Category: Who We Are

{11•10 gratitudinous}

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November 10, 2023

11:33 am

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Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, What We Do, Who We Are

Happy Friday, friends.

November’s cold, dark days have been lengthened and brightened by the uptick in rehearsals I have this time of year. Christmas Eve this year is on a Sunday, so my choral load has doubled, plus I somehow got roped into a performance in January (…how did that…happen?). It’s work – it’s a lot of work – to be a musician with dyscalculia. I memorize my part and everyone else’s, so I don’t have to rely on my ability to count. I count note signatures on my fingers. I forget the names of notes – routinely. It’s work. However, I love that music is work that I can do.

Work that we can do is… more important than we might understand. Especially for those of us with learning differences, who have so often had work set before us which we can make neither heads nor tails of, it makes a difference to be able to put our hands to something and see it through – to complete it, using the best of our abilities. To achieve. To succeed.

So, thanks, for that. For accomplishments that perhaps seem small and routine when viewed from outside, but which feed the soul of the hive.

legs laden

what sweeter music
than hum of satisfaction
as bee flies hiveward

Poetry Friday is brought to you by the letter K, and our hostess, Mrs. E, whose blog has a shockingly clever title. Be well and fly strongly, little bees.

{11•9 gratitudinous}

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November 9, 2023

8:52 am

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Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories, What We Do, Who We Are

I was a late and uncertain bloomer in many things, and when I finally got crushes, they were… intense. Yeeeeears later, I still remember that today is the birthday of a boy whom I thought was wonderful and perfect. Looking back, he was obviously …not. College junior to my high school, patriarchal and condescending, and probably six kinds of narcissistic. But I worked with him, and was sure he was the pinnacle of personhood. I remember spending forty bucks on a classic SWATCH for him – in the nineties, so considering inflation, that’s $90 now, which is a chunk of change for a kid. I was serious in my admiration for this boy — who wasn’t at all serious about me, and who honestly shouldn’t have accepted such an expensive gift, but what do teens, even older teens, really know, until they make mistakes?

So, thanks for that – for the mistakes that are only monetarily costly. For the course corrections that don’t require stitches and scars. For big, dumb mammals, and for youth, which bumbles its way through life like a bluebottle fly, to make its ramshackle way into adulthood.

the fuel of youth

burning
bright, the future
beckons in firelight,
illuminated by burning
bridges

{11•8 gratitudinous}

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November 8, 2023

10:51 am

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Mental Health, Part and Poetry, What We Do, Who We Are

Gratitude isn’t always “nice,” we know. Gratitude is sometimes survival. So, onward.

The ways in which autoimmune disorders attack our bodies are many and various, and while eczema itself isn’t an autoimmune disorder, it, and other skin issues, are certainly related. The ONLY nice thing I have to say about my sudden bouts of full body painful itchy is that it shows itself unequal to one of the most awesome natural remedies in the world…so, thanks for that, I guess. Not a cure, but a surcease; not the end of war, but a temporary ceasefire. In the long war called ‘autoimmune disorders,’ we take what victories we can.

spicata

toothy
ridges, rigid
spikes hold succulence. A crown
to sheath its inner balm in toughness:
aloe

{11•6 gratitudinous}

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November 6, 2023

12:09 pm

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Part and Poetry, Sleeper Stories, What We Do, Who We Are

I got my first job in the sixth grade. My parents both had the bad habit of saying, “Oh, my daughters would love to help you!” to people at church – which is how I ended up with a long-standing housekeeping job for an older couple around the block from us. They were so, so nice, but oh, I hated that job. It felt impossible. They had lived in that place for at least fifty years, never moving the furniture or changing the drapes, never changing anything, using the same blackened skillet, frying things in grease that lived in coffee cans on the back of the stove… and it showed. I washed the walls in the kitchen every week, and still felt that a scrim of grease remained on every light switch and square of that old linoleum floor.

I would walk home, all of thirteen years old, with hands cramping like an old person’s from squeezing the 409 trigger so hard, from having thrown myself at something so vast it could never be encompassed. There’s nothing you can clean or tidy that will change Worn and Old.

I learned the Serenity Prayer at about that age.

You may laugh, but realizing that there WERE some things I couldn’t change was… revolutionary.

