This World

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

What Scientists Know That We All Should Remember

This world values diversity
over singularity

adaptation
over stasis

the many
over the few

balance 

over imbalance.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

I saved this song for last because, as you can hear, it is simultaneously a goodbye song and a love song to the world. The world she sings about in this song is the natural world, but it is also the world of humanity. 

Malvina loved this world (these worlds) enough to fight for all she found to be right and true, using her musical and writing talents. Her name needs to be added to our list of women heroes who 

Persist (like Elizabeth) 

Inspire (like Malala)

Speak (like Maya)

Influence (like Sonia)

Defy (like Rosa)

Fight (like Hillary)

Empower (like Gloria)

Focus (like Michelle)

Rule (like Ruth)

Sing (like Malvina)

My poem today was doubly inspired by a month spent with Malvina and the book I'm currently listening to, The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses, and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History by Thor Hanson. My wish for the future of the human race would be that we could come to know about ourselves the things that scientists know about life in general on this planet. Maybe if we could build our human society to be in tune with the scientific principles of life, we could keep the whole planet alive.

There's a Bottom Below

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Children's songs, songs about current events, the environment, politics, and gender inequity -- I've gotten to know Malvina Reynolds, but today's song makes me laugh. It's as though Malvina Reynolds has gotten to know ME! Add blues to her list of musical genres. My version of this song doesn't match her rhythm well enough to be sung, and I certainly could have written a more sobering and depressing version about my March, but I couldn't resist capturing a snapshot of the past couple of days.





The Fifth Grade in May Blues

Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.

There's a low below the low you know.
You can't imagine how far you can go...down.

Every once in awhile your lesson hits home
It clicks, it’s fun, but don’t forget...next time you’ll go...down

Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.

You watch the Kleenex fill up the trash can
Wash every surface with Chlorox and then (on the weekend)

you go...down

Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.

You’re patient and kind and your voice is kept low
You’re frustrated and angry and then you yell...you’ve gone...down

Do you think you've hit bottom?
Do you think you've hit bottom?
Oh, no.
There's a bottom below.

There's a low below the low you know.
You can't imagine how far you can go...down.

©Mary Lee Hahn (with apologies to Malvina Reynolds)

Pennies

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Along with all of the songs she wrote about the issues of her times (still current now), Malvina Reynolds also wrote songs for children. In the documentary Love it Like A Fool, she mentioned that it irked her that men were taken seriously when they were any age, but with her white hair and her songs for children, she became known as "The Singing Grandmother." Anyone who's been listening along through this month knows without a doubt that Malvina Reynolds was much much more than a "Singing Grandmother."

Pennies

The beaded coin purse
full of loose change,
mostly pennies,
bulged on the kitchen counter
beside the mug full of leaky pens and
pencils with dried out erasers.

In the top dresser drawer
beneath silky slips
that hadn’t been worn in decades
was stashed a plastic bag of pennies.
All wheatheads,
collected because perhaps they’d become valuable.

Mom’s laudable thrift,
learned at the knee of necessity
makes my lack of frugality
appear extravagant.
Her someday was always out of reach.
Mine jingles in my hand.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Sing It, Malvina!

April 1 -- Working for Change
April 2 -- A Lifetime Filled With Change
April 3 -- Red
April 4 -- Little Red Hen
April 5 -- Childhood Dreams
April 6 -- Lonely Child
April 7 -- Quiet

April 8 -- Storyteller
April 9 -- Troublemaker
April 10 -- Girl Power
April 11 -- Choices
April 12 -- My Gal, Mother Nature
April 13 -- Not a Joke
April 14 -- I Don't Mind Failing

April 15 -- What is Feminism?
April 16 -- Holes
April 17 -- They Can Have Their Cake and Eat it, Too
April 18 -- We Won't Be Nice
April 19 -- Grass is Persistent
April 20 -- Ticky Tacky
April 21 -- Regrets

April 22 -- Skagit Valley Forever

April 23 -- The World's Gone Beautiful

April 24 -- Rain

April 25 -- I Live in a City

April 26 -- The Hard Work of Real Human Beings

April 27 -- Current Events

April 28 -- Pennies

Joann has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Teaching Authors.

