POETRY FRIDAY: TRUE BELIEVERS AND SMACKDOWNS

Senator Al Franken

Thank goodness for Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect, who gets us all writing at the beginning of the week with her Monday Poetry Stretches. This week, she brought the clerihew back for an encore. In the comments field there, you can see the doozie written by Elaine Magliaro about Senator Max Baucus, (you can also read it at her terrific blog, Political Verses.) Elaine understands the off-kilter rhythm of the clerihew, one of the important elements that makes the form funny.

Last year at just about this time I posted my thinking about what a clerihew needs to do. I'm going to follow Elaine's lead and go political. If you haven't see Al Franken confront Senator Thune, I'm sure it will be all over YouTube by the time you read this. Here are my Poetry Stretch clerihews for 2009:

Fightin' Al Franken
gave some Senators a spankin' -
Tonight watchin' the T and V:
Whoa! SMACKDOWN IN D.C!

and

Senator Joe Lieberman
is a true believer when
he says, "Well, if you're not wealthy,
just try harder to stay healthy."


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The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by Susan over at Susan Writes. Check it out!

POETRY FRIDAY - GALILEO'S FINGERS

In response to this new article , this poem:

MUSEO GALILEO, FIRENZE

The earth revolves around the sun.

Here's proof:

a telescope,

two Galilean fingers in a cup,

one tooth

(and don't forget that vertebra

in Padua.)

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Diane Mayr is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up today
on her lovely blog, RANDOM NOODLING.
Check out what other people have posted.

HUNGER MOUNTAIN'S HOLIDAY FUNDRAISING AUCTION

YOU CAN WIN THIS MAN - KIND OF

Only two more days to bid on items in Vermont College of Fine Arts' Hunger Mountain Holiday Fundraising Auction. And by items, I mean manuscript critiques with authors, agents and editors, as well as signed letterpress broadsides. It's only a click away, so click now. Bidding ends Saturday morning, PST. Included in the list are full-novel (250 pages) critiques with former Front Street editor and publisher and namelos founder Stephen Roxburgh, YA author and Printz medalist An Na (currently going for $149 - gad!!!!), YA & Middle Grade Author Carrie Jones, and the sweet guy pictured above, Tim Wynne-Jones, winner of the Governor General's Award of Canada, the Edgar for Best YA Mystery and the Boston Globe Horn Book Award  - who wouldn't want to get manuscript advice from Tim Wynne-Jones???  Apparently quite a few people feel the same way - his critique is a hot item, and it's going to raise some nice money for Hunger Mountain! You can figure out why if you look carefully at his photo. See the sparkle in those eyes? That's Tim - sparkle, wit, writing acumen, good soul, much-loved Advisor in the Writing for Children MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.   Be brave - bid for Tim! And if you haven't checked Hunger Mountain out yet, definitely go over to their website - the editors are doing wonderful things with it.

Poetry Friday: Heartache and Poppies

Poppies in a Field in France 

Poppy/Opium Crop in Afghanistan

Scottish Soldier in the Trenches WWI

Battle of the Somme, WWI

Soviet Soldier, Afghanistan

American Soldier, Afghanistan

I'm more than a little depressed about Obama's speech on Tuesday. I just wish we could get our troops out of Afghanistan - there's a reason it's called "The Graveyard of Empires." I keep reading what the Soviet Union said at comparable stages of its long, demoralizing conflict in Afghanistan, and it sounds almost word for word like what we're hearing from our generals now, and from the White House. So for Poetry Friday I'm going to link to three videos over at YouTube that I hope people will watch. All are songs, the lyrics of which are poems, so I'm not too far off track, right?  Listen to and watch the Sarah Brightman first. It breaks your heart.

American Soldiers, Afghanistan

Here is Sarah Brightman (singing Pie Jesu from Requiem)

Bruce Springsteen (singing Pete Seeger's Bring 'Em Home)

John McDermott (singing The Green Fields of France)

Here are lyrics to The Green Fields of France: 

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride,

Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,

And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun,

I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.

I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen,

When you joined the great fallen in 1916.

I hope you died well, and I hope you died clean.

Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and unseen?

[Chorus:]

Did they beat the drums slowly,

Did they play the fife lowly?

Did they sound a death march, as they lowered you down?

Did the band play the last post and chorus?

Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?

In some faithful heart, is your memory enshrined?

