Author: Tanita S. Davis

{welcome to your poetry friday post!}

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March 2, 2023

2:48 pm

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General Coolness, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Random Notes and Errata, What We Do, Who We Are, Writing Daze

You are cordially invited to March…

In this hemisphere, March is the month of seeds, the month of being in the raw cold, pushing seeds into the clammy earth with cold fingers.

I haven’t yet gotten to the second part of that last sentence, the pushing in of the seeds with cold fingers. I’m still in the indoors stage, waiting for the raw cold to abate, trying to possess my soul in patience at each new frost warning. This is why half the dining room table is covered with seedlings, strawberry plants and lavender bushes straining toward the light. This is why both my lasagna pans are filled with mini pots of soil. This is not a month for company at my house; I have little packets of seeds and pots on most flat surfaces, and nowhere to put you that isn’t covered with proto-plants. I think I’m worse than usual this year, because it’s been such a cold, gray time. Not just winter, of course; winter is supposed to be cold and gray. I mean the cold grayness of book bans and disheartening political chicanery, of climate threats, and mass shootings, of war anniversaries. I have never needed the hope and anticipation of a garden more.

For moments like these, there’s Poetry Friday.

Join the Roundup here.



The Poetry Sisters have been riffing off of the word “transformation” as part of their poetic peregrinations this year. One of the synonyms for the word, evolution, has been quietly reverberating through my poetry practice. With my Deeper Dive group, I’ve been “diving” into some of the exercises in The Practice of Poetry, with the goal of keeping better track of how my poems change, and where I begin with them as opposed to where I end up. It’s been kind of intriguing to see some of them come together, and to feel like I am finally beginning to find my feet as a semi-sorta-kinda poet. (Don’t @ me – it’s a process.)

In doing an exercise to imaginatively embody inanimate objects, I tried to apply the idea of change. I tried to imagine what typically comes to mind when I think of this or that object – and then toss it, enabling me to think past my first reflexive thoughts. Most of my beginnings weren’t poems, they were lists – beginning with the word “I am.” Three objects later, I returned to look at my lists and try and figure out what lines, moved and rearranged, had some kind of theme to them. A few more switches and refinements, and I began to hear… something. Is it a poem yet? Maybe? All I know is, it’s a …start.

The key to having gotten this far is having… started. It sounds kind of obvious when stated so baldly, but it took me a while to figure that out. So many people want to “be a writer,” and state this desire with a fervid sort of earnestness… but writers learn that desire alone cannot be the endpoint. It’s desire and. Desire and work. Desire and beginnings, middles and endings. It’s desire and editing and rewriting. How do you get there from here? You…desire, and then you begin. Somehow in prose I knew that, but just hadn’t figured it out for poetry.

So, anyway, here you are – land cleared and furrow turned. Here you are with seeds in your back pocket, looking at this expanse of earth, wishing for a garden.

I’ve got great news for you – you can take the next step to whatever your goals are. Transformation is at your fingertips. Are you game?

A frequent saying of mine is that anything I write, I’m also writing to myself. As I have a meeting with my editor (triumphantly back from striking) in a few hours, I’ll be thinking of the transformations ahead – the beginnings and the work to be done. As I continue to noodle with various poems, as I look out at the gray world, I’ll be thinking of the transformations necessary. The seeds in my pocket. The call to… begin.

Good luck, all. Remember…

Poetry Peeps! A little reminder for our challenge in the month of March: We’re writing an etheree. This ten-line form begins with a single syllable, and each line expands by one syllable until the tenth line has ten. We’re continuing with our 2023 theme of transformation, but how you interpret that topically is up to you. You have a month to craft your creation and share it on March 31st in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

{pf: the poetry peeps picture it}

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February 24, 2023

4:04 am

27 Comments on {pf: the poetry peeps picture it}

Musings on Extemporanea, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, Sleeper Stories, What We Do, Who We Are

Greetings! Welcome to another Poetry Peeps adventure on Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge in the month of March! Here’s the scoop: we’re writing an etheree. This ten-line form begins with a single syllable, and each line expands by one syllable until the tenth line has ten. We’re continuing with our 2023 theme of transformation, but how you interpret that topically is up to you. You have a month to craft your creation and share it on March 31st in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Greetings, friends, on this absolutely frigid (for California) morning!