The Hard Work of Real Human Beings

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Through her music, Malvina addressed issues of diversity and collaboration, as well as economic and labor issues.

The Hard Work of Real Human Beings

Where do cherries come from?
They come from a tree!
And who picks them one by one?
Neither you, nor me.

Where does asparagus come from?
It grows in a field!
And who stoops down to cut each stalk?
Neither you, nor me.

Where do apples come from?
They grow on a tree!
And which strong worker fills buckets all day?
Neither you, nor me.

Where do peppers come from?
On bushes, low and green!
And who must pick each single one?
Neither you, nor me.

How much money do they make?
Do they have the things they need?
Who values their important work?
Neither you, nor me.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

4 Labor-Intensive Crops Farmers Wish They Had Robots to Harvest

I Live in a City

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Through her music, Malvina addressed issues of diversity and collaboration, as well as economic and labor issues. 

Riddle Poem

What is bigger than all its parts,
full to the brim of stops and starts,
more colorful than the boldest rainbow,
only silent when buried in snow,
less significant than it wants you to believe,
a problem to solve, a tragedy to grieve?

("...a city made by human hands")

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Rain

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Ode to an Inch of Life-Giving Rain

Oh, Rain!
You fall so abundantly further east
but we treasure every hundredth of an inch
here on the western high plains.

Oh, Rain!
You have rescued the wheat crop,
not to mention the Russian Olives
in the windbreak on the north side of the house.

Oh, Rain!
You lift every spirit.
Are your ears burning? The inch that fell last night
is the topic of every conversation at the post office.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

The World's Gone Beautiful

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

The World is Asking Not to Die

The world is asking not to die,
yet humans look away,

overpopulating the planet,
changing the climate past the point of repair,
destroying biodiversity in a mass extinction,
killing oxygen-producing phytoplankton with nitrogen runoff,
polluting fresh water sources,
acidifying the ocean,
contaminating air, water, and soil with plastics and chemical compounds,
depleting the ozone layer,
clearing forests at an alarming rate.

How can humans look away
from a world that is asking not to die?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Skagit Valley Forever

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

wild is worth saving --
find your own Skagit Valley --
fight for our future --

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Regrets

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Today's poem is a Golden Shovel. The last word in each of my lines reads down, like an acrostic, and is a line from today's song by Malvina Reynolds, "Let it Be." Last month, I buried the story of the loss of two beautiful and magical places inside a book review, and when I set out to write today's poem, it became a lament of the most recent replacement of magic with convenience. Clearly, I'm not over that yet.

Regrets

You do the best you can until you

can do no more. You think

about the choices that

you made and you

wonder if your love

could ever have been enough for her

survival. You planted and

weeded and you

hoped someone else would want

to become caretaker to

this magical place where kids could discover

the workings of nature -- how

intricately she's

designed -- made

with milkweed, for example, expressly so

there can be monarchs. Because you

loved that plot, you take

it personally that they leveled her

and undid all your work; took apart

a piece of what made this world good and

right, wild and free. Your regrets threaten to break

 your belief in yourself, but her

 beauty remains whole in your heart.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Sing It, Malvina!

April 1 -- Working for Change
April 2 -- A Lifetime Filled With Change
April 3 -- Red
April 4 -- Little Red Hen
April 5 -- Childhood Dreams
April 6 -- Lonely Child
April 7 -- Quiet

April 8 -- Storyteller
April 9 -- Troublemaker
April 10 -- Girl Power
April 11 -- Choices
April 12 -- My Gal, Mother Nature
April 13 -- Not a Joke
April 14 -- I Don't Mind Failing

April 15 -- What is Feminism?

April 16 -- Holes

April 17 -- They Can Have Their Cake and Eat it, Too

April 18 -- We Won't Be Nice

April 19 -- Grass is Persistent

April 20 -- Ticky Tacky

April 21 -- Regrets

Tabatha has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at The Opposite of Indifference.

