Blog #17 Irreversible Change (PC 57-58) - Final Blog

In chapter 57 and 58 of Poem Crazy Wooldridge says, "I write to catch myself...I exist when I write poems, I learn I'm larger than I thought...Where I end and where I begin, the boundaries of who I see myself to be, disappear when I'm writing poems."  She talks about "caterpillar poets"  and the concept of changing throughout life. She says she writes poems and they help with the awareness of life shifts from one place to another and sometimes it is like coming out of a cocoon.  I hope this semester you ventured out of your cocoon a few times with your poems.  For your final blog, I would like you to think about the practice from chapter 58 and some of the irreversible changes you have gone through and are currently going through.  Using your notes or a poem you created already from practice 58 create your final poem about an irreversible change ***** REMEMBER THIS IS YOUR FINAL BLOG AND IT IS DUE WEDNESDAY!

Blog #16 Dreamsense (ch 52 PC)

I love the idea of "dreamsense" which Wooldridge brings up in chapter 52 of Poem Crazy.  The idea that everything in our dreams appears to represent something part of ourselves is at the same time exhilarating and a bit scary.  She continues on in chapter 53 discussing being in "poem-drenched state of mind, where poems start coming to me in even in my sleep" and I love this phrase.  The imagery she creates with "poem-drenched state of mind" is one you shared with National Poetry Month and all of our poetry escapades. Both of these chapters have such great word phrases, I hope you jotted a few down in your word pool.  I love the place between awake and asleep and think it is where our mind can be free to create.  So for this week's blog take one of the poems you created or the idea for a poem you created in either chapter 52 or 53 practice polish it and then post it for your blog poem this week.*** REMEMBER THIS BLOG IS DUE FRIDAY!!!!!

Blog #15 Practice 38 of Poem Crazy

"Seek out children. Jot down what they say. We can find poems by listening, being a scribe and catching the words."  --Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge

If you do not have many children to listen to or the opportunity to be around small children, listen to some of the people around you and see if you can use some of the words your hear spoken.  You would be surprised about what comes out of some people's mouths.

Using your practice from chapter 38 in Poem Crazy create a final draft of your what children say poem and post it on your blog this week.

Blog #14 Poem to the Future

This week's blog assignment is to polish your poem you wrote to a future person.  It could be a future child, spouse, student, self, etc. The subject should be some sort of advice or knowledge that you hope this person will have and that you are helping to give them.  We took our inspiration from the two different poems we viewed in class.  I have attached those poems here as a reminder of your inspiration as you work to polish and post this week's poem.

Blog #13 Acrostic Poem

       This week's blog is based on chapter 26 of Poem Crazy.  Frank created his acrostic poem as a representation of himself, and just like Frank I want you to create your own acrostic poem of yourself.  Remember you are dynamic and should represent all sides of yourself just like Frank.

FRANK

Forceful
Raging
Angry
Nervous
Kind.

Coyote Poem Blog #12

For this week's blog work on polishing then post your coyote inspired poem from chapter 23 in Poem Crazy. 

Response Poem Blog #11

Last week we read and watched some different response poems.  This week I would like you to find a poem you like or that inspires you.  Post a copy of the poem here in your blog along with the poem that you wrote inspired by the poem you have chosen.

Blog # 10

This week you will work on creating an image to go along with your food poem.  Once you have finished creating a great product post your image with the food poem you wrote for class.

Blog # 9 Where I am From Poetry

I love WIF poems  I think there is something beautiful and magical in examining our pasts, presents and futures.  I also have to admit, I love genealogy and  a good story and most WIF poems combine the two exquisitely.  I also think like we saw in the Poem Crazy chapter 17 sometimes where we truly are from may not be the place we were born.  Sometimes there are older stories calling us from the past and that is where we truly come from. They are windows to our souls and they are maps of our journey in life. Open the corridors of your mind and just explore. Remember you are you and this poem is you and let it come and reflect you; of course you are the expert on you and so it should encompass it all. Your blog assignment this week is to create your own WIF poem.  You can use the model from Poem Crazy, you can use Georgia Lyon's poem or Kelly Norman Ellis' poem as templates, or create your own. Pick whatever style you like but truly create something that tells us your story and where you are from.

Where I'm From

       George Ella Lyons

I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening,
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.

I'm from fudge and eyeglasses,
          from Imogene and Alafair.
I'm from the know-it-alls
          and the pass-it-ons,
from Perk up! and Pipe down!
I'm from He restoreth my soul
          with a cottonball lamb
          and ten verses I can say myself.

I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
          to the auger,
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.

Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments--
snapped before I budded --

leaf-fall from the family tree.

Raised by Women

I was raised by
Chitterling eating
Vegetarian cooking

Cornbread so good you want to lay
down and die baking
"Go on baby, get yo’self a plate"
Kind of Women.

Some thick haired
Angela Davis afro styling
"Girl, lay back
and let me scratch yo head"
Sorta Women.

Some big legged
High yellow, mocha brown
Hip shaking
Miniskirt wearing
Hip huggers hugging
Daring debutantes
Groovin
"I know I look good"
Type of Women.

Some tea sipping
White glove wearing
Got married too soon
Divorced
in just the nick of time
"Better say yes ma’am to me"
Type of sisters.

Some fingerpopping
Boogaloo dancing
Say it loud
I’m black and I’m proud
James Brown listening
"Go on girl shake that thing"
Kind of Sisters.

Some face slapping
Hands on hips
"Don't mess with me,
Pack your bags and
get the hell out of my house"
Sorta women

Some PhD toten
Poetry writing
Portrait painting
"I'll see you in court"
World traveling
Stand back, I'm creating
Type of queens

I was raised by women

                  Kelly Norman Ellis

A Place of Our Own Blog #8

Many poems owe their existence to a place.  There are places we remember or we experience and we want to capture them with our words.  In chapters 15 and 16 Goldsmith-Wooldridge discusses place in poetry.  The places that inspired her both as a child and adult; the thoughts these places evoked and what Plum Nelly taught her about poetry.  In the practice she asks you write about a place... I would like you to create a poem based on a place for this weeks blog.

Blog #7 Ordinary Magic

“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.”
                                                                                 ― H.G. Wells

I love this quote from H.G.Wells; it always makes me think of the ordinary magic celebrations in Poem Crazy and all the ideas we have been reading. I love the relation of things in new and unexpected ways, and the idea that if we are open to all of the life that is around us we can live in a constant state of amazement.  As I journal and write this I am drawn to thinking of Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland, so much of our life has to do with perspective.  We can see things one way, and if we wait a moment and cock our head slightly we can see it in a whole new way.  Life is a miracle and a mystery; so much to explore and experience.  So many tiny celebrations to create throughout each day! So don't waste a minute...get busy and blog about the celebration you created from practice 12 or the poem you created inspired by your celebration.

#6 The Summer I Was...

The Summer I Was Sixteen

Geraldine Connolly

The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.
Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted
up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,
danced to the low beat of "Duke of Earl".
Past cherry colas, hot-dogs, Dreamsicles,
we came to the counter where bees staggered
into root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled
cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,
shared on benches beneath summer shadows.
Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenille
blankets across grass, pressed radios to our ears,
mouthing the old words, then loosened
thin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodine
across sunburned shoulders, tossing a glance
through the chain link at an improbable world.


Use this poem from the 180 book, as inspiration for creating your own poem.
You decide the year etc.

The summer I was... or use the template as inspiration for the ______ I was ______

Your Own Poetical Creation! # 5

This week I would like you to pick one of the poems that you have created thus far. Polish it, make it shine and post it on your blog. You have written some beautiful poems you have shared with the class and possibly some amazing ones you have yet to share.

Pick something you like and want to share with the rest of us. I look forward to some amazing blogs this week. Blow me away with your genius!

Conversation Heart Poetry Blog #4

Although I do not think this particular candy is edible, I do love to play with them.  They are great for creating poems! I hope that you enjoyed playing with them and were able to create something extremely creative! This week post the picture of your poem from class.  Be sure that you also tape a picture of this poem in your journal! Can't wait to read your fabulous poetical creations!

This blog is extra special so it will be due on Wednesday.

Love Blog # 3

Love Padlock tree in Moscow.

As we approach Valentine's Day and look for love poems. They are all around and do not have to be written to a person!  I encourage you to read a lot to help as you begin to write your own.

