How to Live "In Spite" of Hardship: Happy National Poetry Month!

Teacher, poet, friend Carmen Graber graced these pages last year here, here, and here. I'm pleased to have her back with this poem, which was inspired by a friend's daughter who was having health issues in high school and maintained such a positive attitude through it all. May you also be inspired, and if you are, please leave a comment for Carmen.

In Spite

In spite of my fears, I will be brave
In spite of my sorrow, I will laugh.
In spite of my hurt, I will love.
In spite of my pain, I will face each day.
In spite of all the world throws at me,

I will LIVE!
Because:
In spite of my faults, God loves me.
In spite of my weakness, God strengthens me.
In spite of my doubts, God encourages me.
In spite of my silence, God hears me.
In spite of hard times,God blesses me.

                                    ~cjgraber © 2018

First Bike: Happy National Poetry Month!

Remember learning to ride your bike? Minnesota poet Dave Healy has captured the experience with poignant precision.

First Bike

At Montgomery Wards the bikes and trikes
were segregated and arranged by size.
My father made a deal: I could have
the biggest trike or smallest bike—
no choice at all for any five-year-old.

When we got home he got a wrench 
and attached the training wheels. 
I rode that four-wheeler for a year
or so until one day my father said
“I think it’s time to take then off.”
He got a wrench and did the deed.

How did he know that it was time?
For when I climbed aboard the craft 
that had been shorn of its supports
I pedaled off as if I had been riding 
two-wheelers all my life.

Halfway down the block I stopped
and turned around. My father stood
there, wrench in hand, looking for 
the son who left him far behind.

                      ~ Dave Healy (c) 2018

See another of Dave's poems when he was featured last year here.

H is for Haiku: Happy National Poetry Month!

Happy Book Birthday tomorrow to Amy Losak and, posthumously, Sydell Rosenberg, Amy's mother. Amy has worked long and tirelessly to honor her mother's desire to publish a children's book of haiku--and now it's here! Penny Candy Books proudly releases H is for Haiku: a Treasury of Haiku from A to Z by Sydell Rosenberg, illustrated by Sawsan Chalabi on April 10!

I featured Amy last April here, and she offered an update below. 

Why haiku, Amy?

I started on this unusual journey several years ago, thanks to my mom, Sydell Rosenberg, a teacher and charter member of the Haiku Society of America and served as secretary in 1975. HSA was founded in New York in 1968. This year, it celebrates its 50th anniversary. I’m a member now, as well.

Mom wrote haiku and senryu for a long time – I think about 30 years. Mom also studied the art and craft of these forms. She published her first haiku in 1967, I believe, in a journal titled, American Haiku. Over the years, her work (not just poetry, but also short stories, word and literary puzzles, and more) was published in a variety of media, including journals and anthologies. Her senryu even was featured in a novel public art project called Haiku On 42^nd Street in 1994. Short poems were displayed on the marquees of old movie houses in the heart of New York City.

Tell us how H is for Haiku came to be.

Despite her accomplishments as a writer, Syd very much wanted to publish a kids’ book: a haiku A-B-C reader. She started submitting at least one manuscript to publishers in the 1980s – perhaps even in the 1970s. Years after she passed away in 1996, I picked up where she left off.

Along the way, I did other things to bring her “city haiku” (as she called her work in the classic 1974 text, The Haiku Anthology) to the public, especially kids. Among several projects, I have partnered for several years with a New York nonprofit arts education organization, Arts For All. Mom's haiku have been used in a Bronx and Queens public school to teach the basics of painting, drawing and collage; music; and theater. I view mom’s haiku as miniature stories, in a way, with characters and plots – and many have a lively, appealing visual quality. They pair well with other art forms.

But the ultimate goal has been the book. 

          "This is a dream come true,
          at last – not only for my mom,
          but her family."

                             Syd Rosenberg and her daughter, Amy (photo submitted by Amy)

Wonderful haiku poetry is being written today around the world. It truly is a global, diverse – and very generous -- community.

If you want to learn more about haiku, there is a wealth of online and social media resources available. So I hope you will haiku, too. Enjoy!

Congratulations, Amy, on the release of H is for Haiku! Readers, I'm featuring some of Amy's and Syd's haiku on April 17, International Haiku Poetry Day. You'll want to stop by and enjoy! 

Swirl: Happy National Poetry Month!

photo from pixabay

This evocative poem by friend and artist Elizabeth Neubauer is fun to read aloud.

Untitled

a swirl in the solution

an evolution

ponderous

wanderous

wonderous

wondrous

        ~Elizabeth Neubauer, 2018

Go ahead, read it again out loud. You know you want to!

