Poetry Friday -- STIGMA

SAFFRON HARVEST

by Mary Lee Hahn

The blooming field
is a purple sea.

Closer
you see rows.

Bent over, I focus
on each crocus.

For 50 millennia,
the three-part stigma –

threads of yellow,
golden glow,

–has been harvested by hand,
bloom by bloom, plant by plant.

Priceless
spice.

Earlier in the week, I wrote a little about the process of writing this poem. How I got from STIGMA, my word in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 poetry contest, to a SAFFRON HARVEST.

My poem didn't quite get enough votes to move me on in the contest, but I do not feel like I LOST in any way, shape or form. In fact, here are a few of the ways I have WON with this contest:

• I am a better writer.
• I am a better writing teacher.
• R. went and got a thesaurus to look up a better word for DRY in one of her poems.
• N. asked for a word so that she could try writing a poem the way I had. She is learning so much about the writing process as I share my process with her -- that it pays to collect definitions, synonyms, rhymes and pages of ideas before you actually start the poem.
• On Wednesday, my Environmental Club "lesson" was on parts of plants and parts of flowers...specifically, STIGMAS. Then we went outside in the warm sun and the brisk breeze and we putzed around in the land lab, peeking into every bloom we could find, looking for the stigmas.
• This from my Mom: "I think more about words since your poetry contest...I wanted to share this beautiful sentence from the book I am reading now--a mystery set in Wyoming, starring a fish and game officer. "A single stringy white cloud seemed to have snagged on the top of the peak like a plastic bag caught on a tree branch." "
• And last, but not least, all of the SUPPORT and kind words from bloggers around the Kidlitosphere, from folks back in my hometown, from friends far and wide, from the teachers and kids at school. 

Happy Poetry Friday! Heidi's rounding us up at my juicy little universe. (Happy Spring Break, Heidi!)

National Poetry Month starts this weekend. I'm sure today's roundup will highlight many of them.

Starting on Sunday, I'll be posting an original, fresh out of the notebook poem-a-day here, in amongst our regular programming. These will be DAILY poems, not polished drafts that I've worked on for five hours. I don't have a particular theme for my poems, like Heidi does, or a particular way I'll be getting my ideas, like Amy LV does. I think I'm going to try playing around with some longer forms (I was inspired by Susan Taylor Brown's pantoum and Amy LV's triolet and Kat's sonnet). Maybe I'll combine my Project 365 photography with poems. We'll just have to wait and see!