Day #10: Haiku

 

Inspiration: Haiku

The haiku is a short three-line poem that uses sensory language to capture a feeling or image.

According to my poet friend David Duer, "haiku are often inspired by nature, a moment of beauty, or a poignant experience. Traditionally, the poem couples a spontaneous observation containing a direct or indirect reference to a season (kigo) with a subtle commentary on that observation."

The form consists of 17 syllables:
a line of 5 syllables,
a second line of 7 syllables,
and the last line of 5 syllables.

I recently learned the word "petrichor," so I wrote 13 haiku about the word! You don't need to go crazy like I did, but you might enjoy writing a sequence of haiku that are somehow related.

See if you have fully embraced the meaning of "petrichor" after reading my poem!

Thirteen Ways of Smelling Petrichor
by Allison Berryhill

I knew scent of rain
meeting dust, but did not know
the word: petrichor

Smell of rain on dust
universal memory
the word? petrichor

raindrops pelt the dust
a song of scent arises
it is petrichor

an open window
the first droplets pelt the dust
welcome petrichor

when arid meets rain
my dusty hours quench(ed)
your smile petrichor

we farmers love dirt
when rain hits dust we rejoice
and dance petrichor

when the day’s dullness
is broken by a startled
glint, it’s petrichor

petrichor petri
chor petrichor petrichor
petrichor petri

I learned “petrichor”
the word said pay attention
notice rain on dust

dry tongue swells with want
give me wet relief
oh sweet petrichor

I have lost my god
but clouded sky touches
my soul: petrichor

Ashes to ashes
dust to dust I hear the dirge
yet still know petrichor

I will look to find
moments where dust meets the rain
I smell petrichor.

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.

Day 9: Things I Didn't Know I Loved

Sometimes we don't realize life while we live it. But it's a poet's job to "pay attention." 

Today’s mentor poem  is Nazim Hikmet’s “Things I Didn’t Know I Loved,” which can be found in its entirety here: https://poets.org/poem/things-i-didnt-know-i-loved

Here are the opening lines:

it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love

........

Here is the poem I wrote using Hikmet as a model. Because he began with a date, I did too.

Things I Didn’t know I Loved
by Allison Berryhill

it’s 2021 April 8th
I’m legs-up in my life’s favorite chair
the only sound is my click on the keys
on this rainy night.

I never knew I loved
this time alone.

oh that’s such a lie!

what I never knew
was how much I could revel in time alone.

oh that’s such a lie!

I’ve always reveled in
journal writing
long drives without passengers
the company of my own thoughts.

What I never knew
was that I could love so much
and so many
contradictions:

the rubbery bathbubbly arms and legs
and also the glorious school bus that
whisked them away each morning

the full to bursting
busyness that soldered fragmented days
and saved me from raw terror;

the blessed
empty house that now hums
a silent welcome.

can I live both lives?
can I love two lives?

is this betrayal?


..........

Your turn! Use any aspect of the model poems to jump-start your own poem today!

Happy Writing!

ab

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.

Day 8: Steps to Being You

Here’s a link to Brandon Leake’s poem Steps to Being Brandon Leake. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waMBTIGYe-A

Watch it!

Here are the first lines:

Steps To Being Brandon Leake

One: You gotta first be named Brandon Leake.

Two: Be born on May 4th, 1992 with an extremely large head, sorry about that, Mom.

Three: Be born to a mother who got a heart of gold and just pray she got the Midas touch.

Four: Be born and raised in Southside Stockton in a cave full of hard rocks that when pressed become gems.

Five: Be born with brown skin. This excessive amount of melanin will truly dictate much of your future. Be sure to remember these steps.

Six: Be born with all of your limbs. And then remove one. My fault? No. Remove Father. No surprises here, refer back to step five.

------------------------

What are the steps to being YOU?

Take as few (or as many) as you need. Here is mine:

20 Steps to Being Allison Berryhill

1) Find a name with dactylic rhythm.
2) Contort this person to fit between four sandwiched siblings, where she will seek out unclaimed crannies of identity.
3) Try too loud, too bossy, too much. Then add another scoop.
4) Hide important parts of self. (See step 11.)
5) Explode.
6) Find her scattered across an Iowa cornfield July 4, 1976.
7) Implode.
8) Grind her teeth until the jaw is set afire.
9) Teach her to sew, with thread, and then with words.
10) Stitch the pieces into something whole-ish.
11) Seek out those hidden selves and
12) Patch them in.
13) Burst into a classroom where too loud, too bossy, and too much somehow work to an advantage.
14) Add a counterweight, a husband, to hold steady this chaotic, half-human, half-hyena.
15) And–why not?–add six kids.
16) Spin in circles, dig deep.
17) Repeat steps 10 through 16, omitting step 15.
18) Get cancer to gain perspective on all the rest.
19) Keep stitching.
20) Write poems.

-----------------

Your turn! Play with this. Find specific images, notice how your words sound together!

Thanks to Ethical ELA for many of the prompts I'm adapting for my students this month.

Day #7: We Wear the Masks

 Do you remember at the beginning of the school year watching the short film about how we hide our identities behind facades? Here it is if you want to refresh your memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikGVWEvUzNM

Today's model poem is by Paul Laurence Dunbar – 1872-1906

Born on June 27, 1872, Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of the first African American poets to gain national recognition. His parents Joshua and Matilda Murphy Dunbar were freed slaves from Kentucky. His parents separated shortly after his birth, but Dunbar would draw on their stories of plantation life throughout his writing career. By the age of fourteen, Dunbar had poems published in the Dayton Herald. While in high school he edited the Dayton Tattler, a short-lived black newspaper published by classmate Orville Wright. (From Poets.org)

We Wear the Mask
by Paul Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties,

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask.