So, thanks, for that. For the strange relief when we realize that our best efforts will not fix everything, and that a hard reboot might be our best bet.

CTRL/ALT/DEL

worth remembering:
not every door must open.
each fresh beginning
brings its own predestined end,
…at times, mere moments later

{11•5 gratitudinous}

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November 5, 2023

10:37 am

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Part and Poetry, What We Do, Who We Are

I started voice lessons from the time I was nine years old because I was helping the teachers’ pets stack chairs in the music classroom after school, imitating the opera singer on the recording that was playing – and the music teacher immediately called my parents. I don’t know how, since we didn’t have money for that type of extra, but he talked them into voice lessons. He was insistent that I was going to BE someone. The next Leontyne Price, a rising Jessye Norman. Or… something.

Honestly, that felt… like… a lot. I didn’t feel like I had a say in this fabulous new version of me everyone was anticipating. I didn’t like everyone looking at me. I didn’t want to be on stage. I was intimidated by my own fool self. My voice felt too big. When I let it out, people noticed – and commented. And they weren’t always circumspect or intelligent comments. I wanted to hide it. Sometimes I still want to hide it.

But it’s ME. It’s MINE. Claiming your whole self is not a small thing.

So, thanks, for that. For reminders of what we can control – our skill development, our attitude. For reminders of what is outside of our control: our talent, other people’s attitudes, and the past. We choose what steps we can, today.

showstopper

Breathe in:
lift, elongate,
press, lungs! create some space
while ribs, cradling firm, embrace —
Begin.

{11•4 gratitudinous}

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November 4, 2023

9:15 am

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Part and Poetry, What We Do, Who We Are

I have a list of things which are bugging me and the people around me around which to focus my gratitudes this month. That’s weird, but… it’s a misunderstanding that everything we have gratitude for has to be, positive. Or nice. Or good. The gratitude I’m trying to – or maybe forced to – focus on is perhaps mostly made up of ‘despite,’ instead of ‘for;’ I’m grateful in spite of things instead of because of them, perhaps. And maybe it’s a silly parsing of emotion down to the microlevel, maybe it’s like people not admitting to being angry, but just ‘a bit upset.’ But for me, this way of wrestling circumstance and squeezing out the tiny drop of gratitude that remains is a way to feel in control of… something. Pointless? Perhaps. But, it’s both a process, and a thing that works for me. It reminds me, oddly, of my friends with their few olive trees, making table olives, and oil. It’s a process, extracting a little gold from bitterness.

It’s turning my attention away from the unprocessed mass of angst, and distilling my attention to the one thing I can control – how I respond. This is not a small thing.

So, thanks, for that. For a focus bent like light refracted through water, concentrating everything onto a singular bright spot.

extraction

it’s not hard to make –
fresh olives, crushed into paste
wait and separate
the bitter from the sublime
a better ending, in time.

{11•3 gratitudinous}

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November 3, 2023

1:50 pm

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Part and Poetry, What We Do, Who We Are

No one has anything nice to say about anxiety.

Its like having a weird, low-level fever at all times, making you slightly ill, but not always incapacitated – just sometimes. It invades your dreams and haunts your waking hours. Anxiety is a cage made up of shadow bars. Like depression, it whispers the sickest of lies in our minds, and wants to keep us in the same place — afraid. The National Institute of Health estimated that 31% of Americans struggled with an anxiety disorder – combining the numbers for generalized anxiety disorder, and seasonal affective disorder – and that has spiked since the pandemic. The world sometimes feels like it just piles on, and so many of us are afraid we won’t be able to cope.

And yet I see the people I love grimly pushing through, walking out into the world – never unafraid – but walking anyway. This is not a small thing.

So, thanks for that. For letting us see you… standing.

courage

know that
it’s the action
of touching the door:
before the chain or the lock,
standing.

{11•2 gratitudinous}

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November 2, 2023

1:50 pm

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Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, What We Do, Who We Are

November is, for so many, the month of ramping up for all the holiday food… unless you can’t. Have you ever heard of FODMAPs? I hadn’t until a few years ago. FODMAPS are to do with Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Monosaccharides And Polyols, which are, if you didn’t groove on food sciences in college, short chain carbohydrates found in common foods which resist digestion in the small intestine. Basically, eating things like certain fruits, onions and garlic, certain grains, etc., caused the food to sit… rot… which can cause eight hour stomachaches. All you have to do to avoid that pain is watch what you eat. The lactose intolerant, celiacs, people with IBS from various other sources – all of them know how easy that is. Please note my sarcasm.

