Poetry Machine!

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme for Roundup!

How's your National Poetry Month shaping up so far??

 I LOVED hanging out with Poetry Peeps during #HFGather earlier this week. What a great way to get the month of poetry-lovin' started!

And today, I'm away from my desk, hanging out with my Garden Girls! A different kind of poetry!

My public art project to celebrate National Poetry Month is a Poetry Machine! Basically it's a 25-cent gumball machine loaded with pods that each contain a tiny poem! I'm so grateful to Dawn at Pink Porch Market and Lee at Charlie B's Restaurant for giving my Poetry Machine a home during April...and maybe beyond! See video below.

Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO features a Picasso landscape! I didn't even know Picasso painted landscapes...but yes, yes he did! This one features rain, because when I sat down to write this poem, it was raining, and I thought what fun it would be to write a "rain" poem to the sound of rain on our metal roof! (I was right: it WAS fun!) Thanks so much for reading.

When Rain Comes on a Sunday Morning
by Irene Latham


rooster calls to rain

cockadoodledrizzle!

gate squeaks to rain

thanks, I needed a bath

steeple sings to rain

you make me believe

child chortles to rain

now I'm all wet!

Little Goat Pantoum

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Marcie Flinchum Atkins for Roundup.

First a reminder about next Tuesday's #HFGather event in celebration of National Poetry Month! Hope you can join us.

I'm looking forward to all the poetry-love our community will be offering in the coming weeks! Isn't NPM the best?!

Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO features a goat! Goats have been on my mind since last week's Alabama Master Naturalist field day to Red Mountain Park in Birmingham, Alabama. Turns out goats have been park residents at one time or another. They're brought on to help control the privet, kudzu, and honeysuckle, which are invasive species. If you need this service, call Goat Busters! :)

Also: I learned on Clarkson's Farm  that it takes a couple of years for goats' mouths to harden. In other words, you can't expect young goats to be able to clear brambles! (Just in case anyone out there is considering bringing goats into their lives.)

Paul and I had a couple of goats early in our marriage...Beth and Billy. They were adorable! And also pests. They ate up my azaleas! 

When I was a child in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, there were LOTS of goats. I loved them. Especially when we'd go to get in our car, and a couple of them would be sleeping on top. They could be REALLY stubborn about (not) getting down! 

And then there's the Goat Trees in Dauphin Island, Alabama. Legend has it that goats would "roost" in the trees to ride out hurricanes...and also to escape roaming alligators. I believe it! 

I decided to write today's poem as a pantoum, because that's the page I flipped to in Dictionary for a Better World: Poems, Quotes, and Anecdotes from A to Z. (I often use Dictionary to hunt for forms to jumpstart poems!) I also found this great step-by-step guide to writing a pantoum. (Just in case anyone out there is considering writing one!) Thank so much for reading.

Goat Pantoum

If you want to meet a goat
let it be spring.
Climb a hill,
look for tender green leaves.

Let it be spring—
that nest of sun and song.

Can't find tender green leaves?
Dream beneath a tree.

O, nest of sun and song!
What joy to climb a hill!
Dream beneath a tree
if you want to meet a goat.

- Irene Latham

Rainbows, Strawberries, and One Pretty Mama!

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Rose at Imagine the Possibilities for Roundup.

I'm excited! All those flower bulbs I planted in fall are coming up tulips and daffodils! (I think bulbs are my favorite kind of gardening: plant 'em and forget 'em. And then...surprise! flowers!) 

Also: My son helped me put up a new bluebird box, and a couple has moved in! They're frequent guests at the feeder, too, so, I am really enjoying getting glimpses. I also put out the hummingbird feeder to attract those early scouts. No visitors yet, but soon. . . isn't spring wondrous?

In other news, I'm proud to have poems in new anthologies. A Universe of Rainbows, poems selected by Matt Forrest Esenwine, illus. by Jamey Christoph (Eerdman's), includes my poem "The Rainbow Keeper" on the spread that talks about crystals and prisms.

When I wrote this one, I was thinking about one of my most favorite poems for kids: "Knitted Things" by Karla Kuskin. I do enjoy a poem that tells a kind of magical story, and because this book is informational, I especially wanted to create a poem with some whimsy! I'm grateful to Matt for including it.

The Rainbow Keeper

by Irene Latham

There was a girl who loved brilliant things:

crystals, gemstones, diamond rings.

She digs them up, wipes them clean.

She asks them: what wonders have you seen?

She marvels at their varied colors—

periwinkle, lime, cyan, butter.

She sings to them of geometry, of heat.

She displays them on her bedroom window seat.

Crystals are her favorite find—

especially the broken kind.

Their way of speaking is to glimmer,

shimmer, SHINE!

How do they make their tiny rainbows?

Only the Rainbow Keeper knows.

----

I'm also super-grateful to have a poem included in 40 Poems for 40 Weeks: Integrating Meaningful Poetry and Word Ladders into Grades 3-5 Literacy edited by David L. Harrison and Timothy V. Rasinski. 

Y'all this book is really special because in addition to the poems and word ladders, each poet speaks directly to kids! I loved learning more about all these wonderful poets, and I know children will, too.

My poem is called "Strawberry Self-Portrait." It was a poem cut from my collection Fresh Delicious: Poems from the Farmers' Market (because it was in the voice of the fruit, and the publisher decided it was maybe a little too creepy for young readers to be empathizing too much with something that will be eaten!). But it's remained a favorite poem of mine, so I am delighted it found a home in this book. Thanks, David and Tim!

Strawberry Self-Portrait

by Irene Latham

Juicy, sweet, delectable:

that's me.

But do you see?

I'm also bumpy, grumpy.

My skin is pink in places

it ought not be.

My cap is crooked

and ants have chewed

a hunk out of me. See?

My brothers are bigger,

my sisters sweeter.

But it's fine, it's okay.

I'm the only me

there will ever be.

-----

Finally I'm excited to share this week's ArtSpeak: PICASSO poem. I love this dreamy painting, I think because I love taking naps! :) 

I was thinking of Janet Wong's noodle poem when I wrote this one. Janet uses her noodle poem as a reminder that poems for kids needn't be complicated. Sometimes simple (silly!) language is best. So instead of wordplay or surprises, I focused my energy on channeling my (egocentric!) child-voice in this one. I was definitely a child who adored her mama (as my mom's box of love poems written by wee me proves!). Thanks so much for reading.

Mama So Pretty

by Irene Latham

Mama so pretty

when she smiles

Mama so pretty

when she sings

Mama so pretty

when she dreams

Mama so pretty

she must be

dreaming about

ME!

----

Donut poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Janice at Salt City Verse for Roundup.

I'm super-excited to be joining Charles Waters next Monday at Story on the Square in McDonough, GA, to share If I Could Choose a Best Day with Southeastern Independent Booksellers (SIBA)! Booksellers, if you're reading this: hello! Can't wait to meet you!

Something I love: donuts! Some of the best donuts of my life I've enjoyed at the following establishments...not necessarily the best donut, but the ambiance! The moment! The mood!

Daisy's Bakery and Cafe in Locust Fork, AL (Not far from home. Y'all! THE BEST!)

Donut Hole in Destin, FL (red velvet donuts!)

Tato-Nut Donuts in Ocean Springs, MS (later we had Tato-Nut bread pudding at Anthony's Under the Oaks!)

Harriette's in Key Largo, FL (key lime donuts!)

Fluffy's Cafe in New York, NY (any kind of donut with a steaming mug of hot chocolate on a cold night!)

So of course when choosing this week's ArtSpeak: PICASSO subject, this Picasso painting of pastries caught my eye! And then I got to thinking: wouldn't it be fun/ironic to write a Skinny poem about donuts? Ha! 

As a refresher, here are the rules for a Skinny poem: 11 lines; lines 1 & 11 have the same words (order can be changed...and I went even a bit further, because my aesthetic calls me to create a poem that moves/shifts from beginning to end, so I would call this a Variation on a Skinny); lines 2-10 contain only one word each; lines 2, 6, and 10 must use the same word.

At the Bakery

If this donut could talk, it would say:

don't
eat
me,
please
don't,
I'm
sooooooooo
sweet,
don't!

