The word for January, 2012 . . .

Hi everyone,

First, my thanks to the poets who helped usher in 2012 in such poetic style. Thank you Steven Withrow, Don Barrett, Janet Kay Gallagher, Cory Corrado, Julie Krantz, Mary Nida Smith, and Liz Steinglass. I was out of pocket much of the weekend but I did read and enjoy all your work. I think this should be a tradition to continue next year.

For the Word of the Month word in January to get us off to a good start, I turned to our friend and excellent poet, Steven Withrow. Steven’s word is ETERNITY. I like the word and can already see a long list of good poems to enliven the month and stretch out imaginations. Thank you, Steven!

Give me a while to clear away last month’s poems/comments, and you’ll see a clean, fresh slate on which to post your poems. Get started, go!

Also at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/goose-lake-a-year-in-the-life-of-a-lake-david-l-harrison/1107998233?ean=2940013876583&itm=8&usri=goose+lake for Nook. Free apps to download to your computer are, for Kindle, http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sa_menu_karl4?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771# and for Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/free-nook-apps/379002321/

David

Happy New Year – Keep It Real

Hi everyone,

2011 has marched by day by day. Happy New Year to all who came to pause, read, post, or comment. May 2012 be your best year yet.

Here’s my New Year’s Day poem. I hope that before this day is done, we’ll have many more poems posted to help usher in this new year!

Keeping it Real
by David L. Harrison

Imagine a fly resolving
to visit more restaurants
or a warthog vowing to see
his dermatologist;
a cow in a cockeyed hat
stumbling into the barn
bleary-eyed on New Year’s morn.

Celebrating New Year
is a trait best left to humans.
Keep it real, I say.
Resolutions should be simple, doable.
I limit mine to two.

I hereby resolve to take my feet
off my desk
and walk briskly
to the kitchen for more coffee.

(I made this last year,
and it worked.  

Why change

a good thing? I say stick with a winner.)

My second is a golden oldie.
I wish you peace, joy, good health,
a year of few regrets.
With love,
David

Before leaving town for the weekend, Steven Withrow asked me to post his poem on New Year’s Day. I may be out of pocket too so to play it safe I’ve posted his poem here rather than wait to add it in a comment box. I enjoyed this very much and know that you will too. Steven, I’m sorry that I haven’t been able, yet, to get your poem arranged as you wrote it. I’ll keep working at it and hope I eventually get it right!

AUBADE
By Steven Withrow

Against—God, let me thank—the wood of a cottage wall, invisible through tall thickets from the curve of the private road

running along the beach line,

I’ve taken in shade from the low roof overhang so long now I must have woken up—may, could, well, oh—before first tide

below in the birdbath broke,

as if there were no such thing as waiting for, or sleeping in,

or sneaking up on morning, anymore.

Down the gorse rows that grow along the wire fence,
where grass shouldn’t grow, like green drunks in unlaced boots,
the half-arcs of overlong weed stems doubled-over,

and the overflow from a rain barrel is a pool

where a trio of wrens shiver cold water from fringes of wet feathers,

where wrens ought not ever to have flown.

I ask that I should never—God, I thank—again

stay asleep through the morning.

The Word of the Month for December

Hi everyone,

November brought a bumper crop of poems and comments. I hope all participants had fun. In the beginning, I didn’t anticipate the level of energy and enthusiasm the notion would generate. I’m pleased and grateful. Thanks to everyone who continues to keep Word of the Month Poetry Challenge going.

As you know, the word for November came from one of our star young poets, Rachel Heinrichs. She is a sixth grade student who was stretching her vocabulary and I thought flamboyant was a good word to stretch our imaginations too.

It occurs to me that I should start asking other poets to suggest the word for the month. I didn’t think of it in time for December, but starting in January I’ll ask individual poets who have contributed previously to W.O.M. to give us a word.

Steven Withrow, I hope you will do us the honor in January. I’ll also post a list of poets who will give us the word for each month in 2012.

For now, December, I’ll supply the word. And it is FAITH.

Woza Woza, Poetry Tag, and WOM Poems

Hi everyone,

I’m home for a while and have a lot of catching up to do. Here are three cases in point.

ONE:

I haven’t kicked off a Woza Woza Poem for this month. This suggestion came from Silindile Ntuli. The idea is that someone begin with a first line and others add a line (or more) each day to see how the poem develops and where it takes us. We tried the first poem in November but somewhere along the line we got bogged down and never finished it. I’ll go first again this month. Here is my line to get us started:

She came to me, a stranger, and climbed on my lap.
She is so cute, I smiled and knew we would be friends
(2nd line just now added, thanks to Janet Kay Gallagher.)
I stroked her fur; felt the scar upon her floppy ear
(Thanks, Cory Corrado.)

Thanks and keep the lines coming. Let’s keep this poem free verse. It needs no meter or rhyme.

