On Poetry

Gogyohka poem (on joy)

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

For VerseLove today at Ethical ELA, Stacey L. Joy introduces the Gogyohka form. Stacey writes: “The Gogyohka is a form of verse developed by poet Enta Kusakabe in 1957. The idea behind the Gogyohka was to take the traditional form of Tanka poetry (which is written in five lines with 5-7-5-7-7 syllable counts) and liberate its structure, creating a freer form of verse. In the 1990s, Kusakabe began his efforts to spread Gogyohka as a new movement in poetry, and there are now around half a million people writing this form of verse in Japan.” Stacey invites teacher-poets to write a five-line free form poem on joy or liberation, or as many Gogyohka poems as we want.

As I pondered the many things that bring me joy and a sense of liberation, the song “Ode to Joy” came to mind. I went with it. The song title and the last verse comprise the last lines of each Gogyohka:

Call to Joy and Liberation

Listen
it is there
in feathered new-morning stirrings
before the sun’s rising
ode to joy

Believe
it is there
the golden key of redemption turning
in the locked human heart
ever singing, march we onward
 
Look
it is there
illuminating the faces of generations
clasping their grandchildren
victors in the midst of strife
 
Dig
it is still there
the uninhibited dance of childhood
a wellspring pure and free as birdsong
joyful music leads us sunward
 
Create
and it is there
a record of your existence
your own vital contribution 
in the triumph song of life

Joy

News poem

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

On Day 12 of National Poetry Month, Susie Morice invites teacher-poets to scan the news for crafting poems on VerseLove at Ethical ELA. Susie writes: “Use the news piece as a launch for a poem that conveys your concerns that this news arouses. Let us see the claws of your rage, feel the scratch of your worry, taste the saffron of your affection. Let it take you to wherever it takes you.  We want to hear your voices.”

This local news caught my heart two days ago. I find that I cannot add to it. The facts speak for themselves.

Fallen Officer

He died
in the line of duty

tracking an armed robber
who opened fire

the funeral home
got a call
asking if
they can
“do this sort of thing”

they say they can

surely a service 
with full honors

for our fallen hero

named Major

age 3
German Shepherd
K-9 Officer

God forgive
us all

Thanks K. for being such a great help and a friend. Whitewolf Photograph. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
–Major was a beautiful black German Shepherd

Thanks also to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge

Quirky poem

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

For Day 11 of National Poetry Month, my friend Kim Johnson invites teacher-poets to compose quirky poems for VerseLove at Ethical ELA: “We all do quirky, bold things that break the ice and bring us closer together. Think of a time that you’ve done something quirky – with friends, with family, with students or even complete strangers. Let’s share our quirky exchanges today and whatever emotions they bring – in whatever form of poetry we choose.”

I hardly have to think about this one…

Quirky Legacy

What goes around
comes around
particularly in 
prankster families
like mine

Once upon a time
my husband hid 
our oldest’s shoe

The boy (in his teens)
hunted high and low
demanding to know
(laughing)
where his dad hid it
because he knew 
exactly who
had done this 

Funny thing is,
my husband forgot
where he stashed
the shoe

Years later,
in the midst
of redecorating,
I moved
an antique pitcher
and discovered
the shoe inside

By that time,
the boy had achieved
retribution
many times over,
the most legendary
of his pranks
involving 
his dad’s cell phone
suspended in jello
(a Ziploc bag
didn’t help at all;
my husband hauled
the boy and
the ruined phone
to Verizon
for a replacement
while the clerks
tried but couldn’t keep
straight faces)

Years later
the boy 
(now a dad)
texts me
while I’m out shopping:
Mom, can you pick up
a copy of Prince Caspian?
He was reading 
the Narnia series
for the first time
and his daughter,
age six,
had hidden the book
from him
and couldn’t
remember where

What goes around
comes around
particularly in
prankster families
like mine

Definito poem

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

On Day 10 of National Poetry Month, my friend Margaret Simon invites teacher-poets to compose a definito poem for VerseLove on Ethical ELA. It’s a form invented by her friend Heidi Mordhorst: “A free verse poem of 8-12 lines (aimed at readers 8-12 years old) that highlights wordplay as it demonstrates the meaning of a less common word, which always ends the poem.” Margaret’s suggestions: “Choose a word that has a certain fascination to you. You can look for the Word of the Day or any word that comes to mind. Play with the etymology of the word. What do the sounds mean? How does the meaning play with your thoughts? Explore the word using imagery, metaphor, and word play.”