I'm glad this donut can't talk. Yum!

- Irene Latham

For Every Child Earth Cracks Open Her Toybox poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Margaret at Reflections on the Teche for Roundup.

Thanks so much to everyone who joined in the virtual reading earlier this week! Wasn't that so fun and inspiring?! I am so grateful for this community.

Poet-readers: Lacresha Berry, Charles Waters,
Irene Latham, Lisa Rogers, Sylvia Liu, Renée M. LaTulippe,
Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Jolene Gutiérrez,
Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Anna Grossnickle Hines,
Laura Purdie Salas, Georgia Heard, Gabi Snyder,
Nancy Tupper Ling, Amy Losak, Robyn Hood Black,
Eric Ode

You're invited to another free poetry offering coming April 1 from Highlights! This will be such a great way to start off National Poetry Month. I hope you'll join us! Click here for more information and to register.

Earlier this week we watched the movie Perfect Days. It's about a janitor in Tokyo who finds beauty in his simple life. 

One son said it was such a great portrayal of an introvert. 

Another son said, "that's me." 

And this mama's heart thrilled to know these boys love nature, love creating, and they value simplicity and peace over materialism and chaos. 

They love their lives. And so do we, their parents. No doubt this heartspace is where today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO poem hails from. Thanks so much for reading.

For Every Child Earth Cracks Open Her Toybox

Look!
sticks
pebbles
dirt
feathers
sky
puddles
leaves
and a zillion
singing, creeping
things
whispering
will you 

be my friend?

- Irene Latham

One Step Forward by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Denise at Dare to Care for Roundup.

Here on the eve of National Women's History Month, I am delighted to welcome Marcie Flinchum Atkins to the blog to share about her beautiful and informative verse novel One Step Forward, a historical YA verse novel that tells the story of Matilda Young, the youngest suffragist to be imprisoned for protesting for women’s suffrage. Named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and earning a starred review from Kirkus, this novel is a must-read! Visit Marcie's website to discover other goodies, including a Teacher's Guide.

Before we get to all the goodness, a reminder about next Monday's FREE poetry reading! Please come. It's going to be all kinds of inspiring!

Now, for more about One Step Forward. If you follow Marcie's blog, then you know what a generous, talented, and inspiring woman she is, always giving us haiku, photographs, reading lists, and new challenges to adopt or at least follow along with! And now, finally (!), her verse novel is entering the marketplace and the lives of readers.

Lucky me, I got an early look at One Step Forward. I read it all in one sitting and marveled at the history (which I did not know) and how beautifully Marcie used poetic tools to tell the story. Women marched for voting rights, and Marcie's words march down the page. Women were jailed in their pursuit of voting rights, and Marcie creates a "jail" with her words. You will never again take your voting rights for granted after reading this book. It left me grateful for those who fought so long (!) and so hard for us to exercise this right. Marcie's book really shows that. Here's the blurb I wrote:

And now, please welcome Marcie as she responds to a few prompts (that originated with the publication of my book Fresh Delicious: Poems from the Farmers' Market)!

FRESH: I love stories that have never been told before. In 2020, the United States
celebrated the centennial anniversary of women’s right to vote. I wanted to tell the
story of Matilda Young, a teen who worked for suffrage in Washington, DC. Outside of some mentions in the historical record, Matilda’s story had never been told. You can see a picture of Matilda Young at the Library of Congress.

Marcie's manuscripts

DIFFICULT: Matilda’s story is the one I ended up telling, but I didn’t start there. 
I swam around in a bunch of different POVs before settling on Matilda’s. I started with a collective we voice, then I wrote the whole book from multiple POVs, each from different suffragists’ perspectives. Then I found Matilda. To be a teen novel, it made sense that the voice carrying the story was a teen. Finding the story was a long road.

Occoquan jail cell

I also struggled with the time covered in the book. I knew the midpoint of the story was going to be the Night of Terror in 1917, a night in Occoquan Workhouse where many women were jailed and tortured for protesting at the White House. But the time I wanted to cover was more than that night. It needed context. I wanted to feature the Women’s March of 1913 all the way to the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920. I cover seven years in this book, which made pacing tricky.

