Saturday, April 22, 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


Friday, April 21, 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 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.



Thursday, April 20, 2017

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


Wednesday, April 19, 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


Tuesday, April 18, 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





Monday, April 17, 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


Sunday, April 16, 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


Saturday, April 15, 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/

Friday, April 14, 2017

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 13 -- Not a Joke
April 14 -- I Don't Mind Failing



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


Thursday, April 13, 2017

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/