Some of my favorite haiku books and journals.

 

 

chapstick and nail clippers
all that’s left
in my father’s dresser

 

For almost twenty years, the Haiku Society of America has hosted The Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku and Senryu Competition for students in grades 7-12. I hope you’ll take a moment at some point to read the winning entries. The students’ work is beautiful and moving and impressive. Over the years an outrageously disproportionate number of students earning honors have come from classes taught by two teachers at opposite ends of the country: Tom Painting and Arlie Parker.

In the most recent episode of the podcast Haiku Chronicles (a podcast I could not recommend more highly) Teaching Haiku, Tom and Arlie discuss haiku and senryu, how they teach it, prompts they use, and why they think the form is so valuable for students.

I’ve already listened to the interview twice this week, and I am quite sure I’ll want to listen to it again. As a writer and someone who has taught a few haiku workshops and would like to teach more, I value their suggestions about what examples to share, how they think and talk about the form, the limits they give their students, and when they bend them. I had thought of haiku and senryu as two broad categories of poetry, but Tom and Arlie break these categories into smaller ones–such as meaningful moments, painful reminders, and things that don’t go together. These categories can be used as prompts, which is how I came to write the senryu above.

In some ways I think haiku is quite different from other poetry, especially in the way that the writer is supposed to get out of the way and allow the reader to have a direct experience. On the other hand I think haiku is poetry distilled to its essence–strong imagery, strong feeling, and an abiding belief in the power of a few, carefully chosen words.

Happy Poetry Friday! Donna JT Smith has the roundup at Mainely Write.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wrote this cinquain in response to Carol Varsalona’s invitation to contribute to her gallery Autumn Ablaze. Carol’s galleries are always full of gorgeous images and provocative language. Thank you, Carol for your inspiration and for your regular celebrations of poetry, community, and life.

For more Poetry Friday visit Linda at TeacherDance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone

Someone has to.
Someone has to go.
Someone has to go down
in the dark, musty basement.
Someone has to.
Someone has to tip toe
along the concrete floor.
Someone has to.
Someone has to listen
for the quiet, steady snores.
Someone has to.
Someone has to slip aside
the hulking creature’s
big behind.
Someone has to.
Someone has to sidle by
before the giant
roars awake
its eyes alight
with raging flames.
Someone has to.
Someone has to run
for her life
and bring back
a roll of two-ply soft, white
toilet paper.

I’m so happy to be here! I’ve missed you all. Life has been busy and distracting. Thank goodness for Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’ wonderful blog. Her spotlight interview with Carrie Clickard and Carrie’s challenge to write a poem about something that spooked you as a child were just what I needed. Wishing you all a happy Poetry Friday! Leigh Ann has the roundup at A Day in the Life.

This looks so good, I’ll simply have to read it!

 

 

Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong have done it again! They’ve brought another wonderful book of children’s poetry into the world. I’m beyond thrilled to be included with so many other fabulous children’s poets. Pet Crazy is Sylvia and Janet’s 7th Poetry Friday book and their 3rd Poetry Friday Power Book.

What makes it a Power Book? In addition to the fabulous linked poems, each Power Book also includes a PowerPack of activities and writing prompts to support kids’ writing. The books are anthologies, activity books, and Language Arts workbooks, all rolled into one.

Designed for students in Kindergarten through Grade 3, Pet Crazy encourages kids to explore concepts such as rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and form.

My poem, Book Hound, is an acrostic about a dog that loves to be read to.

Pet Crazy also includes poems by Kristy Dempsey, Helen Frost, Janice Harrington, Eric Ode, Laura Shovan, Eileen Spinelli, Don Tate, Padma Venkatraman, April Halprin Wayland, Carole Boston Weatherford, Tamara Will Wissinger, and Janet Wong. What a team!

If you’re crazy about pets or crazy about poetry or especially if you’re crazy about poetry about pets, you’ll definitely want to get your paws on this book.

Happy Pet Crazy Birthday! And Happy Poetry Friday!

MsMac is hosting today at Check It Out (and she’s sharing my poem!). Thanks, Jone!