All of these were difficult decisions marked by trial and error.

Uncovering history can also be marked by difficult things. While I knew that 1920 didn’t allow ALL women to vote, I was horrified by how many women were disenfranchised for decades after the 19th amendment—including Matilda.

The residents of Washington, DC (Matilda was one) couldn’t vote for president until
1961. It took the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to open the doors for people of color to
vote. And many people still deal with voter suppression in this country today.

But I couldn’t shake the idea that many women who worked for suffrage still didn’t get to exercise that right even after the 19th amendment was passed.

It was also difficult to know that finding my way through this book meant that 2020,
and the centennial anniversary, was coming and my book still wasn’t quite ready. I felt like I was missing a perfect opportunity to capitalize on the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment. And then COVID19 shut down the world in 2020 and the world wasn’t paying much attention to books.

DELICIOUS: I love words! It’s probably no surprise to the poets among us. I could play with words all day long. But in a verse novel, story must be paramount. As I wrote this book, I wrote out of order, and I wrote by hand—at first.

I start most of my picture books, poetry, and verse novels by hand. I love the XL blank Moleskine books for this type of writing. Then I type it up into Scrivener while I’m still playing around with it.

But the dessert is playing with the words. When you know I have the story down, then I play with the words and figure out how to utilize white space and form.

One of the most delicious things that has happened on this journey is seeing how other storytellers tell the story of the Silent Sentinels—those ladies who quietly, but boldly, protested at the White House. In 2024, I went to NYC to see Suffs on Broadway. It was a true highlight of the year. I knew the whole story, and I still was moved to tears. It’s no longer on Broadway but it is going on a national tour, and I highly recommend seeing it.

ANYTHING ELSE: I love telling stories from my backyard (or area). I discovered Matilda’s story because my husband told me about a local jail—where suffragists had been jailed—that had been converted into an arts center. I honestly didn’t believe him at first. We were new to the area at the time. We went to visit together and toured the suffrage museum. Just a few miles down the road from me, history happened. And yet, every time I discover a new story in my backyard (and there are MANY stories), I get that same feeling of excitement as when I found out about Matilda and her fellow suffragists.

--

THANK YOU, Marcie! Y'all, do NOT miss this book. It will change you!

And now for this week's ArtSpeak: PICASSO offering. 

I've wanted to try a trinet ever since learning about the form on Rose's blog. So today I tried two! 

I should say that these poems were also influenced by reading (listening to) Our Infinite Fates by Laura Stevens, a debut YA love story with a compelling, fantastical premise AND the (lovely) fact that all my guys gifted me flowers of one kind or another for my birthday! So the house is full of flowers, and so is my heart...and now these poems! 

ALSO. I generally don't like ending a line of poetry with the word "and." But something I've found that helps me grow as a writer is pushing against my preferences. In this case I made myself write a poem with at least one line ending with "and."

And you know what? I discovered the repetition of "and" affects the poem's energy in a kind of smoldering sunrise/sunset way, so YAY! (Still don't think you'll find me writing lines ending in "and" very often, though.:) Thanks so much for reading!

Alabama Sunrise Trinet

yellows and

pinks and

peaches arrive first—a nest for

one sweet juicy star we call

sun and

orange and

we reach

- Irene Latham

Key West Sunset Trinet

yellows and

pinks and

peaches linger—perfect kindling for one

fireball star that licks our skin

sweet and

sizzle and

we burn

- Irene Latham

Pigeon Song poem

proud to be Pisces!

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Laura Purdie Salas for Roundup.

I'm away from my desk today for some early birthday-ing! Shout-out and Happy birthday to my fellow February-born Poetry Friday peeps! I know there are quite a few of us. (We NEED some birthday-celebrating on these cold February days!)

Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO is the first of several art pieces I've found that feature pigeons. I did a little research to find out more about Picasso's passion for pigeons, and I found this cool article about pigeons who have been trained to 90% accuracy to recognize art by style! 

In another article I learned that Picasso's father was a painter of pigeons, and perhaps that's why Picasso was repeatedly inspired to paint them as well. 

