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Can We …? . . . and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Kalafat/Çanakkale Merkez/Çanakkale, Turkey courtesy of Zekeriya Sen, Unsplash

“We’re all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.” Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas

Here we are at Tuesday and the responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt,Out of the Womb of Time, May 13, which asked poets to consider:  Where are we in the great continuum? What do we gain from those who came before? What do we give to those who will come after? As always, it’s interesting to read the different perspectives from which each poet plays with the same theme. As a matter of fact, that’s one of the pleasures in this exercise. So, enjoy these poems, gifted to us by Anjum Wasim Dar, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Adrian Solanker, and Mike Stone. And do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All who’d like to participate are invited: beginning, emerging and pro.

Can We….?

Out of the womb of time,unseen
from the fluids of the water lodged
in the ground, immeasurable-
from sounding clay, from mud moulded
into shape and form, gifted uniquely,
capable, blessed with knowledge, free will

Out of the noble pair came generations
“a hundred great men” listed Prophets as best
in roles as guides and Messengers, as shepherds
healers, peace makers, law givers, grand fathers
‘grand mothers,’ on whose shoulders we stand’

their teachings and books are with us- but
are we all with them , do we read enough?
we drink and dance, we eat and sleep
we say what they said, but our hearts and spirits
have drifted away, or so it seems

is their deeper wisdom lost to the winds?
or has it taken refuge in water tight iron boxes
has our learning scattered like particles all over?
the bells do chime and toll, the “Calls do echo’
for there is Hope”

and now humanity, in chaos, seeks coherence, a
collective holism, a new more compassionate normal
free of hunger, poverty and disease, can we educate?
pass on true knowledge,stop and rebuild the collapse
ecological? can millions of bombs and guns remove hate ?

stuck in meaningless systems can we heal breeding
grounds of crime? or control domestic violence? or restore
ruined soil? or raise dense green forests in days, calculated?
wars , killings murders horrifying brutalities more we have given
than peace gardens, joy food learning and justice equal?

confined for years to the paths of our predecessors , we have
been led to senseless global conflicts, mass shootings unbalanced
social systems intense pollution and surging health crises, what good
is in hold scaffold ed for future generations ? isolated digital deceptions?
corruption? injustice ? suffering?

nature has sent an unseen tsunami a warning for humanity
to pause, think, reflect upon the grave threats, seek ways to
peace not war, to health not sickness, to joy not grief,
out of the womb of time slide out new meanings, the new 3 Rs
reunion of holism , repair of community, rejoining the web of life-

Out of the womb of time, comes a time for a reset of our precious world.

© 2020, Anjum Wasim Dar

Anjum-ji’s sites are:

“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar

..kiss the ancestors..

i am travelling to the end of the world

with you.

all.

unless we stop to

start again.

unless we travel more careful

we shall see

blackened lakes.

kissing the ancestors, hugging the memories presently.

now

the will of the people over rides that of the mystery.

throwing all into
misalignment.

© 2020, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Sonja’s sites are:

Language Marches On

With gigantic glasses and
feathered hair, yet not even
an embryonic inkling of
“vegan,” “churro,” or “blogs,”
my geeky teenage self,
still convinced that
“sick” signified “disgusting” instead
of “desirable,” couldn’t have
conceived that now
I’d chow down on
a vegan churro bar
while browsing blogs.
Less baffling would’ve been the binaries
between “swine,” “sheep,” and “cow”
and “pork,” “mutton,” and “beef”
because the Anglos once kept the livestock
while the Francos devoured the viands.
Do my nieces,
wrinkled newborns a decade past Y2K,
deride my Valley Girl-like sprinkling of “like”
as, like, naff fossil-speak, and
will they someday declare
on my tombstone:
“(downward arrow) (sleeping emoji) Pibling Adrian,
rip (crying emoji)”?

© 2020, Andrian Slonaker

To read more of Adrian’s work, just do a search on this site and/or on The BeZine.

Having Once Existed

Raanana, March 7, 2019

Having once existed,
I will not cease to exist
Once my life ends.