FODMAPs are a literal pain, but I’m grateful for the myriad people who have had dietary restrictions before me – the kids I knew who were born with kinease allergies, the students I had on all-protein epilepsy diets, the diabetics counting carbohydrates, and the dialysis patients avoiding salt, phosphorus, and potassium. Dear ones, I watch, and I see you still enjoy you food, still find flavor and joy without gluten, see you enjoy the clatter of pots and more with less — less salt, less sugar, less of what I thought I absolutely had to have to be happy. This is not a small thing.

So, thanks for that.

may it be abundant

not less –
no workaround
nor wan substitution
but packed tight and bubbling over –
your life.

{pf: peeps are talkin’ about bouts-rimés}

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October 27, 2023

1:11 am

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Bradbury Season: October Country, Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, What We Do, Who We Are

Welcome to another Poetry Friday Poetry adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of November! Here’s the scoop: We’re writing in the style of Valerie Worth. Unfamiliar? Renee LaTulippe shared poet Lee Bennett Hopkins’ NCTE reminiscences on her as a poet, and Renee wrote a great post highlighting her. And, now that you’ve read a bit, are you in? Good! The Poetry Sisters are continuing to throw our 2023 theme of TRANSFORMATION into the mix as possible. Whatever your topic or theme, you have a month to craft your creation and share it on November 24th – yep, that IS the day after Thanksgiving, so plan accordingly – in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

We’re grateful to our Poetry Friday host today, Carol Labuzzetta Tricia’s poem right here, and Sara’s poem here. Liz’s poem is here. Mary Lee’s is here, and Laura’s popped in here. Michelle K. borrowed lines from Emily D. here. You might discover more Poetry Peeps checking in throughout the weekend, so stay tuned for the full round-up as I find them. Meanwhile… on with the poetry.

The original tale of the Bouts-rimés form has to do with a nobleman complaining of having some three hundred sonnets stolen from him. As it turns out, it wasn’t sonnets at all, only the rhyming end words. Our rhyming end words were A: profuse/abstruse/chartreuse/truce; B: incline/shine/resign/supine; C: various/gregarious/hilarious/precarious, D: ceasefire/quagmire/higher/dryer, E: transform/barnstorm/uniform/conform, F: humility/futility/nobility/tranquility; G: perturb/superb/reverb/disturb. With a couple of (horrifying) exceptions, the word list isn’t really that bad – and for once I gave myself permission to use forms of the words like inclined instead of incline. However, as there are several types of sonnets, I couldn’t really decide which would work best. I dabbled a bit writing three sonnet forms, but I found I really disliked the Terza Rima with this word list, so that one won’t ever see the light of day. Instead, here’s a Shakespearean sonnet, and a semi-Spenserian. I’ve made it a s/he poem for your amusement, but I defaulted on my illustration to HE, because we live in a sexist world, and I only found two graphics of MEN yacking, and HUNDREDS of women. (This is me, doing my bit for… equality. Or something.)


The Yack Attack
A waterfall of facts profuse
In detailed minutiae s/he shines;
The more perplexing and abstruse
Towards peak verbosity inclined.
Beyond the mere gregarious,
That tongue admits to no ceasefire.
Pleas for peace, often, various,
Unheeded. A social quagmire!
What if relentless talk transformed
To listening humility?
Could need to air one’s wit, barnstorm,
Be seen as gauche futility?

If such a thought serves to perturb
Sit with it. SHH! Let it reverb.

I think the funniest thing about the next poem is that I rarely drink coffee… it’s a “Oh, sure, I’ll have some,” drink that I have maybe once or twice a week, if that. And I know that’s not other people’s experience with coffee (I’m reminded of my friend Jules’ mug that reads “Coffee! Do stupid things faster, with more energy!), so if you’re a coffee person, this one’s for you.