And though you died back in 1916,

In that faithful heart, are you forever nineteen?

Or are you a stranger without even a name,

Enclosed now forever behind the glass pane,

In an old photograph, torn and battered and stained,

And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?

[Chorus]

The sun how it shines on the green fields of France.

There's a warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance.

And look how the sun shines from under the clouds.

There's no gas, no barbed wire, there're no guns firing now.

But here in this graveyard, it's still No Man's Land,

The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand

To man's blind indifference to his fellow man

To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

[Chorus]

Aye, Willie McBride, I can't help wondering why

Did those who lie here know why did they die?

Did they really believe when they answered the cause,

Did they really believe that this war would end wars?

The sorrow, the sufferin', the glory, the pain

The killing and dying were all done in vain.

For young Willie McBride, it all happened again,

And again, and again, and again, and again.

Did they beat the drums slowly,

Did they play the fife lowly?

Did they sound a death march, as they lowered you down?

Did the band play the last post and chorus?

Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Did they beat the drums slowly,

Did they play the fife lowly?

Did they sound a death march, as they lowered you down?

Did the band play the last post and chorus?

Did the pipes play the flowers of the forest?

Siegfried Sassoon's Gravestone

American Soldier Speaking to Civilians in Afghanistan

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Elaine Magliaro hosts the Poetry Friday round-up today. 
Thanks, Elaine! 

POETRY FRIDAY: THE PRE-THANKSGIVING ROUND-UP IS HERE!

Very excited to be hosting Poetry Friday this week right here at The Drift Record! First, before I forget: HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, in advance! And Canadians, belated Happy Thanksgiving to you. I am either early or late, depending on whether you're facing north or south.

For those of you who are asking, I'm not sure who is hosting next week. I believe (fingers crossed) there's going to be a Poetry Friday blog page (NOT for posting - just for checking the schedule to see who is hosting.) I'll post that URL here once I find out. 

I am now going to paste in the obligatory cute turkey:

My Idea of a Cute Turkey, Apologies to Vegetarians

And here is the obligatory Thanksgiving poem, which everyone in my family recites tongue-in-cheek when we're offering up our Thanksgiving prayer:

THANKSGIVING DINNER

Rub-a-dub-dub,

Thanks for the grub.

YAY, GOD!

It's not as sacrilegious as it sounds - we say it with a great deal of exuberance and praise in our hearts for the bounteous feast in front of us and for all our blessings. And since we'll have twenty-two people around the Thanksgiving table next week, a little levity will go a long way.

 

Since I'm on the West Coast and some of you are in different time zones, I figure it's best for me to get a jump on Poetry Friday and post this before some of you go to bed -  that way, you can leave your late night links, and I'll do my first round-up of them in the morning.  Of course, if you're in London, Moscow, Istanbul, Singapore, Berlin, Beijing, Sydney, Capetown, Kabul, Mumbai or Antarctica, you're already snoozing.  Or...no...you've just gotten up...or you're part-way through a different day altogether. Thinking about friends in Australia already having lived part of a day I haven't woken up to yet makes my head hurt. Someone give me an orrery, show me Earth's position relative to the sun, make those little gears move and those balls spin, tell me about time zones, the Earth spinning in space, and tell me about the tilt and the seasons and what it means to my apple tree....)

Enough of that. Just click on Comments, then LEAVE YOUR NAME AND A LINK, say a little something about your Poetry Friday page, and I will round it all up and guide people to your blogs throughout the day.

OKAY NOW - Let the wild poetry rumpus start! 

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EARLY BIRDS (links left in yesterday's comments)

1. Elaine Magliaro, headed to the NCTE Convention in Philadelphia,  has two Thanksgiving poems (one by Ivy O. Eastwick, the other anonymous) for her "Poetry Wednesday" contribution this week. You'll find them at  The Wild Rose Reader.

2. Diane Mayr (who left a neat little poem in the The Drift Record comments yesterday) calls on John Greenleaf Whittier to celebrate pumpkin pies over at Random Noodling, while at Kurious Kittly's Kurio Kabinet, she looks at New York City's Poets House.

3. Over at The Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia is sharing a poem by one of my favorite poets, Mary Cornish, who also happens to be my sister.  It's a lovely poem titled "Hand Shadows," and Tricia posted it before she knew I'd be hosting - what a small world (as that orrery proves) !! Tricia also has a link to her Poetry Stretch Results this week.

