Poetry all over the place

National Poetry Month -- is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the great reasons (besides the gradually improving weather) to be glad it's April. This year's theme, resilience, seems right for the year we've had (and seem to be continuing to have) under various stages of lockdown and social distancing. 

As a constant reader, I tend to poke around in genres. And it seems, even when I'm putting my focus on poetry, more than one genre insists on being present. The three books above serve to illustrate this. 

The one on the left, Scratching Initials, is a self-published homage to the author's sister. It's a blend of poems and black-and-white drawings, quite a lovely little book that contains a nice range of poetic forms -- prose poems, ghazals and haibun. 

The one on the right, burninghouse, is a taut collection by a writer whose work feels firmly grounded in Atlantic Canada. Feminism is the guiding principle in these poems -- a book worth taking the time to find -- or at least that's my opinion. 

The one in the middle, 100 Poems to Break Your Heart, does much more than the title suggests. Each of the 100 poems in this anthology is accompanied by a short essay that enriches anyone's reading of the poem. And it isn't so much that the author, noted poet Edward Hirsch, offers ongoing heartbreak; his words -- and the poems -- provide solace, something I suspect so many of us are now in need of. 

And if you're ready to celebrate National Poetry Month with poems of your own, here's a link to a list of inspirations that might get you started. Or, for more detailed instructions (note: they change, day to day) here's a blog for NaPoWriMo (which has added 'Glo' to its name, indicating it's now National Global Poetry Writing Month) with amazing suggestions -- including one, for a 'deck' of word cards which seems actually to have been part of the method Linda Pearce used in Scratching Initials. 

Once you've started writing poems, I hope you might work up enough courage to enter this year's 2-Day Poem Contest, an adventure that's always interesting (to put it mildly -- try it and you might see what I mean). Although the event takes place April 23rd to 25th, the deadline for registering is April 16 -- soon. 

The choice of how to celebrate is yours, and no doubt there'll be more poetry-themed posts during this glorious month that celebrates this dear-to-my-heart art form. 

Share a poem today

Sometimes it seems that there's a designated 'Day' for just about everything. 

Yesterday was (and it came as news to me) the International Day of Happiness. That seems like a day we could use more often than once a year. 

Today is another such observance. In 1999 the United Nations declared this date World Poetry Day. Some years, a specific theme is declared. In 2017 the theme was 'Freedom'. 

This year, while there's no specific theme, the preservation of languages plays a role. 

Since I don't write much in anything but English, the best I can offer for a poem today is a small piece particular to this challenging year we've been enduring. 

Haiku in isolated times

sitting at the table

so many days together

we remain in love

Whales and ...

I don't usually write about books on this blog, especially not ones that have my work in them, but this book is somehow different.

Maybe it's just that so many things seem to be on the cusp of change -- politically, decisions are soon to be announced regarding both the Kinder Morgan pipeline proposal and plans for Site C. Anyone who knows or follows me understands that I don't support current plans for either of these going forward, and it tuns out I'm not alone in my thoughts about the Burnaby Mountain project. Today the City of Vancouver has put out a court challenge to review the approval process that took place. There are also several organized protests today, highlighting the dangers of the plan. It looks as though we'll have to wait a few more weeks to know any outcomes.

But back to the book, Refugium: it's an amazing collection of works that honour the Pacific Ocean. Edited by Yvonne Blomer, Victoria's Poet Laureate (that's her in the photo on the left), it brings together poems that celebrate, that praise, and that warn.

It seemed significant when I traveled to Victoria to be part of the launch on the island that, on both legs of my journey across the water the ferry's captain announced the presence of humpbacks nearby. On the trip over, though I dashed to a window, all I managed to see was the roiling water left by their deep dive. But when the same announcement was made on the way back, I got see part of a long, long body curling across the surface, and even got a glimpse of the tail, complete with its own distinctive white markings.

At last week's Vancouver launch one of the presenters, Stephen Collis, startled many of us by mentioning that humpback whales (that's the species pictured on the book's cover) have been known to come to the aid of other sea animals. He called them 'peacekeepers' -- that wonderful term that once, not so long ago, was applied to Canada and its military. And then, as if to back up that tidbit, the next morning's paper had a piece on the social awareness of whales.

With the crazed and crazy ways we (and some of our world's leaders) have been behaving, it's hard to be positive about outcomes for the future. So it's good to know that if we blow ourselves up, perhaps the whales, swimming deep in the oceans will remain. And even if those whales and dolphins don't have our opposable thumbs which have enabled us to create buildings and technologies, we'll be leaving the planet in 'good hands', probably better than the ones it's currently in.

Back to the mountain again?

Last week's announcement about twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline through Burnaby seems to contradict almost all the election promises I thought I heard Justin Trudeau make. Is the National Energy Board still operating as if the previous government is in power? Or did I miss something?

