A very special thank you to Stacey Joy for supporting our writing lives this month. Please follow Stacey Joy on Twitter for more resources and inspiration all year long @Joyteamstars. We will see you back here on February 15-19 with Allison Berryhill. Please share the email reminder form and flyer with colleagues and administrators to spread the writing love! For more poem ideas, see our archives here.
Inspiration
Today we will respond to the Call of Words! This activity is much more fun when the mentor text can be read aloud to a group of writers/students. My 2011 UCLA Writing Project instructor taught this lesson and I’ve enjoyed it for years.
Process
Select a poem or use the poem I’ve included from Jacqueline Woodson. If you do this with students, you’ll read the poem aloud three times. While the audience listens to the poem, they jot down words that they hear that “call” them or move them in some way. Longer poems may inspire longer lists. However, context and content in shorter poems can generate powerful lists too. My list words show up in my poem in bold to show my students what words called me from the poem.
For our purposes, you may watch/listen to Jacqueline Woodson’s poem “Music” (click here to listen/watch reading of an excerpt from her book, Brown Girl Dreaming). You may want to watch first, then close your eyes to listen a second time, then listen and compose your list the 3rd time.
If this poem does not call or inspire you, please choose a different audio-poem to create your list and ultimately your Call of Words poem. My list:
- Radio
- Michael Jackson
- Be themselves
- Going to get easier
- On we go
- Mother lets us
- Funky
- Summer
- Ten
- Cool
- Corny people
- Beautiful
- Begun
- Falls in love
- Pink
- Shag
- World
- Intruders
- Get the funk
- Again
- Again
- Sound
- Good
- Not connected to anything
Stacey’s Poem
“Living Without Her” (A tribute to my mom on the anniversary of her passing)
Almost ten years ago today
She left our world
My mother lets us
Live now
Without her
Not connected to anything
My beautiful Mommie
Who made childhood so cool and easy
Summer was our favorite time
Waking to funky sounds on the radio
And aromas of her good bacon
And warm waffles
Playing Monopoly on scratchy shag carpet
On we would go
Dancing for hours
To Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin
And Mommie cheering,
“Get it girls! Ahhh shucks!”
Until it was time to dive into the pool
Sometimes filled with intruders
In ugly pink swim caps
Who she called friends and could
Be themselves
Who had begun swim lessons
Who we’d see again and again
Year after year
Until she got too sick
Or too tired to swim
Or teach again
My mother lets us
Live now without her
But she’s close
We know it’s not going to get easier
Because it’s been almost ten years since
She left here
We remember that day
She left here
The way
She left here
But she’s close
Not connected to anything
Except us.
Write
Your Turn
Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe.
Good Thursday Morning!
Stacey, thank you for a wonderful week of poem prompting, writing, encouragement and craft tips. I love writing weeks. Even though it’s difficult to fit all the parts of this week into this week. I really get so much out of it. And, your prompts that connected us especially with people of our past was tremendously meaningful. Thank you. Your students are quite fortunate to benefit from a daily dose of your expertise.
I fell asleep writing this poem last night! lol. Middle school kicks my butt some days.
This word list came from Telling My Father by James Crews which was yesterday’s featured poem on The Slowdown with Tracy K Smith. I wanted a poem that was fresh to me so that the calling words would be new.
found
crow
tab
reek
eyeliner
smiled
storm door
waiting
orange juice
patch
sunlight
Linda’s Poem
I found a poem
early this morning
drinking coffee
at the kitchen table.
It was stirring in sugar
watching through the window
as crows perched on power wires
squabbled over night news
from opposite sides of the street.
The written page was eyeliner streaked
after a long night.
Quietly, I grabbed orange juice
from the fridge. Stepped through
the storm door
onto the porch
leaving poem
to write us
some sunlight.
Looking for some inspiration with my morning coffee, I came back to this page to find your poem. I love this line, “The written page was eyeliner streaked
after a long night.” Some poems just write themselves and others linger throughout the day (or days).
Good morning Linda,
Thank you for your support this week and for taking time out to respond to the Call of Words. Well, thank goodness you answered this call because your poem needed to be shared.
I agree with Margaret, it wrote itself! I can imagine the pen and paper together and the poem resting in midair above the page. As soon as you sat down, touched ground two, the poem appeared. It leaves me feeling grateful for this day, “to write us
some sunlight.” Perfection.
Have a spectacular day. See you back here in February!
Leaving the poem to write us some sunlight. I was transported through your storm door and on to the porch. Lovely.
What a beautiful tribute to your mom. The poem touched my heart immediately with your first verse. Even though it has been 10 years the memories are so vividly told in the way your words paint a picture of your childhood. You were so clear in your love for her, and so very brave with your intentional effort not to let her, her story, her kindness, and her caring ways leave with her physical passing. I know sometimes it is less painful to push those memories away until you no longer remember them, thus avoiding feeling the loss. But when you said, “The ugly pink swimming caps”, I knew immediately the level you choose to remember and honor your mother with that distinct line. I’d forgotten all about those ugly pink swimming caps until you just reminded me. But it is that simple detail that allows your reader to understand how she is still “she’s close”.
Good morning Melissa! Thank you for taking the time (at such a late hour too) to read my poem and spend a moment in the past with me.
Hugs and love!
Oh boy. I have been learning to play the accordion for the past three years. I often tell people the accordion is a lot more fun to PLAY than it is to listen to. That’s how I feel about my poem tonight! I guarantee it was more fun to write than it will be to read! After following Stacey’s instructions and gathering my call of words (listed) from Woodson’s “Music,” I tried to write something that used all of the words I collected but no others. This invited me to look for pleasing combinations and to push thoughts against a very constrained vocabulary! Stacey, let me say here what a great week of prompts you served up! THANK YOU, thank you.
