Random Notes and Errata – {fiction, instead of lies}

{welcome to your poetry friday post!}

March 2, 2023

2:48 pm

30 Comments on {welcome to your poetry friday post!}

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.

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.

{solstice & a breather}

by Tanita S. Davis

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!

{pf: poetry peeps try to byr a thoddaid}

by Tanita S. Davis

June 24, 2022

5:34 am

8 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps try to byr a thoddaid}

Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Random Notes and Errata, Seven Sisters

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge in the month of July! Here’s the scoop: We’re each taking an empowering and inimitable line from Maya Angelou’s “And Still I Rise,” and from them creating acrostic poems. Each of those forty+ lines are available to poets to create something memorable – grounding, empowering and expansive – of their own. Are you in? Good! You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on July 29th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Well, first off, you pronounce it beer ah TOE-thy’d, which won’t really help you write one, but hey, The More You Know.🌠 Second, once you get into the byr a thoddaid form, they’re… complicated? But, not actually HARD. I’ve decided that byr a thoddaid are like …long division. You might run out of attention before you finish all the steps (shout-out to my former students), but it is nothing that you cannot handle (Insert authoritative teacher-voice.).

That being said, let’s acknowledge: this seemed like a LOT of steps.

Mistakes were made. Repeatedly.

My process, when dealing with an unfamiliar form, is usually to read a ton of examples. Are there a ton of examples online that I like? No. Would I need to read them in Welsh or something to find a bunch of great ones? Probably. Did I spend more time faffing about on Google than I ought to have? Definitely. I kept thinking I HAD it, when it turned out I was forgetting the near rhyme and just concentrating on the end rhyme. At one point, I rhymed everything to the first stanza, which …could be done, I guess, but wasn’t one of the options listed. I finally pulled off a tiny one, but like that long division, it took longer than I felt it should have:

The season spills a thousand scents,

As summer twilight, liquescent

Shimmers, igniting dreams undreamt. Such light

Sparkles through stars at night.

So, that felt… like a good start, but then I heard people were making two stanza poems from their stanzas, I felt I ought to step up a bit. Also, it was time to pull out the Canva and make-believe I knew what I was doing…

Full disclosure, these are from my backyard nectarine and plum trees, but one of the loveliest things about this area is the many, many sidewalk fruit trees, and of an evening, you will see families – small children, whole rafts of folks in the national clothing of their home countries – with boxes, bags, little red wagons and step-stools, all out to get stone fruit for jam, for eating out of hand, to dry it, and more. It’s …it makes me feel like SOMETHING is going right in the world. Friends, I will gladly take this one thing.

Want to see the attempts of the peeps who also assayed this adventure? Tricia’s is here. Sara’s is here. Laura got inspired here, and Liz’s link is here. Cousin Mary Lee’s is here. Michelle K.’s poem is here. More Poetry Peeps will be added as the weekend progresses, so check back later for the full round-up.

Meanwhile, Poetry Friday is hosted by Catherine, at Reading to the Core. Thanks, Catherine!

And here it is, the end of a week, when just days – or hours – or months ago, you never thought you’d get here. See how much you’ve done with what you’ve got? Remember — like long division, life is nothing that you cannot handle. Take that deep breath of summer sweet, and hold fast. Happy Weekend.

{gratitude: 11.1}

by Tanita S. Davis

November 1, 2021

5:09 pm

{so, poetry peeps, feeling Zen yet? or just tangled?!}

by Tanita S. Davis

June 23, 2021

3:16 pm

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Happenings, Part and Poetry, Random Notes and Errata, Seven Sisters

Okay, is it me, or has anyone else found the Zentangle form a bit… much?! Have you felt like your designs were too busy, too messy, too wordy, or just somehow subtly wrong? Don’t despair! We can make this work! Remember – it’s supposed to be fun. (I am telling MYSELF this, trust me.)

If you’re in need of a little design help, Strathmore has some great examples of patterns for the Zentangle. Can’t wait to see what you come up with Friday!

{#npm: 10 – feast}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 10, 2021

10:57 am

3 Comments on {#npm: 10 – feast}

Part and Poetry, Random Notes and Errata

I love the sampler sentiment, “Enough is as good as a feast.” When it comes to Spring, all we need then, is thou and I, and a pair of eyes.

{to rise or not to rise… that is the question}

by Tanita S. Davis

September 9, 2020

7:09 am

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Random Notes and Errata

{to beauty}

by Tanita S. Davis

June 22, 2020

4:36 pm

7 Comments on {to beauty}

Musings on Extemporanea, Random Notes and Errata

UGH, is it still 2020? It’s been six years!