Ekphrastic poetry appeals to the storyteller in me. The story I found in this week’s image took me back to high school auto shop. One of the few girls around, I so wanted to be one of the boys crew, but alas, my time in the shop was an exercise in frustration, as the brave new world of the 90’s era equality wasn’t quite ready for takeoff. (My Freshers auto shop course was called POWDER PUFF Mechanics, and you can bet your backside I refused to take it on principle.) Even my friends only really only let me do the sticky/annoying jobs – greasing bearings, sanding primer, using a tire iron to wrestle tires from rims, draining oil. I lifted and lowered cars on the hydraulic lift (and raised balancing daredevils on it occasionally) and got to wear a coverall like my grandfather. I learned how fragile a powder coat of paint was, and how quickly it could be streaky or unevenly applied (which was why I was told I could only sand and apply primer because I might get distracted while painting). I learned about the toxic corrosion of rust and about sexism, which turned out to be remarkably similar things.

Tricia shared the images which jarred my memory this month. For the show Transformed: Objects Reimagined by American Artists, artist Denice Bizot, who “reclaims, deconstructs and transforms” art from salvage yards and junk heaps, created this image called Urban Flora. On display at The Montclair Art Museum exhibit in New Jersey, it features a 1970’s truck hood the artist found in a salvage shop and beautifully helped along in its state of decay with a hand-held plasma torch. The shapes of flowers and arabesques give the illusion of light, shadow, and movement in the rusty green metal.

Bizot’s intervention in the salvage yard lives of this scrap metal won’t stop rust from chewing it up. Realistically, cutting holes in the truck hood will do even less to preserve it than the weather-worn paint the rust is blooming through. Nothing will save the metal from the destructive transformation it’s undergoing, but how we perceive it… that’s what can change us.

Poetry Friday is hosted over at Tab’s place, so be sure to pop over, and thank you, Tabatha!

There’s a host of other images coming into focus today with the Poetry Peeps. You should see Sara’s poem is here. Tricia’s poem is here, and Liz’s is here. Cousin Mary Lee’s post is here, and Michelle’s post is here, and Carol V’s is here. Molly’s gorgeous image is here, and Heidi’s garden bed is here. Margaret’s dual challenge poem is here. Bridget with her twenty-three words poem is here. More Peeps will be checking in throughout the weekend, so stay tuned for the full round-up.

While I never got to do all the things I wanted to in auto shop, I chose to embrace what made me happy: telling my grandfather about what I was doing (and not telling my Dad, who joined my classmates thinking I shouldn’t be doing it), cherishing the small skills I learned (I can still sand a spot of primer as smooth as a baby’s cheek, thank-you), and getting to work in the cavernous cool of the shop filled with loud noises and sharp smells and the sun glinting rainbows in the oil-and-water puddles on the floor. I tried to paint that into my poem; the choice to redefine something that can, at best, reshape us, and at worst, warp us and simply take it as a gift of memory and let it shine in that way. Here’s to the transformation of time. Happy weekend.

{pf: poetry peeps cascade into transformation}

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January 27, 2023

3:33 am

27 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps cascade into transformation}

Happenings, Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

Greetings! Welcome to another Poetry Peeps adventure on Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge in the month of February! Here’s the scoop: we’re creating ekphrastic poems! Your choice of form, length, topic, or meter, but each poem should be based on an image you’re willing to share (a Creative Commons image is best if it’s not one you’ve taken yourself or have permission to use). You have a month to craft your creation and share it on February 24th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

January, my friends, has seemed both simultaneously six years and five minutes long. Topping my list of Ugh, No tasks this month was shameless self-promotion for my newly released middle grade novel, and Tech Boy’s office party. The glorious reprieve provided by the pandemic is over, so I had to put on my big girl pants – and my mask, because only the reprieve is over – and get on a boat (in the midst of atmospheric rivers on the eve of a massive flood, whose bright idea was this???) and make small talk over indifferent food with too loud of music. Even beyond the wild wind and the waves, beyond stepping into an ankle deep puddle and running from the dock between showers, it all seemed ghastlier because I hadn’t done it in so long. Social muscles atrophy if ignored, just like every other muscle group.