Morning
Seven
Three
Sly
Stone
Slower
Stairsteps
Heavy
Brother
Listen
Anywhere
Ten
Black
White
Colorado
Everything
Begun
Love
Safe
Shag
Hair
Ohio
Intruders
Faces
Hard
Us
Word
Sound
A Call of Words
Listen brother:
Colorado Ohio
Shag hair heavy faces
Anywhere everything
Three seven ten
Stairsteps white black
Anywhere everything
Heavy stone hard love
Sly intruders safe word
Anywhere everything
Morning begun
Slower sound
Anywhere everything
Brother, listen.
Allison, what a creative and challenging take on today’s prompt! Your poem really shows off your wordsmithing skills. Love it!
The constraints you put upon yourself really created quite a creative result. The repeated refrain “anywhere everything” resonates.
Good morning and thank you Allison! Wow, I read your list and it even could’ve been the poem too. Then your poem comes dancing through with seamless flow and ease. What a gift you have. And I love that you challenged yourself even more with her poem as your call.
Can hardly wait for you to pull me into another poetic frenzy next month. Have a wonderful day!
I’m using Music by Ms. Woodson and will capitalize the words I’ve chosen.
Flying Tales
My first ride was to Hawaii when I was 5
It wasn’t SUMMER but I got to miss a
little school and that upset me
I was ambivalent about going since
my daddy didn’t come but I remember
hearing MICHAEL JACKSON on the taxi RADIO
and somehow i knew I’d be alright.
My next few flights involved going back
and forth to reconnect my mom to her roots in
Fort Worth and I got to know
my southern cousins. I was introduced
to the FUNKY CHICKEN and
BLACK RADIO STATIONS.
Since I attended college in Alabama,
I travelled by plane three times a year.
Every time I flew, I tried to sit by the window
so I could see my country and all kinds of
DIFFERENT landscapes and horizons.
Once I flew home with a secret kitten in my
purse. She started purring during take-off
and I told her, ” WE’VE ONLY JUST BEGUN
to fly, you’ve got to keep quiet. I’m
breaking the RULES by sneaking you on the plane.”
When my daughters were young, I had to pack
books, DOLLS and snacks for them and make sure
they had plenty of yawns for their popping ears
Once, I got off a plane frustrated with my daughters, and
my mom told me, “THINGS ARE GOING TO GET EASIER.
The girls will grow up and will learn how to travel.”
She was right as usual.
Seana, your poem is a tribute to the power of words to link us to memory. I loved the part of reconnecting to your Ft. Worth cousins–and the music. You took me back to a memory of visiting my own Michigan cousins and listing to the Beetles on their 45 record player! Your anecdote of taking a kitten on the plane is a gem!
Good morning Seana! I’m thrilled to see that J. Woodson’s poem called you too!
This is magical:
“I got to know
my southern cousins. I was introduced
to the FUNKY CHICKEN and
BLACK RADIO STATIONS.”
The southern cousins speaks to me. I always wanted some of those!
I’m cracking up at the kitten on the plane I’m your purse! Definitely something I would do in a heartbeat!
The ending made my heart smile!
“The girls will grow up and will learn how to travel.”
She was right as usual.
So grateful you were able to join us this month. Please come back next month. I loved your poems.
Thanks for the invite. All of the poems TRULY inspired me to attempt to bring my A-game, especially all of yours. Thanks again. See you next month!!
Stacey,
Thank you for all the wonderful inspirational ideas! It was fun!
Call of Words Poem
Inspired by “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley
Sometimes I look up in the black, night sky,
wondering, unafraid,
Is this my soul trying to connect to a god…to several gods?
Unbowed I clutch my temples with both hands.
What wrath awaits this doubter?
What shade?
What menace and wrath will invoke eternal tears?
Am I the master of my fate?
Hi Shaun, appreciate your poetry this week and for joining us in this challenge.
Whew weeee! That poem is short and mighty! I see the wonderings clearly coming through. The natural inclination to question our fate. Powerful topic for writing.
My favorite line is:
What menace and wrath will invoke eternal tears?
“Invictus” is in my memorized repertoire! I love this poem.
I appreciated these lines in your poem:
“What wrath awaits this doubter?
What shade?”
You seemed to be asking the question Henley answers in his final stanza as he sacrifices the punishments of the hereafter for the self-determination of the now.
Thank you for inviting me into this poem again through your “call of words”!
Here’s Stuart Dybek’s poem, “Swan”
Amid the fifties bric-a-brac
in my mother’s museum
of a shadow box mirror—
a blue Madonna blessed in Rome,
as Alpine village in a globe
that snowed when turned upside down,
and a miniature piano
with a key that unlocked Chopin—
there lived a swan
that could change even the doily
upon which it swam
into a crystalline pond.
Daylight fresh from your body;
what’s most lovely about you
is elusive: light projected
through a glass figurine,
magnified into a refraction
brighter than substance,
a prismatic shadow
that transforms
whatever object it surrounds.
And here is my poem:
Grandma Dorsey lived in a second story apartment
on 63rd street in Marquette Park.
We visited each Sunday.
With each visit came the warnings:
“Don’t touch the bric-a-brac!”
“Leave her shadow boxes alone!”
Grandma’s place was neat and tidy,
like a museum.
Each Hummel and Madonna had
his or her own lovely doily
protecting her world from us.
She loved us, I know,
But her love seemed elusive.
She was sweet and kind, but never effusive.
Sometimes I wondered if she would have loved us more
if we were glass figurines
magnified by the refraction of light
Surrounded by the shadows of her boxes.
I love the images – I could see the Hummels in my own grandmother’s cabinet!
Mo,
This is exquisite. I recognized the warnings. I too received them when visiting my grandma Cowen. My favorite part is the end:
“I wondered if she would have loved us more
if we were glass figurines
magnified by the refraction of light
Surrounded by the shadows of her boxes.”