And having once existed,
My existence will continue
As long as there are consequences
No matter how insignificant
From my existence
Until the end of time.

And having once existed,
Before I existed
I existed as a possibility
A possibility that was inevitable
Since time’s beginning.

Like the universe
That existed as a possibility
Before time’s beginning,
Unfolding its wondrous petals
Of space and time,
And will exist as a consequence
After time’s end,
We will exist
Forever and ever
And ever.

from The Call of the Whippoorwill

© 2019, Mike Stone

Yggdrasil’s Children

We thank our foremothers for our roots
Reaching back to the mists of first times
And we bless our branches
Those that are strong and healthy
And those that are yet to sprout
Toward unknown skies.
These humans think they’re so different from us
But Yggdrasil remembers when
Our cells split off from our eukaryotic mother.
They walk past us like tumbleweeds
Unattached to the soil
As though they are going somewhere
But it’s always the same earth,
The same sky.

from The Hoopoe’s Call

© 2019, Mike Stone

 Outside of Eden’s Garden

As it is written,
God told Abraham to take his son, Isaac,
Whom he loved, to Mount Moriah
To make of him a burnt offering to Him
But sent only a messenger
To stay Abraham’s raised knife.

As it is written,
Moses led the Hebrews out of Egyptian slavery
Through the sea and deserts to the Land of Canaan
Where from the top of Mount Nebo
Moses saw his people enter
The Promised Land without him
Because God forbade him entry,
A man with a single doubt
Without whom his people would have perished.

And as it is written,
God put Job in the hands of Satan
On condition that he spare Job’s life
Because Job was righteous,
No matter what evil might befall him
Just to win a bet with Satan
Who destroyed everyone and everything
That poor Job had or loved.

Sometimes it is difficult
To tell the difference between God and Satan
Or justify His mysterious moves
But the truth is
We’ve outgrown Him
As we must if we’re to survive
Outside of Eden’s garden.

from The Hoopoe’s Call

© 2019, Mike Stone

A Thousand Years 

In a thousand years we won’t see
People being led into temptation
Folly, pride, hatred, and other evils
By false prophets in white houses or mud huts.

In a thousand years we won’t see
Smokestacks or exhaust pipes
Belching breathless smoke
Into the darkened skies.

In a thousand years we won’t see
The rich gentry carving fat birds
For falsetto voices and powdered faces
While children’s stomachs bloat from hunger.

In a thousand years we’ll see
Tall trees with rustling leaves
Beside brooks with grassy banks

Because only good will be left standing
Because only good can stand alone.

from The Hoopoe’s Call

© 2020, Mike Stone

Mike’s website is HERE.

Call of the Whippoorwill is Mike Stone’s fourth book of poetry. It and other books of poetry and of science fiction by Mike are available from Amazon all over the world. Mike’s U.S. Amazon Page is HERE.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Maintain the movement.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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FROM THE DESK OF MBIZO CHIRASHA: Opportunity Knocks for Women Poets

CALL for SUBMISSIONS as well as introducing our iconic Guest Editor for the June Edition Jamie Dedes:

Mbizo Chirasha

This edition gives women poets a platform to reflect as they share their experiences of the COVID 19 menace and  as well visualizing their lives and that of their communities after the COVID19 threats, loss and pain.  Sobriety and healing can be brought back by written word, writing, poetic reflections and reading experiences. We continue to value creativity and diversity. We say every positive change begins with writing. Every revolution  began and ended by WORD. We look forward to reading your  writings and reflections. Thumbs-up to Womawords 2020 Poet Laureate and June Edition Guest Editor JAMIE DEDES. Together We Rise.

The WOMAWORDS press June Edition is to be edited by our Poet Laureate and USA Associate to the WOMAWORDS Hall of Fame, Jamie Dedes.“The call is open to women poets from May 20 through June 20.“Ten poems and poets will be selected from the submissions, which should include a short third-person bio of thirty-to-sixty words and your photograph.“Submissions to be forwarded to BOTH Mbizo Chirasha womawordpress@gmail.com and cc’d Jamie Dedes at thepoetbyday@gmail.com.