As the Poetry Sisters sat down to work on our poems this month, we shared stories of what was going on in our lives – and some of us tried writing about it. Whether it was because we were unsure of what to say, or had a lot of ranting to do that didn’t want to fit itself to the Cascade form, few of us were ecstatic about our first drafts. (But you should see what Sara came up with, and here’s Laura’s poem, and Liz’s. Here’s Mary Lee’s, and here’s Tricia’s poem. Jone’s is here, and Heidi’s is here. You’ll find Margaret’s poem here, and Linda B’s poem here, and here’s Michelle’s and this one is Molly’s. Carol V’s poem she dropped off on her way out!. Kelly’s poem is on her desk in New Jersey… and she’s on an even bigger boat than I was on, so check back next month! As the weekend goes on, more Peeps will be joining the fun so check back for the full roundup.)

Additionally, adding an annual theme to our challenges is new for us. Some of us chose to highlight our theme of “transformation” through the poem form itself. The Cascade, I was delighted to learn, was invented by political theorist Udit Bhartia, whose research focuses on “normative democratic theory, comparative constitution-making, and social epistemology.” I noted that whether in the tercet or quatrain form of the Cascade, the poet seems to need to begin with a strong statement that can shift through the rest of the lines. I can see how a political theorist would know how best to use a firm thesis statement!

While I found the tercet to have too few lines, the quatrain was an immediate fit. I had the intention to create something unrhymed – in the name of our annual theme of transformation I intended to at least try to stop rhyming everything – but this off-the-cuff rhymed effort worked out better. Rather than shift lines as my change, I focused on the idea of a resolution, or, as some call it, “setting intentions.”

Introvert Intention

A Show up: half the battle is won.
B Say, “Yes.” People-watch. That’s still fun.
C If “No” tries the world to control –
D Change tunes. A new song feeds the soul.

a So what if “I’m Quiet”‘s your fame?
b A quiet match still kindles flame.
c Though you won’t spark with everyone,
A Show up. Half the battle is won.

d Skill as a good listener amends
e A lack of “crowd-loving” in friends
f Who shine brightest when one-on-one.
B Say, “Yes,” people. Watch – that’s still fun.

g One hour: that’s it. You’ve agreed
h To socialize (TRY). It could lead
i To new friends, new tastes, or new goals,
C If “No” tries the world to control…

j So caution to winds, will you try
k a new way of being, whereby
l you give Chance a new, starring role?
D Change tunes. A new song feeds the soul.

I left the “frame” up so you’ll see how straightforward a Cascade can be. For me, stanzas worked well for me put into sentence form, otherwise I sometimes fell into making short, punchy statements that occasionally sounded unnecessarily aggressive. This was a fun form to play with, and I look forward to digging more into it – maybe even without a rhyme.

(You’ll note that I don’t promise to report on my intentions to socialize more… everything is a work in progress in this transformation business.)

Poetry Friday today is hosted by Jan at Bookseed Studio. If you find yourself faltering already at intentions you’ve set, today is a new day – and it only takes turning a different direction to be at a beginning instead of an ending. Happy Year of the Cat, Rabbit, and Happy Weekend.

{pf: Henri on the internet}

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January 20, 2023

10:15 am

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Author News, Book News, Literary Life Observations, On Writing, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

Happy Poetry Friday! I’m at Laura’s today, being interviewed about my latest middle grade book – wherein I have the students participate in Poetry Friday.

Poetry Friday is kind of a funny thing for me – because I never was quite sure how I got involved. I did a little bit of posting, and enjoyed writing the odd haiku, but when an actual published picture book poet approached me about being part of a poetry group, I was… shocked, to say the least. And it’s happened twice now! Do I yet consider myself a poet… Not…really? Even though I just wrote a novel that has original poetry of mine (in the voice of my middle grade character) all the way through it. Maybe it’s just that I don’t want to narrow anything down. I’m a writer. I’ll always be a writer. Sometimes, I just write poetry.

