What We Do – Page 2 – Tanita S. Davis

{poetry peeps: it’s tan-ku season!}

January 12, 2025

3:13 pm

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

Welcome to another year of Poetry Peeps Adventures!

Happy (Calendar) New Year, Peeps! You’re invited to the first challenge of the year in JANUARY, 2025! Here’s the scoop: we’re composing tan-ku, conversations between a haiku and a tanka, as created by Mariko Kitakubo & Deborah P. Kolodji. (This is a short-but-sweet challenge, given that we don’t have a full month to ponder it.) Are you in? Good! You have …two weeks to craft your creation and share it on January 31st in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the fun!

2025: A Year In Conversation!

The Poetry Sisters discussed an overarching theme of CONVERSATION this year. How do we speak our truths? This year we’re celebrating the subtle yet direct ways we can say what needs to be said – in conversation with poems, poets, and the world around us. You’re invited along for the ride – whether you join us every month and share, or just write to our prompts for yourself. Thank you for being part of the poetic community, and enriching our conversation this year!

{pf: p7 hoping for a haibun}

by Tanita S. Davis

December 27, 2024

4:28 am

11 Comments on {pf: p7 hoping for a haibun}

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

Welcome to the last Poetry Friday Adventure for 2024!

Thank you so much for joining us for our 2024 Poetry Peeps Adventures. You have made our poetry year more fun and meaningful, and we thank you for taking part as we challenged and stretched our skill this year. Challenges for 2025 are forthcoming! Stay tuned for the announcement of the January challenge on January 15.

By the time you read this post, it will be well after Christmas, and on the way to the calendar (as opposed to Lunar) New Year. I hope that you have had a wonderful, restful, music-and-book filled time – with all the family and/or all the quiet you might desire. I hope that those of you who have lost friends and loved ones this year felt close to their memories and that those of you who have welcomed new family and loved ones enjoyed time with them. Happy Winter Holidays! Here’s to the invincible light that illuminates the darkness.

Did you know that the poet, Bashō, coined the word haibun? The form as it is today existed in Japan even before the seventeenth century when Bashō first brought it to the attention of the world. Mini lyric essays, sharing an array of sensory details, created a mood and highlighted a season through a poet’s observations, and then set the tone for haiku, which went even more deeply into the natural world. These aren’t really meant to be long poems, but to bring the reader deeper into the spirit of haiku, which Bashō felt was useful to create a sense of longing, empathy, or sadness. (Not a small order, that.)

From Process…

The Poetry Sisters were quiet busy this month as so many of us were, so we mostly worked on our poems alone. Liz and I got together for our live chat, and found that we hadn’t really thought ahead to what our topics might be. We talked about what we’d been doing, and both of us agreed that we might settle on writing about the Solstice, since it had been the day before. That seemed a reasonable topic. What surprised us was how, when we came together to discuss and read aloud our poem drafts, we had fallen into a synchronicity of thought. Not only had we used similar topical beginnings (though I’d crossed mine out), we ended on eerily similar final lines. How did we do that, after only speaking to each other for about twelve minutes before working solo for twenty minutes?? We determined that the Universe has been speaking – loudly. Somehow, poetry tuned us in to the right frequency.

…To Poetry

Here’s Liz’s poem – which I found to be stunning. And here’s the frequency wherein the rest of the Poetry Peeps came in – Laura’s poem is here. Mary Lee’s poem is here. Tricia’s poem is here. Jone’s poem is here. Michelle K – who is our Poetry Friday hostess today – adds both Hanukkah and a Haibun to the fun, at More Art 4 All. Thanks, Michelle! More Poetry Peeps may check in between now and New Year’s, so do check back for the full round-up.

While I was unaware of being particularly tuned-in to the Universe, I knew we had chosen the Haibun as a particularly short and low-rule poetic form that ALLEGEDLY would be easier to write. ALLEGEDLY. We think this every time we encounter a short form, and in all honesty, short forms are sometimes even harder to finagle. Haibun is a form which is meant to evoke mood and season, diminish the poet’s presence in the work, but avoid merely being a listing of what one sees in the natural world. It’s meant to make you FEEL something… All I could feel, however, was how dark it was, even though it was early afternoon. Some years more than others I struggle with the shades drawing down of the seasons – but this year, after November, especially, I have felt like the light has bled out of the world. Not to be overly dramatic – the world has been a dim and barren place before throughout history – but sometimes we’re wearier than other times. Sometimes, the grimness is a little harder to take. And I know I have so much to be thankful for! Because – among other things – every time the darkness comes, we’re reminded of the contrast of the light, are we not? If we never knew the shadow, we would never love the sun.

And with that, I realized that I had my whole prose bit, anyway.

The haiku – as I sat scribbling with a single candle lit – practically wrote itself.

AFTER NOVEMBER,
the autumn sky seems shoulder high, sheer rags of clouds stretched thin.
Like a breaker thrown, no matter that it’s 3PM, dark’s edge…falls. Sharp as a guillotine,
sudden as a cut-off scream. Darkness, and the moon is a pale coin for the ferryman,
as sky blue bleeds down black, and the longest night begins, burying the corpse of an endless year.

Scraped raw we stumble through the gloom, barking our shins, fumbling for a glimmer,
as a kind of heedless desperation steering our night-blind gaze. We strain towards… something.
Anything.
But, what if we’re looking in the wrong direction?
What if we are the dawn?

Light every candle
and breathing clouds of mist, rise
meet the dark singing

We have, some of us, settled into a trough. We are in a low place, as the light has ebbed, as the night is long, as the cold feels endless. Solutions, answers, and light seem in short supply. But – we can’t stay here. We won’t stay here. Every day, the light’s return comes closer. Every day, the dawning of the year comes nearer. Maybe we don’t have a plan yet. Maybe we feel – strongly – that we need one, but don’t know where to start. Even if we don’t move, we’ll come to the place where there’s another beginning. And another one. And another. I would rather meet the days ahead on my feet than be dragged into the stage lights, unprepared. I don’t know what I’m standing up to meet, but I’ll be on my feet – ready to move. And I know you will, too. So – take a breath. Tighten your shoelaces, and plant your feet. We’ve got things to do, and we’ve got this.

Happy New Year. You are well-loved.

{poetry friday roundup is HERE: plus, p7 revise Hirshfield’s “Two Versions”}

by Tanita S. Davis

November 28, 2024

7:15 pm

20 Comments on {poetry friday roundup is HERE: plus, p7 revise Hirshfield’s “Two Versions”}

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

Welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup and another Poetry Peeps Adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of December! Here’s the scoop: we’re composing haibun, beautifully brief melanges of a prose poem + haiku, as created by Matsuo Bashō. Are you in? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on December 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the fun!

Hello! Welcome to the roundup this post-Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving Friday! I hope today finds you reasonably comfortable (READ: not still really, really full), content, and ready to take on the world in whichever way you prefer – whether that means with matching T-shirts, walkie-talkies and Black Friday sales with friends, frantic napping before the onslaught of holiday rehearsals, or snuggled down in silence with a laptop and plans to do the housecleaning much, much later. However today finds you, may you be safe and well.

Jane Hirshfield has many poems more familiar than “Two Versions,” included in her 2024 poetry collection, “The Asking.” As a matter of fact, her “Poem With Two Endings” is so much better known that I kept mixing it up with our actual mentor poem this month. But, when the dust settled, I was glad we chose her lesser known work.

