Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem - Day 29

It's actually Sunday, April 29th where I am but Blogger's time zone, I just realized, is Pacific Daylight Time so this post will come up as Saturday, April 28th. I am still up at midnight so I decided to post now. 

I’ve had so much fun discovering a new line in the Progressive Poem each day this month! Thanks again, Irene, for organizing this. 

If you are reading this                                                            

you must be hungry

Kick off your silver slippers

Come sit with us a spell

A hanky, here, now dry your tears

And fill your glass with wine

Now, pour. The parchment has secrets

Smells of a Moroccan market spill out.

You have come to the right place, just breathe in.

Honey, mint, cinnamon, sorrow. Now, breathe out

last week’s dreams. Take a wish from the jar.

Inside, deep inside, is the answer…

Unfold it, and let us riddle it together,

…Strains of a waltz. How do frozen fingers play?

How do fennel, ginger, saffron blend in the tagine?

Like broken strangers bound by time, they sisterdance…

their veils of sorrow encircle, embrace.

Feed your heart with waltzes and spices.

Feed your soul with wine and dreams.

Humble dust of coriander scents your feet, coaxing

seascapes, crystal sighs and moonshine from your melody

Beware of dangers along the path of truth

And beware, my friend, of too much bewaring–

strong hands cushion you, sweet scents surround you—now leap

without looking, guided by trust. And when you land

on silver-tipped toes, buoyed by joy– you’ll know

you are amazing, you are love, you are poetry—

here, you rest.

Muse. Up ahead, stepping stones speckle the stream, sturdy now.

Tomorrow we go full circle back to Irene.

Poetry Friday: Found Poetry

I’m a little late getting my Poetry Friday post up but it’s still Friday and I had a lot of fun putting this together.

This week, I played around with some ideas for found poems. From what I understand, a found poem is one created out of words and phrases that are pulled from another work. The words and phrases are then placed together to create something entirely new and unique. 

A poem can be ‘found’ in a speech, a song, a letter, a manual, an advertisement, a newspaper article, or in any written text. 

Here is a found poem I created out of a rejection letter.

April

thank you for

green

we do hope

and continue to search               

thank you again for

green

we do wish

And here is a found poem I created from an acceptance letter.

consulted for his wisdom

look forward

we will run around the world

cut and paste

an ancient language,

tongue twisters,

limericks and haiku

if you find

a convoluted path

don’t worry

make the poems

your own

Here’s a found poem I created out of some album titles.

This Women’s Work                     

After the Gold Rush                         

Ladies of the Canyon                              

Shine a Light

I Can See Clearly Now 

Little Earthquakes

Revival

I’m a Mountain

Diamonds on the Inside

In the order they appear above, the albums are works by Kate Bush, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Nash, Tori Amos, Gillian Welch, Sarah Harmer, Ben Harper.

Here’s a poem I found at the grocery store.

Dad’s

Goldfish

Enjoy Life

Here’s a poem I found at the library.

If you've worked on found poetry, I'd love to hear about it.  

Poem Flow

Happy Poetry Month!

Have you discovered Poem Flow? Last week, while browsing the pages at poets.org, I read all about this app. and downloaded it for free. I’ve enjoyed a poem daily on my iPhone but now have reached the limit with a total of 20 poems stored in my library. Today I was alerted that I could purchase 100 more poems for 99 cents. 

The app. is for the iPhone or iPod Touch but I also noticed that if you go to PoemFlow.com you can “get involved even without an apple device.”

You can find out more about it here.

I enjoy the ‘flow.’ When I click on a poem while my iPhone is turned on its side, the words appear and disappear on my screen in a ‘flow’ of words. Held upright, the phone displays the full poem.

Here are a few screen shots:

From “Haunted” by Naomi Shihab Nye:

From “Ghost Elephants” by Jean Valentine:

Although, I'm going to have a busy month finishing up my novel, working on a nonfiction project, and trying to prepare a picture book for submission, I'm going to try to get a daily dose of poetry. There are so many poetry activities going on throughout the blogging world. You can find a great list of events at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

I am excited to participate in the 2012 KidLit Progressive Poem hosted by Irene Latham. The poem began at Irene’s blog, Live Your Poem and is at The Drift Record today where Julie Larios has added a line. The poem will be here on April 29^th.

I also have a few poetry prompts up my sleeve so please visit throughout the month and participate if you can.