Liz

Yes, I read. Of course, I read. What of it?

 

How to Be a Wall

Stand tall.
Stand still.
Keep people out.
Keep people in.
Let the ivy
grab hold.
Watch the birds
soar over.
Sear in the sun.
Peel.
Chip.
Give the ants
an Everest.
Watch the shadows
switch sides.
Stand tall.
Stand still.
Crack.
Crumble.
Don’t last forever.
Make someone ask
do we need
this wall?

 

Like many of you, I have been dismayed by the current political climate. I hate seeing families and lives torn apart, the prioritization of profit over all else, including fresh air, clean water, and the future of our planet, the callous disregard for our shared human needs for education, health, choice, and respect. I could go on and on. It’s been hard for me to find the wonder in the world when what’s been staring me down has been the cruelty. I’ve struggled to turn pain into art–art worth sharing in any case. I’ve even wondered if writing is the best use of my time. This is one attempt to turn what I’m seeing and feeling into poetry.

I wish you all a Happy National Poetry Month.

For more poetry this Friday, visit Irene Latham at Live Your Poem!

Liz

Billy Collins at D.G. Wills Books, La Jolla, San Diego, by Marcelo Noah

 

 

The Lanyard by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

You can read the rest here.

 

Or here’s a video of Billy Collins reading it.

 

Last Friday, Linda Mitchell suggested we share our favorite Billy Collins’ poems today in honor of our former Poet Laureate’s birthday. It was, of course, very hard to choose, and I see our Friday Poetry host Heidi Mordhorst and I chose the same one! So there you have it Happy Birthday, Billy Collins and thank you, Heidi for hosting today.

Have a great weekend!

Liz

 

Ouch

 

My friend
fell at recess
and scraped up
his knee.
I heard
some kids laugh—
What a clown!
Did you see?

Though the sky
was bright blue,
in my heart
it felt gray,
so I sat
with my friend
till the pain
went away.

 

I’ve realized in recent years that I prefer to take my time to think about things. Apparently a lot of my thinking happens unconsciously because I find answers and connections seem to come to me almost out of the blue if I give them enough time. Around New Year’s Day when other people were announcing their one little words for the year, I tried very hard to find one, but nothing felt quite right. It wasn’t until this week that the word empathy rose to the surface.

I think of my mind as a kind of soup, churning and bubbling with crazy ingredients from all over the place. Here are a few of the ingredients that pushed empathy to the surface.

Years ago I heard about research that supports the notion that people who read literary fiction are more empathic. Isn’t that incredible? It makes perfect sense of course, but I love the idea that there has been research to support it.

Julianne Chiaet, writing in Scientific American describes the findings this way:

[Literary fiction] prompts the reader to imagine the characters’ introspective dialogues. This psychological awareness carries over into the real world, which is full of complicated individuals whose inner lives are usually difficult to fathom. Although literary fiction tends to be more realistic than popular fiction, the characters disrupt reader expectations, undermining prejudices and stereotypes. They support and teach us values about social behavior, such as the importance of understanding those who are different from ourselves.

Understanding characters in literature helps us understand people in the world. Reading teaches us how to be empathic.

Two other things roiling around in my brain were Viola Davis’ introduction of Meryl Streep and Meryl Streep’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes. Both of them spoke about empathy.

Ms. Davis described being in Ms. Streep’s company this way:

And as she continues to stare, you realize she sees you. And like a high-powered scanning machine she’s recording you. She is an observer and a thief. She waits to share what she has stolen on that sacred place, which is the screen. She makes the most heroic characters vulnerable; the most known, familiar; the most despised, relatable.

It is this seeing, this ability to empathize so deeply, which is the source of Ms. Streep’s power to convey another person, another life, on screen.

In her acceptance speech Ms. Streep chose to highlight a moment of extreme lack of empathy.

There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.

Indeed Ms. Streep’s empathy is so great she cannot let this moment go.

I agree with Ms. Streep that there is an important connection between empathy and politics. Who could take health insurance from someone if they could empathize with the pain of their fears and losses? Who could feel entitled to grab a woman if they could empathize with the violation of her personhood? Who could banish refugees and immigrants from our borders if they could empathize with the forces that would propel someone to leave their home and families?