La Belle Dame Sans Coffee
My day begins with apologies profuse,
Decaffeinated brain cells whine, crying ‘truce!’
Whilst wincing through faux pas, who among us shines?
To ‘grit-your-teeth-and-grin’ we become resigned …
Flubs and mistakes pre-coffee are various,
We hold as we can, our grip precarious.
A few sips of brew won’t relieve the quagmire
A FULL cuppa’s all that will create ceasefire.
Then Monday, a day full of headaches, transforms
To calm – since caffeine makes moods more uniform.
Vicious conceits give way to humility,
Soothing savage beasts back to tranquility.

Indeed, it’s a powerful brew that’s superb!
So, until we’ve had some? It’s DO NOT Disturb!

Can we agree together to dispense with quagmire, ceasefire, barnstorm or abstruse in our poetry? Those are such delicious words, of course, and the point of this poetic game is to actually make your fellow poets work pretty hard by CHOOSING the more outré vocabulary, but oy. Barnstorm. It’s just somehow unwieldy!

This time of year is just the best time for table games – sitting inside, cozy, while the weather does what it will, and we keep our brains busy. (I promise you that sitting inside, being cozy still works even if the weather doing what it will requires an air conditioner or fan to combat it.) I hope that you’re able to try this poetry game with a class, or a group of friends – even if the poems you play with aren’t as long as sonnets – admittedly those are a lot for first-timers – I know that almost everyone can write a limerick. Giving people end words for them to compose their own limerick will be… enlightening, at the very least! Never forget that DOGGEREL is also a poetic form with a long (from the 14th century!) and storied history.

(For more on the cartoonist, Mickey Bach, visit the GetWords archive.)

And thus we come to the end of October.

The summer seemed briefly endless, and now we’re free-falling through autumn, plunging towards winter. In the month of November, that traditional time of pause, I’m going to try a daily exercise of poetic gratitude. It has been a grinding summer for me personally and physically, as well as for members of my family, for those of us nationally who love books and have deep concerns for inclusivity and freedom, and then globally – oof. I’ve gotten out of the habit of journaling over the years, so a daily poetry practice is for me one way to slow down and reflect on things which are happening, to recall what I’m meant to be doing right now, which is to be present in the moment, and then to also remember what I have done in previous years during this time. This reflective practice reminds us how troubles, though seemingly endless in the moment, always pass with time. This is an especially important message now, and I hope some of you will find a gratitude practice for yourselves in the days to come. This, too, shall pass. This moment, this place, this You is right here for a reason. You will find it. You will embody it, and you will shine. ☆You are made of stars.★

Happy Weekend.

{pf: poetry peeps pruning poems}

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September 29, 2023

4:51 am

14 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps pruning poems}

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

Welcome to another Poetry Friday Poetry adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of September! Here’s the scoop: We’re writing Bouts-Rimé, which in French means literally ‘rhymed-ends.’ Bouts-Rimé is a poetry challenge wherein you supply a set of fourteen rhyming words, like June, stress, moon, obsess, snake, moot, cake, beaut, Garbo, play, hobo, day, rhinestone, cologne (from Columbia College’s journal, 2006), exchange them with a friend or poetry group, and then write a poem to the rhymes in the same order that they were placed upon the list. Great ingenuity is required to create something coherent – which is, of course, 90% of the fun. Are you in? Good! The Poetry Sisters are continuing to throw our 2023 theme of TRANSFORMATION into the mix. Whatever your topic or theme, you have a month to craft your creation and share it on October 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Poetry Friday today is brought to you by the word ‘WITTY’ and is hosted by the generous, lovely, and delightfully witty Jama-J at Alphabet Soup. Do pop on over for poetry goodness that is not these rather silly poems of mine!

Oh, my goodness, poets, buckle up. Diminishing or Pruning Poems appear to be simple – but of course, you know the Poetry Sisters drill by now. Nothing we ever attempt – despite our best efforts – can ever just be easy. A poem built around a single rhyming word which diminishes by a single letter per line? Now, how hard could that be???