 We have read in Poem Crazy about using images to encourage inspiration. I have put several images which may help to inspire you, or I encourage you to find your own.  You will want to print the image and attach it to your journal with your practice work. Really look for something that creates a strong emotion within you and use that as your muse for this poem. After playing around in your journal create a final poem to post on your blog. 

Be sure to include the image on your blog with the poem it helped to inspire.  Create your love or anti-love poem.☺

All over Europe there are love padlocks,
they started appearing in the early 2000s;
no one is sure who started each one.
 There is one in Rome where the ritual of
affixing love padlocks on the bridge
 Ponte Milvio is attributed to the book,
 I Want You by Federico Moccia.
 I think is a beautiful sentimental tradition.

El Beso is in Lima, Peru

This cute scene can be found in Ottawa

                                       

       

In Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love

I love this in the fountain in Paris

This is the meeting place by Paul Day
 at St. Pancras Railway,  in London; there
are some great statues here.

The loveseat is another padlock and tribute to love in Italy.

Of course, there is Romeo and Juliet in Central Park.

Valentine's Art in Time Square

Hearts like these are all over San Francisco.

This set of pictures is from Emily Campbell's Love Ties, it is absolutely genius the words are all about Hanley Park in  Stoke on Trent.  She created these pieces "a reminder of distant memories, of words once spoken that can and often are so easily forgotten or torn apart. As it lives in the park a permanent and solid nature the reminder of these letters is not allowed to die, they can't be retracted or torn up. Love Ties serves to remind us that despite what we may have neglected, our words can and often do live on in others."

Metrophobia Post #2

I ache for people who approach poetry like a root canal with torturous fear.  They may have experienced the English class torture chamber Mr. Collins described for us; holding the poems of dead, white, men hostage.  There may have been a sprinkling of Whitman and Dickinson. But the experience sucked the joy out of their marrow...crippling their poetic souls. That school experience is enough to cause some to run with they hear the word poetry later in life as if there were a swarm of killer bees after them. I hope that in this High School Poetry class we can reexamine poetry and learn to love it.  Just as we love other things like music and food; we don't all love the same types, but for each of us there is something we like. To the average person, poetry conjures images of archaic rhyming couplets, Shakespeare, beatniks snapping their fingers, diaries full of feelings, and a horde of other stereotypes. Like all stereotypes, it only shows a few aspects and not the multi-facets of poetry. You could say that those people who run, suffer from Metrophobia, the fear of poetry.  Ideally, poetry is everything, and that most certainly includes humor, love and modern relevancy. All those people who pass poetry off as elitist and esoteric work of dead white men are happy to create their self-fulfilling prophecies, limiting themselves and missing out on gems.  I hope that each of you will not fall prey to Metrophobia so you don't miss out on great poems like these gems by Maya Angelou:


Alone
by Maya Angelou
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees                                        
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors                
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
                 
 Watch and read the poems by Maya Angelou.  In this post write a response paragraph or poem to one of  Angelou's poems. Tell my what you think?

P.S. Do you suffer from any Metrophobia?

Welcome to Poetry!

Welcome to the fabulous world of poetry! I am so excited to study poetry with you this semester.

As we study this semester I want you to think about...
Why write poetry? 
Why Study poetry? 
Why is it that for thousands of years human beings have been creating and thinking and writing down their thoughts in the form of poetry?  
These are all fabulous questions; ones that I hope you will answer for yourselves this semester.
I believe we love poetry because it is alive, it is the expression of humanity.  Poetry is full of emotion, passion, opinions, beauty, anger, hope, dreams, fears...it is the window into our souls.  Part of being human is the desire to express ourselves.  I believe poems are the expression of what is inside each of us, and each poem is written because of a need to express our emotions.
Poems allow us to express a moment, a feeling, an idea as truthfully and carefully as possible so that each reader can feel the essences of the emotion behind it.
There are so many poems, types of poems and ways to express ourselves.  I can't wait to get started!☺

Once you have set up your blog please write your first post.  Tell me why you are studying poetry. What is your experience with poetry and how do you feel about it? Why do you think so many people either love or hate poetry?  What do you hope to gain from your experience with poetry?