Looking for Blooming Poems

—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham,

Placerville, CA

—And then scroll down for 

Form Fiddlers’ Friday!

 

 

 

PYRACANTHA MORNING

This firethorn is bounty for birds, robins tipsy with berries,
cedar waxwings with their bell-song calling winter into spring,
January sun cresting the ridge, soft gold over the canyon.

 

 

 

 

 

IF YOU’D JUST OPEN THE WINDOW   

What a week. Your laptop
disappeared all your documents
you thought safe in the security of Web-
root and the Cloud. And now gray-
green stains adhere to the toilet bowl
as if the breeding ground of alien fungus.
Each day brings a new aggravation—
you write “disaster” as you pen it
in your journal, to magnify the sense
of flummox in a world gone
out of control, enclosed within your
walls, your brain. Out the window,
look—a blue butterfly.

 

 

 

 

WATER’S WAY

After a week of rain, our creek lets go
of a year's debris: small branches, twigs, leaves
all pulled into current, wild-water's flow.
Under my boots, the soaked earth sucks and heaves.

Of a year's debris, small branches, twigs, leaves
catch in the culverts, whirl a sudden pool
under my boots. The soaked earth sucks and heaves,
the banks give way. Lessons from Nature's school

catch in the culverts, whirl. A sudden pool
all pulled into current—wild water's flow.
The banks give way, lessons from Nature's school
after a week of rain. Our creek lets go.


(prev. pub. in Poets Forum Magazine, 2013)

 

 

 

 

 

YES TO POETRY
Capturing Wakamatsu January 2023

After weeks of rain,
flood, and wind bringing down trees,
would we have signups?—
hardy spirits who still think
it's poetic, this
wandering around in mud,
looking for blooming poems. 

 

 

 

 

ARS POETICA, FUNGUS

Walking the oak-buckeye woods & pasture
around the pond, we’d stop for every
mushroom erupted from earth, fungus fueled
by new year’s rains. The plant app on my phone
told me: Blewit, Brownit, Jack-o’-Lantern,
Golden Milkcap. Now, sitting in farmhouse
garden making a poem of them all,
I happen to look up and lo! right there
in front of me, in a bed of wood-chips:
a strange burnished mushroom I hadn’t seen.
Tell me, was it summoned by my poem?

 

 

 

 

UP FROM UNDER

It popped up overnight from the rot
of earth. I love the surprise—stumbling
on the unexpected and strange,
so eerily lovely, its name must come
from fairytale or legend,
but it resembles an old man napping
under his cap, stranded
in an alien land, waiting for a bus
home. Science tells me
he’s from a global kingdom
all its own—not plant nor animal—
beautiful, mysterious as life.

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

NOMENCLATURE
—Taylor Graham

Is this a drizzle
or a mizzle or a mist?
The rain doesn’t care.

_____________________

Many thanks to Taylor Graham for this morning’s poems and photos as she captures the aftermath of our early January storms. Forms TG has used this week include the Pantoum (“Water's Way”); a Senryu (“Nomenclature”); a Choka (“Yes to Poetry”); an Ars Poetica / Blank Verse (“Ars Poetica, Fungus”); a Word-Can Poem (“If You'd Just Open the Window”); and a Sijo (“Pyracantha Morning”).

Tonight, celebrate Black History Month with the I Am Somebody Poetry Contest, 6-9pm, 2251 Florin Rd., Sacramento, CA. Food, entertainment, music, crafts, raffles, resources. Free; $100 prize. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about this and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.

And now it’s time for…

FORM FIDDLERS' FRIDAY!

 

It’s time for more contributions from Form Fiddlers, in addition to those sent to us by Taylor Graham! Each Friday, there will be poems posted here from our readers using forms—either ones which were sent to Medusa during the previous week, or whatever else floats through the Kitchen and the perpetually stoned mind of Medusa. If these instructions are vague, it's because they're meant to be. Just fiddle around with some challenges—  Whaddaya got to lose… ? If you send ‘em, I’ll post ‘em! (See Medusa’s Form Finder at the end of this post for resources and for links to poetry terms used in today’s post.)


There’s also a newly dusted-off page at the top of Medusa’s Kitchen called, “FORMS! OMG!!!” which expresses some of my (take ‘em or leave 'em) opinions about the use of forms in poetry writing, as well as listing some more resources to help you navigate through Form Quicksand. Got any more resources to add to our list? Send them to kathykieth@hotmail.com for the benefit of all man/woman/poetkind!

 

 

 

Last Week’s Ekphrastic Photo

 

Here are responses to last week’s Ekphrastic Photo from Nolcha Fox and Stephen Kingsnorth:

VINEYARD
—Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY

Purple grape clusters hang on the vine,
each cluster a day, each grape a moment.
Do I savor each grape, the sweet and the sour,
or squeeze the juice from the day,
and drink the wine?

