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?