In the broad sleepy range of memory
I found us on that first day, awakening
in the garden where history understands
us at our beginning and colored his
name weakness and mine infamy.
It made him the scabbard for the
sword of division and formed my flesh
into a chalice for new life and hope.
It wasn’t knowledge but knowing we
sought and still find on the tree of life
as we pass through the eons, melting
the moments into nameless gardens and
the freedoms that come without words.
– Jamie Dedes
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
What do you think? Is it knowledge or knowing that we seek in Life or some combination of the two? Share your thoughts in poetry or prose. If you feel comfortable, post your poem or the link to it in the comments below so that we might all enjoy it.
The recommended read for this week is Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets. There’s so much I like about this manual. For one thing, Ted assumes that if you are a heavy-duty reader, you already know quite a bit. After all, one of the best ways to learn to write is to read. He operates on the moral principle that if you have a gift then you have the obligation to offer something by way of giving back. He says, “I hope I won’t exhaust your patience” and he doesn’t. He assumes that our goal is to reach others and to move them, so there is a great deal of emphasis on the relationship between the poet and her reader. He discusses our job as poet – not money, not fame – but “to serve the poems we write.” This perspective makes reading and working with Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manuala refreshing guide to the poetic terrain for both budding and experienced writers interested in creating work that is fulfilling and truly artistic.
By shopping at Amazon through The Word Play Shopandusing the book links embedded in posts, you help to support the maintenance of this site. Thank you! (Some book links will just lead to info about the book or poet/author and not to Amazon.)
The WordPlay Shop offers books and other tools especially selected for poets and writers.
Gary Bowers (One With Clay) is one of our triple-threat poets: poetry, art and humor. Words like “quick-witted” and “pithy” come to mind. He is adapt at combing his talents and this is a post he created, which I will cherish. It’s always nice to be acknowledged and Gary is particularly kind to me. Thank you, Gary! This is sweet and clever. There’s a lot more of Gary’s poetry, art and unique style to be enjoyed on Gary’s blog,where he often acknowledges other creatives. Recommended. J.D.
Jamie Dedes is alive, though she was given but two years to live in a prognosis delivered before the end of the last century. She credits her son and “an extraordinary medical team” for her continued existence. Though I don’t know her well–I don’t even know how many syllables are in her last name, much less how to pronounce it–I would venture to add that Moxie also has something to it.
For she has Moxie in abundance. She cares enough about poetry and its practitioners to have created and maintained an outstanding resource-blog called THE POET BY DAY, which connects poets via showcased poet exemplars, essays, links to items of interest to poets, her own poems, and on Wednesdays, those springboarding challenges known as prompts, which are invitations to write about a specific thing, or on a certain theme, or some other limiting, focusing factor.
And it was a week ago Wednesday that I responded to one such prompt. This one:
Write a poem, a fiction or a creative nonfiction piece telling us how you envision a feminine God or about the feminine side of God. What might S/he be like? Does/would such a view change the way you feel about yourself and the world? Would it change the world? How? You don’t need to believe in God or in a feminine aspect of God. This is an exercise in imagination not faith. Have fun with the exercise and if you feel comfortable, share the piece or the link to the piece below so that we might all enjoy.
For some reason this prompt struck a chord and got me going. I don’t know if there is a Supreme Being. I have certain feelings but I don’t trust them, being a rationalizer and wishful-thinker. A much more intelligent man than I am, Stephen Hawking, envisions a cosmology that, in the words of Carl Sagan in his introduction to Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, gives “nothing for a Creator to do.” In other words, Hawking’s universe has no need for a Creator.
But if there IS a Supreme Being, it makes sense to me, since the Supreme Being brought us all to be, that since that Being birthed us all, that She be a mother. And so I took a weird word from a conspiracy theory about our 44th President, Barack Obama, for a title, and was off to the races imagining God as Mom:
*****
birther
o god
thou residest betwixt r and t
god s be thy name
birther of us all
mixmistress of galaxies
crecher of clusters
ovulatrix of ylem
thy mother’s care is in the dew
thy admonishment is in the don’t
and when we want to play in the woods of reckless fun
thou respondest “we’ll see”
which almost always means “fat chance”
thy human smartalecks speak of heat death
it is merely a pause
in thy menopause
and soon thou’lt bake us cosmic cookies again
thanks for Ever
y
Thing,
maman
*****
Sure was fun to write, and oddly, bouncily, spiritually uplifting. Things just seemed to naturally occur: the Heat Death of the Universe resonates with the “hot flash” of menopause–hey how bout that, menoPAUSE–perhaps prelusive of the Big Crunch and the next Bang–and double up on “baking us cosmic cookies” with us being some of the cosmic cookies She bakes–and Everything with the y, possibly the Spanish “and,” joining Ever and Thing–and the French word for Mama, maman, slightly hinting at both “amen” and “ma MAN.” Wrote it first, realized it later. Could it be that She helped? Fun to think so.