And the word "swirl" reminded me of Joyce Sidman's marvelous award-winning book of nature poems, Swirl by Swirl. Check it out!

As my friend, children's author and librarian Jean Patrick says, "Stay in the swirl of life."

Letter to a Newborn: Happy National Poetry Month!

Photo by pixabay

What would you say to welcome a newborn? What would you want the baby to know about his or her life? Poet friend Nancy Keck, who wrote the previous post, also sent along this prose poem written for her new grandson. I especially like her descriptive phrases, such as "this world of wonder and of woe."

For Cillian Haven Rafferty


In a winter when Lake Superior was frozen over and Ireland deluged with record rain storms, you were born, baby Cillian.

We had been waiting for you for a long time.

Your big brother, Cian, was eager for a playmate, though not quite so certain about sharing his toys and his Mama.

Your Dad, Noel, home from his work in frozen North Dakota, far from the Dublin of his youth was eager and apprehensive about your birth. More responsibility, but another boy, how grand!

Your Grandma Margaret came all the way from County Wexford in Ireland to stay for three months helping your family care for you and your brother. What a calming presence she is.

Your Mama, Amy, born in February, the month of huge snowflakes, as was Cian, as are you, was the most ready for you to be here. At nine minutes before midnight on February 25, 2014, you were brought into this world of wonder and of woe. Though you needed breathing assistance for several days at the altitude of the high desert valley where you entered this life, you were a beautiful baby, so gentle and cuddly right from the start. You were born into a family extending from Western Colorado to Northern Minnesota to Ireland, an international, multi-generational family eager for you to be here.

Auntie Suzanne, a nurse, traveled over the Rocky Mountains with your cousins Mikayla and Kevin to assist in hospital communications. She even made a delicious turkey dinner, your Mom’s favorite, before returning to her home outside of Denver.

You have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, already, who are so glad you are here. The world you are joining is filled with all kinds animals (many of them living in your house!) amazing plants, discoveries to be made, communities to build and hope to share. In the peaceful valley where you were born fruit trees will blossom soon, bees will pollinate the orchards, and gardens will grow produce that is fresh and safe to eat. Wild places are close; the Colorado and the Grand Rivers meet here; and, bicycle trails are nearly everywhere.

Such a wonder-full life awaits you!

Welcome to this world and to all who love you, baby Cillian.


                                                                               ~Grammie Nancy Keck
                                                                                 March 12, 2014

Springtime in the Autumn of Our Lives: Happy National Poetry Month!

Like last year, I have invited some poet friends to share their work with us. I'm pleased to have Nancy Keck return with this year with this poem to spring. See her last year's submissions here, here, and here.

Spring Time in the Autumn of Our Lives


I am thankful for the lilacs and the rain this springtime in the Grand
Valley as I move unwillingly into old age.
So many spring times and autumns lived here in Colorado, the West,
though my memory remains in the North Country on the shore of
Lake Superior, my heart’s home.


Yet year upon year I’ve lived in the high desert
      where our daughters grew into brave young women,
      mothers now with compassionate careers
      their lives have passed as a flicker of a candle flame,
      as my life has passed
Until now when I wake in the morning and my mind searches my body
      for the locus of pain and I wonder
      How mobile will I be today?
      How long will my energy sustain me?
      What, if anything, will I accomplish?
The first cup of coffee brings hope
      soaking in a hot tub of Epsom Salts and lavender bring relief
      then, I can begin my day.



Focus on the good, I think, all the joys of this life
      extravagant scent of the lilacs
      deep softness of my husky’s thick, double coat
      steady richness of my husband’s garden
      peach-tender skin of my sleeping grandson’s cheek
      caring closeness of my daughters
      understanding humor of my friends
      sunlight glancing off the Colorado River, my sister now,
            after all the years I’ve spent on her banks
      joy of birdsong in the morning
      safety of our little house that shelters us, my husband and I,
            survivors of loss and desperation
      walking gently into these, the latest years of our lives
      believing in the dreams of our adult children
      loving the promise of our grandchildren
      seeking gratitude for all we have been given.


                                                ~Nancy E. Keck, May 16, 2016

What would be on your list when you focus on the good?

Happy Easter! Happy National Poetry Month!

I'm pleased to kick off National Poetry Month on this Easter Sunday with this carol by John M. C. Crum, "Now the Green Blade Riseth."



And for those of you who observe April Fool's Day, here's a link to Lucille Clifton's poem, "the calling of the disciples."

Stay tuned this month for posts from guest poet friends!