The photo above was taken in November, 2014, during the protests on Burnaby Mountain.

Maybe it's time to go back up to the mountain and make our presence known again...

The mountain where my children named the seasons by their berries:salmonberries huckleberries, blackberries, salal. When to gather, which to eat, which to leavebehind, nourishing mercies for their brethren. 

Poem bears

Turns out that yesterday was International Polar Bear Day. If it weren't for those video news blats the Internet providers love to insert, I'd never have even known it. And I somehow doubt that many others would have either.

My observation of the day ranges from the silly set-up photo above (who says it doesn't pay to not defrost in a timely manner?) to the poem below, expressing some of my concerns about this mysterious creature.

Last day of February, and no doubt things are beginning to melt everywhere.

Night of the Bears 

While we sleep this wintry night away, you’re saving bears

dreaming metal islands for an ocean with no ice:

floating metal platforms for polar bears to walk on

artificial stepping stones so they won’t have to drown.

I see water dense with bears, nose to tip to nose,

like pieces in some Escher tessellation

swarming in a sea gone soupy warm.

Their whitish fur, slicked back so smooth,

makes them look like fish, thick as schools of salmon

used to be, spawning in some woodland stream, dense

so we might walk, carefully, on tiptoe cross their backs. 

Sign for a new year

When I saw this sign painted on the road, I thought, Wow, there's a good idea -- for all the pedestrians who forget to look when they're crossing the street. Since they're always looking down, fiddling with their devices, they might even see the reminder to "look".

Beyond that, I think the image provides a reminder to find ways of looking at the world in fresh ways. Rather than only looking straight ahead, consider what's coming from either side. Who knows what you might find?

Part of this idea of looking at things differently requires rethinking priorities, figuring out what matters most and trying to ensure that those things are what gets the best of our attention.

I've recently been introduced to the ideas of home architect, Sarah Susanka. She's all about 'small' rather than 'big' and has a number of interesting ways to make not only our homes, but our lives, more comfortably livable. She recently presented a TED talk on ways to rethink our lives. If you can spare 13 minutes, here's a link to that talk.

Or, a shorter experience, but again an example of doing things differently, this time the annual Cooperative Poem, as published by Leaf Press.

With wishes for a happy and productive new year, one that's full of fresh ideas and better ways of doing things.

12 - 12 - 12

I've always loved 12 -- the number, that is. I even have a poem about it, explaining some of my reasons for admiring it the way I do. 

I also never understood how a number as beautifully elegant as 12 could, when multiplied by itself, result in a number known by such a disgusting term as ‘gross’. Who dreamed up that one?

But if today’s date isn’t beautiful enough in itself, I took the photo above earlier today – a lovely day expressing itself in an early display of spring, a hedge of bursting-into-blossom golden broom. 

The Han-Shan Project

Yesterday was yet another magical day in the forest. Thanks to poet Susan McCaslin, McLellan Park has been transformed into a gallery of poems.  

She took inspiration for her idea from Han-Shan, a 9^th century Chinese poet who lived as a hermit. 

I strolled through, snapping photos of selected works (and words) that were hanging from branches or gently tied around trunks. As I wandered amidst the quiet, I couldn’t help but think that even the trees must be pleased by the efforts that have been made to protect this special place.

The project – and its cause – to preserve the McLellan Park forest has been picked up by the press, including Canada's national newspaper, the Globe and Mail. Poems and notes of support continue to arrive in McCaslin’s inbox.

Among the many poems posted (about 200), the closing stanza in a piece from Australian poet Ilka Blue Nelson stands out as saying so much about what this cause represents.

A tree stands
In memory of a time
Before greed forested the world. 

Monday night will be the meeting at which the Township of Langley’s council decides the forest’s fate. To keep apprised of news about the forest, visit WOLF's blog. 

A day on the bay

Late afternoon, early evening -- already nearly dark, after a perfect pre-winter day in Vancouver.

When I woke up this morning, it was six-barely-something and still full-on dark. But since I felt rested I put on the coffee and a lamp and started reading.

It wasn't too long before this happened.

How beautiful the dawn is
its slow stretch awaking
grey-eyed and soft, as if trying to remember
all the colours in the world

then placing them, one by each

their own leaf,
bird,
sky. 

And maybe that's just what happens when you read Susan Musgrave too early in the day.

Amelia Earhart, where did you go?

Today marks 75 years since the famous aviatrix disappeared. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were nearly at the end of their around-the-world flight. But something went wrong.

Despite a huge search, they were never found.

But now, a team is setting out on an excursion that may support one of the many theories concerning her disappearance.

The group will explore the area surrounding Nikumaroru, a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific. It's a spot where it's believed her plane may have crashed.

