Oh Blog, You've Been Silent Too Long

In India for a family wedding                                                            December 2016(?) remembered

Our first weeks in December do not go by in a flash; an onslaught of LIFE was only survived by stolen naps and sheer determination.  The very thought of writing a blog flashes by, though-- Bits and pieces, poem lines and family quotations, all rise and fall on my brain throughout the arrival of travellers, family scrutiny of the wedding week agenda -- especially scrutinized and analyzed by the Gummadi brothers five...

Facts and faces, recollection and recognition, struggling to recall relatives and who-all-else, quotable comments, parties and biryanis, earsplitting worship services, wedding receptions competing on neighborhood-wide loudspeakers are only a few of my obstacles as I tried to include interaction with thee, dear blog, amidst this system of mutually understood and accepted (or acquiesced to-) hierarchy.

Oh, my, word, there's fog on the blog..brain fog...time for a break! See you later!

NaPoWriMo Day 5, Five months later, Arden Hills

The challenge: Write a poem that in some way challenges my idea, my understanding, my use of of the notion of LINE  Ha!


          UP!
Line       
                  she orders,
            a
eyes w          ering to
               nd               and
                                       fro
checking
               to see whether
               all are present
               and accounted
               for
it's a
        FIRE DRILL
      actually,                 o    b     d,
not              heaven f      r     i

a real one.  So

          UP!
Line           and march
                                     outside.

                               DAAY!!
It's a WONderful
    

Diving into NaPoWriMo on Day Four

NaPoWriMo ( Five months late, but then, who's counting?  Only me.)  2019 challenge, Day Four, September 2019

The challenge:
 To write about an abstract, the poem absolutely loaded with concrete words, images. Relentless.


Finding Love--still a draft
by Shirley Franklin

My heart has slipped its mooring, the careful craft now floats adrift,
meandering, now buoyed up, now sliding carelessly down a wave
crest new breaking. snowy froth, slipping forward
like a veil removed in haste merely covers the face for a moment
abandoning the graying wearer, too shy to be seen by just anyone
blinking back blue-gray eyes seeking black--
blink, pause. higher waves  overtower the first, the next, next.
Can we make it back to harbor, will the anchor hold fast.
Rope of hemp deserted, heart inclines toward sleep, to rest in Thee....

Visit to Amaravathi

What brings my husband and I to India, besides visiting family and friends, is a commitment to accompanying and encouraging an underserved minority group, recently moved into makeshift neighborhoods, in developing family and community life. Over the last ten years, the project has pretty much settled on the mutually agreed-upon priority of supplementing the education of their children.

The latest addition to the project is a group of about sixty families living just half a block from a museum of local and Buddhist history in the village of Amaravathi.  (Amaravathi is the name chosen from a trio of cities/towns rapidly being developed as the new capital of Andhra Pradesh. Andhra
was divided in two, two years ago, with this, the east side of the 'old' state, retaining the name while the western portion, now named Telangana, retains the 'old' capital,Hyderabad.) Here, however, when I say Amaravathi,  I'll just be talking about the neighborhood we're working with.

My husband was asked to consider working with this group, and made a visit or two last year to assess the situation. He was impressed with the need, and agreed with a few elders that we would provide a teacher to supervise and coach their youngsters in the evening.  Then the search for a willing, educated person in a nearby neighborhood began..  We made  one visit before one was found.

Visit number one: December    , Visit to Amaravati Franklin and Shirley walked about a block from car to the church building where the evening school is to be held, just a few blocks from the bus stand, museum, and historic Buddhist sites which are being developed for tourism purposes.  We sat on picnic chairs brought from homes nearby...homes ranging from sticks and rags to sticks and palm leafs to concrete block structures of one or more rooms, amidst piles of rock and sand for ongoing construction. Aside from the single concrete road on which we walked, there were no roads. People watched us, smiled if we made eye contact. Children gathered for the evening school—Franklin started interviewing them right away...many were unkempt, and in charge of a toddler or two.  Children literally tumbled in and out the door whose threshold was four concrete steps and a high wooden lintel?) 

Small Pleasures

Saturday, November 25, 2017 10:07:28 AM                                 (Actually, January 23, 2018)
Subject: Thanksgiving Greetings are always current
Dear Friends,

‘Giving thanks for you all, and your part in our lives. Reading Ps 100 in The Message Bible, ‘found appropriate verses for you all: “Bring the gift of laughter, “ and “Know the password: ‘thank you.’” And you do, and so we do. God bless you all w health, healing, family laughter and spiritual enrichment.

Who knew that 'season's greeting' message to friends, sent just before our annual trip to India, would figure in a blog nearly two months overdue. The Psalm verse jumped out of my  devotional reading that morning, and laughter and thanks have been on my mind ever since.

Humor is important for our health because of the endorphinine warm fuzzies it brings and for our relationships because it's a sharing of friendship, a bonding experience. But laughter based on words can be elusive in a foreign language. Linguists say it's the enth degree of foreign language learning-- and I'm not there yet.  Whether in a small group or large gathering, a foreigner can feel a bit (understatement) left out of camaraderie in a foreign language, even lonely, when she doesn't get the point about which everyone else is laughing. Even more so when you are evidently involved in the meaning, but have to ask what it's about, and the moment for joining in the laughter, thus allowing the possibility that you are, after all, a good sport, has passed.