The imagery is so good, and your poem illuminates the complications in the relationship w/ your grandmother. I love everything about this poem. Beautiful.
Mo, ohhh the visual stimulation you’ve given me. From the warnings, doilies, figurines, and the Sunday visits. Reminiscing over here!!
The ending hit me in all kinda places!! I always wondered if my favorite Grandmother was mad. I don’t think so, but we needed more of that suffocate me in your hugs kinda love.
Thank you Mo!
Mo, from the “visited each Sunday” I sense the constraints of the relationship. Your poem moves me forward in this vein:
“Each Hummel and Madonna had
his or her own lovely doily
protecting her world from us.”
I love how your poem explores Grandma Dorsey’s controlled (limited?) relationships with her grandchildren through the metaphor of her “museum.”
How ironic that the Madonnas–mother figure–must be protected from the children!
You gave me so much to think about. I love your poetry.
Ryan
twenty years
is a long time to know someone
it took just a second of fate
“T” and “Y”, our matchmaker was an alphabetical seating chart
each morning, sharing cheerios before zero period
each afternoon, sharing Powerade after PE
easy as 1, 2, 3
the summer I turned twelve
I met my future husband
a friendship was born
the special kind
it will take another nine years to
fall in love
twenty years
is a long time to love someone
we’ve only just begun
What a sweet story poem! Funny how the T/Y and twenty years keep repeating…coincidence?
I also love those lyrical lines that conjure up ear worms!
What a story, Emily! I love the matchmaker reference.
Yessss Emily! I love what you’ve created from J. Woodson’s poem. You have a special kind of love that many of us don’t get to have. Marrying your childhood friend. That’s amazing. And my favorite part:
twenty years
is a long time to love someone
we’ve only just begun
Wonderful! Thank you Emily for joining us here for the challenge. It’s been incredible to connect with you again on this level. Hugs!
Oh my! What a tender, special poem this is! Isn’t it funny–wonderful!–how the limitations of a prompt can set a poem into motion? You gave my heart some love tonight. Thank you!
I am going to do the Call of Words with my class next week, so I instead am posting a poem that I started a few months back and just finished it. It is word heavy and detail thick. It needs some crap cut, but I feel it captures a lot. I’d love some feedback.
Life by Toyota
Life’s stages in four vehicle purchases
Camry
1989 Sedan
White with navy interior
First big adult purchase
Paid sticker price . . . sucker
Bit off more than a new teaching salary could afford
Great gas mileage
To and from work
Road trips . . . Greencastle, Btown, Indy, Evansville
Cooler in the trunk
Bud Light
Overnight bag in the back seat
Container of Hot Tamales in the console
Indigo Girls and Floating Men ride along
Wash and vacuum weekly
A fumey smell from the interior that won’t go away
But still, pride
Roadtrip to Indy 500
Parked where others were
Behind a suburban
Loaded with luggage, cooler, food, golf clubs, tent, junk
“I don’t see my car!”
“Maybe it’s farther down the street”
“No . . . I parked behind that suburban”
Sheet of glass all that remained
Called the police from a house with dirt floors
“You should have known better than to park
In front of the projects”
Took us to the 7-11
Dropped us off
“We bikers are good people”
Weeks later spotted being driven around downtown circle.
Hot pursuit
Crash
Flee
Towed back to Jasper
Totaled
End of the Camry
Life span . . . less than a year
Couldn’t afford much even with insurance.
Took a Toyota break and got a
Mitsubishi Gallant.
Yearned for something more.
4-Runner
SUV
Gold with grey interior
TIme to move on to adventure
Time to be cool
Leased . . . couldn’t afford it otherwise
Fewer reasons to hit the road
Good thing . . . crappy gas mileage
Perfect for a small family
10,000 Maniacs and The Cranberries
Rear-ended at the bottom of the Y
Elisabeth in back . . . the fear in a wreck takes on new weight
Two kids brought home from hospital,
Two car seats
Then . . .
No room for others between those clunky seats
Time to move sights to a family roadster
Sienna
Mini-van
The swagger wagon
First, one green with grey cloth interior
Driver’s AND passenger’s manual doors
Easy to get kids in and out
And room for more
Travel TV strapped onto a crate
Travel TVs strapped onto the backs of front seats
Stroller in back
Diaper bag behind driver’s seat loaded with necessities
Mirror on the back of the seat so baby’s faces can be seen
Beatles for Babies and Raffi cassettes blasting from the speakers
I gave up cool
Serious adulting now.
Road trips to parties and college campuses replaced
by trips to the park and library and Holiday World and the
Free Wednesday movies at the cinema
Spinning through the McDonald’s drive-thru for Happy Meals
Not nearly as cool as 2:00 a.m. Taco Bell and White Castles binges
Many many miles
Dings and dents and destroyed
Time to replace and upgrade . . .
Metallic blue paint
Leather, power doors, more cargo space
Four kids
Star of the week decides who gets the middle row seat next to Jack
Me in a row by myself 99.6% of the time
Four littles making messes and leaving stuff behind
Drink spills, dropped french fries, wrappers strewn about
A random sock, ponytail holders, Gameboy cartridges
Tim McGraw and Dixie Chicks my vibe when I get to choose
Ball game after ball game after ball game
Rolling bat bags and team snacks
Muddy cleats
Brick dust caked on pants
Tennis tourney after tennis tourney after tennis tourney
tennis bags bigger than them
water jugs
maybe a snack or two
no cooler of fresh fruit and silver dollar sandwiches though
Lots of miles put on those two Siennas
Lots of trips to games and school and daycare.
Lots of left turns.
Lots of right turns.
Fly up Celestine Highway, turn right up the hill into Rita’s
Fly back and head to work.
Fly down Shelyn Drive, turn left into ‘Cole’s driveway,
Fly down Kluemper and off to work.
Pull into PBS, idle in line, pull away from PBS.
