Tag: Poem

Fading

When I was digging around in a box in the basement, looking for items to donate, I found my old Sink Poem. I took it out of the dusty glass frame to photograph, cleaned the glass and reinserted the parchment. I’ve typed it as the poem is fading.

Sink Poem

When you dump your glass in here,

Who will find it later, dear?

When you soak your pan or pot

Did you stop to give a thought?

Who will have to stay up late

When you leave your bowl or plate?

Who will rinse and wash and dry

I wonder who?

I wonder why?

Calligraphy by Marianne M
Sink Poem, written decades ago, before I resumed my surname.

by Categories: Photography, poetryTags: , , , , , , , , , 16 Comments

My Bookshelf – a post from 2010


14 years ago this blog post somehow created a lot of response on Reddit. When you scroll down and read the poem I wrote you’ll see how I reacted to all the negative comments. .

My Favorite Bookshelf Image

What books would you put on your favorites bookshelf?

What books would you select for your bookshelf to be painted by artist Jane Mount? Her Ideal Bookshelf paintings (click link to see) featured in the New Yorker Jane Mount’s Ideal Bookshelf By Monica Racic. August 10, 2009

inspired me to put twenty volumes together on one shelf and photograph them.   Anne of Green Gables was a Christmas 1925 gift to my mother from her mother and the Gene Stratton-Porter book was my mother’s.  C.S. Lewis’ Silver Chair is a stand-in for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Most of these books belonged to my sister Mary and got passed down to me. Longfellow was a gift to my brother David and me from Cousin Paul in 1961. In sixth grade I had to memorize, “Under a spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands….. The Beatrix Potter in French was from my sister (who signed it Marie) and presented it to me on my half birthday one January fourth.  The Book of Common Prayer is my grandmothers and inside she’s written the recipients of afghans she knit. The Tiny Golden Book in The Naughty Little Guest by Dorothy Kunhardt. The Sunny Sulky Book opened two different directions with the good children and bad children stories.  I loved Fairy Eat-It-All who came in the night with a spoon for a little boy whose eyes were bigger than his  stomach, and he had to eat his way through a mound of food he had taken and not eaten.  So here are my books from growing up, all on one shelf.


My Bookshelf

You tell me my old books smell
like a Goodwill bin.
Old dust and stick your nose in,
breathe.

The weight of them
on the house’s foundation.
My hardwood floors sag.
You say I’m impaired
in technology.
Society will evolve without me?
All I need in my life
is an e-reader not musty books.

I like the feel of them in my hand.
Turn them over, slip off a dustjacket.
See the author peer back at me.
The opening of the first page.
Or a slender bookmark to hold my place.
I’m sad they’re closing the store.

My list of reasons to read
from a page (or your preferred screen)–

There’s escape,
entertainment,
information,
directions-
maps, cooking, and signs,
travel or how to put something together
take meds,
but for me
reason number one. Two and three.
There’s my mother’s voice
my dad’s, in certain volumes
reading to me-
the escape I mentioned before.
And enjoyment. Sheer enjoyment.
I’m sure you can think of more.

What books would you put on your “favorites bookshelf”?

Added June 23, 2024 You can contact Jane Mount for your very own custom bookshelf painting

by Categories: books, PhotographyTags: , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Supporting Your Independent Bookstore and a Friend

October 11th, fellow blogger and friend, Audrey Kletscher Helbling, posted the news that her poem, “Funeral During a Pandemic” had been published in an award winning book- This Was 2020—Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year.


The collection was compiled by Paul Lai, a Ramsey County Librarian in Minnesota. If you click the link at “posted the news” above so you can see a photo of the beginning of her poignant poem.

There are 54 pieces of prose and poetry in the volume.  I called the reference librarian at their library and was able to get the

ISBN# 9781087967622

I discovered the book could be ordered from your independent bookstore. So I did!

Here is a nearby independent bookstore, White Whale Bookstore (“a home for book lovers”) in Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh PA, just a few miles from my home.  Today I went to pick up the book. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Hope you have an independent bookstore near you.

 

 

 

by Categories: books, WritingTags: , , , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Coffee, Earl Grey Tea Bread and a Remembered Poem

After our walk, my friends Jen snd I Went to have a coffee. There was a slice of of Earl Grey Tea Bread in the case and she’d had it before. Encouraged me to order snd try it . It was brought to the table with a generous amount butter and lemon zest on top.

We were at de Fer Coffee in the Strip District. And she was right. It was delicious. The butter slathered on top reminded me of the A.A, Milne poem the King’s Breakfast when the Dairymaid asks the Alderney “Don’t forget the butter for
The Royal slice of bread.” I’d say the cow did the butter spreading royally!

Remembering how my mother read aloud to me, this is a poem I can hear her voice recite the verses. Another she’d read with great expression was Milne’s poem Disobedience. I’d not thought of either in years.

