Do you want them both in the same arm? or not? the nurse politely asked in the dispensing of two shots one for the flu and the other covid I did not know the answer and became perplexed Did I want a shot in each arm to even out the pain? or just one to carry the burden? One arm, I replied make it the left save my writing arm at least I'd have one good arm so I thought Afterwards, I felt bad and apologized to my left arm for giving the right arm more privilege when later upon my writing time I realized It was the left that held the notebook steady so the right could do her dance across the pages. draft sd 2022 Writing and sharing a poem a day ~ "The writing is inhaling and the sharing is exhaling. They don't have to be good, they just have to be true." ~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
poetry
To the woman who remained on my tail through the round about and down hwy 59
I can see you, you know Your big SUV pressed against the bumper of my petite Malibu the rage on your face perched up high behind that steering wheel the size of a hula hoop I may have taken that round about at the pace of a sloth on a late Friday afternoon But you see ~ I was taking a sip of my hot cup of coffee in my heavy new mug I was admiring from my mother for my birthday and being struck by the dawn peeking just over the horizon at precisely the same time and the sky was a piercing blue while Padraig O Tuama read me a poem on my podcast with the Irish in his voice. . . and the speed was not on my mind. So forgive me. But, I'll tell ya If you do it again I'll step on my brakes in hopes you can see. Writing a poem a day - they don't have to be good, they just have to be true. ~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
when i die, let them write about my mistakes~
When I die, let them write about all the mistakes I've made. Let them mention how I failed at keeping the house clean, or finishing things that I could not make a garden grow nice vegetables like my sister. Or spell. Tell them I loved to write but those words and their spelling. . . Tell them I sometimes paid a bill late and had late fees, and overdue library books and that I did not always answer the phone when it rang so I put it on silent to not hear it ring Let them mention that I've damaged cars by filling them up with oil and let black smoke trail behind me and couldn't run a TV remote or the VCR, or pretty much anything with buttons. They can note how my teenage children snuck out of the house at night and I never knew - some mother I am to not have a clue Let them say I was tired, or lazy, or daydreamed a lot, or whatever it looked like to you. I don't care. Tell them whatever you want But do let them know that I cared and I loved the best and that messing up was part of the plan. This poem was inspired by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's poem: AFTER MY FRIEND PHYLLIS SHOWS ME THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY HEADLINE: 'LOU MICHAELS, ALL-PURPOSEM PLAYER, DIES AT 80, MISSED KICKS IN '69 SUPER BOWL'. Writing and sharing a poem a day ~ "The writing is inhaling and the sharing is exhaling. They don't have to be good, they just have to be true." ~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
A nudge from My Poet Guide, Rosemerry
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has done quite a number on me this month, my 57th Birthday Month. I chose Rosemerry as my Poet Guide for the month of September. As the last week of my Birthday Month draws nearer, she has been nudging me to come out from behind my notebook and share the poems that lay hidden between my pages.
Rosemerry does not just write poems, she writes them every day, and shares them every day. Every day, a new poem goes out into the world, an offering to some soul who is waiting for the balm Rosemerry’s words are.
I started writing a poem a day at the beginning of 2022, from the smallest of moments. They provided a documentation of who I was that day – what I paid attention to, and each poem gifted me a discovery in the making. It became an obsession. However, most of them are not very good. In fact, many of them make me shudder at the childlike sweeping words of my pen. But, maybe this is the point. To share these poetry beginnings with the world to overcome our fear of perfection. We are working those bravery muscles and quieting that critic every time we hit SUBMIT.
Rosemerry’s words echo with each poem scribed:
“They do not have to be good. They just have to be true.”
William Stafford, my poet guide from April, and his son, Kim Stafford, my guide from May, each also wrote/write a poem a day and have adopted this same way of writing and sharing poems. Both poets also urge us to write bad poems, but make them be true.
So, at the Poet Guides’ urging, I begin. Along with many other poets who fling their words out into the world, in hopes they just might land on some thirsty soul. But that really does not matter to me. The words are there to remind myself – to live my life wide awake to each miniscule moment of my day. I do not know when the last day will arrive, but I whisper to myself each morning, “What if this were the last day?” and I choose to live it as such.