To that end, here’s a semi dansa:

So, How Are You…? and Other Question Pitfalls

We say “Good” and mean “Well…”
Polite insists on “fine:”
(If heartsick, give no sign
It’s in poor taste to dwell,
We say.) Good and mean? Well…
While no one’s all sunshine
It just seems asinine
To beam while we’re in hell.
We say “Good” and mean, “Well…”
Are we to “fibs” resigned,
So no one says we whine?
On this point I REBEL —
Say good, and mean it. Well?

Hope you’re happy and you know it this weekend. Or else if you’re grumpy, you don’t tell people you’re doing fine. Poetry Friday today is Marcie Atkins’ blog, where she is ironically featuring one of Laura’s books today too. Happy Weekend.

{poetry sisters do some poetry planning}

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January 8, 2023

4:24 pm

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General Coolness, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, What We Do, Who We Are

Greetings, & welcome to the Poetry Peeps adventures in …2023!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to join us for another year of random poetry adventures wherein we challenge, entertain, and confound each other, and sometimes surprise ourselves, too. The Seven Sisters chose a word this year which will reverberate through our poems in various ways. The word is “transformation,” and many are the paths winding their way to it within our minds.

Here’s the scoop for January: This month, we’re writing a CASCADE poem. The Cascade form takes every line from the first stanza of your poem and TRANSFORMS those lines into the final lines of each stanza thereafter. (The link helpfully creates a little form that shows you how easy this might be.) Beyond that, there are no additional rules. Long or short, free verse, sonnet, or sestina, find a way in which you can incorporate some inkling of the idea (or word) transformation as you write. You have a month to craft your creation and box it up on January 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Welcome to the fun. Here’s to the TRANSFORMATIONS of 2023!

{poetry peeps box up 2022}

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December 30, 2022

10:48 am

12 Comments on {poetry peeps box up 2022}

General Coolness, Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, What We Do, Who We Are

Greetings! Welcome to another Poetry Peeps adventure on Poetry Friday!

Normally I’d have next month’s challenge here However, we’re still making the list of poetry forms we’re going to play with in 2023. Stay tuned! And certainly, if you have a suggestion, feel free to drop it in the comments. Happy New Year, Round 1! (Round 2 = Lunar celebration, more on that later.)

Our teaser last month was to let “box” inspire us. Since we just moved house in October, “box” is a lot less inspiring to me than it could be. I wasn’t sure which direction to go… I thought of the ways I can say box… caja, doos, karsten… nope, still not inspired. I thought of the joy of unpacking… the angst of packing, the preference of many two year olds of my acquaintance for the box that holds the gift rather than the gift… amusing, but nothing out of which I could get a poem quickly.
My first go round with the Box form was equally less-than-inspiring to me, but at least I settled on trying the form again. And then I found leftovers from a family game night. My mother sneakily left boxes of treats on the fireplace mantle where I didn’t immediately find them and make sure they went home with her. I immediately knew what to do!

I tried making each poem an individual one this time, even as they all linked to tell a single story. I think that works better for me dealing with the parameters of the Box form. It opened it a bit more to the possibilities…If you’d like to see the other possibilities of being inspired by boxes, do check out Liz’s poem here, Tricia’s wrangle with Lewis Carroll here, Cousin Mary Lee’s poem here, and Laura’s nifty shadow poem here. Molly’s poem is here, Linda M’s Box is here, Carol V’s pre-holiday Box is here, Michelle K’s Box comes stuffed with art too, and Heidi’s Box is here. We welcome Joann and her Box as well. Other peeps are cheering from the sidelines today, and may wander in throughout the weekend, so stay tuned. And thank you to this week’s host, Patricia J. Franz for hosting the roundup.

the debate (or, unboxing match)

i.
A fierce debate
One holiday:
“Ooh! Fudge! Should we
indulge today?”

ii.
Tempting wrangle
A fierce debate:
Want & Greed tie
Should in tangles.

iii.
Only one box…
An urge to sate.
A fierce debate:
(Open? Or wait?)

iv.
Both dark and light,
Bitter and sweet
Real life mandates
This fierce debate.

