Poetry Friday: Naomi Shihab Nye and The Creativity Project

Mary Lee, at A Year of Reading, has the round-up today. She's celebrating Naomi Shihab Nye, so I thought I'd join in that bit of poetic goodness.

Mary Lee played around with this delightful prompt (and wrote a delightful poem):

"Write a list of ten things you are NOT (not an astronaut, a perfectionist, a wool spinner, a butterfly, a name-caller). Then pick your favorite lines and develop, or embellish, them, adding metaphors, more description, whatever you like."

That's just one of Naomi Shihab Nye's prompts from this book (which just went on my wish list):

Edited by Colby Sharp, The Creativity Project is full of writing prompts, plus a huge bonus. Here's the teaser from Amazon: 

Colby Sharp invited more than forty authors and illustrators to provide story starters for each other; photos, drawings, poems, prose, or anything they could dream up. When they received their prompts, they responded by transforming these seeds into any form of creative work they wanted to share.

The result is a stunning collection of words, art, poetry, and stories by some of our most celebrated children book creators. A section of extra story starters by every contributor provides fresh inspiration for readers to create works of their own. Here is an innovative book that offers something for every kind of reader and creator!

You can see why it went on my list. I'll be using it in the fall for Ramona and her friends when we meet for our weekly writing group.

And to continue the Naomi Shihab Nye immersion, here she is reading her poem, "How Do I Know When a Poem is Finished?"




Lovely.

May has been such a busy month (my mom in the hospital a couple of times, but we think they finally found and addressed the problem, thank goodness ... teaching a class for Brave Writer ... keeping up with all of my daughters' and Atticus's goings-on) but summer is coming, and I'm hoping for more time for writing, poetry, and books, books, books.

Be sure to join Mary Lee for the round-up!

(Other posts about Naomi Shihab Nye are here.)

Poetry Friday: A New One from Ramona

The other day, Ramona and I were talking about the variety of perspectives on dandelions. She falls firmly into Camp-I-Love-Them. The next day, she needed to produce a piece of writing for our writing group, and she wrote this poem. I absolutely love it. 

The Dandelion Lady
by Ramona (age 16)

The Dandelion Lady sees beauty and light,
where others see nuisance and blight.

She loves the bright, yellow heads,
where others fear for their flower beds.

She picks a bouquet, and at the end of her day,
says, "Thank you, dandelions!" and throws them away.

Friends ask, "How is your crop?"
She replies, "It fills my heart to the top."

Neighbors ask, "How are your seeds?"
She chuckles and responds, "Why, they're growing like weeds!"

~~~~~

Where do you stand on dandelions? 

For more about the magic of nature and all things poetic, visit Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche, for this week's round-up. 

Bits and Pieces of Our Days: The Catch-up Edition

The last couple of weeks have been over-the-top busy, and this past week was jam-packed, featuring four consecutive days of four hours on the road each day. But this week will be less travel-laden, and, at the moment, I have a little time to reflect on what we've been doing around here when we're not on the road.


Besty graduated from college! 

The graduation ceremony was held outdoors, on a gorgeous day and we were glowing with pride over our Summa Cum Laude graduate. All would have been well if I had remembered the sunblock, but alas, I did not, and we were all glowing in a different way later (though "blazing" might be a more accurate word.) But the important thing is that Betsy is done and is in the midst of a job hunt. Whichever elementary school snatches her up will gain a treasure. 

Atticus Ran Another Half-Marathon! 

Here he is, crossing the finish line. Betsy and I were watching his time on the tracking app, and saw him hit 13.1 miles at 1:54:50, but his officially clocked "cross the finish line" time was an hour and 56 minutes. He felt pretty good about that time, and felt even better when he saw his cancer surgeon last week (just a follow-up, no worries!) and found out that he beat his surgeon's son's time. 

Endgame!

No spoilers, in case you care and/or haven't seen it yet, but Anne-with-an-e and I had fun creating this manicure for her. I think there's a nail for every Avenger, but I won't say which nails did or didn't survive. 

Gluten-free baking! 

Paleo bread, which was a bigger hit with me than it was with Betsy. Still on the hunt for a better recipe. 

Gluten-free chocolate cake (thank you, Pamela's Products!) and homemade, dairy-free frosting. What was the occasion? It was called, "Look! We can make a gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate cake that tastes delicious!" The other occasion was: 

My birthday! 

And now we are 59. 

Well, Gumby's actually 66, but Ramona chose him as the bearer of greetings that day. We have a ritual of taking turns hiding Gumby where the other will find him. It was her turn, so she enlisted his help in wishing me a happy birthday and it was indeed a happy one! 

This is fuzzy because we took it with my phone (bleh, not a great camera), and then I cropped it (bleh, further worsening the quality), but I'm thinking of chopping off all my hair. What say you? 

Our School Year is Almost Over! 

No more math with candlelight (it does help, a little) and just a bit more of Hamlet to read and discuss, and then ... we're done! A sweet, math-free summer awaits. We. Are. Ready. 

And Finally, Happy Day, Whether You are a Mother or Not....

It's Mother's Day, and if you're a mom, I celebrate you. If you act as a Second Mom/Beloved Aunt/All-Around Awesome Woman to someone in your life, I celebrate you. If you desperately want to be a mom, but it hasn't happened yet, I've been there, and I understand. If you've never wanted to be a mom, I've been there, too, and I understand. If you are a mom to children lost through early or late miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion, infant death, or at any stage in life, I grieve with you, and I understand. 

Let's all support one another on this day that celebrates mothers, even as we acknowledge that motherhood (and womanhood) has a million faces. 

Poetry Friday: Philip Larkin's "The Trees"

The Trees 

by Philip Larkin 

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said; 

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief. 

....

Hear Larkin read the whole, short poem here, at The Poetry Archive, and I promise you that it's beautiful and not ultimately dreary, as one might presume from the aforementioned grief. Promise me you'll go see (or hear) for yourself.

~~~~~

The round-up this week is being hosted by the one, the only, the incredible Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup.