Welcome to Poetry Friday!
Poetry Peeps! Just a reminder that our challenge for the month of July is… the Sedoka. You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on July 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope all of you will join the fun!
Far back in the hoary blogging history of 2007, good friend and professor of Russian linguistics and literature at Grinnell College, Dr. Kelly Herold started Poetry Friday because she felt like there needed to be more poetry – studied, written, critiqued, appreciated – in schools, for children, for teens, and for adults in a way that it wasn’t at that time. Way back then, Kel did the heavy lifting of urging bloggers and teachers to get on board with this whole thing. Through the years, others have taken it in their turn to keep the party going – from librarians and teachers in public schools to bloggers who keep us scheduled and hosting, like Cousin Mary Lee, to Poetry Sisters and Inklings who challenge and include myriad Poetry Peeps. More recently, multiple anthology projects – thank-you, Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong – poetry forms – thanks for all the fibs, Greg Pincus and many others – regular Poetry Swaps – thank you Laura Shovan and Tabatha Yeatts-Lonske – a National Poetry Month Progressive Poem – thank you, Irene Latham (Edit: and thank you, Heidi Mordhorst, for reminding me of that one) – even recipes (!) and Clunker Exchanges – thank you, Linda Mitchell! – have flowered from this fruitful seed. And despite being an irregular regular of Poetry Friday, I just continue to benefit.
My latest benefit is a Krebs Whirly. A Krebs Whirly is a wind toy handmade by one Denise Krebs, and the enclosed photograph which accompanied the poem she sent showed it hanging first in her backyard in the SoCal desert. It made me feel connected upstream in this long forty-ninth State to another poet as this morning I hung it at my backyard in NorCal. Denise’s acrostic on the word ‘community’ was written in response to my 4th of July raccontino. I am especially touched by the lines
…Nod to a new point in America, for
In truth, cruelty will not be the point —
Treasuring a thriving community is.
This thriving community is a treasure – a lagniappe, to use the Cajun French word from my mother’s side of the family. It takes effort to grow a community like this – and gratitude. Join me in saying thanks, won’t you?
There’s A Lot Going On Under the Surface
Since no one sees how
furiously the swan, on lake of glass
with wildly thrashing webby feet can
river journeys pass
in seeming staid serenity — While, I –
no swan, alas —
must “sweat and labor” as they say
like humans of my class…
With wry regard, and polite thanks
I cede to swans a win. I’ll never have the brass
Or sass to fake like that, my friends!
♦
The quiet work that goes unseen, unsung in many ways
Is mortar that enables brick to last, and worth our praise.
It’s Tabatha who is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup today at The Opposite of Indifference. Remember – though the machinery that underpins the things we love might not be glamorous, it’s worth appreciating. Thanks for everything, friends.
I missed this post because I was in San Diego. But here I am and now I will have to take the “Tardiest PF Comments” crown from Heidi. 🙂
Thank you for recognizing Kelly as the founder of Poetry Friday. Are you still in touch? (Fun fact: I almost went to Grinnell for undergraduate studies. Actually did a campus visit and everything. What a different life I would have had…)
Also thank you for your tribute to the mortar, and to the below-surface work of all that’s important in…everything. I’m fascinated by the way you jigged up your golden shovel with rhyming between-lines and an ending couplet that is a stand-alone poem.
Tanita, what fabulous imagery–and that ending couplet. Wowza!
Blessing upon blessing upon blessing — Poetry is community. Thank you for sharing these reminders!
@PJ Nunz: Poetry is community – oh, yes. And may we ever come back to this when days are dark.
From the Home of the Tardiest PF Comments Ever–
What a most enjoyably crafted ode to the unsplashy miracle that is the PF community (and its additional loony creation, the Progressive Poem)! I always enjoy how the intermittent keep coming back and the departed often resurface years later, as well as how when I have BEEN the intermittent, my hiati have been graciously appreciated. Thanks, Cousin Tanita, for lending your wondrous self to this enormous lagniappe!
@Second-Cousin Heidi: Oh! The Progressive Poem!!! Who even started that madness – wait, it was Irene, right!? And there it is, another delightful outgrowth of this shambling poetic appreciation that we’ve held dear for so many years. Thanks for reminding me of that one – I’ll add it. We really do a lot – and I like the word “unsplashy.” Yes. That’s us all over. Unsplashy and intermittent, and still standing. ♥
Such deep appreciation written with such wit and wordsmith-mastery—And ah, that all-knowng, sly swan–looks may be deceiving, thanks for your intriguing poem Tanita!
@Michelle: The swan even makes it look good! Happy Week.
The quiet work that goes unseen – yes! Thank you, Tanita.
@Rose Cappelli: Thanks for dropping by, Rose! Happy Week.
ooooh! I love that whirly. Neat! And, thanks for the history. I did NOT know the origins of Poetry Friday. But, now I do. This community of poets is pretty special.
@Linda Mitchell: Isn’t the whirly neat? I really need to learn to crochet more than a straight line… I’ve gotten the impulse to learn to do myriad things from this group of poets – I now embroider because of Mary Lee. It always amazes me – this is a special group.
Oh, Tanita, I really love this! There are threads of small joys and also gratitudes weaving their way through this week’s PF posts and yours is a lovely, golden one. The quiet work as mortar is a fabulous metaphor.
And your Krebs Whirly is delighful!
@Cousin Karen: Shining a light on the little threads of gratitudes that glimmer through my life’s weave helps remind me of the good and to amplify the good for others – and it keeps echoing back to me again, in all manner of delightful ways – like the Krebs Whirly. Like new poetic forms to wrestle. Like you dropping by. Thank you. ♥
You’ve shown what many do not imagine, Tanita, what lies beneath, whether good or bad or in need, so, we carry on no matter what is known, or many do. I admire your own noticing, however, of the hidden power moving as the swan stays as if not paying attention at all! Awesome!
Linda B: Here’s to paddling like mad to noticing the work others do! Happy week.