POETRY INVITATIONS
Some poems arrive on their own spoken words from someone you love a passer-by, or a stranger their words - a doorway to inside. Or perhaps the conversation between two crows soaring in the sky beg for documentation, the oaks, the acorns, and the rocks we carry in our suitcases, all yeast for the bread of a poem. But, somedays, a nudge from a poetry friend is is the remedy- Rosemerry or Padraig, Naomi or Natalie, They whisper, Shari - see this poem? Feel it? Here's what they did! You try it! Trade out words of your own! Well, Padraig adds, you don't have to if you don't want to, you can do what you want. Rosemerry looks at Padraig and then me and adds: But, it's FUN! Writing and sharing a poem a day ~ "The writing is inhaling and the sharing is exhaling. They don't have to be good, they just have to be true." ~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
How a message arrives
An early morning transcribing
messages from beyond
the sky- – a stunning blue
spring buds beginning their escape
an infrequent flock of seagulls
high above – cry to steal my attention
racing the robins to the first
morning call
The pen harkens back to the voice
of a poet, who the day before
I’d savored his own scribed words
his father’s voice
laced with his own
Writing poems is a service to others
gift those poems to someone
with the nib of your pen, his lesson
Share without fear! A poem can’t wait
for perfect conditions!
Braiding his message with that
of the morning seagulls cries
and the urgency of these spring leaves
it all flows at once into the river –
my passport to the day
The sky is the limit! the chorus sings.
Shari Daniels ~draft
To listen to Kim Stafford’s words: podcast/rattlecastpoetry: https://youtu.be/ZT0cnRH1Jy8
Poetry as resilience~SOL 4/31~2022
Mark Nepo joined the hosts, James Crews and Danusha Laméris on this fifth week of the Poetry as Resilience Retreat I have been participating in. Each Friday, for two hours, a poet guest shares how poetry has been a life giving force for them and ways for us to use poetry as a practice for sustenance in our daily lives. The retreat has been such balm for me at the end of each week, coming together with others who savor the lighthouse that poetry can offer us.
I want to share the essence of today’s words from Mark Nepo.
He teaches us,
Falling down and getting back up has a rhythm. There is an art to falling. We have to learn to to keep getting back up.
Our daily, weekly and yearly rhythms of emotional, physical, mental and spiritual selves have a rhythm as well. Repeatedly, we fall, not fail, but more of a letting go – a shedding – an acceptance that something no longer serves us.
This can completely undo us.
And, we need practices for getting back up.
For me, in the last few years, poetry has been this practice. The deep study of a poet each month has been a guide with their words through my days. The memorization of one poem, every now and then, gives me an ownership of those lines – an embodiment in which I can call to those lines at a given moment of need. They are waiting, at the ready. Poetry Dives with Kim Rosen have awakened me to the power of reading poetry out loud, with music, as a lubrication for those words to do it’s work.
Poetry has been my way of getting back up. Whether reading, writing and listening to poetry, it’s been my buoy and my anchor.
Today, I share a poem gifted by Mark Nepo, one that has found it’s way to my pages today:
The Rhythm of Each by Mark Nepo I think each comfort - each holding in the night, each opening of a wound, each closing of a wound, each pulling of a splinter or razored word, each fever sponged, each dear thinking given to someone in greater need - each passes on the kindness we have known. For the human sea is made of cares that mount and merge till the way a nurse rocks a child is the way that child all grown rocks the wounded, and how the wounded, allowed to go on, can rock strangers free of their pain. Eventually, the rhythm of kindness is how we suffer and pray by turns, and if someone were to watch us from inside the lake of time, they wouldn't be able to tell if we are dying or being born. From The Way Under the Way. Sounds True. 2016
If you’d like to create your own poetry retreat, you can listen to a poetry talk by Mark Nepo here or listen to James Crew’s in Poetry Writing as Self Care or maybe you’d also like to listen to Naomi Shihab Nye. I am so grateful that these artists share their work with us.
I am participating in the 15th Annual SOL 2022 March challenge. For 31 days, I will attempt to write and share a small slice of life from my days. If you’d like to read more of today’s slices from other teacher-writers, please head over to twowritingteachers, who have also committed to this challenge.