* * *

VINTAGE TRICKS
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales

I swirl clear burgundy in bulb,
in glass, aroma—on, its legs,
in mouth sensations, by stem tip,
then what of finish, aftertaste?
The lexicon is searched for words,
the poetry of cellars blurb,
sommeliers of active verbs.

From dry clime hills where vintage born,
good season, not, beyond control,
grape species from the hanging vine,
the sweetest cluster may fall short.
Before the picking, trampled vat,
where flesh meets skins, fruit between toes,
we see the better hanging, pruned,
those sloshing feet to bottled prize,
now poetry returned as prose.
The new wine tested for its taste,
less flavour, than its favoured whole,
its fitting to the culture’s mood.

The bunch, a medicine for the eye,
its bloom a dusting from the sun,
until those feet in pummel stood,
and crushed the fruit, millennia.
Ambrosia, in bottled proof.
How can one capture vineyard wealth?

* * *

Here is a Sonnet from Carl Schwartz (Caschwa):

 

 

 

NEW RULES
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

Please be advised that several local
jurisdictions from coast to coast
have modified their respective penal
codes to require certificates for most

circumstances where people might
open-carry a cell phone in any location
visible to law enforcement, day or night;
and further that such certification

is affixed to a lanyard, worn around the neck
that a near-sighted officer can easily read,
providing a complete background check,
a competence exam, and showing valid need.

Questions or concerns about these new rules
will not ever be answered because—April Fools!

* * *

Carl says that this is his attempt at a Fard, which we first tackled a couple of weeks ago:

 

 

 

JUST A LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC
—Caschwa

IF mail is to email :: motion is to emotion
THEN artificial intelligence must always prevail

* * *

And an Ars Poetica from Stephen (“verse drawn by our dreams”):

 

 

 

 

REACH
—Stephen Kingsnorth  

Our art outlasts the reign of states,
words, observations, questions posed,
the printer’s eroteme on page,
or brushwork sweeping dust away,
an armature for raising shapes
to re-design our outlook scene.
We hear of street art, urban scape,
but rarely peer where parkour leaps—
its brick and tiles, or frieze outline
changes perspective on our town.
The marbled grace released from block,
or crafted verse drawn by our dreams—
the best outlast brief kingdom schemes
through power addressing minds and hearts.

___________________

Many thanks to our SnakePals for their brave fiddling! Would you like to be a SnakePal? All you have to do is send poetry—forms or not—and/or photos and artwork to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post work from all over the world, including that which was previously-published. Just remember: the snakes of Medusa are always hungry!

___________________


TRIPLE-F CHALLENGES! 

See what you can make of this week’s poetry forms, and send them to kathykieth@hotmail.com! (No deadline.)

•••Sweetbriar: https://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/topic/1882-syllabic-forms-found-in-pathways-for-the-poet/#sweetbriar

AND/OR scroll down on Violet’s site to the Troisieme:

•••Troisieme: https://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/topic/1882-syllabic-forms-found-in-pathways-for-the-poet

•••See also the bottom of this post for another challenge, this one an Ekphrastic photo.

•••And don’t forget each Tuesday’s Seed of the Week! This week it’s “Mercy”. 


____________________

MEDUSA’S FORM FINDER: Links to poetry terms mentioned today:

•••Ars Poetica: www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ars-poetica
•••Blank Verse: literarydevices.net/blank-verse AND/OR www.masterclass.com/articles/poetry-101-what-is-the-difference-between-blank-verse-and-free-verse#quiz-0
•••Choka: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/choka
•••Ekphrastic Poem: notesofoak.com/discover-literature/ekphrastic-poetry 
•••Fard: https://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/topic/628-the-sher-and-its-meters-beher-with-options
•••Pantoum: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/pantoum.html AND/OR https://poets.org/glossary/pantoum
•••Senryu: www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-senryu-poems#quiz-0
•••Sijo: www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/sijo-poetic-form
•••Sonnet Forms: https://blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-sonnet-poem-form AND/OR poets.org/glossary/sonnet AND/OR blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-sonnet-poem-form
•••Sweetbriar: https://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/topic/1882-syllabic-forms-found-in-pathways-for-the-poet/#sweetbriar
•••Troisieme: https://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/topic/1882-syllabic-forms-found-in-pathways-for-the-poet
•••Word-Can Poem: putting random words on slips of paper into a can, then drawing out a few and making a poem out of them.


For more about meter, see:

•••www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-iambic-pentameter-definition-literature
•••www.pandorapost.com/2021/05/examples-of-iambic-pentameter-tetrameter-and-trimeter-in-poetry.html 
•••nosweatshakespeare.com/sonnets/iambic-pentameter
•••www.thoughtco.com/introducing-iambic-pentameter-2985082
•••www.nfi.edu/iambic-pentameter

____________________


—Medusa

 

 

 

 Today's Ekphrastic Challenge!
 
See what you can make of the above
photo, and send your poetic results to

kathykieth@hotmail.com/. (No deadline.)

***

—Photo Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For upcoming poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
in the links at the top of this page.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.