So… I tried, I really tried, two things: 1) Getting away from my OLW, “awe” and 2) Keeping to the recommended 8-12 lines. I failed in both. I did, however, have a lot of fun with the unfolding of this pseudo-definito…

Awe “Definito”

So, Children, 
maybe you have seen something
so wonderful
that you went all shivery inside
and maybe your skin
even got tingly
or goosebumpy

a thing
so beautiful 
that you don’t have a word
for how beautiful it is

the feeling you get when
the sun’s slanted golden light 
breaks through the clouds
after a storm
or when you see a rainbow, 
(not made with crayons,
a real one) in the misty height,
colors glimmering, glowing, blurring, 
an ethereal sight
—ethereal? Sorry. It means 
to be so airy and light and beautiful
that the thing almost doesn’t belong
to this world
like stars, crystal-bright
against the black-velvet sky
on a winter’s night

maybe you have felt their stab of
silvery coldness, looking up
while your breath
hangs white
in the air

—yeah, that’s the feeling;
should we stop to
discuss metaphor
again?

No, it doesn’t have to be cold.

It can be a rush of warmth
on seeing a puppy
tiny, pink-mouthed, and so new
that its eyes are not yet open

—please note: The word is not spelled
the same way as what you say:
Awwww!
This, Children, is a homophone,
a poem for another day—

and the feeling might not come
from something you see
at all. 

It can come from something you hear. 
Once I was in an auditorium
where a girl who was trained in opera
sang just one high note;
her lips never moved
I couldn’t see her breathing
and the sound grew bigger
and bigger
and bigger
until the room
and my brain
and my heart 
were filled, almost bursting
with the pure, clear
starlike sound

-oh yes, I can tell by your eyes
and your open mouths
that you are beginning
to understand
awe.

After the tornado

Tell me without telling me poem

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

Yesterday on Ethical ELA’s VerseLove, Scott McCloskey invited teacher-poets to compose around “tell me without telling me,” the popular social media meme from a few years ago: “Tell us (through vivid sensory details and whatnot) that you are __________ without telling us you are __________. ” In his model, Scott masterfully incorporated many fragments of famous poems that have inspired him to write, followed by this reveal: “Tell me you’re a poet without telling me you’re a poet.”

So for Day 9 of National Poetry Month, here’s mine… it incorporates bits I’ve written before… and there’s SO much more to write…

It all began, I suppose,
in a darkened room
when Grandma plugged
this thing called a color wheel…

it sat on the floor, rotating, illuminating
the all-foil Christmas tree.
There in the dark
the sparkling silver tree
transitioned to red, blue, gold…

a stillness, a riveting

There was a girl
in my childhood church
who played the piano
accompanying the sanctuary choir.
Once, she stood alone
in front of the handbell table
reaching, grasping,
her white-gloved hands
a blur of choreography
playing those bells solo
never missing a note.
She was sixteen.

a stillness, a holding of breath

I don’t remember
learning how to read.
It was just a thing I could do.
But in fourth grade, the teacher
(built like a mountain, with a face
and heart of carved stone)
read to us every day.
An intelligent, artistic spider
who saved a less-than-radiant pig.
A boy who didn’t want that annoying,
subversive, endearing, ol’ yeller dog
that ended up saving his life, 
before picking up the shotgun…

My God. My God.
I almost died with that dog

and there have been books
in my hands,

in stacks by my bed,
ever since.

a stillness, an absorbing

There’s more, so much more.

At nineteen, 
walking into the community theater audition
where the handsomest man I ever saw
sat with a script…

we were married in less than six months.

Thirty-seven years this summer.

Two years in, when he said he was called 
to preach, I said
Well, you’ll be miserable 
unless you do.

a stillness, an abiding

Our oldest son saying
over and over
I’ll never go in the ministry.
It’s too hard a life.
Not getting married or
having any kids, either.
Just after he enrolled
in seminary,
he met a lovely young lady
with a little daughter
named for the title character
of his favorite book.
In the fullness of time
and in the span of a month
he became a husband, father, 
and pastor.

It was ordained. Jehovah jireh.
God provides.

Last fall, he named his newborn daughter
Micah. Which means
Who is like God?

Indeed, who?

I am still, and know.

*******

(Tell me you are awed without telling me you are awed)

(likely to be continued…)

4×4 poem

/ Fran Haley / Leave a comment

Here is a variation of my previous post, Eggsultation, in the 4×4 poem form shared by Denise Krebs on Ethical ELA for VerseLove: Four stanzas of four lines, any topic. Note how the lead line moves in the stanzas.

Eggsultation

Exultation:
Finches return
to make a nest
atop the wreath

on my front door
Exultation:
grass artistry
made without hands.

Speckled blue eggs
—one, two, three, four.
Exultation:
tiny new life

incubating.
Morning birdsong
rises skyward:
Eggsultation.

