Month: February 2025

{pf: poetry peeps find ‘A Word’}

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February 28, 2025

4:35 am

12 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps find ‘A Word’}

Literary Life Observations, Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, Small Fictions, What We Do, Who We Are

Welcome to Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of March! Here’s the scoop: We’re writing back to four Lucille Clifton poems, in her notes to clark kent series: “if i should;” “further note to clark;” “final note to clark;” and “note passed to superman.” We’ll be ‘in conversation’ with Ms. Lucille’s poems – talking to them, talking back to them, or talking about them, whether that’s all of them, or any of them, either in form or in substance. Once you’re sure how that’ll look for you, you’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on March 28th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the fun!

“…And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?” asked Granny Weatherwax.

“Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats.

“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”

“Nope.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that–”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things.”

–from CARPE JUGULUM, by Terry Pratchett.

People, and things. Things, and people…

Sometimes the subjects we find in conversation with each other are mirror images, and sometimes they’re complete contrasts.

From Process…

Some of you know that for reasons of faith my parents didn’t allow me to read fiction in junior high and high school. No fiction, much less fantasy fiction with a witch – Granny Weatherwax – and an Omnian priest (a made-up sect that goes hard with the door-to-door solicitation) and… vampires, as were featured in Terry Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum. And though my parents wanted me to be a celebrant of truth as defined by the term “non-fiction,” there’s …just a whole lot of truth in the previous fictional passage, too, isn’t there? The intersection of People Treated Like Things and Injustice is the corner whereon most of the problems begin. Pick out any deeply unfortunate moment in history – the Doctrine of Discovery, the advent of chattel slavery in the Americas in 1619, the forced migration of The Trail of Tears, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Executive Order 9066 – ? All of those things come down to people treated as things. Own-able. Moveable. Modifiable. Disposable.

Today’s thoughts are in conversation with Granny Weatherwax’s profound statement (as brought to us by a renown British author who started out as a journalist) and with the Dalai Lama’s (a spiritual leader of great renown who started out as a mostly regular Buddhist priest). I could not believe how similar the statements between these very disparate people were when I found them on a Mary Engelbreit print which the artist shared on Instagram on February 21st of this year. (That one needs to be a print, no?) Two roads diverge on this highway, and they are People and Things. Two vastly different entities, two vastly different purposes, but human society confuses them so frequently. One made to be loved, and the other made to be used. How difficult for some to keep that straight.

…to Poetry

Though I missed the poetry meet-up this month (boo!) I felt like I already had a good feel for this kind of poem, which I’m leaning towards playing with some more to kind of unpack the current news of the day as I process it with its abundant catch words. This time, it was an obvious choice to write several poems as well, or at least two, because my brain has kept circling around the linked but contrasting noun categories of People and Things. But, after running across the Dalai Lama’s statement on my socials, two new words elbowed their way to the front – Loved and Used.


someTHING

THING is such a threadbare word
‘TH’ tsks, “Overused.”
So ‘thin’ and worn out, all its heft
and meaning’s been diffused.
‘NG’ lands hard, like it’s been tripped
And bitten red its tongue,
The ‘IN’ within it reads like “out”
So cruelly it is flung.
A THING’s a cipher – useless – null
An object left unnamed…
Just like its fellows – common, dull,
Mere luggage left unclaimed.

reNOUN

PEOPLE is a phalanx word – shoulder-to-shoulder, All.
The “We the People” populace,
The world in all its sprawl.
The first P stands as sentinel
Herding the E and O;
“Each” and “Other” are their names
They like the status quo.
The second P sends scouts ahead.
“Look, L! Say what you see!”
And E reports we’re all the same –
Yet varied as can be.
Made lovable. Made to love well,
We move and breathe and give
A palette of opinions, actions,
days brief and long-lived.
Sizes, shades, relationships,
Preferences — eclectic drips
Limn each canvas with broad strokes
Viva la gente! – all us folks.

This form lends itself to some real creativity for me, in terms of just letting my brain go and feeling my way into a word’s deeper meaning through what it remind me of, its internal sounds, the shapes of its letters, and whatnot. I like that “______is a Word” invites both wordplay and a thoughtful liberation like few other forms – I don’t have to make these poems rhyme. I don’t have to observe meter or number of lines, or anything else if I don’t want to. I just need to examine the word from all facets and let the word speak to ME – as didactically or as simplistically or as complexly and cleverly as I may. So, this was delightful – and I hope you find these word meditations delightful – useful, and illuminating – as well.

an ill-favored idiom

USED can be an ugly word
The ‘U’ shrills, “YOU can be
Relentlessly ignored, abandoned
By society.”
The ‘US’ – United States – that “us”
Is one who does the deed,
Who shoves aside the vulnerable,
As second to our greed.
Used like tissues —
Used like trash,
While empathy fatigue
Leaves abscesses inside our souls
Where canker blossoms breed.

all u need 2B

LOVED is such a word
That lavishes the ‘l’
Which, leaning subtly towards the ‘o,’
Is enthralled by its spell.
The ‘v’ stretches both arms
Invites potential friends
To snuggle close if so inclined
And reap heart’s dividends.
And if ‘e’ feels a loss
Without that closing ‘d’
We will not deem it whimsical
But secure. Anchored. Free.

There are quite a few other folks who dipped a toe in to the “_______is a Word” challenge this month. Laura’s post is here, and you’ll find Sara’s poem here. Liz’s poem is here. Mary Lee’s post is here, and Tricia’s poem is here. Linda B’s poem is here, and Rose joins us here. Michelle K’s poem is here. Jan from Bookseed has joined the fun, while Susan’s poem is here. More Peeps may be popping up during the weekend, so don’t forget to come back for the full roundup. Meanwhile, Poetry Friday is hosted this week by the delightful Denise Krebs, so don’t miss popping over for more poetry celebrations at Mrs. D. Krebs’ EduBlog! Thanks, Denise!

One of the MOST fun things about this style of poem is writing them with a thesaurus to hand. I often think of a word… and then look it up, and use the fifth or sixth synonym of it, so that I can sharpen my meaning – or even obscure or enlarge it. For instance, phalanx is a great word with multiple meanings, one of which was originally …log – a shoulder-to-shoulder line formation used in ancient Greek military battles. I LOVE that the plural of phalanx is phalanges… the names of the bones of the fingers or toes. People are each other’s foundation to stand on, or as Gwendolyn Brooks said it, “we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” We are each other’s hands to hold or extend in help and support – so to keep our battalion together. I appreciate the dichotomy of that – our little battalion standing with our shields linked, being both tethered and tied in, yet completely independent. Isn’t that the confidence that being loved gives to us?

I suspect Esme Weatherwax would think that nice little man in the saffron robe and wire-rimmed glasses was good people, and invite him over to sit a spell and listen to her bees. And I suspect His Holiness the Dalai Lama would get a kick out of reading about the kingdom of Lancre in the Ramtops where the strong-willed Granny Weatherwax catches babies, raises bees, and practices “headology,” which is a lot of philosophy mixed with a generous serving of stubbornness and a heavy sprinkle of common sense. The topics we find in conversation with each other sometimes aren’t that far apart after all… As more and more people are treated as things and things are cherished as people ought to be, we’ll figure out how to flip that particular script. Until then… perhaps we’ll keep this conversation simmering on the back burner – and let people who need to know, know that they are, as always, well-loved. Happy Weekend.

all poems ©2025, tanita s. davis

{poetry friday: acknowledging hard things in poetry}

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February 21, 2025

3:23 pm

16 Comments on {poetry friday: acknowledging hard things in poetry}

Intellectual curiosity, Literary Life Observations, Musings on Extemporanea, On Writing, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Random Notes and Errata

This is definitely not under the banner of my #winterlight offerings, because it’s not particularly encouraging, but rather… thinky. I’m grateful for the friends who have dragged me into poetry practice, and for my Deeper Dive poetry group, whose exercises help me to look differently at the poetry I read.

This week, my group read several mentor poems which touched on grief or despair, and using repetition, direct address and present tense voice lead the poem towards a commonality of experience, allowing the reader to both feel and release their own similar emotions. Yesterday I wrote a draft of a poem describing the rise and fall of Allensworth, CA, the first township in my home state to be founded, financed, and governed by African-Americans – the “Buffalo soldiers,” of the Civil War. I have been fiddling with the idea of writing historical fiction set in this town – or writing fantastical fiction about magical happenings in this town. All of this is still in the very bubbling-stew-of-imagination stages.

