Poetry: found poem, Today’s Little Ditty, Twist

Do yourself a favor & sample the stuff of Poetry Friday.

Short months
by J.G. Annino

3 short months
13 tidy weeks
92 enticing days

summer corn
summer beach
summer song

stretch
a new way –
cat/cow

mix up a
cool treat –
lemon mousse

write a
new line –
the end
copyright2018©JGAnnino
allrightsreserved

Will these short months unfold as I anticipate
in the poem above?
I can never foresee gifts of each day,
the inscrutable continuing mystery,
adventures of each season.

At this moment I feel sure about
summer corn & already I am lifted up
from summer songs
I sing.

Will I feel confident in writing the end
for this manuscript, a rewriting of Pru’s story,
a verse novel? Expectation speculation.
But as I type this on a Monday, Teresa Hanafin of
The Boston Globe who shares my fondness
for the reminders she finds in
The Farmer’s Almanac, reminds me
Tuesday is the 170th day of the year.
This lights a fire!
To nourish my summer spirit
I looked & found, Entertaining Words II,
a found poem.

Entertaining Words II*
by JG Annino

I hope you will understand
it was either them or me

’til truth leaks out like honey
like schwarmfst skwirlp twoolm preefts brawig thrunch

how far would the wind convey
flavor of the waves, I’ll say

I’m captain of paper ships
but I need words to describe

after each rain a rainbow
all things take on great import

c. allrightsreseved by a variety of
regulars at the site Today’s Little Ditty,
as seen in The Best of Today’s Little Ditty, 2016.

“Entertaining Words II”* is
a found poem collected from ten poem lines in
The Best of TODAY’s LITTLE DITTY, 2016editor, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes.

* key to lines credits in “Entertainig Words II”
from The Best of TODAY’s LITTLE DITTY, 2016
Elizabeth Steinglass (I hope you will understand)
Tabatha A. Yeatts (It was either them or me)
George Heidenrich (’til truth leaks out like honey)
David McMullin (like schwarmfst skwirlp twoolm preefts brawig thrunch)
Audrey Day-Williams (how far would the wind convey)
Julie Larios (flavor of the waves, I’ll say)
Jessica M. Bigi (I’m captain of paper ships)
Dorianne Bennett (but I need words to describe)
Jane Yolen (after each rain a rainbow)
Rebekah Hoeft (all things take on great import)

With the two ending lines,
I went flip & flop,
see & saw,
on their order. Thoughts?

Any season, I would love to read about a poem you find in a volume of TODAY’s LITTLE DITTY, which are carefully created & curated joys that feature Poetry Friday pals & also, many well-published poets who generously suggest poem prompts.

TWIST

I have dipped into a coupla yoga
classes on & off, without seeing
the pose cat/cow until this very week.
My stretches are on hiatus until I meet with
a physical therapist to unkink a hip hitch, but
that doesn’t diminish the mind stretch I find
in an artful book,
TWIST, by poet Janet S. Wong and artist Julie Paschkis.
This study of yoga poses, with a calm folkloric feel
to the art, arrived at our big black mailbox
with a clutch of ordered summer reads.

I wish you soothing summer joys between now & the
season that follows in about 10 tidy weeks.

found poem resources
https://michellehbarnes.blogspot.com/
http://elizabethsteinglass.com
http://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com
http://davidmcmullinbooks.com
http://inmydreams2016.wordpress.com
http://julielarios.blogspot.com
https://www.facebook.com/jessica.bigi.37
http://www.dorireads.com/
http://janeyolen.com/
http://rebekahhoeft.blogspot.com/

TWIST resources
Janet S. Wong
http://www.janetwong.com
Julie Pacshkis
Welcome
……………….

Like others, likeminded, with work to complete this summer,
I also work as a citizen
against this heartless administration that makes a choice derided by everyone from
Laura Bush to Pope Francis,
a choice unnecessary under law,to separate infants & toddlers & older children from a parent at the U.S.- Mexico border.

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Fathers’ Day 2018

On Father’s Day Weekend 2018,
I celebrate the most special helper
in my universe,
my husband,
PAOLO ANNINO.
In this article, linked just above to his name,
he has teamed up with
a colleague, Terry Coonan, to advocate
for children in our community, which is
also a job that they fulfill in their
daily work, constantly.

I am comforted
realizing
that there are
so many helpers –
so many
caring people
in this world.

Fathers volunteer in beautiful,
nonending,
ways –
(Doctors Without Borders,
Big Bend Hospice, The Sharing Tree,
Lee’s Place, Peace Jam Southeast,
Front Porch Library,
Literacy Volunteers,SportsAbility,
4-H, Second Harvest, Refuge House)
& to me
it feels as a
golden scroll of Father goodness
knows no end.