Until the slice of bread arrived at the table in the coffee shop.

Funny how a slice of bread with lots of butter sparks a childhood memory of a poem being read aloud and the cadence and tone of a mother’s voice can come alive in your head, decades later.

Once my cousin John B wrote that my mother’s voice was mellifluous. I had to look it up!

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Two Roads Diverged in a Green Wood

We were on our way to a First Communion Party a week ago and my Daughter- in-Law was driving. When we saw the two branches of road in front of us, The Road Not Taken, the poem by Robert Frost, came to mind. Yes, these woods are a new Spring green, not a yellow wood, but poetic/blogging license?
When I went to find the actual poem I found this interesting Paris Review article by David Orr*.  Here’s a quote from his article, The Most Misread Poem in America (click here )
Go to the article and read about a 2008 New Zealand Ford Co Car Commercial which uses the poem without even giving credit to Robert Frost! If you want to consider the variances in interpretation of Frost’s poem you will find the article enlightening.
“Given the pervasiveness of Frost’s lines, it should come as no surprise that the popularity of “The Road Not Taken” appears to exceed that of every other major twentieth-century American poem, including those often considered more central to the modern (and modernist) era.”   
 Author Orr listed the GOOGLE stats of searches to prove it!  Who knew this particular was so popular?
Parts of verses still stick in my mind and when I saw this scene in the woods, they came right up. When I was in grade school, we had to memorize a poem a week and recite it from memory.
    The Road Not Taken 
                                                   by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(By the way, we took the right of the fork)
*from the article
David Orr is the poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review. He is the winner of the Nona Balakian Prize from the National Book Critics Circle, and his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Slate, and The Yale Review.
 
by Categories: Photography, poetry, Six Word SaturdayTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

By Their Sidewalks You Will Know Them

First posted in February 2010 and again in 2013.  Thanks Timons Esaias Guest Poet

Sidewalk Shoveled

Tim’s Poem Came to Mind as I Admired the Concrete First Time in Two Weeks – Photographed Feb 2010

By Their Sidewalks You Will Know Them

Originally there were eleven Commandments

Moses, perhaps confused by the unfamiliar

snow, ice, and sidewalk,

botched one, and left it out.

But Buddha said that though Life is Pain,

falling on ice is gratuitous pain

and those who cause it, by neglect,

should never escape the Wheel of Rebirth;

and Lao-Tzu agreed, for those who will not

clear the path will never find the Way.

Zoroaster, in the endless war of light

against ice, demanded diligence;

claimed that those who surrender

the public way to the Enemy

have empty souls,

can scarcely be regarded as human.

The Prophet, regarding sidewalks and snow,

is silent; but his sura

Sand Drifting Against the Caravanserai Gate

is thought to apply. The condemnation there

is brutal and eternal.

Plato counted safe sidewalks as fundamental

to the ideal Republic, noting that those remiss

in this clear duty lacked all character;

and his pupil – perceptive, immortal Aristotle-

further declared, famously, that

lack of character

is destiny.

-Timons Esaias
Timons Esaias is a writer and poet living in Pittsburgh. His short stories, ranging from literary to genre, have been published in fourteen languages. He has had over a hundred poems in print, including Spanish, Swedish and Chinese translations, in such markets as 5AM, Bathtub Gin, Main Street Rag, Willard & Maple, Elysian Fields Quarterly: The Literary Journal of Baseball and many others. He has also been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award, and won the Asimov’s Readers Award. His poetry chapbook, The Influence of Pigeons on Architecture, sold out two editions. He is Adjunct Faculty at Seton Hill University, in the Writing Popular Fiction M.F.A. Program. This poem was originally published in hotmetalpoets.com when it existed.

This entry was posted on February 19, 2010. It was filed under poetry, Things in the Snow and was tagged with city scene, HIghland Park, photo of the day, photography, Pittsburgh, Poem, poet, poetry, shovel, sidewalk, snow, Timons Esaias, urban scene, winter scene.

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16 responses

Bill

Too deep for me.

February 19, 2010 at 7:07 am Edit

Reply

Toni Kichi

Makes me happy that our sidewalks are clear and clean – thanks to Mike!! I couldn’t handle all those punishments! Seems like an almost normal day today!! Thanks for starting it with something special!!! Did Bill mean the snow was too deep – or the poem??!! Either way, I agree! My mind is mush (like this snow will soon be) — been in the house too long!!!

February 19, 2010 at 8:42 am Edit

Reply

Dorothy

All tis is great Ruth. It is like your photos and words are a diary of living through these snowy days.