Today I’m attempting to look objectively at another poem from the Harlem Renaissance using the same tools as we identified yesterday. If this has a lot of the tone of an English paper, that’s because I think I fall back on the strategies that worked for me in my upper level English courses. Additionally, writing things down is sometimes a way that I further process and remember them. So, aren’t you glad to be here to crib my notes for the test on Monday? Enjoy! 😂

If We Must Die

by Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
…

(Do read the rest at The Poetry Foundation.)

Born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica in 1889, Claude McKay loved English literature and studied and wrote poetry as a young man – about his feelings, about the world around him, and about the things he observed. Logically, we know McKay observed a great deal of racism – both in his home nation, and during his lifetime in the United States. The themes of both his poetry and novels reflect this. The poem, “If We Must Die” is one of his best known, and most celebrated, not just among the Black community, but more on that later. The feel of the poem is, despite its formal tone, in some ways very American – very macho. “Mejor morir a pie que vivir en rodillas,” right? Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. (This quotation attributed to Emiliano Zapata, 1877-1919, and quoted by FDR in 1941 when receiving an honorary doctorate from Oxford University – apparently meant to be encouragement to a war-stressed Britain.)

Many times, poems which deal in difficult topics use the natural world as a foil, pointing to the continuous cycles of nature as a contrast to the brevity of the human cycle. While McKay does mention hogs and dogs, he mentions them in a disturbing similarity to human beings – Black people chased down, cornered, and executed like hogs, white people like baying hounds, harrying them and running them down. While it at first seemed to me a departure from his animal metaphor when he urges the subject of the poem to make the ‘monsters’ pay for every drop of blood shed, I thought about how dangerous hogs are to come across in the woods. Even if you’re not hunting them, you don’t want to run afoul of them – they’re aggressive, and they’ll come after you if they’re even startled. Like the 1546 proverb said, “Even a worm will turn.” Even the meekest and most docile of the animal kingdom can be pushed too far, and the Black man McKay describes with such polished, formal language is apparently a man pushed outside of his natural bent for civility and calm – or, at least his language seems to imply that’s man’s natural bent, anyway.

That high-toned language and …the poem’s precise shine in general seems deliberate. The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet, with all of the structure this rule-bound form allows – and with all of the history and travel that the sonnet implies, from thirteenth century Italy to 1500’s England to the more recent pen of a Jamaican-born Black man. With this history and through this distance, McKay speaks to a certain kind of reader – to men, ostensibly, as the poem cries out to “O, Kinsmen!” at one point, and readers are encouraged to die “like men.” Those kinsmen could be American men, or McKay’s fellow Afro-Caribbean immigrants. Today I learned that there is an urban myth that Winston Churchhill (!!!! NB: there is no record of it, so this is wholly mythical and sourced from people’s memories at the time) read this poem aloud on the radio during the siege of London in 1940. Because this sonnet lacks specific identifying markers – the “We” who must die are called “kinsmen” and “men” and their oppressors simply “monsters” – the clarion call of standing with one’s back to the wall and fighting to the death, couched in the scholarly lines of a very European poetic form makes it allegedly relatable even to the Prime Minister of England. Who knows – maybe the poem is intended to speak to long-ago Italians and Englishmen as well. McKay’s direct address invokes whatever present moment the reader finds themselves in, which is often claustrophobically close in the ‘painful topic’ poem genre, and gives the reader a sense of tempus fugit – of a time that is fleeing, and so right this minute you must listen to the poet, and hear his wisdom, which may not be available beyond this epoch. I imagine the narrator running, ghostlike, along with a person fleeing a lynching, urging him to not just run but to consider stopping and making a last stand instead, to make the monsters pay. Even with these sterling words and high tone, though, it’s hard to imagine someone running for their life being very open to the whole thing.

The long-ranging discussion of violence and non-violence, of “By Any Means Necessary” and passive protest is present in this poem, but wrapped in the idea of nobility and honor. Is it better to “nobly die” not like a slaughtered hog, but “fighting back?” Or will you still be just dead? McKay definitely seems to believe that an honorable death is the best death – but the jury’s still out.

Thank you for coming to my English Lit discussion.

EDITED TO ADD: Can you believe that Susan @Chicken Spaghetti is also celebrating the poetry of Claude McKay today??? What are the chances?