JAMIE DEDES is a Lebanese-American poet and free-lance writer. She is the founder and curator of The Poet by Day, info hub for poets and writers, and the founder of The Bardo Group, publishers of The BeZine, of which she was the founding editor and is currently a co-manager editor with Michael Dickel. Ms. Dedes is the Poet Laureate of WOMAWORDS Press 2020 and U.S associate to that press as well. Her debut collection, The Damask Garden is due out fall 2020 from Blue Dolphin Press.

– Mbizo Chirasha

 

INSIDE  JAMIE  DEDES’

POETRY  LAB

MY EARS ARE DEAF, MY EYES HEAR A SONG

mountains rise round, Mother’s ever pregnant belly
and the aspens dance with paper-barked madrone
screeching their yellows and reds, brindle and feral
like the snaked hairs of Medusa, they are warning

looming over me as I lay miles away on a mesa
the bones of my ancestors, the heart of my child
the pelts of the brown minks my father sewed
the vultures circle, mesmerized by my demise

I feed on the pinion and ride mountain lions
down slopes, into valleys, a wanderer, lost and lost
looking eastward, seeking John Chapman
he has something to say, or maybe it’s westward

John Muir, my ears are deaf, my eyes hear a song
emerging from brown bear, a surfeit of salmon
burning sage, clearing America, the wild beasts
are defanged and declawed and I am hawk-eyed.

A CENTURY OF POSSIBLE PEACE

            after Muriel Rukeyser
.
I lived in the century of world wars and
into the century of “hot spots” and “conflicts,”
those isolated regions of hostility and battle, of
choreographed shows of military cliché and the
violent disaffected eruptions of the marginalized

Every day is an homage to some insanity
Media reports are conveyed with facile intensity
by hyperkinetic journalists delivering easy
and ominous conclusions based on seemingly
recondite facts, quickly moving to celebrity
gossip and other insipid topics . . .

I have lived in two centuries of wars
I know what it is to be exhausted by the
vain posturing of the ruling class and
the tired protestations of tribal unity and
supremacy based on accidents of birth

I know what it is to imagine peace across
the circumference of one small blue ball
in a Universe of inestimable size and breadth
I know that darkness can descend with the
speed of light and that love is more than an
anchor and that vision keeps our dreams alive

I have lived into the century where the world is
grown small, where the peacemakers are tireless
and perhaps enough hearts have grown large …
sometimes I think I am living in the century
where peace is as possible as war

THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION

the ghosts of our parents search vainly
for wildflowers near the beach at Big Sur

they were deaf to the threat in thunder,
but we were struck by lightning,
heaved in the rain and waves and
the overflow from the melting ice

the computers went down
their screens black as the wicked water,
in whirling chaos they morphed into drums

every fetus turned in the womb,
the men went to the mountain tops
and the women sheltered in caves

the souls of saints and sinners
were run through a cosmic wash cycle
after the spin dry, a new wisdom

but the shades of our parents remain,
they wait in vain for us at Big Sur,
in vain by the Santa Lucia Mountains

jamie100000

About Womawords Literary Press

Womawords, an international eZine based in Africa, is the heart child of multi-award winning Zimbabwean poet in exile, Mbizo Chirasha.  It was established to support women and girls through the publication of activist poetry by women.  Current projects are Womawords companion publication, Liberating Voices Journal, and the newly founded Womawords Hall of Fame.

The Womawords Hall of Fame seeks to amplify women’s voices through literary and other arts and comprises representatives from around the globe: writers, poets, editors, and mentors among others.

JAMIE DEDES is a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. She curates the Poet by Day Webzine [jamiededes.com], an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments. Jamie is also the founder and founding editor of The BeZine, which she currently manages and edits with American-Israeli poet, Michael Dickel (Meta /Phor(e) /Play).