We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
     We wear the mask!

-----------------------------

Use Dunbar's poem as a jumping point to write a poem about masks. Take this any direction, any form. Here is where I went with mine:

End of the Mask Mandate
by Allison Berryhill

Our mandate ended on this day–
The students came without delay
Unmasked! Released! The virus done!
So free at last, the battle won!
Such ignorance was on display.

My cousin died on Monday last.
The COVID blood clots took him fast
At 58, his family stunned
I wear the mask.

I may be safe; I’m now immune.
But maskless piper plays his tune
And children skip with happy gait,
to quarters tight and congregate
Unmasked, they feel too safe too soon.
I (still) wear the mask.

-----------------

Remember you don't need to write about COVID masks...that's just one option. 

Day #6: I Don't Want to Be

Part of deciding what you want to be is knowing what you DON'T want to be. Today's model poem is by Christian Wiman, titled  “I Don’t Want to Be a Spice Store."  

As you read it, think about WHO Wiman wants to be, what kind of a person? 

Here are the opening lines:

I don’t want to be a spice store.
I don’t want to carry handcrafted  Marseille soap,
or tsampa and yak butter,
or nine thousand varieties of wine.

………

Notice that after describing the "spice store" he doesn't want to be, Wiman TURNS the poem and begins writing about the "kind of store" he does want to be:

I want to be the one store that’s open all night
and has nothing but necessities.
Something to get a fire going
and something to put one out.
………..

I encourage you to read the entire poem (it's not long, and you can also click on the link and hear the poet read it himself).

Then use the poem as your diving board to explore what you DON'T want to be (and maybe what you DO want to be).  Here is mine. Notice that I do not say explicitly what I DO want to be; I let the reader infer that from the "don'ts."

I Don't Want to be a Yellow Legal Pad
by Allison Berryhill

I don’t want to be a yellow legal pad.
I don’t want to be the surface
on which thought-filled people press ideas.
The yellow page absorbs the pressure of
urgent pens
digging two, three pages deep:
indententations of intentions.

I don’t want to be the
receptacle.
I don’t want to be the canvas
underneath the Starry Night.

I don’t want to be the
oil pan catching the dripping muck
beneath the chassis.

Day #5: "Say to Them" poem

Good morning! I'm excited that you are visiting this page and might write a poem today!

We will use Gwendolyn Brooks' fun and pointed 13-line poem “Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward”  as our mentor poem. It is a poem that gives ADVICE to people. Keep that in mind as you think about what advice you might give to someone.

Notice that she begins by identifying those needing her advice: 

“Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers…”

Notice the buoyant word inventions she gives to gloomy people: 

Sun-slappers!
Harmony-hushers!

Next, she delivers the nut of her advice within quotation marks:

“Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”

Her poem closes with encouragement to those who are ready to consider her advice:

You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

Her final line “live in the along” is a re-statement of the advice delivered in the quotation marks earlier, but with an edge.

I invite you to mimic GB’s form as closely or as loosely as feels right to you today. Or write the OTHER poem that needs to be written today 

Process

I like to use a two-column table when writing poetry based on a model poem. This helps me return to the original and note rhythms, hyphens (!), line breaks, and sounds that inform my own poem craft. 

Here is what my poem looks like juxtaposed with GB’s.

Speech to the Young; Speech to the Progress-Toward By Gwendolyn Brooks Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, “Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.” You will be right. For that is the hard home-run. Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along.

Speech to My Husband; Speech to the Fret-Drawn By Allison Berryhill Say to him, say to the knot-twister, the weather-worrier, the scorpion-minder, the half-empty-glasser, “To worry is to tear at,  to gnaw on, to drag about  with one’s teeth.” Your bite cannot masticate the unknown into submission.  Unclench your jaw. Loosen your smile. Release the bone.

Happy writing!

AB

Day #4: 20 Questions

Good morning! 

I read aloud the poem “Twenty Questions” by Jim Moore to my 18-year-old son on the drive to the airport on the day he left for a year in New Zealand. The poem is ultimately about the choices we make in our lives and the lingering doubt that underpins those choices. Its timing was perfect for my son’s departure, and its opening line has inspired me to look at the sky every day. (Check out #IowaSky on Twitter!)

Here are the opening lines:

Did I forget to look at the sky this morning
when I first woke up? Did I miss the willow tree?
The white gravel road that goes up from the cemetery,
but to where?…

Further on, this:

If I’d caught the boat
to Mykonos that time when I was nineteen
would the moon have risen out of the sea
and shone on my life so clearly
I would have loved it
just as it was?
…
The poem concludes with the haunting question:
Did I already ask that?

Process

Today I invite you to write a poem of 20 questions. Start with whatever question comes to mind, then follow that thought to the next, then another. Continue to sift through memory and images until you have (maybe) twenty questions. Consider the choices that have made a difference in your life. Maybe end your poem with “Did I already ask that?”


You may use Moore's poem as a model, as I did for this one:

Twenty Questions From My Classroom
by Allison Berryhill

Why am I here?
In this chair, by this desk?
Am I flinging finite minutes
of my life into the dusty swirl of students’ too-full thoughts?
Are my words rolling tumbleweeds skirting across this barren plain?
Where is your hall pass?
Why am I wasting breath, breath, breath?
Will another Wednesday roll out from under me in 33-minute sprints?
What do they ask?
What did I miss yesterday?
Why are we reading this?
Where’s Corbin Logeman?
And why do we say “have run” and not “have ran”?
Does it make a difference?
And to who?
Or to whom?
What is the color of teal?
Where is the receipt book?
Can I go to the nurse?

Did they learn anything?
Did I already ask that?

I look forward to reading your poems! Please feel free to respond with supportive comments to the poets who are posting here!

Happy writing!

AB