Ticky Tacky

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Ticky Tacky
(to the tune of "Little Boxes")

It’s the sameness, lack-of-change-ness
It’s the absence of diversity
Economic inequality
Absolute conformity

It’s a boilermaker
Never varying
So redundant
Truly tedious

It’s the absence of diversity
And it all looks just the same.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Grass Is Persistent

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Grass Is

People want to tame me or
Eradicate me. They underestimate my
Root
Structure and my
Indomitable
Spirit. I am
Tenacious. I
Exist
Not to please, but to break concrete and spread
Truth.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

We Won't Be Nice

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

We Won’t Be Nice

Cause a disruption
Form an obstruction
March and rally and chant.

Shake up the status quo
Make a line and block the flow
March and rally and chant.

Rebel with civility
Abstain from docility
March and rally and chant.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

They Can Have Their Cake, and Eat it, Too

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Let Them Eat Cake was recorded live in concert, November 1972.




They Can Have Their Cake, and Eat it, Too

They sugar coat the truth for us,
fake the daily news,
make us look the other way.
What could they possibly lose?

They divert to keep the facts at bay,
disguise false validations,
sweeten fibs with taradiddles,
no need for vindication.

“What could we possibly lose?” they ask,
on the brink of a nuclear war.
They’re blind to even the simplest truths,
and deaf to our uproar.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Holes

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

The World in Their Pocket was recorded live in concert by KQED in 1967.

Holes

They say the world is richer,
With jobs and giant bankrolls.
But their logic’s got a hole.

They say we’ll build the pipeline,
Bother with leaks and spills later.
But their logic’s got a crater.

They say the world is safe,
In their constant Twitter spasms.
But their logic’s got a chasm.

When crater, hole and chasm
Become a vast abyss,
They’ll say, “Oops, we were remiss…”

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

What is Feminism?

What is Feminism?

Some women
have the luxury of
joining a cause.
Fighting for equal rights
and equal pay.
Finding their voices,
expressing their true identities.

Other women
have the necessity of
work.
Finding the work
and doing the work.
Keeping their families fed,
running the businesses.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017





"My mother came from a long line of women who worked outside the home. Her grandmother ran a deli while her husband read Torah. Her own mother and father ran a naval tailor shop. When I was in the fifth grade, my mother’s father died, and she and my father and grandmother ran the shop together."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

I Don't Mind Failing

Language alert: if watching the video with children, be prepared to hit the mute button at :33-:38 and 4:15-4:20. Also, apologies (and gratitude) to William Carlos Williams.

This is Just to Say 

I have failed
the test
that measures
my worth

and which
you were probably
planning to use
to pigeonhole me

Forgive me
I refuse your labels
I am deliciously
worthy and capable


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017





Sing It, Malvina!

April 1 -- Working for Change
April 2 -- A Lifetime Filled With Change
April 3 -- Red
April 4 -- Little Red Hen
April 5 -- Childhood Dreams
April 6 -- Lonely Child
April 7 -- Quiet

April 8 -- Storyteller

April 9 -- Troublemaker

April 10 -- Girl Power

April 11 -- Choices

April 12 -- My Gal, Mother Nature

April 13 -- Not a Joke

April 14 -- I Don't Mind Failing

Dori has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Dori Reads.

Not a Joke

Not a Joke

Isn’t it funny
(not a joke
no humor
no puns)
Isn’t it funny
how war creates a necessity
that strips away all the labels
previously preventing a person’s
life work?

Isn’t it funny
(not a joke
no humor
no puns)
Isn’t it funny
how the devastation of war
creates industries
and builds an economy out of
destruction?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017




“My mother was writing her dissertation when I was little and got her Ph.D. in 1939. But it was the middle of the Depression; she was Jewish, a socialist, and a woman; and she couldn’t get a job teaching. But when the Second World War broke out, she got a job on an assembly line in a bomb factory, and Bud went to work as a carpenter in a shipyard.”

