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