I posted “birther” in the Comments section of Jamie’s post, and she replied that she loved it and wanted to include it in her following-Tuesday post. I happily agreed, and supplied a photo and my poet’s curriculum vitae at her request. She published my and three other poets’ responses to her prompt last Tuesday, and I was proud and happy enough to be in such august company that I put a link to her post on my Facebook Timeline.
As fate would have it, the next day was Jamie’s Birthday, and it was there I learned about her “Sixty-seven Years on the Razor’s Edge.” You can too, and I think you should. HERE is a link.
One thing I’d left out of my poet’s biography was the fact that my specialty is Acrostic poetry, i.e. poems where the first and/or last and/or midstream letters of the poem form words. In my gratitude to Jamie, and wanting to show off a little of this weird skill, I composed and illustrated a birthday acrostic for her, thus:
Here are the words of what may be the first birthday-occasion, acrostic, limerickal, end-words-all-rhyme-or-nearly-so poem in human history:
Jamaica may thrill, undenied,
And Nawlins is burstful with pride;
MARVEL at, though, who’s hied
In the clouds with her stride,
Energetically shifting the tides.
The recommended read for this week is Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets. There’s so much I like about this manual. For one thing, Ted assumes that if you are a heavy-duty reader, you already know quite a bit. After all, one of the best ways to learn to write is to read. He operates on the moral principle that if you have a gift then you have the obligation to offer something by way of giving back. He says, “I hope I won’t exhaust your patience” and he doesn’t. He assumes that our ultimate goal is to reach others and to move them, so there is a great deal of emphasis on the relationship between the poet and her reader. He discusses our job as poet – not money, not fame – but “to serve the poems we write.” This perspective makes reading and working with Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manualan refreshing guide to the poetic terrain for both budding and experienced writers interested in creating work that is fulfilling and truly artistic.
By shopping at Amazon through The Word Play Shopandusing the book links embedded in posts, you help to support the maintenance of this site. Thank you! (Some book links will just lead to info about the book or poet/author and not to Amazon.)
The WordPlay Shop offers books and other tools especially selected for poets and writers.
A lovely late winter morning, the light clear and vibrant on the snow and trees. The day is warm for late February; this entire week will likely be far above normal in temperature, a condition that increasingly seems normative in itself.
Early Saturday morning a crew arrived to install solar panels on our roof. In spite of our best efforts our steep driveway was dangerously icy which resulted in a confab as to whether the work could proceed. Fortunately, the temperature was rapidly rising and the application of more ice-melt soon remedied the situation. Sometime in the next few days the panels will be connected to the grid and our home will begin to generate relatively clean electricity.
Over the weekend my Facebook feed was filled with the idea of resistance. After a month of resistance I’ve decided that even more important than resistance, which remains crucial, is vision. We’ve had many years of resistance by one party or the other here in the US, resistance that has only managed to create ever more division and the very real possibility of massive physical violence. (I imagine people on all sides might agree they have experienced a prolonged period of emotional and spiritual violence.)
Also on the weekend, I got around to reading about a new project from Howlround and SpiderWebShow. Howlround wrote:
Across the much-discussed border, we are exchanging letters; Letters from Canadians and letters from Americans. CdnTimes will publish letters from Americans to hear what it’s like on the ground, now, for theatre artists working in the United States. Meanwhile, HowlRound will be publishing letters from Canadians about what’s affecting our work now. Artists from both countries share warnings, worries, strategies of resistance, generosity, and advocacy—messages of solidarity. What can we learn from each other? —Adrienne Wong and Laurel Green, co-editors at SpiderWebShow’s CdnTimes.