From Process…

The poem begins as a description of two similar dreams, one of camping by a watering hole, with an arm outstretched, and the parade of little bodies which tromp across it. Hirshfield, a practicing Buddhist, wonders if her sleeping body is trying to interact with the insects and animals of the natural world, though she also wonders why she dreamed of her hand outstretched to them. The second dream is of lying in the way of a herd of sleeping animals who are greatly thirsty, and wishing she could beg their pardon for being in their way, forty years later. On the surface, these are the sorts of weird, innocuous dreamscapes our minds often throw out for us, but spending more time with the text and gives access to deeper and deeper reflections. Sleeping and wakefulness – or even ‘woke’-ness. Injury and pardon. Action and passivity. The forty years past the poet mentions calculates, this year, anyway, to 1984, which provides its own odd dreamscapes. All in all, we had quite a healthy smörgåsbord of ideas from which to take a line or a theme to give foundation to our own poem…

…this still doesn’t mean it was easy, though Sara’s poem is here. Mary Lee’s poem is is here. Liz’s poem is here, and Laura’s can be found here. Tricia’s poem is found here. Michelle’s post is here. Linda B. poem is shared here. More Peeps may tune in throughout this holiday weekend, so stay tuned and check back for the full roundup.

…To Poetry

Meanwhile, I took a rare road for me – a climate poem. It seemed inescapable from the tenor of Hirshfield’s words – dreaming of being in the way, of needing to beg pardon, of having misjudged the needs of the animals passing by, around, and over her. That’s …if that’s not a description of how we’ve not-so-loved the world, I don’t know what is. We’re definitely going to reap what we’ve sown – or not sown, as the case may be – but in some small ways, we’ve been given an unanticipated grace. We’ve been given a breath of time. How are we doing to use it? And I say ‘we’ in the way which means all of us. I recognize fully that much of what people take personal responsibility for is the combined responsibility of individuals plus elected lawmakers and corporations, and many of us beat our heads against an unyielding wall trying to move the dial alone. But – not alone, but collectively, braided together, what action can we undertake?

(Climate) Anxiety Dreams

How can we sleep? This foreboding
With shrill sirens splinters the air.
Inchoate nightmares come swarming,
As we mutter weak “thoughts and prayers,”
Forty years past, we begged pardon.
Knew someday that “progress” would come
Hands outstretched for pay, face hardened,
We promised the piper this sum.
And who can sleep while swindling
The future of what it is due?
We chopped our planet for kindling.
It smolders… now what do we do?

If nightmare loosens and retracts
Can you awake, sit up and act?

The various images in the poem seemed to me to need corralling and so I relied, as I often do, on a form to put gather them in their place. I tried to make this poem somewhat positive – though Hirshfield’s interrupted sleep has some disturbing images, it’s not nightmarish, exactly. These are animals who need… something. Perhaps the reader can supply this without making the poem wholly about themselves…

I’ll be so interested to see how others tackled this challenge, as well as revel in the myriad poems that come in this week. I hope you take some time this weekend, in a slow, quiet moment, to indulge yourself in poetry as well. Meanwhile, happy autumn, as we savor its last twenty plus days, and happy beginning of the holiday whirl. Get your vaccinations while you can, sleep deeply, rest well, and feel your feelings which are neither right nor wrong, but simply are. You are well-loved.

{poetry wednesday: from New Masses, 1931}

by Tanita S. Davis

November 6, 2024

2:22 pm

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Essay Musings, Mental Health, Part and Poetry, Soapbox, What We Do, Who We Are

{pf: p7 deconstruct construction}

by Tanita S. Davis

October 25, 2024

9:50 am

18 Comments on {pf: p7 deconstruct construction}

On Writing, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, What We Do, Who We Are

Welcome to another Poetry Friday Poetry Peeps Adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of November! Here’s the scoop: We’re taking a line or theme plucked from Jane Hirschfield’s TWO VERSIONS, a poem that appears in her collection The Asking: New and Selected Poems (scroll to the second page to see the poem). Are you in? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on November 29th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

We laughed, when we met to talk about this poem… It sounded so easy. Just… build or take something apart. Deconstruct or construct something. Do it with detail. How hard could that be?

WHY DID THIS FEEL SO HARD????

Might have had something to do with the very busy month which included a multiplicity of medical appointments and running around with paperwork for various things, and finally getting around to voting (whoo!)? With all the noise, my poetic brain just didn’t seem to be beating in sync with me this month.

From Process…

The biggest issue I had with this wasn’t finding things to build and unbuild… I just felt like my attempts lacked any kind of poetic merit. Detail felt like the enemy of whimsy or beauty. I felt… mechanical, as I delved deeply into things. So, I tried to look at the natural world. I wrote whimsically of How To Build A Cluster (of Spiders). I wrote about ballooning – always a topic that inspires whimsical interpretation (because do I really know what it’s like to stick my bum in the air and trust my full body weight to the wind? No… I do not, and I never will). I attempted to write about building an attic extension, as I participated in that when I was in high school. I mudded drywall. I have built a dairy in Mexico, I smoothed cement stalls for the cows…

And somehow, none of that lent itself to poetry. It wasn’t the assignment, though. It was definitely ME. Maybe October just hasn’t been a poetical month?? Whatever my issue, I knew I was running out of time.

Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one who struggled – but my Poetry Sisters certainly pulled it together faster than I did! Liz’s post is here, and Mary Lee’s is here. Laura’s poem is here, and Tricia’s is here. Michelle K’s poem is here, Karen’s poem is here, Cousin Heidi’s maybe-her-rabbit is here. More Poetry Peeps may check in throughout the weekend, so stay tuned here for the full roundup, and thank you kindly, Carol V, for sharing her instructional trinet with us, and for rounding us up so beautifully this month!

…To Poetry

By last night, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to pull anything together in a timely manner, so I started looking at some of my previously abandoned attempts in an attempt to see what prompted me to quit writing on them. I know that poetic “feeling” is often in the eye/ear of the beholder, and hoped that I might be able to recapture something that went missing in subsequent lines. I… cannot honestly tell if I succeeded. Having begun and abandoned poetry about literal building projects, I began a rewrite in the metaphorical. Previously this had seemed like far too broad of an enterprise – how do you deconstruct an idea or a belief? It turned out that maybe you do the same things you do for a literal building – you get permits, and you begin demolition. What you do next is …up to you.

Construction/Deconstruction

to Everything there is a Season
and Now is the Time:
…but first, Permits.
The self demands Surety:
Do you know what you’re doing?

Once you cut the cables – Lights out –
You’re on your own, and –
Now is the Time to
Break up, break free, break through.
Your brain you’ve battered
Alone too long – take action.
Do you know what you’re doing?

Jackhammer your world into
Manageable pieces,
And haul the detritus away.
Because, Now is the Time
When order’s upended,
When baseboards are splintered,
Walls stripped down to studs…
Now your seeing’s believing –
Do you know what you’re doing?

Demolition debris cleared
reveals plain stone. Persistence:
And, Now is your Time
despite chaos and mess.
…a Life is built on nothing less.

If the answer to the question “Do you know what you’re doing?” continues to be “Um, no…” – in life, as well as in poetry, sometimes the answer is just… keep going. And once you’ve gotten down to your foundation, see where it needs shoring up, do the work, and rebuild. Honestly, a life – an idea – a dream – really is built on nothing less. We build by putting on brick atop another, pressing them in place, and going on to the next brick. And that is also how we persist – and succeed. In the words of Octavia Butler, So be it, see to it. You are the builder – so build it.

Happy Weekend, friends.

{pf: poetry peeps wabi their sabi}

by Tanita S. Davis

June 28, 2024

4:50 am

11 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps wabi their sabi}

Mental Health, Musings on Extemporanea, On Writing, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, What We Do, Who We Are

Welcome to another Poetry Friday Poetry Peeps Adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of July! Here’s the scoop: We’re writing …Haiku/Senryu classifieds. Reprising our 2015 want ads project, we’re combining our love of Missing Connections, Desperately Seeking______, For Sale, and other random Penny Savers, Craigslist, and back-page-of-the-newspaper weirdness into deliciously brief poetry bites. Are you game? Good! You have a month to craft your classified creation and share it on July 28th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Friends, this is not a real poem.

As long as we’re clear on that, okay?

In the past, I was the person Most Likely To Rant about our poetry challenges, and heaven knows I’ve tried to tone that down a bit so Certain People stop giggling (looking at YOU Sara Lewis Holmes), but BOY did this one bring on the urge to scream. UGH.

From Process…

I mean, technically it’s a poem – it’s …Poetry Friday and I posted it. But, that’s about all that went the way I wanted it to. Very rarely am I really, really, REALLY unable to put together words into something that at least resembles a poem… but whenever the Poetry Sisters say “no rules,” I hit a wall. This business of using the same title, but doing our own thing with no rules on form or content I KNEW was going to be a pain in the neck — so I started writing about what I wanted to write immediately. This…should have worked.

In a way, it did work – I wrote a long poem in blank verse. However, I couldn’t tell when I was …done. After a while, I realized it was simply shaped prose instead of a poem. I scrapped it.

I wrote a ghazel. Then two ghazels. All of them were terrible, but they had absolutely robust vocabulary, and best of all, they rhymed, which… tells some part of my brain that I’m Doing It Right.

…except that Ghazels don’t rhyme (except internally), so… I scrapped those, too. Plus, did I mention they were terrible? I kept getting overly invested in the turns of phrase, and forgetting that the theme was wabi sabi. Paying attention. Transience. Imperfection. Change. I was like a kid who had the assignment – to write a paper about the Second World War and got stuck in a discussion on military haberdashery in 1944. It’s adjacent to the topic, but not there at all.

After more reflection, I figured out that the real issue is that I don’t like wabi sabi as a… concept. I mean, it’s fine, but hello, it’s the melancholy awareness of the transience of living things. It’s a reminder that all things metamorphose, adapt, and die; a reminder that nothing is permanent or will stay the same or will last. Oh, goody, all of the things that the human brain is hardwired to ignore.

Was this just an emotional wall I hit, a tantrum because I didn’t like the topic? No…? I mean, I wanted to write about having a big anniversary the year my brother is getting married – year one and year thirty, a month apart. That’s not a bad topic – but it’s personal. Maybe the struggle came with adding the personal to the transient – on a week when my Dad’s been hospitalized yet again. My literal baby, as in, “woke up with you, carried you, changed your diapers” baby brother is getting married. I know this is a tectonic change – that’s quite clearly being rubbed in my face. Maybe it’s just right now too much to put on one poem.

That happens sometimes.

…To Poetry

After this sprawling mess of realizations, one thing I also examined was why the first poems had disgusted me so much. I don’t usually …fling poems from me quite so energetically. Most of the time I make things work – and our Poetry Friday exercises have, for the last how many years (since 2007!?), been strictly about the PRACTICE of poetry, and not the PERFECTING thereof. But the poems struck me as slick, glib – and wordy. I can do that – I can produce words that sound good, at least – as tuneful as a drawer full of cutlery, if nothing else. But like that bright clatter, they’re basically meaningless. There’s a difference between wordplay and poetry, and too often, I err on the side of wordplay. Normally that’s fine – you can use wordplay to elevate your poem, but it’s a mistake to rely on it, and think it’s the same…

Anyway, I knew I wasn’t really digging in and putting in the work to get to any Actual Feelings (TM) or Insights about the things my poem allegedly was about. So. I stopped writing. Honestly, it felt like my house was sitting on the surface of the sun, and it was too flippin’ hot to think straight anyway.

**** Fortunately, OTHER PEOPLE DID NOT POUT AND KEPT AT IT! **** Laura’s poem is here. Liz’s poem is here. Sara’s poem is here, and Mary Lee’s poem is here. Here’s Tricia’s poem, and she’s got the full Poetry Friday roundup today. Michelle K’s poem is here. Linda B’s broom wabi sabi is here. More of the wabi sabi-ing may be wafting in throughout the weekend, and I’ll post their odes to transience and imperfection as I find them – stay tuned for the roundup!

Okay, here it is, Thursday evening, and I’m left with what I’m left with – finally a lovely, temperate day and… a word salad.

Flawed. Unfinished. Abandoned. As Richard Powell put it, “Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”

Wabi sabi on the nose.

WABI SABI: A Word Salad

A squalid stuff, word salad –
A wabi sabi wasteland.
A welter of syllabic stress
songs sounding dissonance.

Imperfect and unfinished
its point lies in acceptance:
Release of our own relevance
as center of the mass.

in still seeking distinction
And means of contribution,
we try for conversation,
to compel connection

Clever clatter cannot cure
what yawns, hungry, for a Word
That lasts through transiency’s attempts
to be the last thing heard.

If you can’t find the right words to write something this weekend – don’t despair. Remember that the genius is within you. The words are there – give yourself the time to think them. In the meantime, lying down with an ice pop certainly won’t hurt …

{pf: poetry peeps sound an ode to ourselves}

by Tanita S. Davis

May 31, 2024

5:04 am

10 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps sound an ode to ourselves}

On Writing, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, Sleeper Stories, What We Do, Who We Are

Welcome to another Poetry Friday Poetry Peeps Adventure!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of June! Here’s the scoop: We’re writing a poem with the title ‘Wabi-Sabi.’ Aaaand, that’s… the scoop. That’s it. A little unsure of the concept and philosophy? In his book Wabi-Sabi Simple, Richard Powell described wabi-sabi as a philosophy that acknowledges a lifestyle that appreciates and accepts three simple truths: “Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.” We’ve left ourselves room this month to meditate on all sorts of things, including, but not limited to, ellipses, pauses, and periods to acknowledge endings. Are you game? Good! Whichever way wabi-sabi wafts you, you have a month to craft your creation and share it on June 28th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Friends, this month was a doozy.

Periodically in our poetic perambulations, we wander into a quagmire and find ourselves just… stopped. Stuck.

This time, it was because we were writing in the spirit of Lucille Clifton’s “homage to my hips,” and uncovered a lot of body image issues in ourselves. Here’s this lovely poet, praising the promising swing and sway of her bountiful hips, and we… recoiled from a paean of praise to our own bodies, because… eew. There was imperfection. There was wistfulness. There was frustration. There was a lot to dig through to get unstuck.

Soooo, we had to do a little therapy. As one does. Results? Liz’s poem is here. Mary Lee’s affirmation is here. Tricia’s poem is here, and Laura’s is here. Michelle’s poem is here, and Linda B.’s poem is here. More peeps with poetic panegyric might sally forth to give thanks for their thighs – as I discover their poems, I’ll post them, so do check back for the roundup.

From Process…

I was so, so grateful that I’d found the Bill Moyers’ recording of Lucille Clifton reading her own poem aloud. She made people laugh. She made people worry. She laughed at herself, and, gently, at their worry. She claimed she had “thrilling” body parts. In performance she was a live wire, and her joy in herself – in opposition to the societal norms which bid her condemn rather than celebrate the swish of her hips – is infectious. We all listened, and we none of us could resist that joy. So, step one, if you’re ever stuck writing something kind about yourself – listen to Ms. Lucille.

I listened for the “presence” word as I reread the poem. Ms. Lucille’s hips are big, they take up space, they don’t fit just anywhere; those hips are free and have never been enslaved. They were mighty and magical, and then she offered us proof of this. When the poem is stepped through instead of skimmed, it is easier to see where her hips sort of “break through” the confinements and actions of other people’s calmer, tamer hips. With that in mind, I turned to my own poem.

…to Poem

Of course, that meant trying to find a body part that I could deal with. Oh, sure, I could have echoed the mentor poem, but Ms. Lucille had capital ‘h’ Hips. I have… a hinge that does the job, but without much ‘verve and swerve,’ as it were. I do have shoulders that hit all of the presence words – big, take up space, don’t fit… but five lines into trying to write about them, I became entangled in the metaphorical uses of shoulders – people use them to cry on, they have to bear the weight of the world’s problems. I have shoulders like a linebacker (with only minimal exaggeration) but I don’t always want to be leading the defense and protecting the quarterback. That’s… less about the shoulder and more about what a shoulder’s expected to do. Nope. Wrong direction.

I sighed and considered. Belly buttons – what can one say about an ‘innie’ in a squishy belly? – necks – boring, really, – fingers – um, right now the joints are a bit too inflamed to be giving me praiseworthy vibes – feet, hips, spine, same issue. This is the problem with a flawed body, friends. A lot of my systems started to fail in my late twenties, and I’ve had somewhat of an adversarial relationship with my body since then. It’s too easy to find fault with it. Too easy to look at the scars of deficiencies and disorders and the associated insufficiencies and think there’s no room for homage, only abhorrence. And that’s …not good. Understandable, but not sustainable. I have to LIVE here, after all – we need a working relationship, and at minimum, respect and care and appreciation. So. Back to the drawing board yet again.

I considered body parts which I actively dislike, but couldn’t summon the energy to fight myself for them. I wondered aloud if hair was a body part – I mean, technically that could count? – and then I saw a picture of a stairwell in a museum which I love, and remember walking down those stairs MANY years ago in three-inch heels (for an event) and thought, “I loved those shoes, they made my calves look…” Oh. OH!

Suddenly, I was unstuck.

Acclaiming My Calves

These calves are strong calves,
bulging muscles Foundational
to my under
standing. Like cocoa-butter silk,
when I’m bothered to shave
them, these calves – not milk-fed (yet
Outstanding in their field) –
they don’t fit into
ordinary settings
or stovepipe boots.
Solid maple, this Mare’s
shanks. These calves,
they like a lug sole
a long stride, and a
short skirt ‘cause these calves,
they gotta Breathe.
Legs louche or Ladylike, these calves,
they lay it out, straight,
no chaser, though I have known them
To stop on a dime and Flex,
To strengthen the stretch
of my strut.
draft ©2024 by tanita s. davis

That was just the warm-up! There’s more poetry this Friday, hosted by Janice at Salt City Verse, exploring a great new poetry anthology, so check that out and the community’s poetry as well. Thanks much for hosting, Janice!

Meanwhile, here are the calves in question: you’re WELCOME.

Don’t forget what Ms. Lucille said. You have thrilling body parts. You are, both body and soul, breathtakingly made. Celebrate the wonderfulness that is you.

{npm24: progressive poem!}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 23, 2024

5:02 am

11 Comments on {npm24: progressive poem!}

General Coolness, Happenings, NPM, Part and Poetry, Small Fictions, What We Do, Who We Are

Aaaah! It’s been exciting to watch this poem take shape. This is my first year, and as I watched the couplets collect at first I thought, “OH NO, I should have picked a MUCH earlier date to contribute!” There were intimidatingly beautiful phrases! (…the tender, heavy, harsh of home – *alliterative swoon*) And so many details as the poem took on a narrative shape. I felt like I was too late to do anything “good.”

Well, that was silly. This day, this moment in the life of these young immigrants… this time is perfect. Cousin, thanks for giving me a strong springboard from which to jump into playing with you all. The mastery of the Muse to those poets providing our conclusion, including:

April 24 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
April 25 Joanne Emery at Word Dancer
April 26 Karin Fisher-Golton at Still in Awe
April 27 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
April 28 Dave at Leap of Dave
April 29 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 30 Michelle Kogan at More Art for All

And now for our featured presentation…

Cradled in stars, our planet sleeps,
clinging to tender dreams of peace
sister moon watches from afar,
singing lunar lullabies of hope.

almost dawn, I walk with others,
keeping close, my little brother.
hand in hand, we carry courage
escaping closer to the border

My feet are lightning;
My heart is thunder.
Our pace draws us closer
to a new land of wonder.

I bristle against rough brush—
poppies ahead brighten the browns.
Morning light won’t stay away—
hearts jump at every sound.

I hum my own little song
like ripples in a stream
Humming Mami’s lullaby
reminds me I have her letter

My fingers linger on well-worn creases,
shielding an address, a name, a promise–
Sister Moon will find always us
surrounding us with beams of kindness

But last night as we rested in the dusty field,
worries crept in about matters back home.
I huddled close to my brother. Tears revealed
the no-choice need to escape. I feel grown.

Leaving all I’ve ever known
the tender, heavy, harsh of home.
On to maybes, on to dreams,
on to whispers we hope could be.

But I don’t want to whisper! I squeeze Manu’s hand.
“¡Más cerca ahora!” Our feet pound the sand.
We race, we pant, we lean on each other
I open my canteen and drink gratefully

Thirst is slaked, but I know we’ll need
more than water to achieve our dreams.
Nights pass slowly, but days call for speed
through the highs and the lows, we live with extremes

We enter a village the one from Mami’s letter,
We find the steeple; food, kindly people, and shelter.
We made it, Manu! Mami would be so proud!
I choke back a sob, then stand tall for the crowd.

A slapping of sandals… I wake to the sound
of “¡GOL!” Manu’s playing! The fútbol rebounds.

{npm24: 19}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 19, 2024

12:27 pm

Draft, Untitled 4/18

The more you try to hold them in your hands
The more the tumbled grit slithers away
You’re micro in the cosmic, that’s your place
Let go! There’s nothing you need understand.

What troubles you is trouble’s thinning skin.
You’re triggered, primed, and spoiling for a fight.
So packed inside you’re ripe enough to crack
But you’re a lady, so you pack it in.

Dust riding on the wind can’t slow this train
Unless that windstorm’s fine enough to choke.
When engines, falter, wheezing your mistake,
Make common cause with nomads, wait for rain…

We see all that we have here, what is known,
Is all our people need is all we lack.
Yet somehow, hearts abraded still, we chafe
Hands fumbling after smoke that’s being blown.

Have you been following this year’s Progressive Poem? I am kicking myself for not jump in to add lines on an earlier date, in a way, as the poem now has… like, a name and an identity now, and maybe I should have worked with it when it was more of an amorphous zygote!? I hope I don’t ruin it.

Meanwhile, Poetry Friday is celebrated today at Second Cousin Heidi’s juicy little universe, where you’ll find poems with clarity – and titles. Happy Friday.

{npm24: 17}

by Tanita S. Davis

April 17, 2024

2:02 pm

1 Comment on {npm24: 17}

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

Mom has what she calls a “Senior Moment” when she walks into a room and forgets what she came for. I have what I call ‘Dyscalculia Moments.’ Today it was the date – I literally read the 1 and the 7 on the calendar as a 1 and a 2. I often invert numbers and/or completely make them up, so it shouldn’t surprise me. And, yet it gives me a double-take each time.

John Hopkins University has a Mathematics of Music course. The American Mathematical Society has a whole page exploring the intersection of mathematics and music. For a long time as a kid, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t “get” reading music, remembering time signatures and what all the little patterns meant. As an adult, learning about the way my brain works and does not… well, now I get it.

This will never be effortless for me. This will never not be a problem. I’m learning to be unembarrassed, and to accept the good. Look at the intricacies of sheet music, and I can understand that! Look at me claim the weird little things that I do to make my life function: see the tiny notations in my music, places to put my pencil so I can count? It’s not ‘Touch Math’ as its taught in many school districts, but it’s close – and it works for me.

Everyone has coping mechanisms, I remind myself. May yours continue to work for you.

Mistakes Were Made

Mistaken, yet again
My blunders make me sigh.
“This too shall pass.” But when!?
Perhaps before I die?

My blunders make me cry.
Burnt cookies in the bin!
Perhaps before I’ll die,
I’ll know twenty’s not ten?

Burnt cookies in the bin…
“Too late to reapply.”
Can’t rely on my brain,
My calendar’s awry.

“Too late to reapply.”
And can’t apply my brain.
My whole schedule’s awry.
Numbers drive me insane.

Can’t rely on my brain.
This too shall pass. But, when
Math gives me a migraine
Mistake are made, again.