Take Sixth Street in the early years and later St. Charles and head back to work.
Highlander
It was time.
(Jack cemented the decision by making the driver door inoperable)
Time to move past the mini-van and all the stereotyping that goes with it.
Time to get something decidedly more “cool.”
So, the vehicle hunt begins . . .
a car? a crossover? a Jeep?
Nah.
I want the whole family–all six of us–to be able to fit in it.
Even though events calling for all of us to fit in it are infrequent
Church some Sundays in the summer and at holidays.
The very rare road trip or family getaway
There’s just something about wanting everyone to have a seat.
Just like I want everyone to have a bed in our home even though some
are rarely there,
I want everyone to have a seat in the car.
I test drive
An Encore, an Edge
A Highlander.
It’s familiar.
The dials and the buttons and the instruments and the “feel”
Are all familiar
I drive solo most places
Am I glad?
Gone is the incessant chatter.
Gone is the incessant chatter.
Gone are the messes.
No more taxi service.
I can commandeer the radio
XM radio
audio books bluetoothed
I’m alone. Solo. Lonely? or Alone?
Toyota.
You make a vehicle for every stage of life.
To move from young and independent
To young and married
To young and tiptoeing into parenthood
To being fully swallowed up in the chaos of a family of six
To feeling liberated of needing the space that family requires
All of these stages
so diverse
so different
so defining
All of these memories
And the emotions
that aren’t going anywhere.
I asked for it. I got it.
Toyota.
As a fellow Toyota driver (Sapphire blue RAV 4), I share all the passion and loyalty you feel. Cars become our family members. You’ve worked hard on this and clearly have many great memories in these Toyota life stages! My favorite parts:
All of these stages
so diverse
so different
so defining
I asked for it. I got it.
Toyota. (Yes, I remember the musical jingle!)
Hey, Susan — I feel like I just speed-dated your cars through an entire life. This is quite a fun “vehicle” for tell a full life history (pun intended… LOL!) What a great idea…the cars that got us here. I like the quest for “cool” and the reality of practical. This has the fun tone of an Erma Bombeck column… all the calamity. The theft really had me … what a bummer… and then totaled…geez. The nostalgia of missing the noise, “the chatter” sure makes sense. I think you have a “cool” frame here for hanging all this history. I like the fun of it. Susie
Susan,
This is a fun, nostalgic drive through your myriad relationships w/ cars. Never could do the minivan thing myself! Ha! I like the specific connections to each vehicle, especially those w/ a direct connection to the family. I’ve never owned a Toyota and know I’m missing something at the end.
Susan, I love your concept of a life story told through the cars you’ve owned. Your memories are priceless. Side note- I got myself a sleek new ride after a coworker called my minivan a “grocery go-getter” and I realized that the 82-year-old custodian at work had the same van! ?
I borrowed from Jaqueline Woodson’s “When I Tell My Family” (using the line this is just another one of my stories).
This is just another one of my stories
The smile I leave
just for you
because I don’t smile often.
Or enough.
The hand catching yours,
fingers entwining
the heart strings of
us both.
A word,
only one,
that very first.
Because it only takes just one.
The quiet that settles
origin deep
when words
don’t need to be spoken.
This is just another one of my stories
written only for you.
Jennifer—what a peaceful, loving poem. I love the last line—this is just another one of my stories written only for you. I’m glad there are more of them, just as lovely, I’m sure.
Jennifer,
It has been so good to “be” with you these past few days.
The “just” resonates here — it is used to sort of minimize and yet it functions as an understatement. Every story matters. “A word,/only one” is everything because, as you write, “it only takes just one.”
Gorgeous!
Sarah
Jennifer I’m excited to read the J. Woodson poem that called to you! Wonderful love poem. I could read a book of love poems over any other book anytime. Something about your “this is just another one of my stories” says there are stories upon stories upon pages and pages held in journal after journal that await your release. Beautiful.
I’ve loved being part of your circle this week.
[love is more thicker than forget]
BY E. E. CUMMINGS
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
MY RESPONSE
Getting Married
With apologies to e.e.cummings
Getting Married can be thicker or thinner
Our starting was thinner.
Justice of the Peace at Mom and Dad’s
Two weeks after an off-handed decision
To make our long-term temporary…
Permanent.
Dad wore a green leisure suit.
The dogs in attendance wagged in unison.
Our one-night honeymoon
Was at a hotel whose claim to fame was
Goat milk fudge.
(Don’t bother trying it. It’s just odd.)
Thirty nine years later
Our marriage is thicker.
Fewer moments to forgive, more
Of sanity.
More of comfort and laughter,
Less need to win.
Sunly moments occur
Often enough
To outweigh the surly.
And if I had to choose again
I would choose to let it be again,
The least beginning can lead
To the best forever.
(But I’d take a pass on the fudge.)
Stacey, thank you. You have taken me back to memories that had been seeking the light for some time now. I have loved your prompts and your mentor poems, with the inspiration they offered us. Hanks again for a glorious five day adventure.
Gayle,
My favorite line: “To make our long-term temporary… / Permanent.” Wonderful word play in that contrast. The same w/ “thicker and thinner,” “seldom, frequent.” And if only folks could/would start their marriages with “ More of comfort and laughter, / Less need to win.” I feel comforted reading your poem, and no need to apologize to e.e. cummings. Dude has his own baggage, but I do love his twisty, tangly verses.
Gayle — The honest measure here really speaks to years well spent. The fudge is funny…made me chuckle, but the relationship is very real. The “thinner” at the start seems just right…and a “green leisure suit” just sets that perfectly. “Less need to win” and “Sunly moments” …that really works. This is quite dear. You have figured out this marriage thing… I never did…not for wont of trying. I’m glad you share this! Susie
You couldn’t have described this any better:
The dogs in attendance wagged in unison.