I’ve been wondering how I might bring diverse voices together in this difficult time, and as I read the first letters I became increasingly excited, wondering how the inspiration inherent in that project might be joined with and amplified. I’m still curious. What might those of us who are working for a more equitable, caring, responsive world share with one another that would be useful and mutually supportive? How might I provide an accessible forum for the thoughts and concerns of a diverse group of fellow travelers? What might happen were the conversation to be global!
I envision a gathering of folks in the arts, from around the world, where a conversation might be had about making art in this vexing time. I like the idea of letters as the are usually written, yet may contain photos and artwork. Letters can be thoughtful, personal, and engaging; they are by nature more than sound bites and talking points. Letters might also be created using video and integrating images, words, and sound. Hopefully the conversation would be inclusive, and those in education, the healing arts, and many other vocations would participate. If there is enough interest, I’ll put up a separate website to carry the conversation.
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
I invite you to share your preferred vision for the your life and the world, and how your work feeds that vision. You may leave your response here at The Poet by Day (I’ll read them) or on my site. My expectation is that write-ups here today would be thoughtful, personal, focused on your work, respectful of a wide range of views, and honoring the possibility of reconciliation and mutual care, far beyond North America. Please do let me know what you think of this idea, and whether you might be interested in participating in such a project. My hope is that should I go ahead with the project there would be letters from artists, and others, working in a wide range of disciplines and in many lands, and that conversations and collaborations might arise from the sharing.
MICHAEL WATSON, LCMHC (Dreaming the World) is a storyteller, artist, educator, Narrative therapist, polio survivor, Native/European, Ph.D., living in many worlds. Michael is also a contributing editor to The BeZine.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
god s be thy name
birther of us all
mixmistress of galaxies
crecher of clusters
ovulatrix of ylem
thy mother’s care is in the dew
thy admonishment is in the don’t
and when we want to play in the woods of reckless fun
thou respondest “we’ll see”
which almost always means “fat chance”
thy human smartalecks speak of heat death
it is merely a pause
in thy menopause
and soon thou’lt bake us cosmic cookies again
GARY BOWERS (One With Clay) Born August 30, 1954, Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, Inglewood, California. Artist since the age of 2-1/2 (“Portrait of the Artist’s Mother with Ten Snaky Fingers”). Poet since the age of seven (“I was walking on the road./Then I saw a big fat toad./He was big and fat and round./Then he hopped along the ground.”). Limericist since the age of nineteen (“A Chinese chick went to Osaka/To meet up with a dude named Tanaka./He wined her and dined her/Seduced her, reclined her/But she, unimpressed, said ‘You baka [Japanese for “stupid.” My then girlfriend, taking a Japanese class at the University of Arizona, had as part of her homework a sentence to translate into Japanese that went something like “The Chinese girl is traveling to Osaka and will meet with Mr. Tanaka there.” When I saw that probably-unintentional rhyme, the limerick practically wrote itself. I knew a little Japanese from my Japamese-American girlfriend, including ‘baka,’ which she and her siblings called each other frequently].”), and Second-Place Winner of Roger Ebert’s Great Limerick Contest at the age of 55. Performing poet since becoming a “Monsoon Voice” for the Phoenix, Arizona Monsoon Voices event on September 18, 2007. Master of Ceremonies for “Sonora Bard Poetry Night” at Bards Bookstore from 2009 to 2011. Featured poet at Valley events Conspire, Caffeine Corridor, and Poetry at the Puppet Theatre. Creator of blog “One with Clay, Image and Text” which debuted December 3, 2012 and has has well over 1000 posts, usually illustration or poetry or both.
Day jobs have included warehouseman, busboy, dishwasher, receiving clerk, deliveryman, “Helpful Hardware Man, Tournament Office Manager for the Pyrex Tennis Championship, information analyst for Samaria Health Service Patient Financial Services and Scottsdale Healthcare.
Just She
No divine God is she
Nor gospel or ruler
Only a smile from the heart when a smile is needed
A root in the tree of knowledge with branches that reach out to all
The sparkle in crystal clear water that gives us life
A deep breath of air to calm us
The land that gives us solid footing
The beauty of a kind heart who gives love and respect to all who cross her path
She preaches nothing, nor writes down words to be twisted and controlled by man
She is never fear
Only a smidgen of a presence
Your own heart beating with each step that you take
DIANNE TURNER (Pandamoniumcat’s Blog) lives in Hervey Bay, Queensland in Austraiia. In between studying and woking, she writes. She works in Education and Community Sector. Recently Diane completed a Bachelor of Professional Writing and Publishing with Curtin University. Her writing is inspired by nature and humanity. Her poetry is published in the 2015 Grieve Anthology for Hunters Writer’s Centre, The D’Verse Anthology for D’verse Poets, Freak Anthology for Pure Slush Books and other stories and poems under a previous name Buckman. Dianne has also appeared as a guest poet in The BeZine.