All the same, there's no use crying in the soup (see, that one could take a bit of interpretation--even to a younger generation of English speakers), because life is short, and there's so much to be thankful for, including humorous, dear, or striking observations and occurrences that simply cause a person to smile.

Some of this season's smiles:

Pushpa (our household helper)'s  joyful nature and smile, despite language differences.

Narrowly escaping the angry flutter of a pigeon which often  rests on top of the air conditioner unit on our laundry verandah.

The laughter of half a dozen little children who live with their  (six or eight) families in two lines of connected rooms under corrugated rooftops, just under our back window. I can hear little voices calling to each other and their mothers in the slate lane between their homes;
small twins fighting over a low stool where the winner squats only briefly while the 'loser' feigning nonchalance, wanders away, probably already planning her own adventures, the laughing of childish voices, little ones playing around a mother washing clothes or dishes at the common tap in the corner of the lane.

Realizing( for the enth time) that the daily, early morning pounding sound in the neighborhood is not the sound of construction, but of the mother slapping twists of wet laundry against the slate before rinsing them--an early version of the washing machine.

The absence of construction sounds (think truck motors dumping sand and other materials in the night, scraping of hand-mixed cement, pounding, workers calling back and forth) which the neighborhood has had in the last couple of years.

Blooming aedeneum and miniature orchid plants in pots, one by our front door and one on the coffee table, courtesy of a sisterinlaw.

Glancing out our fourth floor  window and noticing youth playing badminton (here, aka shuttle cock) on a ROOFTOP (?!) across the street.

When you really do get the joke, no matter who it's about.

Warm, crisp dosais for breakfast.

Stunning tv  performances of song (classical Indian music) and modern dance by children

A security guard, bystander, our driver's hand offered to help lest I falter on the commonly uneven ground and un-protected stairs outside many homes and public buildings.

Remembering to be thankful for (most) everything, even the awkwardness. It's all part of the mix.

Good Bye and Hello

Good-bye, and Hello.

Three of our nearest neighbours moved away in October.  Though they moved just a suburb away, to senior living, I would miss them, especially my next-door neighbour Sue, with whom I’d chat on the phone, visit, commiserate, pray,go for an outing, and/or walk several days a week over the last twenty years.  Who can replace a neighbour like that?

Three houses stood empty for two months as we wondered what kind of families would move in, and when. For Sale signs were posted Cars drove slowly by, appraising curb appeal and the neighbourhood, Sunday viewings were held. A few days before we departed for India for the winter, a SOLD sign went up in front of Sue’s house. We watched in vain for signs of the new occupants. Finally, as we left for the airport around noon on November twenty seventh, we saw a car in Sue’s driveway. We would have to wait until our midwinter return to meet our new neighbours.

Our MSP-CDG Delta/Air France flight was stellar, smooth, calmly and efficiently attended. Wheelchair service in Paris was prompt, and the extra-attentive attendant narrated details of the route and every little routine during the transfer to our next flight. At the entrance of the second terminal was a glut of wheelchairs and second-terminal attendants,talking excitedly, apparently at odds about how to proceed, causing everybody a delay. Perhaps it was their shift-change time?

As I teetered on legs stiffened by hours of sitting, one disgruntled attendant, a woman, abruptly jerked my arm, unceremoniously pushed me into a wheelchair, plopped my very heavy carry-on in my lap despite my protests, and, with a parting rejoinder to the others, set off without first placing the footrests, careening around corners and complaining loudly to another passing attendant who was pushing a chair in the same direction.

At the gate for our next flight, this attendant unnecessarily and awkwardly'transferred' me to a chair. What a relief! As I sat there, I enquired from a passing employee about a customer service desk, although I knew that I had neither the time nor the energy to pursue the matter. Within a minute, however, an intermediary appeared and hunkered at my feet, enquired gently about my welfare and the incident, and advised me to report it, if only for the sake of other frail  (frail? who's frail?) passengers needing wheelchair assistance in the future.  The disgruntled woman attendant later re-appeared, all smiles and cheer, to wheel me right up to the door of the JET Airways plane. She’d evidently gotten the message. (I filled in an e-report form Air France sent me later, but then promptly lost it into cyberspace.)

 The Jet Airways flight from Paris to Mumbai was less than stellar, understandably so, considering the almost completely full flight, inadequately restocked with meals and supplies, understaffed by a very young cabin crew, too inexperienced , undertrained and/or tired to handle it all. However, to their credit, they tried their best, on their feet the whole way.  Two Indian women pilots (there may have been more) navigated a smooth ride.