Our one-night honeymoon
Was at a hotel whose claim to fame was
Goat milk fudge.
Wondering what on earth that tasted like and why? Lol.
Such valuable advice for couples who seek longevity:
More of comfort and laughter,
Less need to win.
This is a special tribute to your love, your marriage, and the journey from thin to thick! Fantastic!
I appreciate your kind words to me and for sharing these moments of digging deep, uncovering stuff, and writing together.
Your ending line is one I want to steal, “The least beginning can lead
To the best forever.” Such a wise poem about your marriage. I’ve been married 37 years. I got married at 21; what did I know then? Thanks for sharing.
Gayle . . .
Wow and wow and wow. Makes me want to create my own e.e.-inspired poem about my marriage. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?
The details and cummings-esque language really make this poem work . . . just like your marriage did.
Stacey, what beautiful last lines – she’s close, not connected to anything, except us. It reminds me of how we keep people with us, where we keep them, the nearness of them even when they are not present. You begin just as beautifully, with your mother’s permission to live without her, just as we give permission to those dying to go. I’m reminded of my own easy childhood days, made so because of my own mother. Thank you for giving us this glimpse into who she is for you too. And many thanks for prompts that elicited such thoughtful writing this week. This was a pleasure!
Thank you Jennifer. I’ve enjoyed every single poem this week and wished for more! You’re appreciated and admired!
Today has been wicked busy, so I have not taken time off to do the specific challenge today, but plan to do to it this weekend. But, since you all have been so gracious reading and responding to the poems Stacey’s prompts have inspired me to write about my Grammama, I decided to post one written a few years ago. One year I attended a Writing Project Summer Retreat in Sitka, Alaska. We were asked to look at the trees around us and write about a family member. SEE YOU NEXT MONTH. For now, here’s that poem,
The Heart Tree
There’s a tree in my heart.
Was it there at the start
Of my life as a wife and a mother,
Through the cares and woes
And joy that just goes
Along when one lives with another?
The trunk is my past
The part that will last
When the children have come and gone.
They are the branches –
Reaching out, taking chances
Outside in the world and the throng.
The tree in my heart
I hope is a part
Of all I have known and still love,
It’s trite but it’s true,
But the growth’s due to you
Who grounded me in God’s love above.
The rhythm of this piece is beautiful. I love how you wove the tree throughout yourself and those connected to you. That image of the tree in your heart is powerful. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for being the roots and branches and blossoms in our writing community these months, Anna. I would love to attend a writing retreat in Alaska! How glorious!
Hope tomorrow is less wicked busy,
Sarah
Yes to writing in Alaska! How fun! The tree is a perfect metaphor for the outstretched arms of a mother and the strong roots of a family. The rhythm and rhyme create the perfect heartbeat of
the love I feel when I read this.
Stacey, thank you for a fun week of writing challenges and for introducing us to new forms. I love your poem – especially touching and relevant are these lines
My mother lets us
Live now without her
But she’s close
I lost my mom 4 years ago, and I feel a sisterhood with those who have also lost their mothers. Prayers for a peaceful day!
Hi Kim,
Thank you for spending this time with me and enjoying the prompts. Yes, we do indeed form an immediate sisterhood after losing Moms. The loss is hard and one that changes us from the inside out.
Hugs!?
Southern Gothic by Natasha Trethewey
I have lain down into 1970, into the bed
my parents will share for only a few more years.
Early evening, they have not yet turned from each other
In sleep, their bodies covered – parentheses
framing the separate lives they’ll wake to. Dreaming
I am again the child with too many questions –
the endless why and why and why
my mother cannot answer, her mouth closed, a gesture
toward her future: cold lips stitched shut.
The lines in my father’s face deepen
Toward an expression of grief. I have come home
From the schoolyard with the words that shadow us
In this small Southern town – peckerwood and nigger
lover, half-breed and zebra – words that take shape
outside us. We’re huddled on the tiny island of bed, quiet
in the language of blood: the house, unsteady
on its cinderblock haunches, sinking deeper
into the muck of ancestry. Oil lamps flicker
around us – our shadows, dark glyphs on the wall,
bigger and stranger than we are.
Endless Grief
From the shadows of the cruel flickers of awareness
of the disease that closed the door to a golden sunset future,
my mother wasn’t asking for answers
to the endless questions.
She became the island she lived on, her
intermittent unsteady steps,
sinking into the muck
of Lewy Body Dementia,
a deepening cold toward the strangers she’d always loved,
dreaming of years long ago as today.
Four years later, why won’t my father face his grief?
He lives on in their house,
sleeping in their bed,
dreaming of catching glimpses of Miriam
In the expressions of another who cannot
see that she will never separate
his heart from Miriam – his high school sweetheart, the Love of his Life.
Oh, Kim, you have taken me to that bed and through the “unsteady steps” and “deepening cold” and “glimpses,” and I feel an extraordinary loss. Even four years later, the sense of your mom being right there is so strong. Your father and you are “living on” but the power of your poem makes it so real how we really “never separate” from someone we loved so much. This is beautifully written. And your mentor poem is powerful as well. Whew, this pulled a huge sigh right out of me as I read this aloud. Sending you a long and engulfing hug. The lines that hit me hard were the ones about your dad… “dreaming of catching glimpses of Miriam/in the expressions of another who cannot see…” Whoof. Dang. What a tough one. Thanks for pouring out such an intimate poem. Susie
Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem with us. “Dreaming of catching glimpses” reminds me of a dark grief, too heavy to shake or face. Thank you for revealing this part of your story to us.
Cruel flickers of awareness
She became the island she lived on
Deepening cold toward the strangers…
catching glimpses of Miriam…
sighhhhhhh
I have such compassion for those who lose their loved ones through the process of memory loss. It’s tragic and slow and creates so many unkind experiences for anyone involved. I felt those lines I shared above and I also LOVED the way you crafted your poem beautifully around such painful times.