House Finch Pair. Birdman of Beaverton. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

I bind unto myself

/ Fran Haley / 15 Comments

A Spiritual Journey Thursday offering for April.

Karen Eastlund beckons fellow SJT writers with the phrase “I bind unto myself today…”

It’s the beginning of many prayers compiled by the Northumbria Community in Celtic Daily Prayers. The phrase is also attributed to the Hymn of St. Patrick (see Cantica Sacra). Thank you, Karen, for the inspiration and blessing.

What prayer might I make, what claim might I stake, on these five words? What do I need to bind unto myself today, any day, every day? What do I hold most dear? What holds me?

It comes to me via pieces of Scripture—John 1:1-4, 6:63; Hebrews 12:2.

A pantoum:

I bind unto myself today
love of words
the Word, in the beginning
the Creator of all things    

Love of words
I bind unto myself today
the Creator of all things
speaking life

I bind unto myself today
the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us
speaking life
the Author and Finisher of my faith

The Word made flesh, who dwelt among us
the Word, in the beginning
the Author and Finisher of my faith
I bind unto myself today

Burrows and seeds poetry

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

On Day 4 of National Poetry Month, Jennifer Guyor Jowett, inspired by poet Irene Latham, offers this invitation for VerseLove at Ethical ELA: “Create your own burrow. Find a seed at the end of the piece, something to begin your own writing today. Let it serve as a title or beginning line.”

I borrowed some of these beautiful ending lines from fellow VerseLove poet, Kevin Hodgson:

We poets keep watching
for dust, falling,
in flight.

Ars Poetica: Dustcatching

We poets keep watching for dust, falling
we would capture it with our hands
feel it on our tongues as it lands
genesis of words breathing life
dust to dust, falling 
from the stars

from the stars
dust to dust, falling
genesis of words breathing life
feel it on our tongues as it lands 
we would capture it with our hands
we poets keep watching for dust, falling

Stardust. Send me adrift. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0


Collaboration poem

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

Day 3 of National Poetry Month: for VerseLove at Ethical ELA, Gae Polisner and Lori Landau share poetry they composed via collaboration in a Google Doc as a means of inspiring one another and keeping the poetry flowing. The invitation today is to lift a line, a few words, or theme from a fellow VerseLove poet to create something new.

I lifted the line “Creaking of floor, house settling” from my kindred-spirit-writer-friend, Kim Johnson. She wrote of morning sounds, which include the “tick tick tick” of dog nails on the floor… see how “tick” made its way into my title, not even a conscious connection on my part. I noticed it when I reread her poem.

Time Ticks On

Creaking of floor
house settling
sighing at the close
of another day
shaft of sunlight
on the oak floor
glimmers brightest
just before fading
away

Beyond the window
tree shadows lengthen
across green green grass

I think about walking there
in the cool of the day
pretending 
the shadows
are portals 
where I might fall through

to find you

Tree shadows over green lawn. Horia Varlan.  CC BY 2.0.

*******

I’ve also borrowed a line from Lori, “to find you” – I think the point of inspiration between Lori and Gae, “gone,” has fused to my own Muse this morning. The line intentionally borrowed from Genesis 3:8 is one of my favorites… only now, post-poem, am I realizing how it, too, is connected to “gone.”

Core memories poem

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

On Day Two of National Poetry Month, Emily Yamasaki offers this invitation for VerseLove at Ethical ELA: “There are some details that we hold in our hearts and minds, never to be forgotten. Whether it was carved into our memory in joy or distress, they are always there. Join me in giving those core memories a space to live openly today.”

This is the kind of thing that can keep me writing for hours, days, years… I kept it simple, using the first things that rose to the surface, sticking somewhat close to Emily’s models.

random core memories

the cadence of my grandmother’s voice, reading
fat pencils in kindergarten
the smell of struck kitchen matches
bacon grease kept in a canister by the stove
having to throw myself against the stubborn front door
     of my childhood home, to get it open
ironing my father’s uniforms
the smell of his shoe polish
the vaporizer sputtering in my room at night
the rattling crescendo, decrescendo of cicadas
saying it’s going to be all right without knowing how
finding sharks’ teeth in the new gravel of an old country road
lines from dialogues in my 7th grade French textbook
soft-petal satin of new baby skin
that one wonky piano key (is it D or E?)
the mustiness of my grandparents’ tiny old church
the weight of the study Bible in my hands
seeing you for the first time, across the crowded room
the cadence of our granddaughter’s voice, reading

A book my grandmother read to me, that I read with my granddaughter now.
Is it any wonder that I find birds and nests so alluring?
Early memories hold such latent power.