TWO:

On December 1, we started a game of poetry tag, which was suggested by Jane Heitman Healy. She started with a poem about orthopedic shoes and was quickly followed by Corry Corrado, Scarred Poet, and Ken Slesarik. Each poet picked up some element of the preceding poem to relate to. Ken left us with a hippo and no notion of what it migh eat. That’s how poetry tag works. We started with shoes and wound up with a hippo with a mystery diet after only three new poems.

In the spirit of keeping the game of tag going, here’s my contribution. My poem is connected by the idea of diet. The poem is previously published in the book THE BOY WHO COUNTED STARS.

The Perfect Diet

Mrs. LaPlump weighed 300 pounds,
Her husband weighed 202.
“I’ve got to lose some weight,” she said,
“I’ll give up potatoes and pizza and bread.”
Mr. LaPlump said, “I will, too.
My darling, I’ll do it for you.”

When each of them lost 100 pounds,
He weighed only 102.
“I’ve got to lose more weight,” she said.
“This next 100,” said he, “I dread
For when we are finished I’ll only weight 2,
But darling, I’ll do it for you.”

They lost another 100 pounds,
Her figure was perfect and trim,
But there is a lesson here I think,
Mr. LaPlump continued to shrink
And one day disappeared down the sink,
And you may find this grim, my dears,
But it was the end for him.

I hope this poem will inspire some new directions with your poems that somehow relate. Think humor, weight, diet, sink, food, pizza, etc. There are lots of ways to tie in.

THREE:

I’m glad to see that we already have two poems posted for this month’s Word of the Month Challenge. From Steven Withrow we have “Climate Change in Faeryland” and in the WOM Young Poets, Grades 8-12, Omar Teran has posted his poem, “Weather.”

I look forward to December, as busy as it is, to see what will come from your creative spirits during the month.

Thanks everyone,
David

November Poets, December Word, and Writers at Work, with Joan Carris

Hi everyone,

Today we have a lot to cover. First, I’m pleased to announce our two sets of monthly winners among the Word of the Month poets. I’ll begin with our Hall of Fame Poet who, this month, is Lisa Martino from Florida. Lisa’a winning poem is To Teach or Not to Teach the Classics. Second spot goes to Steven Withrow from Rhode Island for his poem, Best of a Bad Spell.

This month we have two categories of Young Poets: grades 3-7 and grades 8-12. Our Hall of Fame Young Poet, Grades 3-7 is Ella Foster from Ohio for her poem, Without a Word. Finishing in second place is Zack Safadi, also from Ohio, for his poem, The Hero.

Our Hall of Fame Young Poet, Grades 8-12 is La’ Joi Word from Florida for her poem, Thankful. In second place is Jacquanna Gillins from Florida, for her poem, Thanks.

Our panel of judges made their own selections and here are their results. Word of the Month Poet is Nile Stanley from Florida with his poem, “Words.” Nile, many thanks for lending your voice to the choir this month. I ought to give Gay Fawcett a special mention because you dedicated your poem to hers. Steven Withrow’s poem was the judges’s second choice.

Word of the Month Young Poet, Grades 3-7 is Zack Safadi for his poem, The Hero. Second place is a tie between Erin Fankhauser for “Partner,” and Emma Lavetter-Keidan for The Only Escape.

Word of the Month Young Poet, Grades 8-12 is Jacquanna Gillins for her poem, Thanks. Second place goes to Omar Teran for his poem, Thanks.

Congratulations to our honorees and to everyone who stepped forward to share their work this month. We’re grateful. Our judges encourage poets of all ages to take their time, think through what they want to say and how they want to say it, then revise and polish until the work is ready to be shared.

BULLETIN: I’ve worked much of the morning pulling together all the winning poems and have just posted them below Joan Carris. Sometimes people want to see the poems in one place. I have NOT proofed this work. Off to a meeting.

Are you ready for the December word? It is WEATHER. I expect that to give us plenty to write about!

This being Tuesday, it’s time for another segment of WRITERS AT WORK, the dialogue Sandy Asher and I started several weeks ago. If you’re following this one, we begin each month with an issue that writers face. We then take two turns each posting comments and suggestions. The topic for this month is Reality of Rejection. At the end of the month we’ve posted four brief articles on the subject and sometimes along the way we add pieces provided by other authors. That’s the case this month. November has five Tuesdays. Sandy and i have each written about Reality of Rejecton twice. We were delighted when an old friend and fellow writer, Joan Carris, joined us with these flashback comments about a previous subject: Obstacles ot Writing. So now it’s my pleasure to introduce Joan.

On Being Distracted

by Joan Carris

I have been writing something or other since 1976. My first writing assignment was a plea from the Unitarian church in Princeton for an original play celebrating the BiCentennial. Having no idea of how difficult that could be, I said YES. At the time our kids were 14, 9, and 6. “When I’m writing,” I told them, “don’t bother me unless you’re bleeding.”