Thank you for this incredible mentor poem and yours, a mentor for anyone experiencing this disease. Kim, I hope you find peace through all of your poetry.
Kim,
There’s a unique cruel ness to diseases that announce the ways they’ll ravage their hosts, “shadows of the cruel flickers of awareness.” This is my fear. Your poem captures my fear as your mother is “sinking into the muck” and “she became the island she lived on,” a sinking island in my reading. Your father’s inability to move on, his efforts to find what he’s lost in another is downright Faulknerian and a fine echo to Trethway’s poem. Grief is so hard and lasts so long.
She became the island she lived on – what a powerful description of what it must feel like to suffer from dementia. These lines hung with me as well – sinking into the muck, he lives on in their house, dreaming of catching glimpses of Miriam. There is so much sorrow here. And pain for what can’t be regained.
kim. This poem resounds with grief. The phrase
“ my mother wasn’t asking for answers
to the endless questions.
She became the island she lived on,“ eloquently reflects the moving away from the world into a world of their own. So hard to watch. So hard to live.
[I really love Rita Dove. So, I’ve included her poem and the short word list, and then my Call Out poem.}
Rita Dove’s poem from her collection, Mother Love:
Primer
In the sixth grade, I was chased home by
the Gatlin kids, three skinny sisters
in rolled-down bobby socks. Hissing
Brainiac! And Mrs. Stringbean!, they trod my heel.
I knew my body was no big deal
but never thought to retort: who’s
calling who skinny? (Besides, I knew
they’d beat me up.) I survived
their shoves across the schoolyard
because my five-foot-zero mother drove up
in her Caddie to shake them down to size.
Nothing could get me into that car.
I took the long way home, swore
I’d show them all: I would grow up.
My word list:
• Primer
• Skinny
• Hissing
• Heel
• Shoves
• Up
• Down
Primer
Back when I was a flat-chested, skinny
girl in plaid dungarees and a demin jacket,
I sculked along the path
between the cornfields,
spent stalks and hedgerow hickories
turning yellow and rust amidst deep green cedars,
where Mama could not see me,
hands shoved in my pockets,
hissing at the notion
of “you’re not old enough”
“…not for little girls” cautions,
determined to parlay a peek
at what “men’s work” was all about;
just at the edge
of the never-painted barn
and down the hill,
I tucked up behind pokeweeds and a fencepost;
Daddy and Mr. V, pausing their action and quiet,
red dripping knives in hand,
stood aside the angus hanging,
as if crucified,
from the two worn, tall posts and crossbeam —
grain-raised and weary from years of duty —
hooves and head roped into place,
belly splayed, blood and noodled guts running
to the dust, caking into sticky mud
at Daddy’s boots;
fastened to the scene,
I finally broke the locked stare,
turned on heels,
bolting in a beeline, back
to our treehouse,
trying to un-see, un-remember, un-print
a primer
for which Mama knew I was not
primed.
by Susie Morice ©
Susie,
This is a bloody good coming of age poem. I love the way you juxtapose images of growth on the farm (cornfields, hickories, green cedars) with images of slaughter: “belly splayed, blood and / noodled guts running / to the dust, caking into / sticky mud / at Daddy’s boots” appeals to my desire to watch, and do I do through your words. The alliteration in “bolting, beeline, back” increases the urgency and replicated that heifer’s heartbeat in a horror movie sort of way. Wonderful way to end our January challenge.
Oh, the ways we feel ready for things others know we’re not – – and then to bring us with you to see what happened when you readily agreed Mama was right……
I finally broke the locked stare,
turned on heels,
bolting in a beeline, back
to our treehouse,
trying to un-see, un-remember, un-print
a primer
for which Mama knew I was not
primed.
You showed us the horror and heartbreak and helped us all understand that it’s okay to never be ready for some things.
OH BOY!! I love your poem. From “men’s work” to “caking into sticky mud” this poem had me on pins and needles. I’m born and raised in the city so much of this poem is new imagery for me. And I love it. The primal feel from the lines about the slain animal are fantastic. What an awesome piece on coming of age and “mama knows”.
Well Susie, isn’t this exactly why we are told what NOT to do? So funny (your determination to see it) yet so sad because yes, we can’t “un-see, un-remember…” and it’s our lessons to learn and later teach. I was rooting for you though, really wanting you to get to experience something cool and grown-up for a “flat chested, skinny girl!”
I loved the visuals you painted for us in your poem. I can see it like a movie scene.
I cannot imagine encountering this scene, even today. It brings to mind the day my brother witnessed the slaughter of a lamb at the farm of a friend. He had no idea it was going to happen. And there’s lots of meat he won’t touch now because of that. The sharp, punchy details – belly splayed, blood and noodled guts, caking into sticky mud – speak of how impactful this was to you. I imagine this as a scene where your eyes are pulled from each specific aspect to the next. Wow!
I loved moving through this memory – the “never painted barn”, “stalks and hedgerows” – the harsh reality of a working farm.
It sparked a memory of the first time my children watched this type of preparation on their grandparents’ farm in Kyrgyzstan. They too were not “primed”
Shaun — Wow, it’s fascinating to think of the same sort of scenario half way around the globe… we are all so so so connected. Thanks for the shared memory tonight. Susie
Inspired by the poem “A Healthy Meal” by Carol Ann Duffy. The poem is a critique of eating meat and an argument for being vegan. Somehow Margaret reminded me of an old Neil Sedaka song. Funny how these connections happen.
“In the Hungry Years”
In the hungry years
Dreams languished,
Tossed in a bowl
Left to wilt like leftover lettuce
No gourmet wants to eat.
Our breasts ached, as
We lay our heads on
Pure white linens while
Beating hearts’ blood
Reproached tongues
Begging to eat, to sleep.
Absolved of language,
A suckling dish of
Chatter tastes like
Wishbones chewed clean.
