Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit dear Ramona at Pleasures from the Page for Roundup.
One of my favorite parts of this past week has been consulting with other poets about their poetry. I come away from these conversations completely inspired and grateful. And y'all, isn't it FUN to dive deep into our words and emotions?! I feel like I have made a bunch of new friends.
Also: the garden is exploding! Here's my first purple coneflower opening. It's been fun to watch it change shape each day.
Today's ArtSpeak: PICASSO features one of Picasso's paintings in the primitive style. (I know! Who knew Picasso ever painted in this style?! But yes. Yes he did.) He painted quite a few pieces featuring pigeons, so I knew this year would bring me a few pigeon poems!
Here's "Pigeon Song," from February. And now I offer you the first poem in this series in which I've given Picasso himself a voice.
Other inspirations for this poem include Knocking on Windows by Jeannine Atkins. Jeannine's beautiful, powerful memoir-in-verse will release August 5. (More on this soon...Jeannine will be visiting Live Your Poem soon!)
I copied many passages into my notebook, and I especially fell in love with Jeannine's final poem. It's hard sometimes to know when to get out of a story. How do you say goodbye? So that was definitely on my mind.
Then I read "Future History of Earth's Birds" by Amie Whittemore, which was featured on poets.org poem-a-day earlier this week. In the "About the Poem" section, Amie said this: "I could envision a poem that celebrated the wild wisdom of birds while also mourning their diminishing numbers.” That statement brought to mind this painting, and off I went, in search of words! Thanks so much for reading.
Picasso Speaks of Pigeons
A thousand pigeons
once roosted here—
their cooing lullabied me
into fractured dreams.
For hours I splashed
the canvas with paint,
creating my sums
of destructions.
And now just one
remains—
one soft cooing.
Maybe it means thank you.
Maybe goodbye.
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