Poetry Friday: Josephine Jacobsen, A Poet's Poet.

[Quick note: Don't miss Sylvia Vardell's wonderful article w/ teacher resources about poetry and social justice.]

For my Poetry Friday contribution, I hope you'll head over to Numero Cinq, which has just published my essay about the marvelous and woefully undersung poet, Josephine Jacobsen. In the essay I take a close look at three of her poems, and I consider the fate -in general - of "a poet's poet," which Jacobsen was.  To entice you over to Numero Cinq, I offer here the first two stanzas from her beautiful poem, "Of Pairs" :

The mockingbirds, that pair, arrive
one, and the other; glossily perch
respond, respond, branch to branch.
One stops and flies. The other flies.
Arrives, dips, in a blur of wings,
lights, is joined. Sings. Sings.

Actually, there are birds galore:
bowlegged blackbirds, brassy as crows;
elegant ibises with inelegant cows;
hummingbirds' stutter on air;
tilted over the sea, a man-of-war
in a long arc without a feather's stir.

[read the rest over at Numero Cinq.]
For the Poetry Friday round-up, head over to lovely Renee La Tulippe's NO WATER RIVER.

Poetry Friday: Brrrrrr

Firemen work in arctic temperatures to put out a recent fire in Chicago....

I know, I know, enough about the weather, the polar vortex, the wind chill, the snow, right? But for Poetry Friday this week, I can't resist sharing a weather poem. Here's one written by Anonymous, who wrote so many wonderful poems:

WEATHER

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be not,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.

                               - Anonymous

I'm sending a hug and hello to all my sweet colleagues and friends gathering today at the January 2014 Writing for Children and Young Adults residency at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

VCFA - College Hall in the Snow

Hope you have a ball over the next ten days, and that you hear the usual bunch of fascinating lectures, and that the sun up in a bright blue sky shines down on all that snow, and that you have many exciting conversations about writing. Pause for at least a few cups of good hot cocoa!

And for those of you interested in the poetry of Marie Ponsot, here's a link to my latest essay at Numero Cinq ("Marie Ponsot: Wandering Still")  in which I take a look at her work, her choices and her life. She's a wonderful poet - one of my favorites - and truly deserves a wider audience. You'll find examples of several of her fine poems in my essay.

Marie Ponsot with five of her seven children....

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The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted over at Mainely Write. Head over there to see what other people are sharing.