The smallness of things~Sol 1/31~2022
Upon first morning steps outside the front door, my eyes rest on the smallish snow-like pebbles blanketing the ground. My work lately is to attend to these small wonders of the days that stretch out before me . . . distractions from the injustices and the anxieties of worldly events that dominate the screens.
I often ponder at how small one can go.
The sunshine seems too grand. The tropical breeze of 25 above zero (after weeks of 25 below) and the arrival of deer in the backyard all give me pause for gratitude, yet there are even more miniscule moments that go unnoticed, the less obvious. What Ross Gay calls “delights”.
How many can I capture on a given day? To carry me onward with more hope?
Reminders of this practice follow me around as Naomi Shihab Nye and Danusha Laméris have conversation about how these small moments in our everyday life offer us poetry for living. We neglected them pre-pandemic. Now, we admit, they are all we have to carry us onward.
On this particular day, these tiniest mysteries are spread out before me as far as my eyes can see.
Graupel, the internet tells me, is what it has been named. It screams to be a poem:
Graupel Bouncing snowflakes blanket the ground miniature Styrofoam balls formed in highly unstable atmospheres and convective currents warm air hugs close to the ground cold peers downward snowflakes tumble from the sky rain swaths it's melted tears cocooning the chill of winters end Shari Daniels draft~2022 I borrowed a few phrases from the internet to draft this poem, because sometimes I need help to get myself going.
I am participating in the 15th Annual SOL 2022 March challenge. For 31 days, I will attempt to write and share a small slice of life from my days. If you’d like to read more of today’s slices from other teacher-writers, please head over to twowritingteachers, who have also committed to this challenge.
#2021 NPM~A Progressive Poem: Day 25
Some time ago, I added my name to the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem contributor list. The Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem was born in 2012 by Irene Latham, of Live Your Poem, as a way to celebrate poetry during the month of April as a community of writers. The poem travels from day to day through the month of April, blog to blog, with each host adding a line to the poem as it unfolds in a magical way.
Margaret Simon coordinates this journey, and this year, Kathryn Apel, children’s author and poet has gifted us a beginning line in which to follow.
Here is the compellation of poetry lines that make up the poem thus far:
******************* I’m a case of kindness – come and catch me if you can! Easily contagious – sharing smiles is my plan. I'll spread my joy both far and wide As a force of nature, I’ll be undenied. Words like, "how can I help?" will bloom in the street. A new girl alone on the playground – let’s meet, let’s meet! We can jump-skip together in a double-dutch round. Over, under, jump and wonder, touch the ground. Friends can be found when you open a door. Side by side, let’s walk through, there’s a world to explore. We’ll hike through a forest of towering trees. Find a stream we can follow while we bask in the breeze. Pull off our shoes and socks, dip our toes in the icy spring water When you’re with friends, there’s no have to or oughter. What could we make with leaves and litter? Let's find pine needles, turn into vine knitters. We'll lie on our backs and find shapes in the sky. We giggle together: See the bird! Now we fly? Inspired by nature, our imaginations soar. Follow that humpback! Here, take an oar. Ahh! Here comes a wave -- let's hold on tight, splashing and laughing, let's play until night! When the Milky Way sparkles, and the moon’s overhead, *************
Tabatha Yeatts, at her blog home, The Opposite of Indifference, has offered me two lines to choose from and add to this poem, and then my task is to generate two more lines for Tim Gels to choose from as the next poet in line. Tabatha’s poetry line choices are:
we watch firefly friends signal with wings outspread or we make a pretend campfire and tell stories we've read
Myself, loving a good story, I’m choosing:
we make a pretend campfire and tell stories we've read
So, now, in repeating that finished last stanza:
Ahh! Here comes a wave -- let's hold on tight, splashing and laughing, let's play until night! When the Milky Way sparkles, and the moon’s overhead, we make a pretend campfire and tell stories we've read.
This poem is nearing the end, with a possible one stanza left and perhaps a closing line that leaves the reader lingering in wonderment. So, this last stanza feels like it must take a bend or pivot in some way.
Here are my two line choices for Tim to choose from and then to follow up with his own line:
You tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine.
or
Some stories are true and some myths of our time. **********************
Tim, at Yet There is a Method, I pass the baton off to you to see if you can make something of this.
Good Luck, Poetry Friend!