NIGHT OWLS: (links left in the wee hours)

4. Check out the wild rumpus at Playing By the Book (excellent blog name!) where you'll find not only great photos of two bouncy kids but a poem by Michael Rosen and a review of his book Quick, Let's Get Out of Here (illustrated by Quentin Blake, who knows a thing or two about bounce.)  This is Playing by the Book's first post to Poetry Friday - welcome!

5. Semicolon offers us a more serious prayer about Thanksgiving by Matthias Claudius.

6. A lovely poem about "the babble of babies" over at Charles Ghigna's Father Goose. 

7. Check out a book, one old elm, old bones and a question from Dianne White (diannewrites.)

8. As part of the Winter Blog Blast Tour, Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating has an interview with author Lisa Schroeder about (among other things) her verse novels.

9. Mary Lee has a poem about fear over at A Year of Reading. Fair warning: Be prepared for something with a few too many legs.

10. Check out a Thanksgiving poem (author unknown) fast becoming the traditional annual post for Carol at Carol's Corner.

SONGBIRDS (links left this morning):

11. Martha Calderaro got inspired by everyone howling at the moon last week and has created her own poem about a poem, titled "Hunting for the Moon/Dog Poem" - it's dedicated to dog/muse Brady ("full-body wag/ and eyes like chocolate Tootsie Pops")  Read it here.

12. Yummers. Jama Rattigan continues her culinary contributions to Poetry Friday with a look at The Poet's Cookbook by Grace Cavalieri and  Sabine Pascarelli over at alphabet soup. ("...linger in Tuscany...." - that sounds nice!)

13. Jumping the Candlestick's Debbie Diesen is thankful for beautiful parks this Thanksgiving, and she urges us (via an original poem titled "Are You a LitterShrug?") to join in on clean-ups of our local parks.

14. Sara Lewis Holmes dedicates Mary Oliver's beautiful poem "Blackwater Woods" to her niece, Emily, who would have turned 13 yesterday. You'll find the poem at Sara's blog, Read Write Believe.

15. Karen Edmisten remembers a Billy Collins poem  she likes called "Forgetfulness" (which starts, "The name of the author is the first to go....") and provides a link to his reading of it.

16. Check out two poems that mention November (one by e.e. cummings, the other by Joe Pacheco) and a knock-out photo of a tree that seems to be lit from within over at Tanita Davis's blog.

WOOTS and WHISTLES  (links left this afternoon):


17. Tabatha Yeatts got in touch with Romanian poet (now fully New Orleans-ian) poet and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu for permission to post his poem titled "Away," which he'd forgotten he wrote! Follow Tabatha's links to Codrescu's interesting website, too (what other poet includes a CD by the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars with his new book of poems??

18. For a poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery (she of Anne of Green Gables fame), check out Check It Out. And at jone's other blog, Deo Writer, you'll find an original poem about the game of jacks, written as a response to Tricia's Poetry Stretch this week.

19. Two haiku (I like the way those two words sound like bamboo wind chimes knocking against each other, don't you?) by Issa have been posted by G.R. LeBlanc at Reflective Link.

SUN GOES DOWN, BIRDS FLOCK TO TREES...

20.Anne Shirley is sharing two poems this week over at Writers Workshop Wow and Woes: Wallace Stevens' "Anecdote of the Jar" and Kathleen Halme's "A Diversion."

21. Jack Wiler, a New Jersey poet who helped organize the Dodge Poetry Program's work with high school students and teachers, lost his battle with AIDS last month, but you can read one of his poems over at Author Amok.

22. Miss Erin posts a poem that struck a chord. It's by a Bengali poet I'm not familiar with -Vijaya Mukhopadhyay. It's always fun to discover new poets!  Thanks, Erin.

23.  An anonymous poem called "Twas the Night of Thanksgiving" (do I hear Christmas sneaking in??) is posted over at All About the Books by Janet Squire. And that wraps up the Pre-Thanksgiving post (doesw that sound like an oxymoron?)

24. But I've saved that last for a post-Thanksgiving post: Andromeda Jazmon over at a wrung sponge is offering an original poem called - are you ready for this? - "Chatting with Santa."

SANTA!!!

I won't keep moderating the comments now - because it's Saturday - but if you're a bit late with your post, just leave a link in the comments for people to read. Thanks to all who participated - it was my pleasure to host the round-up.