If someone is tempted to dwell
in the ugly, remind them of the helpers.
Fred Rogers said it best –

“Look for the helpers.
You will always find people who are helping.”

Thank you to my dear husband & to all
the Father helpers all over the world.

Summer 2018

Summer 2018

And so sweet summer solstice arrives in
just 10 days with our blue/green marble rubbing closer to the sunstar on June 21.
Without awareness, until this reflective moment,
I find that I am less inclinded to cook up Red Mill oat bran in the morning,
more likely to have already prepared a batch of chocolate-raspberry pudding
(tofu protein base) for the first meal of the day.

Summer in a weather zone such as our North Florida suburban woods
provides us
mold & mosquitoes,
high 90s, sometimes 100s,
humidity my husband labels perfidy
walls of rain,
sometimes hurricanes.
I take our summer to be like others’ winter,
a signal to embrace extreme conditions.
I savor close-to-home expeditions,
love the gifts of this summer,
wouldn’t want any other summer.

Summer treasure
is tactile
living jewel on hand
ocean necklace plucked from sand
beach hard to reach
little yard tomato, one for each 

….

Summer June’s tune for Spiritual Thursday writers, sung by Margaret Simon.
And here is the most recent Poetry Friday picnic from Whispers at The Ridge.

Memorial

c.2018allrightssreserved

Memorial Day haiku 2018

Boys arrived, laughing
marched day, trudged night, steady drill
saluted farewell
c.2018JanGodownAnnino

I grew up hearing stories told by
my dear Dad about his days in WWII as a
Fort Dix, N.J. drill sergeant. He took on
raw recruits from Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
sent them off as efficient fighters against
the Nazis.

Groceries + a video

Groceries + a video –
Publix & Disturbed’s The Sound of Silence video

My topic is Disturbed’s 2015 presentation of Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel’s
The Sounds of Silence, later, The Sound of Silence.
And it is also about a wrong done by a grocery store chain.
So I’m stepping out of children’s poems & picture book mode today
as I do now & again.

I keep going back to Disturbed’s version, having stumbled upon it
during the start of this Memorial Day Weekend at a
lovely writing blog, when I should have been revising my verse novel.

Once I listened to it there, beautifully matched as it was with
a potent ice dance as a visual, to talk about quiet books,
it jarred my memory, my recollection of hearing Disturbed’s version back in 2015.
I wanted to see & listen once more to Disturbed You Tube version.
(Now in 2018 I have come to ignore this talented artist’s face jewelry,
without the Mother in me climbing aboard that metal fashion.)

The wonderful Wiki people tell me the song, released in 1964,
tanked,
sending Art Simon back to Columbia University & Paul Garfunkel
on return flight to England.
Then, in a plot twist, massive radio play in Boston & Miami with radio
audience adoration only one year later,
beamed it humming into The World’s ears so that the words can reverberate today,
in this time of national anguish.

The words, the delivery by Disturbed, the video by Matt Mahurin,
nourish me, urge me to write the letter, go to the
meeting/protest when it’s nicer/easier in the early evening
to want to curl up & watch a blue headed dragonfly resting on a green plant stake.

You see I thought I may be edging toward numb.
Now after watching/listening to the video – I didn’t want to take my eyes & ears away
from this potent piece of art,
this line from the song now roars to me-
“people writing songs that voices never share”

The catalyst for this mumble
is that we in Florida gladly leave money
at the Florida-grown shopping conglomerate called Publix,
which I know some of you visit during your jaunts in my lovely state.
And in fact, the big green P beams in Georgia & both Carolinas, too.
This chain has employed the state’s high school teens, the state’s elders,
& more important, the folks who will be forever like teens or younger,
as a leader in employing the developmentally delayed. It’s also my
just- around-the-block place for Florida-grown organic strawberries,
avocados & oranges.
Now I can’t bear to spend a dime there.
Until a great Florida newspaper wrote about it, I didn’t know it was funneling money
to a public office holder who brags that he is owned by the rifle lobby.

Publix backed, pushed, payed money into the
campaign of a current candidate for Florida governor who is so enamored
of the rifle lobby that he jokes, he brags, that he is a sellout to them.
And Publix has an excess of money because so many of us do
an excess of shopping with them.
Only after massive letter-writing/tweeting in support of spending less
money or zilch money at Publix,
did the business say it will halt the donations.
But. It has given about $570,000 so that is only part-correction.
We have yet to hear if it intends to give an equal amount of money to
the Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense group.