So many things impact our creativity...and sometimes there are no clear answers at all, just guesses. And that's okay! We don't really need to know WHY to enjoy or create art. We just need to be in the moment, allowing our bodies to absorb all the sensory details and our minds/hearts to make those leaps into our own very personal experiences. 

I expect to write a few more pigeon poems this year—we'll see! Thanks so much for reading!

Pigeon Song

Hello, pigeon.
Is that you
or the stars
coo-cooing?

Oh, pigeon.
The truth is
love waxes
and wanes like
yonder moon.

Rest, pigeon.
Fold yourself
into blue.
Night has come
to console
you.

book love poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Linda at TeacherDance for a Valentine's Day "love" themed roundup!

Before we get to my offering, I'd LOVE to invite you to a FREE virtual poetry reading in celebration of Read Across America Day (March 3). We're so grateful to The Writing Barn for hosting this event! It will include 18 poets reading their poems from If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility (poems selected by Irene Latham & Charles Waters, illustrations by Olivia Sua, brought to us by Candlewick Press). It promises to be a joyful and inspiring event, and we hope you'll join us! REGISTER HERE.

Looking ahead: Got questions about poetry and punctuation?

I will be teaching a virtual workshop May 6, 3 pm cst,  titled "Harness the Power of Punctuation to Create More Impactful Poetry." Just $25! Register at Inked Voices.

Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO is a love poem, as our host Linda requested! So many things I could have written about! But one of my most abiding loves in my life has been book love. And so. . . a book love poem! Thanks so much for reading.

book love

the best books
crack your spine
deckle your edges
dog-ear your heart

- Irene Latham

Flower Girl Wedding poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink for Roundup.

It's February! Have I mentioned before how much I love February? 

Side note: I read recently that in a poll, one-third of American respondents said their LEAST favorite month was January. Maybe the after-holidays lull? The turning-of-the-calendar pressure to "do better"? The weather? 

Whatever it is, yay for February. :)

Over at Smack Dab in the Middle I wrote about the not-always-popular choice to LET GO of a writing project. Letting go is hard, isn't it?

And here is a hot-off-the-press book that's a great way for readers to really get to know some of today's poets writing for children! 40 Poems for 40 Weeks. It includes lovely poems, photos, and personal notes from the poets...and word ladders! Kudos to David Harrison and Tim Rasinski for creating it. I'm honored to be included.

Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO was inspired by a video sent to me by a friend whose two-year-old greatgrandgirl was trying on the flower girl dress she'll wear at a wedding next month. Greatgrandgirl was twirling and squealing and completely in love with the dress! And so...a flower girl poem!

Another note: this poem is a viator poem. Earlier this week I was reminded by Ruth of this February bird viator I wrote a few years ago, and I thought maybe it was time to write another one!

Flower Girl

She carries flowers
down the bedazzled aisle—
Make way for the bride!

Her little dress twirls.
She carries flowers,
scattering smiles & laughter.

Every heart is a church,
doors flung wide.
She carries flowers.

- Irene Latham

I Dream of Roosters poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Jan at Bookseedstudio for Roundup.

I am yet again away from my desk! But all good things...

How 'bout those awards? I love livestreaming the alayma announcements! BIG congratulations to Carole Boston Weatherford, who received the Children's Literature Legacy Award (formerly the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal or Wilder Award). Carole's body of work is rich and deep, and her work ethic and generous spirit continue to inspire!! Count me proud and happy!

Some of my favorite 2024 books got awards:

One Big Open Sky by Lesa Cline Ransome - CSK Honor & Newbery Honor. I blogged about the book here!

Joyful Song by Lesléa Newman, illus. by Susan Gal - Sydney Taylor Honor

Up, Up, Ever UP! by Anita Yasuda, illus. by Yuko Shimuzu - Caldecott Honor (Yuko's second! Her first was for The Cat Man of Aleppo!) Anita and Yuko both visited the blog a few months back.

24 Seconds from Now by Jason Reynolds - CSK Award! This book made my 2024 Favorite YA Book List!

Home by Isabelle Simler- Batchelder Honor (for translations!). I blogged about these beautiful nonfiction poems here.