As I say every year, I loathe the “New You!” insistent January jingles, and the endless ads for gyms and self-improvement with which we’re annually assailed. Don’t forget that you have several new years from which to choose – the Lunar in February, the Zoroastrian or Balinese New Year in March, the Bengali in Mid-April, the Nguni Zulu celebration on the first full moon in July, Rosh Hashana in the autumn and so. many. more. You can start over and value yourself every single month, if you’d like. There’s always time for a new you. And, there’s also always time to eat the box of fudge. Balance the bitter with the sweet. Happy (Neverending Newness) Year.

{solstice & a breather}

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December 21, 2022

2:40 pm

3 Comments on {solstice & a breather}

Part and Poetry, Random Notes and Errata, Seven Sisters

I’m sharing this poem I wrote for a holiday poetry swap last year for my second-cousin Heidi Mordhorst. I think of people who really struggle with the dark and the cold and send hugs and sunlight to them.

Winter Rising
So dark! the sky this morning like a bruise
Ombré’d between the shades of “dull” and “cold.”
Light slim to none, but finches sense its cues
In shades of dun to brightest yellow-gold.
Now wakes the wind. It whisks the barren ground
Verdant beneath, as sprightly seedlings sleep.
Imbuing rebirth’s hope, as worlds rebound –
Creation crowding, curling from the deep.
Then from the East, the barest glimmers thread –
Unconstrained – surging as it spreads
Sunlight, unconquered, hails our rise from bed.
©2021

I’m going to be offline and shutting down for a few days, and will be back when the hols are over. Until then, happy reading! And if you and yours are enjoying Hanukkah, Solstice, Christmas, or Kwaanza, all joy and celebration to you!

{wednesday book giveaway #2}

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December 14, 2022

11:19 am

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Book News, Contest Alert

It’s Time!

While Henri Weldon is indeed a female main character, I can promise the grandsons of my concerned friend that a.) there are boys in this book, and b.) reading about people not boys will not hurt. Reading a good book can introduce you to a whole new world.

Today’s giveaway goes out to all of those who have been changed by reading. What’s something you discovered or experienced through reading when you were young? Anyone who answers here or on any social media gets their name tossed into a hat and a chance to win an ARC.

Good luck!

{wednesday book giveaway #1}

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December 6, 2022

7:09 pm

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Author News, Book News, Contest Alert, General Coolness

It’s Time!

Meet Henri: “…a complex character who is not singularly defined by her personal challenges,” according to Publishers’ Weekly.

Tonight’s giveaway goes out to teachers, especially those who work with poetry and math. If you consider yourself a school teacher in any way, shape, or form (P.E. and music count too) you may reply to this post on my website, on Twitter, or on Instagram to be considered eligible for today’s Advanced Reader’s Copy giveaway. I’ll be pulling from my little hat tomorrow morning, and will contact the winner each week.

Good luck!

ETA: Congratulations MAKEBA, winner of the first copy of the book. Three more giveaways to go!

{waiting wednesdays: book birthday countdown…!}

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December 1, 2022

8:05 am

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Author News, Book News, General Coolness, Happenings, Musings on Extemporanea, What We Do, Who We Are

HAPPY DECEMBER!

It’s hard to believe that in just one month, Henri Weldon will be out in the world! This is a book that I feel so good about… that I sat down and read it cover to cover last weekend in one sitting. (No joke; you can do that with your own books sometimes because it takes a while for them to come to publication, and you can actually kind of forget what they’re about. It’s a little weird to laugh at your own jokes, though… which I did. Anyway.) If you’d like a sneak peak copy of the book, stay tuned Wednesdays this month for a giveaway. I’ll be giving away an ARC each week, and we’ll also be talking about middle grade math, sisters, frenemies and school survival strategies. It’ll be fun!

Genuinely nice things people are saying about Figure It Out, Henri Weldon:

“Skillfully realized, this is an affirming and inspiring tale for readers who are only ever told what they can’t accomplish. Uplifting and amusing, this book will leave readers with valuable lessons.” – Kirkus Reviews

“An involving middle-grade narrative with a very likable protagonist.” – Booklist

“…a complex character who is not singularly defined by her personal challenges. In this hopeful, well-paced volume, Davis (Partly Cloudy) centers accommodation, community, and understanding.” – Publishers’ Weekly

“Davis successfully drives home the importance of finding one’s own path and accepting the journeys of others.” – Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books