::insert eyeroll::

In order to find words to prune, I started with digraph and trigraph consonant blends, imagining that more consonants on the beginnings or ends of words would help. They did, kind of… however, the words I found somehow just did NOT seem to lend themselves to anything poetic. Scrump? Relapse? Paeon? Feel the poetry there, folks. I asked Himself to dig into his lists of words (yes, he keeps lists of words for fun, yes, you knew we were word-loving nerds in this house) and I pulled quite a few I could work with, but… even so, I started feeling like I was writing middle school assignments with these three line little… ditties. I don’t know, it didn’t feel very poetic, but you know, I started to lean into the brevity and the simplicity of idea, and the playfulness. Not all of them are worth sharing, but I have a few…

I’ll have you know, today’s poetry reveal is a reveal for all of us – due to several unforeseen circumstances only two of the Poetry Sisters met for our usual co-writing hour last Sunday, so we have the added amusement of not knowing anything about what anyone else is posting! But, if you check out Tricia’s poem here, you’ll get your first idea. Liz’s poem is here. Mary Lee’s is here. Michelle K’s poem is here, along with an offering of art, and Denise Krebs is writing poems of presence here. Linda B’s poem is here, and Carol V.’s seasonally perfect poem is here. Kelly, Laura and Sara are sitting out this dance, but more Peeps rising to the poetry challenge will be checking in throughout the weekend, so stay tuned for the full pruning poem round-up.

(CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE) Thematically, these poems are eccentric (#transformationfail), so… enjoy.

I had to include this one, even though TECHNICALLY this one doesn’t “count.” The rules of the Pruning Form describe the word that you choose to prune as “rhyming.” Morally, orally, rally, and ally sadly do NOT. However, I couldn’t pass it up.

Notes On Sixth Period Lunch Period, or “No One Wants to See Chewed Food, Guys”

MORALLY, it’s the right thing to do.
ORALLY, it’s tasteful and smart when you chew, to
RALLY your manners, whatever you do, and
ALLY yourself with a mannerly crew.

After having my LIFE changed by Nikki Giovanni’s poem, “Allowables,” I’ve tried to be a bit more Zen about all the life around me, even those bits of life I really despise. So, um… fleas are the longest/highest jumpers in the world? Yay? Still want them and mosquitoes to stay away from me, though. Shoo them with fire!

Yes, They’re Cool and All, But…

That ABLEST of jumpers, the house
flea is BLEST with thirst
like a vampire’s, LEST any forget!

As you can see, I may have a ways to go with the Zen thing…

Incidentally, I’ve begun to ask myself what it is about this form that brings out… the wildlife for me. I hadn’t honestly even realized I was writing zoology poems until…now? Anyway, this little ditty almost felt like it was cheating because of the palindromic poem “Madam, I’m Adam” which made me think of madam as a word choice – but I’ll take it anyway:

ALWAYS PAY YOUR ENGINEER!

MADAM, we’re strangers: you don’t know me from
ADAM, however, your beaver has built me a
DAM. He’s billed, so I’ll pay him. That’s just who I
AM.

Look, I WARNED you they were a little goofy.

Shout out to the people who want to take libraries back to the days when the only books were to their tastes (perhaps – we’re not sure they ever actually, you know, read whole books), the only patrons were controlled and silent, and the only senators of note were named McCarthy. That era is aspirational for someone out there, but brace yourself, it’s not gonna happen, folks, so beware…!

Reminder: The Library Is For Everyone

SHUSHERS in the library whose
HUSHERS silence crave, you
USHER in the urge to make some noise and misbehave!

And, it’s back to the natural world – and a stop by the garden for a final salute to the beauty and peace I’ve found with my little DIY meadow this summer. Happy Friday to all, as the last vestiges of summer diminish and we welcome in the crisp and chilly – the fading, the falling, the fallow, the mist and the moss that means autumn’s arriving, amplifying and approaching its peak.

Summerfree

ASWARM in the garden aloud with their wings, a
SWARM of striped, bumbling, honeybees.
WARM thoughts of summer days bring to me:
ARMs and legs and feet bare. Free..

I’d LOVE to see you try your hand at some Pruning poems with some of the words I’ve chosen, or others. Uneaten. Abraid/Abrade (the first archaic spelling is still a word, thus legal for Scrabble, FYI). Slabs. Prelate. There’s got to be a poem somewhere in these most mundane of words!

Here’s to making a little time for wordplay – and even if your efforts are not the wittiest, the English language is such a rich, deep well from which to draw that it keeps our thirsty brains busy being smarty-panters. And, cheers to those bi or trilingualists who can riff in multiple languages, or with fingerspelling! Here’s to the world of words – and long may it do anything but diminish us.

Happy Weekend!