Wild Dreamers by Margarita Engle - Pura Belpré Honor!

The big winner, The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly, is one I haven't read yet! Which is surprising, because EEK is one of my all-time favorite MG authors. I mean all her books are just so beautiful and moving and inspiring. But isn't that the fabulous thing about books? They'll wait for you as long as you need them to. (Good news: I was requesting titles through my library as the awards were announced, and I've got a digital copy in queue on my e-reader!)

Many of my other favorites were not recognized. And that's okay! I've served on quite a few book awards committees and I have seen behind the curtain...decisions are TOUGH. There are SO MANY WONDERFUL BOOKS in the world...and only a very few slots for award recognition. 

I think of awards as whipped cream or a cherry on top. So so fun and festive and lovely! But not the reason to write. Not even a goal to keep, because one has no control over such things. They're just...extra. And if they happen to your book, great! Have fun with it! And if they don't? Remember a book's purpose isn't to win awards; it's to connect with a reader, to share between author-reader a bit of this experience we call life...let's have fun with that!

I had so much fun with today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO poem! Actually, it was a rough start. The art features a rooster, and I just couldn't think of an original thing to write about a rooster! So I set it aside for a day and decided to DREAM about a rooster instead. That dream brought me to another great red thing: Jupiter! And THEN I had so much fun. :) Thank you so much for reading.

I Dream of Roosters

I dream

I am a great red

space explorer

I discover

the great red

spot on Jupiter

is actually a flock

of Jupiter-roosters

their great red

wings shimmering

against that great red

star we call sun

the roosters are singing

but only I can hear it

their great red

song such a tiny flicker

in that great red

symphony of stars

- Irene Latham

 

Dick & Jane's Parents Go to the Beach

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference for a "Brave" Roundup!

In case you want some community learning and inspiration with poets this year, please consider joining us at Highlights Nov. 1-4 for Poetry Palooza! (We're filling up fast...if you are interested, please don't delay!)

I talked last week about how this ArtSpeak: PICASSO series is challenging me. This week's poem went in TWO surprising directions! 

1. The first poem is for kids. Picasso plays a lot with shapes. So I decided to play with shapes, too! (A previous poem I've posted that plays with shapes: "Geometry of Summer")

.

Beach Geometry

Sun draws lines

of heat in the sand.

Sky is rectangle—a blue striped

towel, whipping whipping.

When I unpack my snack

all the kids circle like sharks.

Who let loose that box

of birds to flirt with the surf?

We are a triangle:

my parents              the waves

ME

- Irene Latham

2. This one is for adult readers. Remember Dick & Jane? Here's a great article highlighting the series's ups and downs. 

I don't remember these books playing any part in my reading education, but then I'm a child of the '70s. By then Dr. Seuss and the Weekly Reader series were all the rage. So imagine my surprise when Dick & Jane popped into my brain...and my poem became about their parents!

You'll also see me playing with punctuation in this poem. That's likely because punctuation is on my mind, since I'll be teaching a webinar this spring on Punctuation in Poetry over at Inked Voices. Registration information coming soon!

Dick & Jane's Parents Go to the Beach

they walk bare-
foot in sand

life is a knife
slicing them a/part

wind stitches
them backtogether

- Irene Latham

I do think many of us go to the beach for rejuvenation. And I remember how challenging those busy parenting years were...as much as kids bring a couple together, they can also create great divides. I loved being a mom to young ones, but I'm also happy to be in the season of friendship with our adult children. Thanks so much for reading!

Breakfast Conversation poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Tricia at the Miss Rumphius Effect for Roundup.

I'm away from my desk today, but I did want to pop in with the latest poem in my ArtSpeak: PICASSO series! 

One of the reasons I chose Picasso as my 2025 theme was because I wanted to challenge myself. 

I love Impressionism and Post-Impressionism...it would have made so much more sense for me to select Monet or van Gogh! 