Today's photo shows one of my favourite cups, one from Amelia's birthplace museum, which I visited in April of 2011. It also shows my chapbook of poems about her, poems that follow a route first planted in my brain by Arthur Kopit's play, Chamber Music. He places an Amelia Earhart character in an asylum, a plight I found impossible to resist.

I'm looking forward to following this story. With today's sophisticated methods of DNA testing, any remains that might be there could surely be identified.

Oddly, one story I've heard about Amelia is that she wasn't even on the plane for that fateful leg, but that she'd been replaced, as the ditch was planned -- all in an elaborate ruse that would permit the real Amelia to escape to a live of privacy. Far-fetched? Who can say.

Kopit turned 75 this year as well. Maybe it really is time for someone to settle the speculations once and for all. The expedition is scheduled to last for only ten days, so any answers they find will be showing up soon -- maybe even with some resolution in time for Amelia's birthday, July 24th.

Over...

Half a league, half a league

When I woke up this morning, those words were galloping through my brain. I’ve been trying to finish a couple of poems that feature horses, so there was at least a seed of logic to the voice’s appearance. Then, over coffee, I found myself thinking about today’s date, so before long the phrase started translating itself into ‘half a year, half a year…’

Still, I knew I needed to be sure about the ‘half a league’ line, so I Googled it. Ah yes, of course – “Charge of the Light Brigade”. A further click, this time on Wikipedia, informed me that years after “Charge” had been written, Kipling wrote a poem that honoured the survivors of that dreadful encounter.

Yesterday, I met another survivor. No one from the Light Brigade, to be sure, but a man who’d been a POW in Asia during WWII.

It was one of those bump-into-a-person things, something I was led to on the strength of his personalized license plate. He was kind enough to not seem to mind talking with a stranger, a woman in a parking lot asking about the significance of the letters on his bumper.

I learned that he’s 92 (and still an imposing six feet – maybe more) but that when he’d been released from the camp he’d weighed only 68 pounds. Skeletal. He also told me that all the survivors had been told they’d never live past 50, that their bodies had been too damaged by the experience. Yet here he is, nearly twice times 50. So much for what ‘they’ know.

Kids are all warned these days about speaking with strangers. Even adults aren’t always responsive to a friendly hello. Maybe we’d all feel more secure – even happier – if we’d chance the occasional chat with a stranger. You might find your life a little richer for having taken the risk.

Solstice early, solstice celebrated

Readers of this blog will know I usually post something in observance of the Solstice. I often refer to the ‘sun angel’ who appears with first light on my front door. This year, I was caught a bit off guard by the longest day arriving a day earlier than I’d expected it, so wasn’t up to take that dawnish photo. Still, the afternoon sky held its own version, an image I like to think of as a ‘sky angel’.

As far as the technical aspects of Solstice go, others can explain it much more clearly (and more thoroughly) than I can. To learn more, click on this link to the brainiacs at National Geographic.

Because this longest day has also brought some very welcome (and needed) sun and warmth, I’m tossing in this little poem, part two of a triptych of mine.

Hope is

an orange balloon
tied onto a skinny wrist

lifting
ever so slightly

lifting

Let the celebration begin!

It's the first day of National Poetry Month, both in Canada and in the U.S.

If you don't live in Seattle (the photo above is a wall of 'public poetry' from there), an easy place to get your daily poetry fix is Knopf's Poem-a-Day site. The poems selected are top-notch.

This is also a great month for working on poems of your own -- and there's still time to sign up for CV2's annual 2-day poem contest. You get 10 words (sometimes they're really hard to use, other years not so bad) to assemble into a poem in the space of 48 hours.

No doubt, there'll be special events and readings near where you live. The League of Canadian Poets offers a list of special events which are free of charge.

If you ever needed an excuse, Poetry Month provides plenty of reasons to pick up a pen (whether real or metaphorical) and write a poem. Get writing!

Romantic or what…

What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with a brand-new book of love poems!

The Wild Weathers, edited by Ursula Vaira of Leaf Press, offers a roster of poets both known and lesser-known. Daniela Elza, Patricia Young, Susan McCaslin, Janet Vickers, Susan Iannou, Vaughan Chapman, Peter Trower and many more – but there’s no point in merely listing names. Instead, step in and take a bite of one of the poems.

Sample these, the opening lines of Elsie Neufeld’s meditation on a lifelong relationship:

Love, 34 years in the making, is more than
a tongue in the mouth, it’s all that holding
your tongue when one or both have said
too much: you always, you never, I can’t
stand it; you’ve heard yourself say it, and
worse, believed it, but love is an act, a play
on grace….

Try writing some love thoughts of your own on this, the day we all have an excuse to get romantic.