So if you find yourself in Florida this summer,
bike, drive, walk safely, apply sunscreen
& I hope you will take the extra minutes to look for a local farmer’s market,
or try seeking out Trader Joe’s.
Lately, shopping at Publix is not a pleasure.

June 1 2018 is National Gun Violence Awareness Day

Moms Demand Action Group

Adam Putnam

Wikipedia on The Sounds of Silence

Disturbed’s The Sound of Silence on You Tube

Results, so far, from criticism of Publix

Publix is reached these ways

And yes, Memorial Day is Monday.
I expect to once again spend time with
mementoes my dear Father gave me of his WWII & experience at Fort Dix, N.J.
I am so grateful for child memories of seeing him lead the flag honor guard
in our town’s 4th of July Parade, as commander of the local American Legion.

Three beats of the heart: books to borrow or buy

Three Beats of the heart: books to borrow or buy

WONDERFUL WORDS
THE WILD BRAID
BIG MAGIC

Three volumes to talk up, today.
I celebrate them
for how they they jolt my Writer Spirit.
Who knows? Could be your new favorites.

WONDERFUL WORDS is a color-packed gallery, illustrated by Karen Barbour,
for anthologist/editor Lee Bennett Hopkins. With visits to ideas
such as Metaphor, Listen, Finding a Poem & more, it bombards
my senses in the best way, with go-go juice. Last weekend at a
writing retreat, thanks in part to this book, I carted off some
wrong words, proud words, from my middle grade verse novel,
a revision on-going with good steam. This thought is
potent for me, a few lines of “Primer Lesson” by Carl Sandburg
Look out how you use proud words.
When you let proud words go, it is
not easy to call them back…
c. 1922, 1950 in WONDERFUL WORDS
Yes, WONDERFUL WORDS a picture book.
The artwork, the poems shared, ensure it is for ALL ages. Hope you find it fast.

I can’t keep track of how many copies of THE WILD BRAID
fly out from here to friends. This slim purse-size book is a
collection of essays, with some poems,
by the founder of Poets House in NYC,
Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006) who earned a Pulitzer-prize, worked as a
U.S. Poet Laureate, among shelves of writing connections during his
generous life. This lovely work is a collaboration with photographer
Marnie Crawford Samuelson and the book’s midwife is writer Genine Lentine.
We came to know about Stanley Kunitz, who as a boy was a village lamplighter,
through relatives of his who we chanced to overnight with in a stream of serendipity
that continues to bless our family.
If you become intrigued by him, I send you to this pinterest page, servings of his thoughts.
Last week I copied out one SK verse for a young student in New Hampshire
who intends to be a librarian some day:
I can scarcely wait for tomorrow
When a new day begins for me
As it does each day
As it does each day
c. 2007 StanleyKunitz from “The Round” in THE WILD BRAID

One of my special moments in visiting Poets House in
March of this year, involved
my hubby and I finding a desk
where e.e. cummings wrote. One of our first
connections we shared when we began dating
was cummings’ poetry. Love Poets House.
You can listen to Stanley Kunitz read his poem “The Long Boat.

Poets House, NYC,
March 2018
a desk where e.e. cummings wrote

You have heard of BIG MAGIC from Elizabeth Gilbert. Just finished my
2nd read of this copy, gifted to me by the magical
Joan Broerman of SCBWI fame. It is now inscribed for a writer,
who is also a musician, who I felt lucky
to meet in a singing circle.
At the nurturing TEACHING AUTHORS site, when asked to select a
book to pass along, I instantly picked this for her.
The top life lesson I take away from BM is
get back to creation.
Which isn’t an exhortation to read Genesis
but to know in my bones that folks have always
stuck hands in mudclay to sculpt,
or swiped berry juice on stone,
or grabbed grass stalks & woven,
without making such a big deal out of it.
I’m doodling, I’m paper cutting, creating in ways
in addition to words… With great appreciations to wonderful Joan,
pictured here with a special oil painting by our talented
mutual friend, Brian Nolan.
(I am lucky enough to be seated on the left.)

With joy for your wonderful words, for your wild braid, for
your big magic that I feel vibrates through your soul. xox

plus Three more images – the cove of the river from last weekend’s
writing retreat & charmed gourd cache pot made for me by Turtle Cove Press
writing pal M.R. Street, cheerleader for my artistic expression, & host of the
cove time my lucky self enjoyed.

Gone from the shelf – book gifts

Gone from my shelves – book gifts + original poem

Lee Bennett Hopkins wrote
Good books,
Good times,
Good stories,
Good rhymes…
from GOOD BOOKS,GOOD TIMES!
selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, pictures by Harvey Stevenson

Today I share some good books, good rhymes that
no longer belong to me!
First up is the story of Aida de Acosta (1884-1962).
I know. Who?