**********************
Please join in reading other poetry friends who contributed to this Progressive Poem this year:
April 1 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers 2 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise 3 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading 4 Donna Smith at Mainly Write 5 Irene Latham at Live your Poem 6 Jan Godown Annino at BookseedStudio 7 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities 8 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care 9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche 10 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone 11 Buffy Silverman 12 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche 13 Jone Rush MacCulloch 14 Susan Bruck at Soul Blossom Living 15 Wendy Taleo at Tales in eLearning 16 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe 17 Tricia Stohr Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect 18 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance 19 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link 20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge 21 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life 22 Ruth Hersey at There is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town 23 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse 24 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference 25 Shari Daniels at Islands of my Soul 26 Tim Gels at Yet There is Method 27 Rebecca Newman 28 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core 29 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wondering 30 Michelle Kogan at More Art 4 All
A Text Message Poem: A Poetry Invitation #1/30 PAD
The March #Slice of Life Challenge ended yesterday, and while I’ve yet to reflect on that month long journey of putting writing out into the world, I felt a nudge to keep sharing some writing each day. How lovely it is that March flows right into April – the blessed month of poetry, along with opportunities to share poetry all over the place. I am delighted when April rolls along so I can take a deep dive into the world of poems.
Big wonderings lead me into this quest:
How can poetry sustain me this month?
What might my themes for poems be?
What new poetry strategies, forms and craft techniques might I try out?
Who will the poets be that guide me on this journey?
Years ago, I was introduced to Georgia Heard and devoured her book, Awakening the Heart. She taught me that poetry hides within the Doors of Poetry: The Observation Door, The Heart Door, The Wonder Door, The Memory Door, and The Concerns of the World Door.
Early on in my poetry journey, before I truly LOVED poetry (because if I’m honest, I was not schooled to love poetry), I categorized the poems I found and wrote using these doors. While this was a very limited view of poetry, it gave me some stepping stones to begin observing where poetry hides with a variety of lenses. And, while I don’t think of these Doors of Poetry now, when reading or writing poetry, I believe they might unconsciously be an underground knowing that I draw from. Many poems can be categorized as several doors at once, or. . . it just depends. Some poems are their own category.
Yet, I believe we sometimes need a place to start. Thinking of The Doors of Poetry gives one a framework for opening up to a new and unrestricted view of poetry. One that is starkly different from their own middle and high school years, of analysis of poems and writing poems within prescribed forms.
This month, I’d like to attempt to put some perimeters on my poetry deep dive and strive to read, write, share and offer invitations to write poetry within the framework of Georgia’s Doors of Poetry. Yet still, be able to do this without tripping up the flow of what a poem wants to be. This can be both restrictive and creative at the same time.
If anything, these invitations are here for myself, to use again and again.
Here’s the first Poetry Invitation: A Text Message Poem
Search your phone for a text message conversation that can be shaped into a poem.
The Mother-Daughter Dance There is a space where my tooth belonged The tongue wriggles around in its confused state of bewilderment It's the first sign of old age I message my 28-year old daughter Or young age she replies Kids lose their teeth, too, Mom she reminds me Maybe I should shift my thinking as this transition into wise age I text back Yes. Very Wise. She Replies. You are so wise that your teeth are falling out . . . (long pause) I feel like I need to lose some teeth she adds Shari Daniels, draft
What started out as an observation poem, in the newfound awareness of this empty space way back in my mouth, and the text messages to my daughter, had turned into a heart poem, showing the compassion and care my daughter has for me in her attempt to trip up the default wiring my own mind has when I go down the “I’m getting old” road. She recognizes this and saves me.
Her last text message response is bait for me to notice that she, too, right now, in her 20 something life, is seeking an extra dose of wisdom. She in a state of what-to-do-ness.
It’s a dance we dance frequently – the Mother and the Daughter.
You can find it in the messages we hold in our hands.
This month I’m participating in the 2021 April PAD (Poem A Day) Challenge in which I’ll be poeming my way through the month and also the NaPoWriMo poetry challenge for April. If you’d like to join along and write poems, you can find other poems to read at these sites here and here. Each site also gives invitations for poems each day. Or, head over to Poets.org to find other ways to celebrate poetry this month.
Islands of My Soul 