But. Just like it makes one a better writer to read AGAINST one's taste, the same may be true for this project. The way to grow is to be willing to be uncomfortable. Since I am not in love with the art, not making instant emotional connections as one does to the art one loves, it's forcing me to look deeper, to see things differently, and to make new and surprising connections.

For this painting, I was thinking about eating meals together in silence. How an onlooker might draw a conclusion that this family has nothing to say to one another. But what if the opposite is true? 

Breakfast Conversation

cling-clang

my spoon

rings the bowl

sip-savor

Mama grips

her coffee-

flavored milk

crackle-hum

Papa reads

while he eats

(but never leaves

a crumb)

yummy-grumble

my tummy sings—

who needs words?

- Irene Latham

Winter Writing Miracle

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit mad-cow-cool-Kat at Kat's Whiskers for Roundup.

Rosie, age 6 (one of my
10,000 muses!)

Today is a Snow Day in Alabama...and in many other places as well. Beautiful! As if predicting this development, I posted a Snow Day poem a few weeks ago. :)

Now that things are getting cranked up again in this new year, I'm feeling energized! The holidays put so much on hold...it's nice to resume some of my usual habits. Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO is about that very thing. 

It's also partly inspired by this Abraham Lincoln quote, which was one of my father's favorites:

“If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

― Abraham Lincoln

In my memory, it was ten THOUSAND angels. How like a poet to make such a change, yes? :) So that's what I put in my poem. And I was also inspired by Molly's post about appreciating her skin, which got me thinking about my continued effort to love and appreciate ALL the cells in my body...ALL parts, not just some of them. Thanks so much for reading!

Miracle

each morning
ten thousand muses
roost

in my skull  

pluck buttons
ribbon       glitter
from even my most
unloveable cells

spill and build
cathedrals across
winter's bare 

pages

- Irene Latham

Introducing 2025 ArtSpeak: PICASSO

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit our organizer/poet extraordinaire Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading for Roundup.

First: be sure to check out the Cybils Poetry Finalists. Congratulations to all...and yay for beautiful poetry books for kids!!

I have a new One Little Word: SISU (see-soo). It's a Finnish word I fell in love with last week. It hard to translate into English, but it includes courage, resilience, and an inner something...

Sisu makes me think about these lines from "Go to the Limits of Your Longing," by Rainer Maria Rilke, trs. by Joanna Macy:

"Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final."

Find out more about what sisu is and why I selected it over at Smack Dab in the Middle. 

In related news... it took a long time for me to settle on my 2025 ArtSpeak theme! 

But a couple of days ago, I just knew. 

No, I am not a giant Picasso fan. Some of his (Analytical Cubism) work creeps me out! 

BUT. 

I've never before focused on a single artist. And who better than Picasso, who was such an outlaw-artist and so darn prolific? (According to this article at The Met, he produced more than 20,000 works over his lifetime!)

I love that Picasso was brave. He wasn't a follower. He made art on his own terms. And he kept his creative fire burning for decades. These are traits I aim for in my own creative life!

Check out these Picasso quotes. Here are a couple of quickies:

"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary."  (He totally could have been talking about poetry!)

"I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else."   (Yes! That pretty much sums up my writing process. :)

"The chief enemy of creativity is 'good sense.'"  (YES) 

So I look forward to getting to know Picasso a bit better this year. I have written poems after a few of his works in previous years. . .

Red Skirt

Hello, Neighborhood!

 I did a series of (16) animal haiku after his line drawings that became a limited-edition chapbook last year! A Little Book of Animal Haiku: Across the Seasons by Irene Latham, illus. by Pablo Picasso (SOLD OUT - but we are considering a second print run in advance of 2025 National Poetry Month!)

Here are a few of the poems featured:

cat haiku

pig haiku

owl haiku

And here is today's poem. (Bet you wouldn't see this image and think "Picasso"!) Thank you so much for reading!

Yellow House, Blue House

Look! A yellow
house that's really
a blue house,
a brokendown house,
a where-did-
they-go? house.

Let's pop by
and say hello!
Fix those doors
and windows!
Let's go slow—
maybe later
we'll add a patio?

Already the house
is a little less blue.
All this time, it sighs,
I was waiting for YOU.

- Irene Latham