MBIZO CHIRASHA (Mbizo, The Black Poet)  \is the founder of Womawords Literary Press, which is dedicated to giving space to the voices of women and girls. He is a multi-award winning poet from Zimbabwe who is in exile and running for his life. We have been coordinating in the search for safe harbor for him. In part I am posting this today to remind everyone that while we’ve made progress with funding, we still need to find a host for Mbizo, preferably Germany. Open to suggestion.  Connect with me (thepoetbyday@gmail.com) if you are able to help, have leads, or have questions. You can read more about Mbizo and his story: Zimbabwean Poet in Exile: Award-Winning Poet Mbizo Chirasha, A Life on the Run, Interview.

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The Ever-Patient Woman and other poems by Andrée Chedid, Egyptian-French poet and novelist of Lebanese descent

What else can we do
but garden our shadows
while far away
the universe burns and vanishes.
Andrée Chedid

The Final Poem

A forge burns in my heart.
I am redder than dawn,
Deeper than seaweed,
More distant than gulls,
More hollow than wells.
But I only give birth
To seeds and to shells.
My tongue becomes tangled in words:
I no longer speak white,
Nor utter black,
Nor whisper gray of a wind-worn cliff,
Barely do I glimpse a swallow,
A shadow’s brief glimmer,
Or guess at an iris.
Where are the words,
The undying fire,
The final poem?
The source of life?

The Voice

Where is the distant voice
That speaks like my soul?

Buried beneath daylight’s clamor
Gold and the seasons

Beneath groaning streets
And the ferment of cities

In my grave of care
And blond laughter

In what bare tomb must I lie
To summon the voice
That speaks like my soul?

The Ever-Patient Woman

In the flowing sap
In her growing fever
Parting her veils
Cracking out of her shells
Sliding out of her skins

The ever-patient woman
Slowly
gives herself
life

In her volcanoes
In her orchards
Seeking solidity and measure
Clasping her most tender flesh
Straining every fine-honed fiber

The ever-patient woman
Slowly
gives herself
light.

– Andrée Chedid

© Estate of Andrée Chedid

RELATED:

* On her site there’s a link to her “Creative Process.”  Interesting. Worth your time.

Bibliothèque Andrée-Chedid, 36 Émeriau Street (Paris), Photograph courtesy of Celette under CC BY-SA 4.0

Andrée Chedid (1920 – 2011) was an Egyptian-French poet and a novelist of Lebanese descent. She was of the Syriac Maronite Church. I believe she is better known for her fiction here in the States but I appreciate her generally spare style and think her poetry is not to be missed. She questions the human condition and asks what binds us to the world. Not unexpectedly the perfume of the orient wafts through her poems. She denounced the Lebanese Civil War.

Ms. Chedid moved to France post-WW II and remained there for the rest of her life. She was the recipient of many literary awards and was a Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour (2009). A public library was named for her in Paris (2012). Her Amazon Page U.S. is HERE. Her Amazon Page U.K. is HERE.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Maintain the movement.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

Posted on

Announcing the 2020 Poetry Out Loud and Poetry Ourselves Student Champions; Student Poems

Photograph courtesy of Josh Felise, Unsplash

“From analyzing poems to spending hours memorizing and honing their recitations, we know the extraordinary amount of hard work and personal effort that each student put into the program,” said Mary Anne Carter, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The National Endowment for the Arts and Poetry Foundation are recognizing and celebrating the 2020 Poetry Out Loud™ student champions by distributing cash prize awards, sharing videos of poetry recitations by participants across the United States, and announcing the winners of the Poetry Ourselves contest.

POETRY OUT LOUD

Honoring Champions Across the Country
The 2020 Poetry Out Loud national finals were cancelled due to COVID-19, and several state finals were either cancelled or held virtually. Poetry Out Loud will honor both the students who won their state Poetry Out Loud competition (state champions) as well as students who advanced to the state finals in states that were unable to hold a competition.

In the coming weeks, videos of these students reciting a selection of poems from the Poetry Out Loud anthology will be released through arts.gov and poetryoutloud.org as well as on Twitter.

