This Way...and This Way Too

 

Milkweed Wishes Letting Go

Photo by Amy LV

Students - My family's life has experienced many different kinds of goodbyes lately, and today I am thinking about those. I am thinking about how the same word - goodbye - can feel so many different ways: peaceful, surprising, heartbreaking, confusing, calm... A goodbye can be this way...and this way too.

We have two kittens (they're really cats now, but I still call them "the kittens"), and even though they are both kittens, each one of them is different. Same word (kittens), verrrrry different behaviors. A kitten can be this way...and this way too.

The same word can hold different meanings and emotions, different pictures in our heads and different songs in our hearts.

This week, pay attention to a word you find yourself using a lot. Does it make you feel different ways at different times? What word can you hold to the light and imagine this way...and this way too?

Here is another idea to try: make a list of some different goodbyes you have had in your life. Choose one of these to write about. What do you learn about yourself when you this? 

Jama is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup at Jama's Alphabet Soup with a gorgeous celebration of October and a poem by Jeffrey Bean. Please know that all are welcome each Friday as folks share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship.

xo,

Amy

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Farewell to Fleeting Things

Snowflake

by Amy LV

Students - It has not been a very snowy winter here in Upstate New York, but we did get a little bit of snow yesterday, and we are expected to have more snow tomorrow. Falling snow is peaceful, and when I have the chance to catch a perfect snowflake on my mitten, to wonder at its exquisite angles and patterns, I am amazed. I really would like to have a snowflake as a pet. But of course such a friendship would only last for a very short time.

Some of life's most lovely gifts are fleeting: snowflakes, golden hour (the pretty-light-time right after sunrise and before sunset), the full moon, blushing trees, blooming flowers, blackberries. Try noticing something in your day today that is here now...but not for long. Hello and farewell indeed...

You might have wondered about all of that repetition at the end of this poem. I decided to keep repeating the word farewell and all of those s sounds simply to stretch out the sound of goodbye.

Catherine is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Reading to the Core with some lovely #haikuforhope she had shared in December on Twitter. We invite everybody to join in each Friday as we share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship. Check out my left sidebar to learn where to find this poetry goodness each week of the year.

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If you are under 13 years old, please comment only with a parent 

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

SPARK 34: Seek Out a Challenge...With a Deadline!

Spent Magnolia Pistils

by Jonathan Ottke

Click to Enlarge

Response to Jonathan Ottke's Photograph

Students - Early this month, I participated in SPARK: ART FROM WRITING, WRITING FROM ART, Amy Souza's wonderful community of people sharing work to inspire more work.  Since 2010, on a regular basis, Amy opens up an invitation.  Anyone who wishes may sign up to work with a partner.  Amy assigns the partners and then each pair trades a piece of art or music with a piece of writing.  The partners each have ten days to create a new piece of work based on the other's inspiration piece.   I was paired with artist Jonathan Ottke, and we each sent each other a piece and we each created a new reponse piece, he from my poem Bottles, me from his photograph, Spent Magnolia Pistils.

I feel fortunate to have received Jonathan Ottke's lovely photograph, Spent Magnolia Pistils, above, as my inspiration piece. I love the stillness and the fragile feeling I have inside when I look at this image. It makes me think about beauty and about death and goodbye.  Studying Jonathan's photo and thinking my own thoughts inspired me to write my response poem And so it is.

Here is what Jonathan wrote to me about taking photographs:  With photography - you capture a photo - you usually don't create it unless its a still life in a studio.  I was interested in photographing the magnolias in a new way and went to Capitol Hill where they have a nice line of trees and found, and captured this.  The poem is apropos, because my uncle is dying and has only weeks to live, it was very touching for me.

I gave Jonathan a two-year-old poem, Bottles, as his inspiration piece. But of course I had to revise and tweak the poem before I sent it to him.  Much time had passed since I had read it, and I knew it could be stronger. Here is the older draft, at The Poem Farm in June 2015.  And below is the revised version.

Memories 

by Jonathan Ottke

Inspired by Amy LV's Poem

(Click to Enlarge)

I asked Jonathan to tell me about how he arrived at his response art piece, inspired by my poem.  He said, I usually see the general outlines of a work in my mind once I've worked out he idea.  For this one, I thought of a modified version of the letters of the alphabet.  Where instead of letters each one represented a memory.  Once I had the squares, all that was left was filling each one with swirls and lines of my imagination and memories.

He was also generous to share the intermediate step for the Bottles response:

Intermediate Art Step

by Jonathan Ottke

Click to Enlarge

I find Jonathan's piece whimsical and fascinating.  I just keep studying it, and each time I see new pictures and imagine new imaginings.

Working with someone else, sharing work to find new ideas and to strive toward a deadline is a grand way to push ourselves as makers.  I am grateful to Amy Souza of SPARK for pairing me with Jonathan and for making this space for so many of us to work together.

You might consider trying this.  Find another maker...promise to trade a piece of written, visual, or musical art. Choose a number of days to each make new response pieces inspired by the ones you are given.  And see what happens!  Often what happens...will be a SPARK!

Lucky me this week to be visiting Irene Latham's Live Your Poem!  She invited me to visit to share a bit behind the scenes of READ! READ! READ!, and I couldn't be happier.  Boyds Mills Press (donating books) and I (signing and shipping books) are holding a giveaway for this forthcoming (Tuesday!) book, joyfully illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke.

Poems About Reading

This giveaway runs through September 20 (Wednesday!), and there will be five winners of one signed book each.  You may enter HERE.

Michelle is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Today's Little Ditty. She is sharing words of Peace and an invitation to share on the Peace Padlet that Margarita Engle and I have put together, and too, she is sharing an invitation to write peace poems. Teachers - please take a peek at the Padlet, and add to it if you are willing.  And please know....Poetry Friday is for everyone.  We welcome you every single week!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

If you are under 13 years old, please comment only with a parent 

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.