Sometimes I draw pictures to get inspiration for a poem. Others, the poem comes first. This was one of those.
Poem: Surrender
Tag Archives: illustrated poem
Poem: Invitation by Michelle Garren Flye
It’s ironic that the coldest part of my life thus far fell during the summer I was writing 100 Warm Days of Haiku, but that’s the way life works sometimes, I suppose. At any rate, this cool fall morning I woke up and realized I felt warm again. I can’t tell you why. Again, I suppose it’s just the way life and the heart work.
Maybe now I should start writing warm poetry?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But I did write one today. And here it is.
Poem: The Tiger
A companion piece (or sequel?) to “Dead Dragon”
The Tiger
By Michelle Garren Flye
There’s a tiger in my heart
Pacing and guarding,
Keeping me safe.
He banished the dragon—
The one you abandoned
And left to its fate.
I love my tiger.
His growl seems to say,
You got this, little one,
I’m here to the end.
You got this, you’re strong
And you know it now.
And I do know it, because—
(You want to know why?)
Not everyone can hold
A tiger in her heart.
Warm Haiku Preview
Poem: When We Return to Normal
As we return to normal, I’m seeing lots of signs of people forgetting. It’s human nature, of course, to want to forget pain and sorrow and fear. Part of our makeup as a species. But I had big hopes we could come through this more together than ever. That’s the poet in me, always wanting to be optimistic even when reality nips my heels like an annoying chihuahua.
Anyway, this poem has been on here before, but never like this. It’s in my book of illustrated poetry UnSong, also.
A Haiku for an Anniversary
I haven’t shared anything here in a while because I’m working hard on 100 Warm Days of Haiku. And my daughter thinks I share too much of my books before they’re published. She’s not wrong. It’s a delicate balance sharing enough to intrigue you but not enough to make it not worth your while to buy the book when it comes out. However, today is my 26th wedding anniversary and I just drew a very romantic haiku. 🙂 So I thought I’d share it. Here, for your reading and viewing pleasure, is Haiku 52, which will be in my upcoming poetry book, !00 Warm Days of Haiku.
Five Star Review for UnSong!
I cannot tell you how much it means to find a positive new review for one of your books. The surge of triumph, heartwarming and uplifting… For poets, this feeling may be elusive, but it’s just as powerful, if not more so. It’s why we writers risk rejection so willingly. Because we’re basically junkies for that feeling.
So you can imagine how I felt when I found this review on Amazon:
If you haven’t read UnSong yet, you’re missing out. Reviewers (my fellow poets) had already proclaimed it “wicked-smart” (Dennis Mahagin, author of Grand Mal), “joyful and optimistic” (Alice Osborn, author of Heroes Without Capes), and “a dash of light to repel the darkness” (Sam Love, author of Awakening: Musings on Planetary Survival). Now it’s got five stars on Amazon!
Happy Mother’s Day Haiku!
Has it really been more than a week since I posted an illustrated haiku? Trust me, I haven’t been idle. I’m working hard to get out my next illustrated poetry book 100 Warm Days of Haiku by fall. Which basically means I need to keep pace with what I did in April. Today I’m slowing down a little, but I have one ready for Mother’s Day, anyway.
This one is for the mothers. All the mothers. The mothers like me who were lucky enough to go the traditional route. The mothers of fur babies. The male mothers. The single mothers. The childless mothers. The adopted mothers. The old mothers, the new mothers, the tired mothers, the sad mothers, the happy mothers, the proud mothers, the I-don’t-know-why-I-did-this mothers, the will-this-ever-end mothers (yes…and no), the confused mothers (all of us), the grandmothers, the unexpected mothers, the I’m-supposed-to-be-an-aunt mothers… All the mothers.
My heart is with you all. Because we all know what it is to love someone else more than ourselves.
We shouldn’t be so damn hard on ourselves, but those precious lives we take on our souls are a burden we willingly bear—and often worry we didn’t bear well enough.
For you, mothers.
UnSong Release!
Today is usually both a relief and a sad day for me because I love National Poetry Month. 🙂 In case you couldn’t tell. I enjoy challenging myself by writing a poem a day. I love reading others’ poetry, and this month I took it a step further and invited local poets to submit recordings of themselves reading one of their poems, which I then posted on my store’s social media.
It’s a been a good month.
If you’ve enjoyed my illustrated haiku, thank you. They’ve been a great deal of fun to come up with. I’m planning to continue through the summer (though not posting them online, sorry) and at the end I hope to have something I can be proud enough of to publish with the title “100 Warm Days of Haiku”. This one will be different since I’m getting more confident with my use of color. It’ll still be pretty cheap as a Kindle book, but the physical book may be a bit more expensive since I’d like to publish it in color this time.
In the meantime, please consider giving my first collection of illustrated poetry, “UnSong”, a try. It’s available online today. I don’t have physical copies in my store yet because I worked on it right up til the deadline to make sure it was something I could be proud of (and I am).
So here it goes. I’m releasing UnSong on the world. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.
Haiku 30 (National Poetry Month)
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 