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

My Gal, Mother Nature

“...it was while doing graduate work in English there (University of California Berkeley) that she did some student teaching. She used pop songs to teach her high school students about rhyme scheme and meter, as they were not poetry readers."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

Malvina Reynolds would have been at Berkeley in the 1920's, and "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" was a popular song then. Perhaps it was one she used to teach about rhyme scheme and meter.

Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue
Words: Sam M. Lewis and Joseph Widow Young; Music: Ray Henderson (1925)

Five foot two, eyes of blue,
but oh, what those five foot could do:
has anybody seen my gal?

Turned-up nose, turned-down hose
Flapper? Yes sir, one of those
Has anybody seen my gal?

Now, if you run into
a five-foot-two
covered with fur,
Diamond rings,
and all those things,
Bet your life it isn't her

But could she love, could she woo!
Could she, could she, could she coo!
Has anybody seen my gal?




My Gal, Mother Nature

Birds and bees, rocks and trees
Oh the breeze and green green leaves
Has anybody seen my gal?

Skies of blue, rivers too
Nature? Yes we need her hues
Has anybody seen my gal?

Now if the skies are hazed
Parks are paved
Trash everywhere,
Species dead
Sewage spread
Bet your life there’s no clean air

The temps are high, could she die?
Could she, could she, could she die?
Has anybody seen my gal?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Choices

Choices

Even the right man
Must wait for the right time
Because mother is right
That “career first” is the right path.

But when you're on the left path
Your heart keeps looking for the right man
You left behind
For all the right reasons


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017






“It was while she was in high school that Malvina first met William “Bud” Reynolds, at a socialist dance. He was a merchant seaman, seven years older, handsome, and even more shy than she. He was self-educated, having left school after the eighth grade. They read poetry to each other in Golden Gate Park, but when he proposed, she refused. Encouraged by her mother, she had her sights set on college and a career.

She married someone else, and so did Bud. He ran for governor of Michigan on the Socialist ticket, with the slogan, “You provide the evictions, we’ll provide the riots!” They found each other again after she was divorced, and this time she said yes.”

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

Girl Power

GIRL POWER

Gentle and meek are things of the past.
I am
Ready to take on the world. To
Lead,
Persist, and
Open doors
With my own talents, my own skills, and my own
Expertise. World, are you
Ready for me?

©Mary Lee Hahn

Troublemaker

Troublemaker
(Ever so slightly to the tune of "Little Boxes")

When we want
What they’ve got
And we ask for it
In the right ways
And the logic’s there
And the signatures
And they still tell us NO

Then we don’t stop
And we’re not quiet
And we make them
Pay attention now
To the voices
Of the people
Who pursue what they’re due.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

"I had first come to the attention of the principal’s office with a premature women’s liberation movement on the school grounds. At noon, the boys could leave the grounds to play around on the streets and to get hot dogs, hamburgers, coffee, and pop at the little store across the street. I circulated a petition that the girls be allowed out of the yard at noon also. The answer was no. It wasn’t proper for girls to be on the street. [The girls then asked that the boys be restricted, and were told] if the school tried to restrict the boys they’d just climb the fence. Probably in the same situation now, the girls would climb the fence. Then, nothing happened except that quiet, shy me was fingered as a troublemaker."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

Storyteller

Storyteller

Storyteller, storyteller
come on out.
Tell us a story.
What’s it about?
Pirates or dragons,
a farm or a zoo?
Zebras? Lions?
Kangaroo?

Storyteller, storyteller
spin us a yarn.
Make it a good one,
one that will charm.
One full of laughter,
or one full of fear--
no matter what you tell
all of us will cheer!

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

"The times I have been happiest were the rare times when I was one of a gang….I had a kind of gang when we lived on Buchanan Street [in San Francisco]. I must have been seven or eight. We would sit in the light of the street lamp in the evening on the high wooden flight of stairs, a dozen of us, and while the bigger boys played “One Foot Off the Gutter,” I would make up long stories to tell the others. I don’t remember what the stories were about, but they must have been interesting; I can remember the young voices in the evening, calling me to come out."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/