Our teeth capped, a
Gourmet serves an
Earthen dish of some thing and
Washes away braised
Guilt in Finger-bowls.
This is how the dead move.
This is the power of the man
In the hungry years.
—Glenda Funk
Dang, Glenda! SNAP! You really have belted out body-bending gut punch. The “hungry” is so accurate a term here. And the food and eating word choices just nail that ending…. whoof! The powerhouse words for me are “leftover lettuce/no gourmet wants to eat” and “tongues begging to eat” and “suckling” and “wishbones chewed clean” and “braised/guilt in finger-bowls.” “How the dead move” …”power of the man/in the hungry years.” Quite a poem! How’d you crank this out?! Wow! Susie
Yesterday a friend posted Duffy’s poem, which I first read a few years ago. I obsess about food, my weight, my struggle w/ both, and now admonitions to fast, to eschew meat, etc. Then I remembered Neil Sedaka’s song “The Hungry Years.” We had many when I was a kid. We ate what we had, which I know is true of many. That meant never thinking about animal welfare and ranching’s impact on the ozone, water, etc. as a child. I’m from the “clean your plate” parenting paradigm, but often the meal was inedible. I started making a list of words from the Duffy poem and wanted to write something of a retort and a companion to “A Healthy Meal.” I thought about being a child going to bed hungry, the way my chest hurt at night, looking in the fridge and seeing only butter and roaches one time. Somehow that made me think about the way hungry people get denied sustenance. These days I’m very conflicted about my responsibilities to the environment and the ingrained eating habits from my childhood.
Oh man, Glenda, that puts even another dimension to the hunger in today’s writing. Whew, you’ve got some deep stories inside you still…more poems to come. “Butter and roaches” is one wicked-ass image. You hang in there, my friend… your writing and image making is so rich in this writerly family we have here. Hugs, Susie
Glenda,
I am with Susie on this one. Amazed at how you did this. I feel like I am in the book The Vegetarian: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25489025-the-vegetarian?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=sa7YTIIWpT&rank=1
I am uncomfortable and exposed in and on the “pure white linen” and the “suckling dish” and the guilt in finger-bowls” — it is sensual and disgusting at once.
Wowee!
Sarah
You have me considering all the reasons to become a vegetarian – which I consider on occasion about three times every year. This was my moment:
We lay our heads on
Pure white linens while
Beating hearts’ blood
Reproached tongues
This, coupled with Susie’s writing today, is bothering me in a way I need desperately to be bothered. Thank you for this today, Glenda. I follow Tom Ryan @followingatticus, who wrote two of my all-time favorite books (Following Atticus and Will’s Red Coat), and I’ve seen his remarkable journey. You are giving me the nudge……and I’m grateful and, as always, spellbound by your words.
Guilt in finger bowls…a suckling dish of chatter. I have read those lines four times now. They are rich and incredibly disturbing. Thank you—I think!!
Here you go again, making me question my comprehension and brains! Lord help me. I feel like an angry hungry beast!! Then I think I need Cliffs Notes to help me clear up misunderstandings. ?? Then I stop and hear “What is the post trying to say?” And I stop and read it over and over. I was left wondering was this about meat or my ex-husband? Was it a lover or a demon?
Then I read your comment about hunger and food. I am experiencing turmoil from it all. And I got spanked for not finishing my food and for spilling milk so I NEVER love anything about food, whether it’s dead or alive, meat or not. I have issues.
I love your writing and you should create a cheat sheet. 🙂
? a cheat sheet. Well, yesterday and today my mind was in a certain place, but it seems folks found something in the poems’ subtexts. In part I was thinking about how easy it is to judge folks’ eating habits w/out realizing they may not have a choice, which is what we experienced as children. But I was also thinking about how much I want to stop eating meat, as much for environmental concerns as animal rights issues. But it’s from a place of childhood memory that I wrote this poem.
BTW, I’m glad the ambiguity is present. It’s something we talked about a lot in AP Lit. It’s what I love most in much literature.
Stacey,
I echo Mo’s, Susie’s, and Susan’s gratitude for this week of inspiration. Thank you for wonderful prompts, for being a nurturing respondent, for sparking memories.
Your tribute to your mother is beautiful. I love the details about daily life: “good bacon,” “funky sounds,” “warm waffles.” I didn’t have the kind of mother you, Susie, Anna, and others describe in your poems. Mine was more Joan Crawford w/ out the glam, more absent than present. Still, these poems offer mentorship for the young women who join us as new mothers, and that’s such a beautiful reality.
Thank you and you are welcome!! I feel good about this week of writing, wanting to write even more! Looking forward to February!
Stacey, your prompts have been a buoy to me in a writing funk. I’ve found ways to express some deep held stuff. Thanks! I love your mother tribute poem, especially the repetition here “She left here
We remember that day
She left here
The way
She left here”
There is such a lament in the saying of this refrain. Thanks for being a wonderful teacher and poet!
This prompt brought me to a memory that I am happy I finally wrote about. Thanks!
When the flood took our home,
the TV, the radio, my dolls,
we listened in the apartment across town
in South Jackson because North Jackson
was under water. James Taylor “Roof”
was the first album I bought.
I imagined stair steps to a roof,
romantic evening sky holding
hands with a boy
I didn’t feel safe with,
daring to kiss in the dark,
corny love songs washing my teenage brain.
Instead I jammed with my brother
dancing in PJs across the floor mattresses.
We could be silly together–no one watching.
He held a shoe for a microphone.
Somehow music made “flood victim” status
easy as ABC
because we were together,
a family surviving.
Margaret,
You r poem reads like a playlist of some favorite songs. I loved ABC when I was a fourth grader and remember dancing w/ a friend at her house where her older sisters kept the good 45s. Your poem also reminds me of the way danger and fun coexist: the flood, the romance, the dancing w/ your brother and the shoe microphone. I love the way children improvise and the way music and play work to equalize.
Margaret — Surviving floods — holy cow! This is tough stuff to endure, and your poem brought light to the grace that can come in the thick of a mess. Amen for the music and the capacity of one who finds and uses that music to move forward. I loved the image of your and your brother dancing on mattresses, being “silly.” Susie
Margaret,
Thank you for helping us beat witness with you, alongside you in this memory. The lines that most struck me are
I imagined stair steps to a roof,
romantic evening sky holding
hands with a boy
I didn’t feel safe with,
I am likely reading in to the word “safe” or bringing my own story into this scene because I felt fear but maybe your “safe” is about taking a chance, and the daring to kiss sounds nice with the corny love songs.
Peace,
Sarah
Sarah, Thanks for your response. I was surprised by the safe line and realized that I wanted the daring of romance. The frightening thing is as a teen going through this tragedy, I searched out the dangerous boy. I need to explore this idea further.
I love how you cast aside your vulnerable emotions and tender memories and shared these lines that clearly show how that memory is impressed upon you forever.
Just being able to survive – through music – and being able to be silly amidst the tragedy that befell your family brought you to a writing moment that helps us all share our own less than happy memories, where we feel human as we stand alongside others who’ve been in similar places.
This got me:
He held a shoe for a microphone.
Somehow music made “flood victim” status
easy as ABC
because we were together,
a family surviving.
Something about “holding hands with a boy” is bringing an emotional response from my past. I love the beat of your poem and the dangerous and guilty journey that is teenage romance. Safety is usually not a priority. But risk and chance are. Thank you for sharing this poem with us.
Margaret, I am excited that you used the mentor text from J.Woodson! Love the visuals of you and your brother dancing “across the floor mattresses…” “music made ‘flood victim’ status/easy as ABC” I love it!
Wanting to hold hands and kiss a boy, especially an “unsafe” boy is classic! We always want the unsafe ones. Truly enjoyed reading your poem today and the others all week!
Thanks so much! I’m grateful that you felt the funk floating away!!
See you in February! Hugs!
Last night, in the “teaching of writing” course I teach at OSU, I asked pre-service teachers to share out some lines from their free writing. We begin every class this way. I have a page for each student and gather their lines there–over the weeks, these lines tell a story of their being and becoming a writer, a teacher of writers. Below are some of the lines and phrases that called to me. One of the “prompts” was to start a story with, “With her chin held high” — some wrote through that and others wrote about, well, other things. Here is my synthesis of it all. Thank you for being with us this week.
chin held high
a mangle pixie cut
hidden under her hat
favorite place
fireworks explode across the sky
Mackinac Island horses and old bikes
chin held high
no more, no more
she was starting over
childhood possession
Shortcake, a doll that sings
a brother who tortured her
chin held high
discourse of space
she became the CFO
I’m full.
I’m weak.
I’m ready.
Even though.
Because.
Sarah,
What a wonderful way to approach the prompt. Chin held high” is a wonderful inspiration, and I love how it reflects and beckons in your poem. I hope you’ll share the poem w/ your class. It honors them.
Aah, Sarah – I love that you shared this collection of “coming of age as a teacher” words… it makes so much sense. You’ve launched this with “chin held high” that really lets us see the potential and capacity of nascent educators/writers …especially “even though” and “Because” — that sense of mission is there. I like the notion of strength in still being able to tell a story after “a brother who tortured her…” Oh geez. Words like “starting over” and “became” and “ready” make me hopeful.
I used to teach Writing for Teachers at Univ. of MO and supervised student teachers, and I really love that you have your preservice teachers writing and sharing every day and then honoring their lines. Teachers of writing must write. Yea! You’re a terrific leader in the field. Thank you for your hard work. Susie
That’s such a neat idea to take your students’ writing and craft a Call to Words poem from their precious thoughts and memories. That image of the pixie cut under the hat transforming to the CEO despite some odds and hardships is empowering. I would imagine that your students feel empowered as well, knowing that you value their words this way.
Stacey,
Thank you so much for developing such wonderful ideas/prompts for us to use to help us dig into ourselves and sharpen our poetry skills.
I’ve been in a rough patch in this dreary eternal January, and Susie’s metaphor, “the poems and the responses have kept me percolating in a rich, hot word brew all week” is so perfect. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone’s work as much if not more than I have enjoyed creating. I so wish I could meet all of you in person. We have shared the deep and dark with one another.
Your poem today . . . I think when we lose our moms, we either feel completely lost and untethered because they were so much to us or we are left longing for what they never were. Both make the loss unbearable.
I love the detail in your poem and the way you weave in the words from Woodson’s poem. And your repeated use of “not connected to anything” with the twist at the end really works. Since I often use the word untethered in reference to how I feel about my parents’ deaths, I love the image on connection and I am creating my own association to the tether image.
You are incredible! Thanks for sharing your brilliance with us.
My pleasure and truly grateful for the way this challenge pushed me and us to dig deeply and pour out some junk and build some castles and mansions!!
Looking forward to next month!
Stacey – As MO said already, thank you. Each of these 5 days have given us prompts that kindled poetic fires. I’ve loved looking back and forward with this wonderful family. Both the poems and the responses have kept me percolating in a rich, hot word brew all week. Again, I woke up this morning, nourished. And missing both your mom and my Mama — I lost mine this week 33 years ago. Stacey, your mom would be so proud of you. Thank you. Susie
Love the “rich, hot word brew” that we’ve shared together! Appreciate you and your words of encouragement too. Yay, we did it!!
Stacey, thank you for a week of rejuvenating prompts right smack in the middle of this bleak winter. I can’t wait to try this one today!
Sorry, I left my poem in the wrong response box. Ignore this.
Thanks for all your poems and inspirations this week too!! I am grateful for all the input and sharing in our special space!