Sunday Supper with Shrimp poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit the fabulous Mona Voelkel for Roundup.

Hope to see friends old and new tomorrow 1-3 pm at Page & Palette (Fairhope, AL), where I'll be signing Some Starry Night...with its brand-new cover! (More on this next week!)

Today's ArtSpeak: WOMEN features shrimp. 

Have I mentioned before that I love seafood? Yep. I was raised on fish fry suppers at my grandparents' house in Port St. Joe, FL, and then, for the five years we lived in Folsom, LA (just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans), my father would take me on "dates" to fancyschmanzy seafood restaurants in the city. Lucky me! 

And then, on our first (blind) date, both Paul and I ordered the grilled grouper. Fate! We've been eating seafood together ever since.

However, sometimes, I get to feeling a lot of empathy for the food I'm about to eat. I've shared before about how when Rebecca Davis was editing Fresh Delicious: Poems from the Farmers' Market, she said there'd been some talk in-house that perhaps we didn't want little children empathizing too much with the food that was about to be eaten, that this might be upsetting. So we removed those poems. 

One of them—my favorite! "Strawberry Self-Portrait"—appears 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. (Such a FABULOUS book!) You can read the poem here.

Anyhow, all this to explain that today's poem also empathizes with a food that's about to be eaten: shrimp! Thanks so much for reading.

Sunday Supper with Shrimp

Shrimp call out,

make last-minute wishes:

let their mouths be filled

with ocean—

salt & froth

tender & wild

No one hears.

And still the waves come.

- Irene Latham

Process note: Right before my scheduled time to write this, I was reading "Summer Grass" by Carl Sandburg, courtesy of the American Academy of American Poets. 

Peony poem

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

This week's ArtSpeak: WOMEN features a peonies from Berthe Morisot. Many of us love peonies, and with good reason. They're so fluffy and fragile and fleeting...a garden "must," if you ask me! 

In the language of flowers, pink peonies (like Morisot's) are said to represent bashfulness (b/c of the myth of a nymph hiding inside the flower). Read more here!

Perhaps you know Mary Oliver's gorgeous "Peony" poem? It starts with "green fists" and ends with the speaker of the poem hurrying "half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden" toward (fleeting) wildness. Love!

Also, in my research for the poem, I discovered there's a book called Peony by Pearl S. Buck. I just ordered it from my library. Hooray!

O, Peony

I think you

may be a lost cloud

come to mist

bliss on me.

- Irene Latham

Quick process note: In the first draft of my poem, the peony had come to "rain / happiness." Those words felt too expected, so I tunneled around the thesaurus until I found "mist / bliss." Not only do these words sort of rhyme, but they also better suit the fluffiness of a peony!

Afternoon Tea in August poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone for Roundup.

The fabulous Joyce Uglow recently interviewed me about all things poetry, including my new collection Come In! Come In! Wordspinners to Welcome You Home. Here's a link, if you'd like to check it out!

Also, it was so great seeing some of your sweet faces at The Poet's Studio with Georgia Heard earlier this week! So much fun learning together!!

Today's ArtSpeak: WOMEN features an oft-forgotten woman impressionist: Marie Bracquemond. 

You know how poems often take on a life of their own? I didn't intend to write a poem about a grumpy girl, but that's what the poem wanted. And not just a grumpy girl—a girl who regrets her grumpiness. Perhaps it's a wee bit autobiographical, as heat indeed makes me prickly!! And when I snap at a loved one (or a stranger), I always want to make amends. Thanks for reading!

Afternoon Tea in August

Buzz away, little bee.

Can't you see

I'm reading?

Oh sun, please leave!

You're making me

so sleepy . . .

Come back, little bee!

I'm sorry! I need

your buzzy company.

Sun, forgive me.

Won't you let me

read you a story?

- Irene Latham

Once Upon a Smelly Pup poem

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Ruth at Thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown for Roundup.

Just a reminder: I'm excited to be joining Georgia Heard at The Poet's Studio to talk about the secrets of our craft...specifically word-magic in poetry on August 12, via zoom! Please join us, if you can!

Today's ArtSpeak: WOMEN has me returning to Berthe Morisot. This time it's a dog poem. Hooray!

We feel incredibly lucky to share our days and nights with our 8 year old Aussie Rosie. She is such a great traveler! And this week she got to meet a horse for the first time. So much fun!! No wonder I chose to write about dog-love. 

But y'all, it's hard to write a dog poem because what can I say that hasn't already been said?! 

I tried at least a dozen entry points and REALLY struggled. I think remembering Phoebe's "smelly cat" from Friends got me to the smelly bit! (Rosie, as a 95% indoor dog, rarely smells...and has no opportunity to find smelly treasures, though I bet she'd like to!) I do love the little bit of word-magic that entered the poem, and so I pulled back and pulled back until I had very few words left at all! Thanks so much for reading.

Once Upon a Smelly Pup

All it took

was one

little

wag-whine-wiggle

for that smelly

pup

to trash-land

right

in

my

heart.

- Irene Latham