Poetry Friday: Golden Shovel

Spotted owl,
 Encyclopedia Britannica

 

May's challenge was to write a golden shovel, using as inspiration one line from Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "Letter to NY." To refresh your memory, a golden shovel uses each word of the chosen line as the last word of new lines in a new poem while still maintaining some connection, or conversation, with the original poem. (A more in-depth explanation and history can be found here.)  

I wasn't familiar with Letter to NY (maybe you aren't either; if so, please read it here.) On first glance, I found that Bishop wrote a rather sad, cynical take on a relationship that seems to have been tarnished over time. 

Here's a hint of that sadness:

In your next letter I wish you'd say

where you are going and what you are doing;

how are the plays, and after the plays

what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,

driving as if to save your soul

where the road goes round and round the park

and the meter glares like a moral owl

(more here)

For me, the line choices were hard to re-imagine in a new context. (For example, using the perfectly wonderful in context "where you are going and what you are doing" as end words in a new poem seemed to be asking for a vague mess.)  So, I just picked a line that had interesting words in it, and fiddled around. (Most of poetry is fiddling around, right?)  And in the end, I found I'd written a poem that maintained a connection with the original by writing about the beginning of this fictional relationship, instead of its sad present state.   

The line I chose:  "and the meter glares like a moral owl"

The golden shovel I created, with still a hint of foreboding (I hope) 

In the beginning

The conversation is poetry: you and

me, dropping words into the 

snapping fire, not measuring meter

yet, not forcing rhyme, our bashful glares

into the flames heroically funny like

we weren’t feeling the rising heat; a

log cracks, loudly, expending its moral 

energy, but we lustfully ignore it—and the watching owl.

-----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

You can find my poetry sisters' golden shovels here:

Liz

Laura

Tricia

Mary Lee

Tanita

Poetry Friday is hosted today by the wonderful Karen Edmisten.

Poetry Friday: Writing to a Vintage Photograph

 April's challenge was to write a poem in response to a vintage photograph (we were free to define "vintage" for better or worse.)  I chose a photo that has been on my bookshelf for years---one of my mother, catching me on a slide.  When I took the photo out of the frame to see if she'd written any identifying information on the back, I saw only a date--April 1965.  So sixty years ago, this month.  

 I intended to share this poem with my mom when I visited her this week, because on my visit a couple of weeks ago, she said she liked seeing my poem links on Facebook, and often read them.  She never commented because she thought a mom shouldn't do that (I would've been ok with it, Mom!)  But after I had drafted this poem on Monday night, I found out on Tuesday that she had passed away after a short illness.  

I haven't been able to make myself revise this draft as much as I could've, but I can't let it sit unpublished either.  In writing it, I realized how much my mom and I had in common, and how many things children take for granted.

April 1965

It is April, 1965.

She is my mother.

Later, in college,

I will have the same haircut

as hers—(except my bangs

will split at a cowlick)

Later, I will be blindsided

by blood and lose a baby—

as she did (except her losses 

were many)

Later, I often parented

alone, like she did 

(except I will flee

to her house where

every cooking pot is a toy

every fat wondrous bean

is eaten with glee

and ladybugs light

on my children’s fingers.) 

 

Later, she will tell me hard

stories of her long-gone

mother (but only once,

and never again) 

Later, she will return letters

I’ve written to her, gifting me

a history of myself

(nevertheless I will

often forget who I should be)

Later, much later,

I will fix her a plate

of food, and sing 

a snippet of the song

she once sang to me,

to soothe my

fever dream (even though

my voice will break on the notes,

and she will eat hardly

any of the food)

But in this photo, 

on this day,

I’m a heedless two-year-old;

Her arm curves over my lap,

keeping me from spilling

into the dirt.

It is April, 1965

and she is only

(but forever)

my mother. 

   ------Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

You can find my poetry sisters' vintage photos and poems here:

Liz

Tanita

Laura

Mary Lee

Tricia

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe. 

Poetry Friday: In conversation with Lucille Clifton's Notes to Clark Kent

The challenge for March stayed close to our 2025 theme of conversation:  we were to be "in conversation" with a series of four poems written by Lucille Clifton, loosely known as Notes to Clark Kent. Here's an excerpt:

they had it wrong,

the old comics.

you are only clark kent

after all. oh,

mild mannered mister,

why did i think you could fix it?

See how with that question she so easily invites you to talk with her about this? After all, she's writing to Clark Kent, and letting us eavesdrop.  It feels like she would be open to conversation with us ordinary folk, too.  And she is--all four poems are spare but rich with feeling, and the casual tone makes it easy to engage with her words---to talk with this great poet about superheroes, admiration and disillusionment, rescue and risk...and so much more.  Please read more here (all four poems are very short.) 

At first, I simply imitated one of her poems, beginning with her line "They had it wrong..."  

They had it wrong,

the bishops—

you can’t slide

across the board

slicing through armies

on the sly to meet the queen;

how you must have puzzled

at my idea that I was 

invisible, able to slip

between worlds,

to Narnia or Prydain.

What did I expect? 

That the shadow

of my pointed hat—

the open book a peak

over my eyes—

would make me

less of a pawn,

plodding my way 

from chamber 

to chamber,

from dark to light 

and back again? 

-----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

On my second try, I veered off, and decided to address the poet directly, triying only to match her easy flow of ideas and emotions, as if I were writing her a note, too:

Dear Lucille,

I didn’t crush on Superman,

my comics were Casper,

that pudgy, good-hearted ghost

and Scrooge McDuck, 

whose pert-tailed nephews’ 

names rhymed like rap,

so I guess that’s why my questions

are different. I didn’t wonder who

they were—human or superhero—

I only wanted to float through

fights, misunderstandings, and darkness—

or to waddle, flanked by friends,

into schemes and out again, unchanged—-

to be the reason the story took you

out of this world into that one,

but didn’t leave you heartless.

-----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

You can find the conversations my poetry sisters had with these poems here:

Liz

Tanita

Mary Lee

Tricia

Laura

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Marcie Flinchum Atkins