem outside. Just bring back the "dancers" - the words -  and leave it as wide open as I can for the imagination of tomorrow's poet.

Okay, here's my contribution.  I'm diving in to the dance:


When you listen to your footsteps
the words become music and            
the rhythm that you're rapping gets your fingers tapping, too.
Your pen starts dancing across the page 
a private pirouette, a solitary samba until
smiling, you're beguiling as your love comes shining through.

Pause a moment in your dreaming, hear the whispers
of the words, one dancer to another, saying

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 Take it away, Carrie, for Line 9! Here is the line-up of contributors and dates:

April

1  Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

2  Joy Acey

3  Matt Forrest Esenwine

4  Jone MacCulloch

5  Doraine Bennett

6  Gayle Krause

7  Janet Fagal

8  Julie Larios

9  Carrie Finison

10  Linda Baie

11  Margaret Simon

12  Linda Kulp

13  Catherine Johnson

14  Heidi Mordhorst

15  Mary Lee Hahn

16  Liz Steinglass

17  Renee LaTulippe

18  Penny Klostermann

19  Irene Latham

20  Buffy Silverman

21  Tabatha Yeatts

22  Laura Shovan

23  Joanna Marple

24  Katya Czaja

25  Diane Mayr

26  Robyn Hood Black

27  Ruth Hersey

28  Laura Purdie Salas

29  Denise Mortensen

30  April Halprin Wayland

2013 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem

I hope you will join me along with 29 other Kidlitosphere friends who are participating this year in Irene Latham's Progressive Poem Project. Each April day, in honor of National Poetry Month, invited poets will add one line a day beginning on April 1st. No one knows where the poem will go, so the twists and turns come as each poet adds his or her take on the direction it's already going. At any point, a stanza may break, or a line may be enjambed, leaving it up to the next poet to decide how to finish the thought. It's a roller coaster ride, or (as Irene's logo for the project shows) a lovely wall being built brick by brick. Something tells me that 30 bricklayers might make for a crazy wall, and there might be extra mortar in places or a lack of mortar in others - but that's all part of the fun. For me, it's hardest to follow a line with abstractions in it - I think poetry does best when it looks at those abstractions indirectly. "Show, don't tell" applies to poetry along with fiction - and staring too directly at an abstraction or a sentiment is the telling side of things. I like poetry that comes at things sideways. As Archibald MacLeish famously said, "For all the history of grief / An empty doorway and a maple leaf." Get too sentimental, and you get abstract - and abstractions can take all the breath away from a poem. That's my approach, anyway. With a poem written by many people, there are many ideas of what is best for a poem, so hang onto your hat, the roller coaster ride is about to begin!

My day to add a line is April 8th and I'm looking forward to it.

You can click on dates below to see how the poem is progressing. I will also add the growing poem to my Poetry Friday posts this month. 

Here we go, with the first line, second line, etc.

When you listen to your footsteps       (Amy, 4/1)
the words become music and              (Joy 4/2)
the rhythm that you're rapping gets your fingers tapping, too.     (Matt, 4/3)
Your pen starts dancing across the page  (Jone, 4/4)
a private pirouette, a solitary samba until   (Dori, 4/5)
smiling, you're beguiling as your love comes shining through. (Gayle, 4/6)

Pause a moment in your dreaming, hear the whispers (Janet, 4/7)

April

1  Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

2  Joy Acey

3  Matt Forrest Esenwine

4  Jone MacCulloch

5  Doraine Bennett

6  Gayle Krause

7  Janet Fagal

8  Julie Larios

9  Carrie Finison

10  Linda Baie

11  Margaret Simon

12  Linda Kulp

13  Catherine Johnson

14  Heidi Mordhorst

15  Mary Lee Hahn

16  Liz Steinglass

17  Renee LaTulippe

18  Penny Klostermann

19  Irene Latham

20  Buffy Silverman

21  Tabatha Yeatts

22  Laura Shovan

23  Joanna Marple

24  Katya Czaja

25  Diane Mayr

26  Robyn Hood Black

27  Ruth Hersey

28  Laura Purdie Salas

29  Denise Mortensen

30  April Halprin Wayland

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading. Head over there to see what other people have posted. And wow, it's April - a lot is happening for National Poetry Month!

Poetry Friday: No Water River, but Plenty of Poetry Splash

Renee LaTulippe * No Water River

Over at her blog No Water River,  Renee LaTulippe has been knocking herself poetry-silly all through April with readings-on-videos and interviews of people who write poetry for children: Laura Purdie Salas, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Kenn Nesbitt, Charles Waters, Irene Latham, Lee Wardlaw, Deborah Diesen, Greg Pincus, and J. Patrick Lewis (whose reading and interview will be posted next Monday.) I'm proud to have been included with this group of poets and to have my reading of an unpublished poem,  "No Strings Attached," be part of Renee's video archive now. The interview questions she sent me were special not the usual, and I had a lot of fun answering them.

You can also find Renee at her own No Water River You Tube channel,  at the All About Learning Press blog (where her alter ego, The Chipmunk of Doom, muses and rants) and at the WordSpark Editing site she maintains as part of her editorial work with writers. Busy lady!

Wish I could fly over to Italy, where Renee lives, and buy her a thank-you cappuccino, wish her a belated "Happy Birthday" (yesterday!) and talk about poetry. Or maybe just talk about rivers with no water and the Mediterranean Sea (with plenty of the same.)

Buon Compleanno, Renee!

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference. Head over there to see what other people have posted.

10th Line for the 2012 KidLit Progressive Poem!

Today, as part of the ongoing celebration of National Poetry Month, I'm contributing the tenth line in the 2012 KidLit Progressive Poem, dreamed up by Irene Latham. My friends and I used to do an "Exquisite Corpse" version of this at our annual retreats. We passed a single sheet of paper around and each person contributed a line, but as we did so we had to fold over all but the preceding line. By doing that, we couldn't really tell where the poem had started nor where anyone meant the poem to go - things got pretty wild with those rules. You ended up with odd poems, not exactly sensible - or, if one of the poems made sense, it thrilled us. Insensibility and unplanned sensibility have their  roller-coaster charms. We even created a fake poet to sign the poems and send them out to reviews to see if we could get them published. Never did.

In this incarnation of the game, we could actually see the cumulative growth when we wrote our own lines. We could see where the poem started, and the course it had taken,  but we didn't know what direction future poets would make it go.

Here's the poem as it stands right now, with my contribution. Tomorrow, it moves on to Kate at her blog, Book Aunt. She'll see what she thinks her job is - maybe to make it clearer or to calm it down, speed it up, throw a curve, make it sadder, make it sillier, make it more cerebral or more emotional  - we won't know until tomorrow. And who knows what will happen by the 30th of April??

If you want to see my thoughts about why I wrote the line I did, just read the P.S.

Thanks for setting it all up, Irene - fun!

If you are reading this
you must be hungry
Kick off your silver slippers
Come sit with us a spell

 

A hanky, here, now dry your tears

And fill your glass with wine

Now, pour. The parchment has secrets

Smells of a Morrocan market spillout.

 

You have come to the right place, just breathe in.

Honey, mint, cinnamon, sorrow. Now, breathe out

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P.S. Here are my thoughts about adding a line: In a poem like this (actually, in all poems, but even more so for this kind) I think there should be a few surprises. Different voices contribute, with different tastes in choice of words, images, and rhythms. Shifts along those lines can be interesting. Predictability and accessibility are not the be-all nor the end-all when the structure is cumulative, with many poets contributing. For me, adding a line meant seeing how the poem was doing in terms of surprises, and throwing in a curve or two. When I saw tears and a hanky and wine, I figured it wasn't a poem for kids. I also got worried because oh-oh, a crying jag was coming on. My inclination at that point would have been to introduce a laugh and not let the poem get over-emotional. But looking at the additions in the last couple of days, I have to say I love where it's gone - the jump to the parchment, and to Morocco - both so mysterious! So I wanted those smells and that mystery in my line, and I wanted not only a metaphorical breath in, but a physical, cleansing breath out.

Can't wait to see where this thing goes.See the schedule, below.

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Here's the Progressive Poem schedule - follow along and watch it grow!

2012 KidLit Progressive Poem:  watch a poem grow day-by-day as it travels across the Kidlitosphere! April 1-30

Dates in April: 

1  Irene at Live Your Poem 

2  Doraine at Dori Reads

3  Jeannine at View from a Window Seat

4  Robyn at Read, Write, Howl

5  Susan at Susan Taylor Brown

6  Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

7  Penny at A Penny and her Jots

8  Jone at Deo Writer

9  Gina at Swagger Writer's

10  Julie at The Drift Record

11  Kate at Book Aunt

12  Anastasia Suen at Booktalking

13  Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

14  Diane at Random Noodling

15  Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town 

16  Natalie at Wading Through Words 

17  Tara at A Teaching Life

18  Amy  at The Poem Farm

19  Lori at Habitual Rhymer

20  Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

21  Myra at Gathering Books

22  Pat at Writer on a Horse

23  Miranda at Miranda Paul Books 

24  Linda at TeacherDance

25  Greg at Gotta Book

26  Renee at No Water River

27  Linda at Write Time

28  Caroline at Caroline by Line

29  Sheri at Sheri Doyle

30  Irene at Live Your Poem