I settled down at my typewriter with a ream of paper and rolled in the first pristine sheet. Instantly heard a terrified screaming outside my workroom window. I flew outdoors just in time to see our 6 year-old son hit the ground under the neighbor’s giant willow tree. He and I had a red-hot discussion right there. “But I stopped myself by grabbing a branch,” he said. “See? I’m hardly bleeding at all!”

That was the beginning of my distracted life as a writer. Over time I have managed to learn a little something about the craft—mainly that it is a heckuva lot harder than it should be. As Hawthorne wrote, “Easy reading is damned hard writing.” I believe it’s hard because we keep expecting more of ourselves. We intimidate ourselves, and then call it writer’s block.

Fran Lebowitz, an extremely funny essayist (Social Studies, 1981), was quoted in the online Writer’s Almanac as saying, “Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I’m lazier than most…I would have made a perfect heiress.” She is now at work on a novel that was commissioned more than 20 years ago.
Okay, so writing IS HARD. Clearly we deserve not just a room of our own, as Virginia Woolf said, but some peace and quiet, dangit. The world should tiptoe away. It should, but it won’t. Some damn fool will ring your doorbell. Your back left molar will start throbbing. The cat will meow to be let in.

Real life and writing simply are not compatible. Life is always interrupting. I tend to feel lucky if it isn’t interrupting with an illness or a new litter of kittens. Long ago I decided that writers must become more devious. How? Try running away. Ask your church for permission to write in an empty classroom. Ask a friend if you can write at her place after she leaves for work. Some writers work at a public library table in a nearby town, not in their own library where people know them. I like the study carrels at our community college.

Most of the time, though, I write at home. I let the bloody distractions go on, run a fan for white noise, and force myself to focus. That’s easier with a good outline, by the way. In a long, lean period in my past, when I was the only one stoking my fire, I began talking to myself. I said, “This is who I am and this is what I do. Now shut up, Joan, and get to work.” I still tell myself that.
—————————————–
Recent books include Welcome To the Bed and Biscuit (2006), Wild Times at the Bed and Biscuit (2009), and Magic at the Bed and Biscuit (January 2011), all from Candlewick Press.

Website: www.joancarrisbooks.com

NOVEMBER WINNING POEMS

Word of the Month Poet:
NILE STANLEY
Words
Words
I like to say them
like jitterbug, fudge and tangerine
Words
I like to play them
Like hackysacks
Catching and bouncing them
Off my tongue
Words
I like to weigh them
Like bittersweet and jumbo shrimp
Words
Most of all
I like to devour them slowly
Savoring each sound
Word of the Month Poet, Runner-Up
STEVEN WITHROW
Best of a Bad Spell
Losing the Williams Junior High School
spelling bee, on “eleemosynary,”
was, I now see, an act of charity.
Knowing the Latin root for “alms”
(could you use it in a sentence?)
guarantees no one a varsity letter.
Although it burned me that I flubbed
the double e’s, entreating the floor
for the proper etymology
before retreating to my seat
to small applause, conciliatory
(c-o-n-c-i-l-i-a-t-o-r-y, conciliatory),
Worse by far would have been
the booming backlash in homeroom
next morning, hearing my name
among the roster of brainiacs,
“loo-zer” in any language, certain
I’d perish (part of speech?) a virgin.
Copyright 2010 by Steven Withrow. All rights reserved.
Word of the Month Young Poet, Grades 3-7
ZACK SAFADI
6th grade
Maumee Valley Country Day
Toledo, Oh
Teacher: Jana Smith
The Hero
A battle against the human race,
We are the one to oppose,
She is the lone defender,
One versus 6.4 billion.
She embraces what we throw at her,
She is the lone warrior.
She shall not strike,
She shall not defend,
She shall wait for the end.
One day,
It shall all end,
It might take years till she decides it’s her time,
Or it could only take you the time to say a single word.
She is our worst nightmare,
She is our savior,
Our number one attack strategy,
Pollution,
We trash her,
We gas her out,
A way to dispose of her.
But the scary thing is,
Only few will live to be aware of this war,
Some may say they do,
But they don’t.
Even scarier than that,
Is when she shall meet her fate,
Her fate is ours as well.
She shall not strike,
She shall not defend,
She shall wait for the end.
She is Mother Earth.

Word of the Month Young Poet, Grades 3-7, Runner-Up Tie
EMMA LAVETTER-KEIDAN
Maumee Valley Country Day
Fifth Grade
Toledo, OH
Teacher: Nanette Valuck
The Only Escape
“Scritch, scratch, scritch, scratch”
My hand flies across the page,
Words,
Flowing,
Pouring from my mouth,
Spilling out my fingertips,
Settling on to the paper.
Each one with it’s own sharp taste,
Sweet,
Spicy,
Bitter,
The flavors wiz by going too fast to recapture
Each new flavor inspiring the next,
“Beep beep beep!”
A traffic jam as my hand becomes too slow
I force them to slow down as I sift through, trying to find the right one,
“Screeeeech!”
I scribble circle after circle,
Waiting for the ink to come,
But I know this is hopeless . . .
Suddenly reality grips me,
Ink stains cover my hands
I no longer taste the words
Only then is the pain renewed
Hunger,
Eating me away,
Tearing flesh from bone,
Starving,
Words are the only escape.
I reach for a new pen,
“Scriiiiitch scratch screech!”
My hand slugs across the page
Syllable by syllable,
Crawling,
Slugging,
Oozing.
The flavors,
Subdued now,
But still there
After each flavor is finished I wish there was more
“Plunk, plunk.”
They come out too slow for my liking
I push myself trying to think of more,
But it is no use.
Why? Why? Why? I think to myself.
Words.
Word of the Month Young Poet, Grades 3-7, Runner-Up Tie
ERIN FANKHAUSER
Maumee Valley Country Day
6th grade
Toledo, Oh
teacher: Jana Smith
Partner

I open the latch to your velvety case
I take off your silk blanket
I pull you deep into my arms
I take out your bow and begin playing
It’s like you are singing to me
I look up and down your wooden body;
each line makes you look like a tiger
you are ready
ready to pounce on that half note going into an eighth note
I push the bow back and fourth over your four metal strings
then, we play
we play the most beautiful sound ever imagined
like a waterfall
or the smoothest airplane landing that ever happened
This is how beautiful your sound is
You are my harmony
you are my melody
you are mine
There is a word for this
love
the most powerful word that there is
The two of us together are like a team
we keep pushing to win the Olympic gold metal
Then, our final turn,
we win,
but,
we keep on playing our song,
as if there is nothing more in the world
just the two of us and our love

Word of the Month Young Poet, Grades 8-12

JACQUANNA GILLINS
Crescent City Jr Sr High School
9th Grade
Teacher: Lisa Martino
Crescent City, FL
Thanks
Thanks is a way of life
Thanks is a way of passion
I am thankful for things in my life
I remember when we all use to sit around
the table and give thanks
Thanks can go a long way
Thanks is a gift
Thanks comes around all the time

Word of the Month Young Poet, Grades 8-12, Runner-up
OMAR TERAN
Crescent City Jr Sr High School
9th grade
Teacher: Lisa Martino
Crescent City, FL
Thanks
Thanks is for people that receive.
People that don’t receive still say thanks.
I received something that no one wants,
I received something that no one likes.
Sorrow fills my gift.
No one cares what you get,
Unless it’s something they want.
Even though I don’t like my gift,
I still give thanks to the person
that is still giving those sad gifts.
********************************************************

Hall of Fame Poet
LISA MARTINO
To Teach or Not to Teach the Classics
Should I delve blindness to the word of old
And open their minds anew
Should I continue on the course ahead
And connect them, unscathed newborn
Or inspire, muse, arouse sleeping wit
Entice all, magnetic lure
Do I assist them, relate, painless thought
With modern themes, common words
It’s an enigma, a challenge to me
Ancient deliberation
Or conspicuously apparent sound
Hall of Fame Poet Runner-Up
STEVEN WITHROW

Hall of Fame Young Poet, Grades 3-7
ELLA FOSTER
Maumee Valley Country Day
Fifth Grade
Toledo, OH
Teacher: Nanette Valuck

Without a Word
Cries of laughter.
Joy was spread throughout the church.
Everyone was talking in hushed voices,
Yet all the sounds combing in my little head sounded as if
Every word a new little firework
Sent out on its journey through the sky.
She walks in everyone goes silent,
Her beautiful white gown flouncing as she appears,
So gracefully,
So silently,
So gently,
She takes a step forward,
My heart’s racing, another step
She walks down the aisle,
Her head raised as if she wasn’t afraid.
Maybe she wasn’t but I was.
As she takes another step
Her train floats over the petals I had softly strewn.
As she takes her last steps
She looks down at me and smiles.
Without a word she calms my heart.
Hall of Fame Young Poet, Grades 3-7, Runner-Up
ZACK SAFADI
Hall of Fame Young Poet, Grades 8-10:
By LA’ JOI WORD
Crescent City Jr Sr High School
10th Grade
Crescent City, FL
Teacher: Lisa Martino
Thankful
Everyday I wake
I give thanks
To see the sun rise
I give thanks
For a family that is wise
I give thanks
Life, health, and strength
Nothing but thanks
To the one up above
Hall of Fame Young Poet, Grades 8-10 Runner-Up
JACQUANNA GILLINS