I also agree with Ms. Streep on this point when she says, “an actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like.” Couldn’t the same be said of writers?

This year I will try to think of myself as a poet, writer, and teacher of empathy.

Carol has the Poetry Friday round up today at Beyond Literacy Link. See you over there.

Have a good weekend,

Liz

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Halloween Tree

Hear that ghostly, woeful wail?
I think that tree is howling.
Oaks don’t usually make a face,
but that bark is clearly scowling.

See those branches bend and reach
like the arms of a hungry hag?
I think those bony fingers want to
grab my goodie bag!

 

On one of my recent walks around the block I noticed a few trees making faces at me. I think they might have been getting ready for the holiday. Have a spooky, spectacular day!

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2016, all rights reserved.

lifedrawing1

drawing by Naomi Steinglass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My daughter Naomi and I are visiting Penny Klostermann’s series A Great Nephew and a Great Aunt. I hope you’ll find us there.

For more Poetry Friday visit Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.

Liz

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Wow! What a weekend! I can’t imagine there has ever been a greater celebration of children’s poetry than the Poetry Camp organized by Sylvia Tag and Nancy Johnson, founders of Poetry CHaT at Western Washington University, and Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong,  the creators of the Poetry Friday anthologies. All four of these wonderful women are doing everything possible to celebrate and promote children’s poetry.

On Friday more than 30 Poetry Friday contributors got together to talk about poetry and how to share it in schools and libraries, at conferences, and over the internet. It was such a pleasure to meet and connect with poets from around the country. Holly Thompson made the trip all the way from Japan.

Friday night we had the absolute pleasure of participating in a found poetry workshop with Robyn Hood Black at Village Books in Bellingham. Robyn had prepared kits for us—with cards about shells, sticky notes, scissors, tweezers, sponges, stamp ink, stamps, and tiny anchors. She carefully walked us through the process of finding poems on the cards and then turning our cards into visual art. I was reminded how much I enjoy making things. Robyn is a maker extraordinaire, and I have purchased beautiful cards and jewelry at her etsy shop artsyletters.

 

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On Saturday we expanded the conversation to include more than 100 local teachers, librarians, writers, and poetry fans. Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong gave two keynote speeches, and poets offered workshops on topics including: Playing with Sound, Writing for Journals and Anthologies, Poetry and Science, Poetry and Movement, etc. Irene Latham and I led a workshop on simile and metaphor. It was wonderful to work with Irene; I learned so much from presenting with her.

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The afternoon ended with a performance by the great Jack Prelutsky. Two groups of local elementary school children did a fabulous job reciting a few of his poems; they even pretended to be annoying mosquitoes!

Here are just a few of the wise and important messages I brought home. Though I’ve tried to attribute the messages to their speakers, these are my words, not theirs. Forgive me if anything below isn’t quite right. Our conversations were fast and free-flowing and comments built on one another.

Poetry is not just for special occasions, like birthdays, wedding, and funerals. Poetry is for every day, every occasion! (Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong)

Poetry is not just for the language arts classroom. Poetry is a powerful way to introduce or extend the learning in science, social studies, math, art, even PE! (Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong)

Poets and scientists work similarly. Their work grows out of a powerful sense of wonder. Their understanding grows by taking different perspectives. They learn through process. Their work develops through iteration. (Jeannine Atkins)

Restrictions create opportunities for creativity. (Julie Larios)

Works of art can be a wonderful starting point for writing. (Cynthia Grady)

When choosing a word, consider the how saying the word affects the face. Is that facial expression consistent with the content of the poem? (Brod Bagert)

Poetry can come from a visual place as well as a performance place. (Bob Raczka)

Metaphors and similes come from life experience. You must go out and live to expand the possibilities available to you when you write. (Irene Latham)

Rejection is part of the process of seeking publication. (Bridget Magee)

More than anything else, the weekend was inspiring!

For more about the camp and today’s round-up, visit Violet Nesdoly.

Liz