Poetry Friday -- Zentangle Poetry

 Three tries, three very different poems.

life was art

no order

perplexing harmonies

I was left feeling dizzy

the thing was

I had imagined something

not 

as 

unpredictable

and bumpy

the poetry is timeless

who questions this?

no one

How much is "enough time?"

We hope for enough time, knowing there is never enough time.

Except, maybe, in poems -- in writing them and reading them, 

far inside them where we lose account of minutes. 

Except, maybe, in photographs, 

where time sleeps but doesn't close its eyes.

Back in 2012, I subscribed for a year to the Poetry Foundation's poetry journal. I never read more than a poem or two here or there, but I also couldn't find it in me to send them to recycling. Now I've found the perfect use for them. I'm using Poetry to make poetry and art!

Thank you, Poetry Sisters, for this week's challenge. It was fun! 

And thanks to all who signed up to host Poetry Friday July-December. The schedule is filled!

Linda has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at A Word Edgewise. It's her annual "clunker" exchange!

Now, More Than Ever

Now, More Than Ever

Breathe
in hope,
then exhale
your gratitude.
Remember these truths:
students over standards,
patience over procedures,
compassion over compliance,
care over content, and grace over
gimmicks. We must humanize our teaching.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020


This poem is an etheree.  It is also a found poem, comprised of bits of a post I read on the Nextdoor app, and this tweet by Shana V. White:

Found Poem

Unsplash photo by Andy Mai

These Days (a found poem)

These days, far too many whom we have admired

have proven to be bad.

We are all complicated individuals... 

If I were to dismiss every piece of art

because of something in the artist's life that is/was inexcusable,

then,
I fear,

art would not be something I could partake in.

If I don't know the inexcusable now,

I may find out about it later.

I think this discussion needs to be continued.

It has my head spinning.

We are all complicated individuals... 

Yes, we can mourn and miss the good

that coexists with bad
inside a complicated person.

I think it is important to acknowledge and recognize both

even though it is hard to do.

We are all complicated individuals... 

Quite often,

is it not the case,

the real art comes from the troubled places in us?

And sometimes from the troubled among us,

who are blown about by unseemly urges,

who feel so out of the ordinary stream

that they lose sight of the channeling banks?

We need not excuse the wrong-doing to be touched by the art.

We are all complicated individuals... 

I don't know that to do with the bad and good,

except love people for who they are.

Help them achieve better than they did before.

We can't cut people out of the herd and consider our jobs done.

If trees fall, we make furniture.

When a forest burns, new seeds take root.

When our idols fall,

perhaps they will rise again

as mere people.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

This is a poem I found in the comments on last week's Poetry Friday post. I created it in appreciation for your thoughtful responses to my lament about the loss of the Writer's Almanac. They were just to good to leave in the comment boxes!

(Thanks, also, for all of the writing encouragement!)

Liz has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at Elizabeth Steinglass.

Found Poem -- Steven King -- 11-22-63: A Novel

For a moment,

everything was clear,

and when that happens

you see that the world

is barely

there

at all.

Don't we all secretly know this?

It's a perfectly balanced mechanism

of shouts and echoes

pretending to be wheels and cogs,

a dreamclock

chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life.

Behind it?

Below it and around it?

Chaos, storms.

Men with hammers,

men with knives,

men with guns.

Women who twist

what they cannot dominate

and belittle

what they cannot understand.

A universe of horror and loss

surrounding a single lighted stage

where mortals dance

in defiance

of

the

dark.

from 11-22-63: A Novel

by Steven King

Scribner, 2011

p. 615-616

Poem #14, National Poetry Month 2012

I was listening to 11-22-63 in the car this morning, and when I heard this, I shut off my iPod and just let King's words soak in. 

Later, during Saturday errands, I took the print copy of the book off the shelf at B&N, found my spot, and (like a spy or something) took photos of the text on the two pages.

On Thursday night (at the cake pop event), Cathy was talking about how she was living with her eyes wide open for the next poem. Yeah, me, too. And apparently, we should have our ears open as well. Thank you, Mr. King, for today's poem.

Cathy, at Merely Day By Day, is joining me in a poem a day this month. Other daily poem writers include Amy at The Poem Farm, Linda at TeacherDance, Donna at Mainely Write, Laura at Writing the World for Kids (daily haiku), Liz at Liz in Ink (daily haiku), Sara at Read Write Believe (daily haiku), Jone at Deo Writer (daily haiku)...and YOU?

Poetry Friday -- Found Poem

Flickr Creative Commons licensed photo by Thokrates

FIT TO BE CALLED READING
by Robert Louis Stevenson


In anything fit to be called
by the name of reading,
the process itself
should be
absorbing
and
voluptuous;

we should gloat over a book,
be rapt
clean out of ourselves
and rise from the perusal,
our mind
filled
with the busiest,
kaleidoscopic dance of images,
incapable of sleep
or of continuous thought.

The words,
if the book be eloquent,
should run thenceforth in our ears like the noise of
breakers,

and the story,
if it be a story,
repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures
to the eye.

from Memories and Portraits, but found in The Pocket R. L. S. : Being Favourite Passages From the Works of Stevenson, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922



Thank you, AJ, for sharing this passage-turned-poem (by me) in your little leather-bound 1922 collection of R. L. S. quotes and passages.

Here are a couple of links from some recent discussions about the love of reading:
Alan Jacobs in The Journal of Higher Education
and a response from
Donalyn Miller at Education Week.

Where do you stand on the love of reading?



Today, the Poetry Friday Round Up is at Dori Reads.