This morning, Nikki Grimes wondered on Twitter if anyone else needed a reminder of something beautiful in this world, and oh, holy heaven, yes. As she shared a picture of her roses in bloom, so I will share my blooms – and some thoughts on the reasons I stare at my plants when my mind is full.

Despite the fact that I garden, I’m… actually kind of terrible at it. So far this year, the Evil Gopher has eaten two whole plants (although today I saw it ate A WEED. I’m not mad about it), and three have simply failed to thrive. I have no clue what’s up with the leeks and beets, or why they’re not doing anything. There are so many things i should put them on a list and make note that they don’t do well here, so as not to try them again – but I’m more bewildered and sad that they didn’t like me. ☺ Gardening is sometimes a lot about failure – and learning how to face it, breathe through it, and walk on.

Between a box of seeds I collected from a house we rented fifteen years ago (!) and seeds from my friend Elle’s crop last year, we planted LOADS of morning glories in at least four colors around the entire yard. Morning glories… are stubborn sometimes. They CAN grow in poor soil and with tons of neglect, but even when you give them tons of fresh, rich soil, sometimes they just… won’t. Right now, while I have morning glories which are just now stretching up trees and staked on sticks and trying to run up the fence, I have discovered myriad tiny new seedlings which are just now germinating.

We planted them in FEBRUARY.

How is it that seeds I planted months ago in the winter are JUST NOW deciding to germinate? Did their older siblings somehow signal that it was safe? Hanging with my plants reminds me I cannot make anything happen except in its own time. Gardening means relinquishing the idea that you’re in your control. It’s enough to make you scream. It’s also …life. Things happen when they do – and all of our stressing rarely moves the dial. Sometimes what’s needed is patience. Other times, a clipper or a trowel and a new location, or even just fertilizer. You don’t know ’til you get in there.

Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do. (There’s that failure thing again…)

So, you take a breath, and do what you can. You enjoy the blooms that you have.

Right now, what with the additional plague of “you can’t tell me what to do”-ers infecting the nation, it feels like we might never stop dying of this disease, or gain social closeness again. It feels like authoritarianism continues to invent reasons to eradicate black and brown individuals. It feels like nothing is working, that nothing is worth working for, and that we’ve lived through the winter of our discontent, which is dragging on into an endless summer. It feels – every day, for some – like the end of everything.

It’s a good thing we have this reminder: there are beautiful things in this world. There is rest – even a moment’s surcease from pain. There is hopefulness. Look for it. See.

{npm: solus 11}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 11, 2020

9:21 am

2 Comments on {npm: solus 11}

Part and Poetry, Random Notes and Errata

first salvo

stolen victory –
bright leaves, unfurling, vanished
some battles we lose…

(My beautiful plant is gone – thanks, gopher.

“Now, we don’t want to kill him, just discourage him,” the neighbor called over the fence. “We’re pouring Pine Sol down into his hole.” Er, …okay? This certainly will do something, likely to the groundwater, but to the gopher snacking its way through our plants? Not much. However, we have four crows watching the ground closely, and we’ve heard an owl… we figure something will serve justice eventually. Meanwhile, more seeds…)

{Poetry Friday kicks off December poetry…here!}

by Tanita S. Davis

December 2, 2019

9:32 am

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Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Random Notes and Errata, Seven Sisters

Good thing I just checked my calendar! I knew I was doing something else with poetry rather soon… and indeed, Poetry Friday is hosted here this Friday!

…ADDITIONALLY, I’m doing The New Year’s Poetry Challenge! The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center every year gives out prompts for poetry from mid-month December through the New Year. Since my road buddy, Sarah, is the board secretary for the Center, she and I are opting in this year, and will be posting dueling poems… somewhere, possibly on our Wonderland Dispatches blog, whilst we also look over some of our favorite discoveries in poetry this year. You’re welcome to join the fun.

This year’s NYPC will begin on December 15th. so you’ll get your first prompt the night of the 14th! If you’d like to jump in, email us at Info_at_mostpoetry_dot_org. You will receive a prompt a day for 30 days! You choose to write to all the prompts, some of the prompts, or none of the prompts. It’s all for fun. Toward the end of the 30 days, we’ll put out a call for any poem you’d like to share in an NYPC chapbook.

If you’d like to participate, you need to opt in, even if you’ve done this in the past. That way no one who doesn’t want these prompts gets them. Please feel free to pass this opportunity on to whomever you think might be interested! The more the merrier!

Edited to Add: Early bird Poetry Friday posts from Thursday have been moved to the next blog post!