Aida’s aviation history is
told winningly, lyrically in
THE FLYING GIRL,by Margarita Engle,
with illustrations from Sara Palacios –
both of these talents are awarded book creators.
Margarita is a favorite author I read, especially delving into islands
of her verse novels. Sara Palacios is new to me, but she
shouldn’t be, as illustrator of MARISOL MCDONALD
DOESN’T MATCH & other titles.

This high-flying story of Aida,
a teen in Paris who dreamed
of airship wings
is a charmed picture book biography, with an historical note
about the world of this teen at the end.
I love how the author channels young Aida’s strong voice:

If that man can fly
so can I
All I need are some lessons
and a chance to try!

The colorful drawings capture the period & lift the reader
to dream high.
Memorable moments, such as a dinner on elephant-tall
tables served by waiters on stilts,
feather in a magical quality to this totally real-life story
about flying pioneer,
a young woman too, who few of us know. At least, I didn’t.
I’ve packed Aida & sent her off flying
with a pack of cloud postcards,
to a 3rd-grade poet of the Silver Star Postcard Project in Canada,
Inspired by the pacesetting aviator “Queen” Bessie Coleman, this young poet wrote me that she loves to fly, a connection courtesy of
Poetry Friday’s wonderful Check it Out,
The student’s poem inspires me at my desk.

And right here, Carolyn Angus with the International Reading Association
shares about THE FLYING GIRL.

***
What if…
You opened a book
About dinosaurs
And one stumbled out
And another and another….
C. Isabel Joshlin Glaser
in the poem “What if” by Isabel Joshlin Glaser in
GOOD BOOKS,GOOD TIMES!
selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins,
with pictures from Harvey Stevenson

Dinosaurs, one after another, are
thumpingly, exactly what I experienced
when I opened the gift package from a children’s book imprint
new to me, POW! in Brooklyn.
Inside I met the characters of
DON’T ASK A DINOSAUR by authors Deborah Bruss & Matt Forrestt Esenwine
(a pal through Poetry Friday)
with color-pow comics style illustrations by Louie Chin.
Two children tackle a list:

“If you’re going to plan
a birthday party,
stop and think it through.
Be careful
what you dare
to ask a dinosaur to do.”

This jolly story
romps around with the ways
dinosaurs that once partied on Earth
might add mayhem to a child’s
living room hee-haw.
I love how this book is clever in bringing to
the youngest read-aloud set, the famous but also
lesser-known
dinos, along with a specific
characteristic for each. It’s fun, it’s a party,
but at the same time, now I know about the one who would be a
balloon-buster, (yes, they all would, but this one, specifically)
DIE-noh-KIRE-us, meaning terrible hands, thanks to DON’T ASK A DINOSAUR.
We have a curious, busy, wonderful, dino-crazy Kindergarten guy
in our own famly zoo,
so this book stomps, crashes, tears, off to him in Rhode Island.

POW! is here.
http://powkidsbooks.com

***
Earlier in springtime, at the beloved
class I’ve visited all schoolyear long,
I gifted the animal antics in
PET CRAZY to Ms. Camoesas,
a vibrant teacher of all things, but an especially
facile guide for young poem-makers.

One of many poems in this lively
work book anthology
that pulls me to it over & over, is
“Loose Tooth, Whose Tooth?”
from the novelist, poet & award-winning children’s literature icon
Carole Boston Weatherford.

Sooooo creative this list poem is, in
tackling the crucially important
loose tooth topic,
enticing young readers with rhyme,
but in a new way,
by drilling us about other teeth,
such as
“Bat’s tooth, rat’s tooth…” or
“Piranha’s tooth, iguana’s tooth..”
c.2017 Carole Boston Weatherford
Pomelo Books
CBWeatherford.Com

I was enticed by this book at
every turn & especially at page 90,
where I was
invited to try my hand at cat art.
And tackling the drawing lesson
from illustrator Franzi Paetzold,
I became inspired to dash off this
this un-rhyme:

Outline thumb
Add three triangles
Two half-macaroni
One moustache
Six toothpicks

Stand back,
find
a
feline
made from your
lines.
c. 2018 JanGodownAnnino

PET CRAZY drawing lesson!
The children’s literature specialists behind PET CRAZY,
part of a popular series from Sylvia Vardell & Janet Wong
are here at POMELO Books.
http://pomelobooks.com

Special appreciations to Alphabet Soup/Jama Kim Rattigan forthe gift of this book.

For the Poetry Friday RoundUp, rustle on over to visit Rebecca at SLOTH READS.

 

***
………….