by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 26, 2023
The Reaping
As Spring gives way to Summer’s radiant glow
That warms the world in melting heat
We lose our sense of Winter’s coming snow.
Spring’s fledglings, fawns, and kits all grow
The calf gives up its mother’s teat
As Spring gives way to Summer’s radiant glow
Content with grassy fields, the cattle graze and low
Newly shorn, sheep softly bleat
We lose our sense of Winter’s coming snow.
At Winter’s end, we bid the darkness “Go!”
And soon, its icy chill retreats
As Spring gives way to Summer’s radiant glow
At last, all Fall to the conquering foe –
In stunning self-deceit
We lose our sense of Winter’s coming snow.
Smiling, we pretend we do not know
What end must come, when life’s complete.
As Spring gives way to Summer’s radiant glow
We lose our sense of Winter’s coming snow.
— Holly Jahangiri
Today’s Poet
Paul Verlaine – a French poet of the 19th century whose poem, Chanson d’automne, was used in WW II.
In preparation for Operation Overlord, the BBC‘s Radio Londres had signaled to the French Resistance with the opening lines of the 1866 Verlaine poem “Chanson d’Automne” were to indicate the start of D-Day operations under the command of the Special Operations Executive. The first three lines of the poem, “Les sanglots longs / des violons / de l’automne” (“Long sobs of autumn violins”), would mean that Operation Overlord was to start within two weeks. These lines were broadcast on 1 June 1944. The next set of lines, “Blessent mon coeur / d’une langueur / monotone” (“wound my heart with a monotonous languor”), meant that it would start within 48 hours and that the resistance should begin sabotage operations, especially on the French railroad system; these lines were broadcast on 5 June at 23:15.[3][4][5][6]
Chanson d’automne – Wikipedia
It is time for the letter “V” – and I would be remiss if I failed to mention the villainous Villanelle. Do note that it was a mistake to think it a fixed form; originally, villanelle merely meant a country dance. It might as well have been the Paradelle.
April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.
This month, my goal is to:
- Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
- Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.
I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.
Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)
by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 25, 2023
Usurped Emotions
Anger is the Queen of Misrule
Until she's denied -
Shoved aside -
Diminished,
Like a distressing damsel
Overcome, but not becalmed.
Impotent Rage, dark
Grief will serve
Her only companions.
Locked in her stoic tower cell -
Stubbornly, she swallows the key,
Eats her feelings,
Thinking their power
Usurped. Denial
Her warden; Contentment
Her lady's maid.
Joy pours through open windows
Drenching cold stone
In golden sunfire.
Anger would draw the curtains,
If she could. Hang tapestries
Against the dawning light.
She smothers Hope
Lets it languish
Drowning, in a tub
Of gray and tepid water.
Persistent Joy flashes warm:
Pink, orange, and yellow roses
Cast at the Queen's bare feet
Before the purpling dusk.
Joy launches an assault -
Demands white bedsheets;
Till Anger, laughing
Surrenders, at last
To happy Dreams.
Unfeeling
Dammed up for half a life,
Denied, so many salty drops
Uncried refuse to flow.
They called her cold -
Unfeeling. Unaware
The faintly beating heart
Still beat within
Though dried up, brittle
As her mother's fragile
Skin; a parchment
Page unwritten
Waiting to be placed
Upon an empty shelf
Forgotten
As the feelings
Of a hollow vessel.
Today’s Poet
Wislawa Szymborska – a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature “for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.”
Wisława Szymborska – Poetry – NobelPrize.org
April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.
This month, my goal is to:
- Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
- Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.
I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.
Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)
by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 22, 2023
Mayhaps the ash-faced Ethel Wynn,
Given yogh-urt, instead of her gin,
Spluttered, outraged, and cried,
"This, I cannot abide -
"Ol' Thorn's hand on my bum yet again!"
A sweet-faced Tironian boy bᵹ
Would have liked to be named &
But their fans couldn't say it
So they chose to belay it
Lest all of their ᵹigs should be banned.
Just a little limerick or two for my friend, Mitchell Allen, to help him remember the names of some of the lost letters of the English alphabet.
Today’s Poets
Edward Lear, a nineteenth century British poet, is perhaps the most well-known writer of limericks–though he did not originate this poetic form. As a nod to the genre “literary nonsense,” Lear published a collection of 117 limericks in 1846, entitled A Book of Nonsense1.
Other famous writers of limericks include Rudyard Kipling, Dr. Seuss (who employed anapestic limerick meter in much of his humorous verse), Algernon Charles Swinburne, W. H. Auden, William Shakespeare, Hilaire Belloc, Lewis Carroll and Anonymous (including the poets of Mother Goose)2.
Thanks to Bing for providing a brief reference to some “famous limerick writers.” Hillaire Belloc wrote some of my childhood favorites.
April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.
This month, my goal is to:
- Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
- Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.
I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.
Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)
by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 21, 2023
Hard to be a moderate moderator
Hard to gauge the scale
In a super-sized sociopathic
Algorithm-driven
Hate-heated, bot-based
Boiler room;
Just another passing platform
Soft-swooshing, hot-air-hissing
Rusty, rattling
Fraught follow-trains
Crashing - Who doesn't love
A good train wreck?
Powerful loco motives
Crazy-clattering
Off rusted,
Busted rails.
Todays Poet
Sonia Sanchez – an American poet, writer, and professor. Sanchez was a leading writer in the Black Arts Movement who has written numerous books of poetry, short stories, critical essays, plays, and children’s books. Read more here.
Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman by Sonia Sanchez | Poetry Magazine (poetryfoundation.org)
April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.
This month, my goal is to:
- Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
- Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.
I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.
Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)
by Holly Jahangiri | Apr 20, 2023
Rise
There’s brittle soup in her bones.
Her marrow’s been sucked dry
And no one listens, not even Ben
(The night orderly) whose paltry paycheck
Is the trickle-down
From her paltry pension and
A reverse-mortgage that somehow
(She can’t remember details) turns
Her tidy kitchen into Ben’s
Pregnant girlfriend’s gel nails.
She wonders if the girl can cook
And wishes she could will herself
To rise up, scrape her rice-paper skin
From the mechanical bed
To throw open the window,
Unfurl her wings,
Inhale the night
And fly. But even dreams
These days
Take work
And breath
And time she doesn’t have.
— Holly Jahangiri (April 20, 2023)
Today’s Poets
Francine Ringold – 15th poet laureate of the State of Oklahoma. In 1966, Ringold became the editor of Nimrod, the literary magazine of the University of Tulsa, where she earned her Ph.D. Ringold went on to edit Nimrod and teach at the University of Tulsa for nearly 50 years. I was lucky enough to be one of her students – in a playwriting class, not in poetry. I’m not sure how I passed; Fran once said, of dialogue I wrote verbatim from a conversation with my college roommate, “Nobody talks like that.” Little did she know! But in fact, I’m a better poet than I am a playwright, despite her efforts and her kindness in not flunking me. Read more here.
Official Website of Francine Leffler Ringold, Ph.D.: Poems (francineringold.info)
Adrienne Rich – author of numerous collections of poetry, Adrienne Rich wrote poems examining such things as women’s role in society, racism, politics, and war. Read more here.
Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich – Poems | poets.org
April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.
This month, my goal is to:
- Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
- Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.
I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.
Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)
