Imagine the Possibilities

When I sit down to write, sometimes ideas don’t come easily. When that happens, I’m a kid again staring at a test and not knowing the first answer…and I panic. When that happens, I borrow a line from another’s work to get me started, search for revision opportunities, or change direction completely. When that happens, I’m often surprised at what happens next.

So, this week when I was stuck on a poetry prompt for my poetry group, I changed direction and went in search of something I might use for Poetry Friday. I found an old poem I had written about October and started revising. I soon realized I could also use my revision work for my group’s poetry prompt – to create a paradox ending.

October 
by Rose Cappelli  

October bids farewell to shorts and tees
welcomes sweater weather

it’s baseball’s last blast
bowing to football’s roar and rumble

it’s pumpkins and apples
and chili and stew

a spider’s web
marked with morning dew

it’s that sudden frost
on a milkweed pod

it’s feasting on roasted sunflower seeds
and composting piles of windswept leaves

October begins with shades of jade
and ends with a red-gold blaze.  
Draft, RoseCappelli2023

Bridget has the roundup today at wee words for wee ones where she is happy dancing and spreading joy for her birthday. Be sure to stop by for lots of poetry goodness.

Happy Poetry Friday!

I walked outside yesterday in the pre-dawn, noticing how the sky gradually lightened as day began. I turned, catching the sun winking through the trees like a ball of fire. Later, when I read Margaret Simon’s post on This Photo Wants to Be a Poem, that image quickly returned. The photo Margaret offered was one of Spanish moss cascading from a southern oak, but it was the red ribbon of sky in her photo that brought to mind my early morning experience.

Connections matter. No matter where we are in the world, we are connected by our very existence. Catherine has the round up today at Reading to the Core where she talks about connections over time and space. Be sure to stop by for lots of poetry goodness. And as always, thank you for reading.

Happy Poetry Friday!

Thanks to Mary Lee Hahn, I was inspired to read the work of Kate Baer. Kate’s poems have been described as those you would share with you mother, your sister, your friends. This week I read her poem “Some Nights” in What Kind of Woman. It begins like this:

Some nights she walks out to the
driveway where the lilacs bloom and
lies down on the warm pavement even
though the neighbors will see and wonder
what kind of woman does such things….

When I’m stuck and can’t get started writing, I often borrow a structure, a phrase, or a word from an author I admire. In this case, I borrowed Kate’s phrase (which also happens to be her title) “some nights.” Lately we’ve had an array of wildlife, mostly deer, visit our backyard at night, so it didn’t take long for that phrase to get me started:

Some Nights…

the deer wander

through the brush

          over the fence

               into the backyard.

They are still,

alert to danger

with bright eyes reflections

of the moon.

After a while, they venture closer

     munch morning glories

          hostas

               my favorite red geraniums.

They leave a calling card

as if the pruned plants aren’t enough.

Some nights I’m lucky enough to catch them.

I watch and wonder

about the space we share,

the give and take of nature’s bounty.
Draft, 2023RoseCappelli

Matt has the roundup today at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme where he is celebrating the publication of his newest picture book poem The Thing to Remember about Stargazing, illustrated by Sonia Maria Luce Possentini and published by Tilbury House. Be sure to stop by for lots of poetry goodness.

Happy Poetry Friday!

A couple of weeks ago I stopped at a small independent bookstore in search of a journal I was giving as a gift. Of course, I was also checking out the books, and quickly found myself in the poetry section where a slim volume caught my eye:

I was not familiar with the poet, Marie Ponsot, but I loved the image. Marie Ponsot put her career on hold to raise seven children as a single mother. During that time, she continued to write. She stashed away notebooks filled with her words, and once said ” There is always time to write one line of poetry.” Much of Marie Ponsot’s poetry did not emerge until her later years of life (she died in 2019 at the age of 98), but she published seven volumes, won many awards, and served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

There are several poems in Easy that explore clouds. I couldn’t find these works online, but here is an excerpt from “This Bridge, Like Poetry, Is Vertigo”:

Describing the wind that drives it, cloud
rides between earth and space. Cloud
shields earth from sun-scorch. Cloud
bursts to cure earth’s thirst. Cloud
– airy, wet, photogenic –
is a bridge or go-between;
it does as it is done by.
It condenses. It evaporates.
It draws seas up, rains down.
I do love the drift of clouds.
Cloud-love is irresistible,
untypical, uninfinite.

I decided, after reading Marie Ponsot’s cloud poems, to spend some time focusing on clouds myself. Here are a few short poems that emerged:

Clouds

i

tracks from dancing stars
criss-cross the sky in white wisps
of cotton-gauze

ii

   white is white
unless it’s a cloud-filled sky
sown with shadows—
colors waiting to
break out
break through
break into
a rainbow

iii

clouds plump
ready to perform
when air is muggy
damp
cold

take a whiff –
smells like snow

iv

as if signaled by a higher power
storm clouds part
letting in the light
the calm
of day’s end
Draft, 2023RoseCappelli

Carol has the roundup today at Beyond Literacy Link where she bids farewell to summer and extends an invitation to add to her Summer’s End padlet. Be sure check out her blog for lots of poetry goodness.

I’m happy to be hosting Poetry Friday today! Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the links at the end of this post.

Last week for my poetry group, the Nevermores, Patricia posed the challenge to write a reverso poem. My thoughts immediately went to Marilyn Singer who invented the form and whose poems are so clever and witty.

How could I possibly do that? I like trying new poetry forms, but a reverso just seemed so hard. Patricia gave us a link to some tips from Marilyn here, I scoured the internet for more ideas, and finally decided I was ready to give it a go. I knew I wanted to write a poem that not only made sense reading from top to bottom or bottom to top, but also offered different points of view. I love fall, but since not everyone agrees with me that fall is the best season, I decided to use that as my subject. I began by writing down the pros and cons of fall, then looked for commonalities. For example, I enjoy the cooler weather after the heat and humidity of summer, but others may view cooler weather as a sign that winter is on its way. I started small with just a few lines, then expanded. I found that punctuation and short sentences (sometimes one word) were key in helping to establish varying points of view. I don’t think I nailed the emotion completely, but here’s my first attempt (after much revision) at a reverso:

Please leave your link below!