Dorothy

February 19, 2010 at 9:12 am Edit

Reply

erica

Too wonderful for … words?? 🙂 Changes my attitude on shoveling, altho I am already somewhat aware that I smile and feel satisfaction when I get to the concrete! A bit anxious now, tho, about the snow still on the bushes, bending branches low over the sidewalk leading to my caravanserai gate ……! 🙂

February 19, 2010 at 9:52 am Edit

Reply

Arlene Weiner

There is a special place in hell

where, frozen in ice, only his rear

exposed to Satan’s teeth, he’ll dwell

whose sidewalk’s untouched while his driveway’s clear.

February 19, 2010 at 10:50 am Edit

Reply

joseph k

that is one great photo

joseph

February 19, 2010 at 4:27 pm Edit

Reply

Bonnie Imhoff

I know the snow is a pain, but it is beautiful. I enjoy the pic very much.

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7 THOUGHTS ON “BY THEIR SIDEWALKS YOU WILL KNOW THEM – GUEST POET TIMONS ESAIAS- ORIGINALLY POSTED 2-19-2010”

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The Satisfaction of Sock Knitting

knitsocks

A Handknit Sock

There’s a math to it. The cast on. Count
the multiples of four.
Last year it was hats and cowls.
This year, socks.
I want to try the fish lips kiss heel.

It’s a simple thing. How a sock is knit.
You start with yarn.
Needles as slim as toothpicks.
Terms like toe and gusset and cuff.
My friend says, "it’s too much work."

There’s a rhythm in the repetition.
The making. Clockwise circles.
Some throw, some pick.
Row after row after row.
In time you get length and warmth.

There’s the calm you long for,
around and around and around.
Turn heel for a path to Zen.
You think of those you love.
The grandmother who taught you.

The wet squeezed out,
pairs hang to dry. Later fold
their softness, admire the colors,
ignore imperfections.
Find comfort, hidden in shoes.
My squishy hand knit socks.
by Categories: knitting, Photography, poetryTags: , , , , , , , , , , 39 Comments

Poem in Your Pocket Day – April 30th

My sister wrote to remind me that April 30th (tomorrow) is Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Don’t have a poem?

You can download one from the American Academy of Poets site right here

When I taught in a K-8 school, I had a basket of poems for the office counter with a sign, TAKE ONE.

I read a poem a day over the PA for the K-2 morning announcements for the month of April, National Poetry Month.

Sometimes the poem taker would put back the poem they selected in search of one that spoke to them.

Tonight I printed out The Pasture by Robert Frost. Put it in my denim blazer pocket.

When I was in the third grade (1960) I had to memorize and recite it at the end of the year “stepping up” ceremony.

Mary is going to have one of our mother’s favorite- Walt Whitman’s Elegy- When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed

What poem will you have in your pocket to read and share?

poem

 

 

 

 

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Vincent, Euthemia, Dorothy, Liane and Montclair Came to Mind Today

iris blooming

October 29th,  Wednesday Afternoon

Funny how the unexpected sight of something triggers a stream of consciousness.

The word Iris, the sight of these Iris blooming made me think of many things.

In Highland Park after school today, while waiting for a poet to arrive to shoot the author photo for her new book cover,

I saw these Iris.

I always think of Iris as the“end of the school year” flower but now I see they bloom in late October, too.

Vincent Van Gogh painted them.

Euthemia is always planting, growing, showing and readying Iris for her Capital Hudson Iris Society show and sale

Liane Ellison Norman wrote a poem, ” I Dug Up the Iris”  about our friend Dorothy’s Iris.

When I was young, we lived in Montclair New Jersey and walked in the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens named after the founder of the American Iris Society.

Iris.

So many memories triggered by the sight of their blooming today.

October Iris

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My Conversation With God – Guest Blog

 

My conversation with God 7/13/13

I don’t want to talk about the Treyvon Benjamin Martin story

Because it’s been told before        because I know how it ends

black boy      dead boy        no boy wins.

And you,

you were supposed to be watching

keeping him from harm.

His mother prayed and prayed    and

you said you would       she believed

you could

he was the one in the hood

and you just didn’t.

Maybe you looked away for a second

got distracted,

heard thousands calling your name

so much you couldn’t hear him

couldn’t decipher it from the voices

the noises,

maybe you confused it with a cheer

when the field goal was good,

or a hymn        that was really loud

maybe you didn’t like what he had to say

all young and un-educated like.

but really,

how long would it have taken,

how long did it take

for you to call

for him to leave,

join you,

be rewarded

such a short time

in your care.

Was it just too dark that night?  Was he just too dark that night?

They say he looked like all the others, “all the other punks that get away”.

 

 — a poem by Cj Coleman

Cj teaches in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, is a Western Pennsylvania Writing Project Fellow (U of Pittsburgh) and a member of Madwomen in the Attic (Carlow University)

Cj emailed me this poem and I found this photograph in my archives to accompany her words.

Hoodie Day March 30, 2012
 Hoodie Day March 30, 2012                 Pittsburgh Public Schools

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