“From analyzing poems to spending hours memorizing and honing their recitations, we know the extraordinary amount of hard work and personal effort that each student put into the program,” said Mary Anne Carter, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “While we are disappointed not to have a national finals competition this year, we look forward to sharing students’ recitations through this video project and the resumption of the competition next school year.”

To honor the achievements of these students, each state champion will receive a $1,000 prize. In states where the finals were cancelled, the state arts agency will receive $1,000 to either award to a state champion named at a later date or divide among the students who advanced to the state finals. The Poetry Foundation provides and administers all aspects of the monetary prizes awarded for Poetry Out Loud.

“Poetry Out Loud is a premiere event to celebrate months of preparation culminating with poetry at center stage, and we share in the disappointment of cancelling the national finals,” said Henry Bienen, president of the Poetry Foundation. “We preserved our commitment to recognize the students’ passion and hard work by awarding the prizes in as equitable a way as possible.”

POETRY OURSELVES

Celebrating Original Work by Young Poets
Competitors also had the opportunity to participate in the Poetry Ourselves competition by submitting original works of poetry in spoken or written form.

Poetry Ourselves Judge

Carmen Giménez Smith

Photo  courtesy of Slowking4 under GFDL 1.2 License

Carmen Giménez Smith (b. 1971) is an American poet, writer and editor from New York City. In 2009, Giménez Smith was named to Poetry Society of America’s biennial New American Poets Series.[5] In 2011, she was named a Howard Foundation Fellow in Creative Nonfiction; her memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds, received an American Book Award;  and her third collection of poems, Goodbye, Flicker, was awarded the Juniper Prize for Poetry.[8] Milk and Filth was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

Carmen’s website is HERE. Carmen’s Amazon Page U.S. is HERE.

A companion to Poetry Out Loud, the Poetry Ourselves competition gives students the opportunity to submit original poetry. This year, Poetry Ourselves submissions were judged by poet Carmen Gimenéz Smith. The competition was open to state champions as well as students who advanced to their state final in states that were unable to hold a competition this year.

Tessa Kresch, a student at Saint Johns School in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is the 2020 Poetry Ourselves spoken poetry winner for the poem I Wonder What Will Happen Tomorrow. Kieran Ellis, the 2020 Idaho Poetry Out Loud State Champion and a student at Kuna High School in Kuna, is the 2020 Poetry Ourselves written poetry winner for the poem Drought.

Eden Getahun, the 2020 California Poetry Out Loud State Champion and a student at CK McClatchy High School in Sacramento, is the 2020 Poetry Ourselves spoken poetry runner-up for the poem Never Forget. Max Feliciano Laracuente, a student at Residential Center of Academic Opportunities of Mayaguez (C.R.O.E.M.) in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, is the 2020 Poetry Ourselves written poetry runner-up for the poem Going Home.

This post is courtesy of  Poetry Out Loud, Poetry Ourselves, The National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, and Wikipedia.

About Poetry Out Loud
A partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, and the state and jurisdictional arts agencies, Poetry Out Loud™ is a national arts education program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering free educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country. By performing poetry, students can master public-speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn more about literary history and contemporary life. Since 2005, more than four million students from 16,000 high schools in all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have participated in Poetry Out Loud. Starting with the 2020-21 school year, Poetry Out Loud will expand to Guam and American Samoa.

For schools that choose to participate, the program starts in the classroom, where teachers may use the Poetry Out Loud toolkit to teach poetry recitation and run classroom competitions. Students select, memorize, and recite poems from an anthology of more than 1,100 classic and contemporary poems. Winners advance from the classroom to the school-wide competition, then to the state competition, and ultimately to the national finals in Washington, DC. More information about the program and how to participate in the 2020-21 competition is available at poetryoutloud.org.

About the National Endowment for the Arts
Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the Arts Endowment supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit arts.gov to learn more.

About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in American culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, visit poetryfoundation.org.

Follow the Poetry Foundation and Poetry on Facebook, Twitter @PoetryFound and @Poetrymagazine, and Instagram.