Celebrating TWILIGHT with Marcie Flinchum Atkins!

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Marcie for a WHEN TWILIGHT COMES Poetry Friday Roundup! It's an enchanting bit of loveliness, according to the starred Kirkus review. Of course it is; Marcie wrote it! I can't wait to get my copy in the mail.

Quick announcement: this week's Tuesday 2-Minute Writing Tip 32 "The Truth about Book Awards" shares some thoughts from my experience serving on multiple book award committees over the past decade. Enjoy!

When Marcie asked us all to flood the internet with images and poems about twilight, I immediately searched my computer files. I found some "twilight" poems, but even more "dusk" poems! Apparently, my poet-brain prefers "dusk." 

That discovery sent me on an internet search to find the difference between twilight and dusk. (Spoiler: dusk is simply one phase of twilight, defined by the degree to which the sun has set!) 

Then I searched my own files again for "sunrise" and "sunset" and found quite a few of both. Here's a small sampling. 

Poem Found in a Ditch at Dusk

Twilight Time

Impression (of a Sunrise)

Alabama Sunrise Trinet

Recipe for a Sunset

(Elephant) Dust Bath at Dusk (from Dear Wandering Wildebeest: And Other Poems from the Watering Hole by Irene Latham, illus. by Anna Wadham)

(Elephant) Dust Bath at Dusk

Dust Bath at Dusk


Trunks become
dust hoses,
beasts strike poses

and preen in silhouette
created by the late,
hazy screen.

Soon skin
is powdered
in a red-grit shower

that banishes bugs
and becomes next day's
sunscreen.

One final
wallow,
one last trumpet--

all clean!


- Irene Latham



"How to Catch a Poem" (featuring dusk-y fireflies and found in The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog: And Other How-To Poems selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illus. by Richard Jones). Confession: this is a favorite of my own poems!

How to Catch a Poem

Step into the trees 

on a summer night —

follow starshine 

and cricketsong.

Be still, keep quiet; 

watch for the flicker.

(No chasing,

let it come to you.)

Reach. Hold it in the safe 

cave of your fingers

until the wings tickle.

Marvel at the glow

                            then

let it go.

- Irene Latham

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AND I decided to write a new twilight poem for this week's ArtSpeak: WOMEN...only it morphed as poems do...and again with "dusk!"

The art is by abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell.  I wanted to play with punctuation and repetition. Once again, I used the title of the piece (Blue Tree) as my jumping-off place. Thanks so much for reading! 

Mama Tree Teaches Little Tree / the Color of Time

See / Little Tree?

Dawn tree / pink tree

Noon tree / green tree

Dusk tree / blue tree

Sweet dreams / Little Tree!

- Irene Latham