Omnipresence of Life
Her omnipresence is felt in the universe
transcending solar systems unknown
past the galaxy of the milky way
glittering within the aurora borealis
she embraces her duality always complex
orchestrating the life cycle
of a caterpillar from cocoon to butterfly
exquisite of design and beauty
she extends her arms as tree branches
taller than redwoods wider than mighty oaks
contained in the tiniest clover flowers
fragrant as fields of wild roses
she gives birth to both male and female
always with her heart and strength
loving with tender passionate acceptance
the uniqueness of all creation
she laughs in playful abandonment
as dolphins and otters of rivers and oceans
dispersed like a whale song balm
so tempers the opium of fear and hate
she is intertwined in fabrics’ existence
stronger than silk of worm or web of spider
will not be broken or manipulated falsely
without her there would be no life
RENEE ESPRIU (Renee Just Turtle Flight) I am a daughter, mother, grandmother, great grandmother and seeker of Spiritual Peace and Soul Filled Freedom. I have been to graduate school at Pacific Lutheran University and have a Bachelors Degree in Sociology. I have also been to Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary from which I acquired a Certificate in Theology. I have eclectic beliefs that encompass many faiths and believe Nature to be the basis of everything that is and that everything that is is also a part of Nature.
Due to emergent open heart surgery in 2015 I am now retired and devoting more of my time to writing, which includes the writing of a fiction book and one that is solely poetry. I have a Blog site at reneejustturtleflight where I have been posting my writing since 2011. I have been a guest contributor to The BeZine and participated in The BeZine 2016 100,000 Poets for Change virtual event. I also have a passion for art. I draw and paint.
To Biddy
Scatter radiances of milk
on her icy sod.
Let each brightness warm her earth.
Broadcast flames of oats
on her waters, stoke embers of fish.
Let her waves be ablaze with shoals.
Brush and scrub your home for her visit.
Put her bread and butter on windowsills.
Make her a bed of twigs for her rest.
Waxing light polishes
her crone wrinkles
into maiden’s roundness.
PAUL BROOKES (The Wombwell Rainbow) was shop assistant, security guard, postman, admin. assistant, lecturer, poetry performer, with “Rats for Love” and his work included in “Rats for Love: The Book”, Bristol Broadsides, 1990. His first chapbook was “The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley”, Dearne Community Arts, 1993. He has read his work on BBC Radio Bristol and had a creative writing workshop for sixth formers broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live. Recently published in Clear Poetry, Nixes Mate, Live Nude Poems and others. Forthcoming in the spring 2017 an illustrated chapbook “The Spermbot Blues”, published by OpPRESS.
The recommended read for this week isPoems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Themcompiled by the father and son team, Anthony Holden and Ben Holden. I have to thank my good friend Linda F. for this recommendation. A moving book and a unique perspective. This is a poetry anthology in which 100 men from diverse backgrounds share the poems that they can’t read without being moved to tears and they tell us why. The poems and poets featured span the centuries and the world. Definitely worthy of our time.
By shopping at Amazon throughThe Word Play Shop, you help to support the maintenance of this site. Thank you!
The WordPlay Shop offers books and other tools especially selected for poets and writers.
In the broad sleepy range of memory
The recommended read for this week is Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets. There’s so much I like about this manual. For one thing, Ted assumes that if you are a heavy-duty reader, you already know quite a bit. After all, one of the best ways to learn to write is to read. He operates on the moral principle that if you have a gift then you have the obligation to offer something by way of giving back. He says, “I hope I won’t exhaust your patience” and he doesn’t. He assumes that our goal is to reach others and to move them, so there is a great deal of emphasis on the relationship between the poet and her reader. He discusses our job as poet – not money, not fame – but “to serve the poems we write.” This perspective makes reading and working with Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual a refreshing guide to the poetic terrain for both budding and experienced writers interested in creating work that is fulfilling and truly artistic.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 