Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Jone Rush MacCulloch for Roundup.
Yep, it's still National Poetry Month. Yay!
Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO poem is a still life. It can be a real challenge to write a lively poem after a still life! But. I love lemons. And the morning I was writing this poem I had just blended a giant, seedless lemon into our morning veggie juice (spinach, cucumber, zucchini, lemon). The scent of lemons filled the kitchen!
Savvy readers may recognize this poem is actually a triolet that I have broken into shorter lines and stanzas. (Sometimes I just get bored or the same ol' same ol' presentation!) Thanks so much for reading.
Lemon Poem
Keep a lemon inside your heart and all your days will be golden—
each hour a beehive of sweet and tart, if you keep a lemon inside your heart.
Imagine! Inside you a tiny, puckered sun! Zesty, molten—
Keep a lemon inside your heart and all your days will be golden.
How's everyone's National Poetry Month going? The poetry-love is strong in these parts...and so have been the storms! (This influenced my ArtSpeak: PICASSO poem greatly! Read on!) Isn't April grand?
In case you missed it, here is my April public poetry installation: a Poetry Machine! It's now moved to its location-for-the-rest-of-the-month Charlie B's Restaurant. So many thanks to owner-all-around-good-guy-Lee...I told him I have a new tagline for his restaurant: "Where Poets Come to Eat." Yay!
Today I wanted to share some poems, art, and "StoryPeople" by Brian Andreas. I discovered Brian's work many years ago on a trip to New Orleans. Paul and I came home with this piece:
There
are
things
you do
because
they feel
right & they
may make no
money & it may
be the real reason
we are here:
to love each other &
to eat each other's
cooking & say it
was good.
-Brian Andreas
And then (1993!) I got this one, called "Bittersweet" - one for me, and one for my father:
She said she usually cried at least once
each day not because she was sad,
but because
the world was
so beautiful and
life was so short.
- Brian Andreas
AND THEN, last month, when I was with my mom and sister in Rome Georgia, at Dogwood Books, I picked up a well-loved copy of Brian's book, Traveling Light: Stories & Drawings for a Quiet Mind (2024). It's sigh-worthy start to finish! I'll leave you with a short one that makes me smile. Brian calls it "Final Reward."
And now for today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO poem. I found myself (again!) writing on a stormy morning. I decided to try a tricube. But then the poem demanded to be set free from that constraint...so I let it storm its way onto the page just the way it wanted to. Thanks so much for reading...wishing all of you spring storms like this one!
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
