Tag Archives: poetry

Happy National Poetry Month!

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It’s my favorite month. National Poetry Month. I try to read a poem or two a day during National Poetry Month. It’s not very hard, so this year, I’m challenging myself to something a little tougher.

Write a poem a day.

Post it here.

Yeah, I know, not smart to post raw stuff, but I’m determined and not many people read this anyway. So today I dug deep, and here you go:

 

End of Daffodil Season

By Michelle Garren Flye

 

Thick, yellow air.

Breathless.

 

Sun warming,

Breeze chills.

 

Tall stems sway

Shrivel.

 

Die.

 

No more buds

To love.

 

Yellow blossoms

Are gone.

 

Winds promise

More fun.

 

Soon.

 

Colorblinded for Two Voices

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A few months ago, inspired by current events, I wrote the poem “Colorblinded” and published it here because I’m not enough of a poet to think I should bug publishers with my stuff. However, I love poetry—writing, reading and teaching it—and I’m currently researching poems for multiple voices. And I wanted something to demonstrate two points of view, so I decided to rewrite “Colorblinded” so it reflected the other POV as well as mine. I’m not sure how good it is, but with National Poetry Day coming up in October, I thought I might share this one here. Since I am hopeless about formatting blogs, it’s in jpg format, but if you’d like to blow it up a bit for easier reading, click on this link: colorblinded-for-two-voices

colorblinded-for-two-voices-page-0

 

Colorblinded in troubled times

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My last post was a political one. This post is not. At least it is not intended to be, though race relations have been politicized to the point where it is difficult to separate the two. Over the past few days I have seen so many tragedies in the news, however, useless killing on the streets of my country. These killings deeply wounded the black community and the blue community. My heart goes out to both, along with my fear and worry for the future of our world and our country if we can’t find a way to mend attitudes and live together. When I tried to put my feelings into words, this is what came out. I don’t write poetry very often but this feels like poetry to me.

 

Colorblinded

By Michelle Garren Flye

I am not colorblind.

I see you. I see your differences. When I pass you on the street, I see you aren’t the same as me. Your skin, your attitude, your music, your life. You are different. I see you, and I don’t know you.

You are a mystery.

I am colorblinded.

Do you see me? Do you see the mother, the artist, the poet, the person who is me? Can you see past my skin, or does it blind you? Do you see only a white, privileged, raised-in-the-South woman who doesn’t understand?

I don’t think you see me.

I think you are colorblinded, too.

Tell me what would happen if I reached out to you. Tell me what would happen if white skin touched black…and black touched back. If hand held hand in a long, long line of red and yellow, black and white…

Could we be colorblind together?

Whose eyes do YOU see the world through?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about filters for the past few weeks. When I was a teenager, I thought I wanted to be a photographer. Somehow I got a pretty good 35mm camera. (Remember those? The ones you loaded the film in and when it hit the end of the 36 exposures, the film would rewind with a whirring noise?) I experimented a lot with this camera, putting different filters over the lens to get different effects in the final prints. One would make everything look kind of rosy, another would create sparkles wherever there was light, and there were others, but I can’t remember them because those two were my favorites.

I think we all see the world through filters of our own choosing. These filters are created by outside sources. The news comes to mind. Depending on which news you watch on television or which newspaper you read or where you go on the internet, you may see the world in a different light. Is the Confederate flag an emblem of racism or Southern pride? Is gay marriage the best thing to happen to our world since the end of World War II? Or the beginning of the apocalypse? Are pro-lifers evil or is it the mother who gets the abortion?

I can’t help but come back to the filters I used to put on my old Nikon. I chose to see the world as sparkly and rose-colored, and I probably still do in many ways. I don’t watch news programs very often or read the Wall Street Journal. I know what ISIS is, but when I hear the word, I still think of the Egyptian Goddess Isis (who was a superhero with her own show in the 70s) and not the terrorist group, which, if I think too much about their evil, will cause me to cower in a corner for the better part of the day.

Poets and writers and news media color everyone’s impression of the world and have for centuries. The best example I can think of for poetry filters are Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”, a rose-tinted painting of love in the countryside, and Sir Walter Raleigh’s “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”, a stark response based in reality that rips the romance right off Marlowe’s filter.

No matter who you are and what happens to you in your life, you see the world through your own chosen filter. But you can choose to try on a different one every now and then. Turn on FOX News from time to time. Switch to CNN for half an hour. Turn the television off and pick up a book of poetry. See the world from the other side, or at least try to.

Just Spring is over… Share your favorite poem with me!

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For those who don’t know, April is National Poetry Month. This year I’ve celebrated by teaching some amazing kids about poetry. It’s been fun, rewarding and, at times, truly amazing.

But I digress. Last week we wound up our study with a look at concrete poetry, which gave me the opportunity to share e.e. cummings’s haunting “[In Just-]“. I’ve always loved this poem and read it regularly to see what else I can discover about it. I remember the first time a teacher displayed this poem on the overhead projector and I was so puzzled by it. I was just getting used to poetry that looked like poetry and here was this crazy mishmash of unrhymed, strangely patterned words.

And yet, it’s the poem I come back to most often when I think about poetry. And it’s the poem I think of when the world is mud-luscious and starting to warm up and the flowers aren’t blooming yet but you know they will… Just spring.

Perhaps the world does us an injustice by making just spring so short a time. It’s over here now, ending with the brief month of April. The first flowers are past their bloom, the mosquitoes are beginning to bite. Summer and pool time and the beach and lazy days are coming. We’re all looking forward to it, but we’ll miss those first days of spring.

Next year when March and April come around, though, I look forward to again listening for the far and wee whistle of the little lame balloon man. And in the meantime, I’ll watch for the seeds I planted this April to sprout and grow.Image What’s your favorite poem? Share it with me in the comments!

An odd ode to coffee, my true love

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I’m tired. I’ll be honest, I’ve been staying up far too late this summer, mainly because–for the most part anyway–I can get away with it. Slower starts in the mornings are okay when you don’t have to rush the children to school. But I’m relying too much on my old friend and true love to get me through the mornings.

Coffee.

No matter how you drink it, if you’re addicted to it, you know what love is. I like mine with a packet of Splenda and a dab of plain Coffee Mate. Smooth, creamy and woodsy.

I recently had a friend tell me she no longer drank caffeine. She’s probably healthier than me, and I’m sure her teeth are whiter, but all I could think was…

No coffee?

A writer’s world revolves around coffee. I myself have no less than two cups in the morning and sometimes a cup in the afternoon. It’s a ritual steeped in superstition as much as need for caffeine. And unfortunately, my addiction is complete. I need my coffee. In fact, I was so moved by my need for the earthy tasting brown liquid, I wrote a little poem for it this morning.

And it goes like this:

I may need a cup of coffee this morn.
One cup should do it. Just one is all.
I may need more than one cup of coffee.
Up too late. It’s a writer’s life. One more.
I may need more than two cups of coffee today.
Not even noon and I’m dragging. Another please.
Three cups of coffee and I’m buzzing.
Tired and buzzing and not able to blink.
I think I need…where’s the bathroom?

Tune in tomorrow when I express my addiction to wine in song…or not.