After an awkward exit, with no wheelchairs at all, and a lo-o-n-n-g  jetway,  we tired travellers hesitated at the unmarked corridor encircling the perimeter of the new Mumbai terminal, confused  over which way to turn. Most passengers eventually headed to the right. Thankfully, we old geezers could embark on a cart which miraculously made its toward us through the crowd. But, what is this: we hold our breath and/or murmur, when it heads to the left, the driver assuring a querulous old gent that we’ll eventually get to the right place.  (I mean, how far could you high jack an air terminal electric cart?) Scolding loudly, old gent struggles to get self, wife, and suitcase down off the cart, continuing his diatribe as they join the trend trudging  to the right.

Meanwhile a scroungy looking, tall white ‘trekkie’ brashes his way along through the crowd, trumpeting his excessively self confident self as being “not like the rest of you bastards.”

'Takes one to know one,' I murmur, as our cart sets off in the opposite direction, My fellow passengers in the cart are bemused.  Our cart cuts through the center of the building, and we find ourselves at the baggage carousel ahead of the walkers. Memory hazes over regarding the remainder of the Mumbai-Hyderabad terminal transfer and flight. Two long flights have taken their toll on intended alertness. We doze.

Upon our arrival, Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport appears busy but running smoothly. We barely have to pause with a porter to claim our luggage, and head for a quick shower and few hours’ nap in a tiny room of the airport’s tiny, dimly lit Plaza hotel.  Never mind that there’s barely room enough to maneuver between bed, bathroom and luggage, we have all the amenities you’d expect to find in a full size hotel. Who needs extra room when you're sleeping. And it’s squeaky clean.

Owing to the eleven and one half hour time difference between US and India, it is early morning on November twenty ninth. We’re the first to inaugurate the Plaza's Indian breakfast buffet, and eat our fill of upma and idli/sambar before calling Raghava, our driver, to bring the car around from the parking lot. A wide brass bowl full of fresh rose blossoms fronts the checkout counter as we depart.

We alternately doze and listen to current updates from Raghava during the five hour drive along an ever evolving national highway.  Oleander bushes line the median most of the way. We make brief  stops for tea and toilet at a small restaurant and gas station, a pause for a toll station, and a half-hour halt to say hello at the PUSHPA sewing center in Rajupalem, which is on our way, before finally segueing off the freeway and entering dusty, rush hour traffic on the edge of Guntur. We pass through the smog of a truck unloading area. Piles of rubble clutter the spaces in front of severed buildings in a neighborhood awaiting road-widening.  We gradually begin to recognize familiar streets and lanes.  One final turn brings us to the cream colored gate of Mary Shree, our familiar, cream color apartment building named after my motherinlaw, Mary Margaret Gummadi. 

Our watchman ambles out to open the gate that is already ajar, Raghava glides the car through, and we disembark at last, glad to stretch our aching bodies and limbs. We nod to the watchman and his watching family,  press the button, and pull open the double gates of our tiny elevator. A diminished but familiar, disembodied female voice greets us with her stern unfailing admonition, “Please shut the DOOR!”

As we rise to our fourth floor, we see, first, feet, then bodies, and finally the smiling faces of half a dozen family members and the housekeeper, waiting and ready to greet us with smiles, hugs, and a hot, late lunch. .It’s good to be at home again, in India.

NaPoWriMo 2017, Day Twenty Two: A Double Elevenie

You thought
I'd lost track of the time
my dear,
But I was just writing a rhyme.
It seemed
to be raining outside
or not,
but I was staying close to home.
Would it
make any difference
if I were as tall
as you?

You were
the compatible one,
the one
who
fulfilled all the requirements.

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Twenty One: I hear things

Today's NaPoWriMo challenge is to  to write a poem that incorporates overheard speech. It could be something ... heard on the radio, ...remember(ed) from ..childhood, even ...overheard a coworker say...! Use the overheard speech as a springboard from which to launch (a)poem. (The) poem could comment ...on the overheard phrase or simply use it as illustration or tone-setting material.

OK, I heard, at a party, somebody describing a particular kind of party:  "It's all in fun. Everybody visits and plays games and somebody wins.  Nobody loses because they all get a turn. It's great fun."

Asking about the food:  "How do you make this?  I want to get the recipe.  I'll invite _________ over to make it and watch how she does it.


" Y ou've been here before? We're all seeing it for the first time."

"The Party"

It was great fun, she reported,
You really, really should have come.

But this poem had to be written,
the words had just started to come.

When you're hot with an idea,
there's no question of 'just begun.'

Inspiration has no recipe
to follow until it is done.

Invite inspiration over,
when she visits make her welcome,

Serve her food that she likes, play games.
Listen to her comments and then some.

Ask her whether she is comfortable,
and whether she'd like some iced tea.

Watching her reflection, I learned,
that my best inspiration is me.

NaPoWriMo 2017, Day Twenty It's Just a Game

Day twenty's challenge is  to "write a poem that incorporates the vocabulary and imagery of a specific sport or game. Your poem could invoke chess or baseball, hopscotch or canasta, Monopoly or jai alai."

I made my choice of a common sporting game and began to write.  As I go along, trying to create a poem, it seems to be unfolding as more riddle-like than relevant vocabulary laden. So I am following that lead. Here's the beginning--let's see where it takes me! (Can you guess yet what game is being described??)

When You Set Out

Start in the middle, always the middle, or as close to the center as you can.
If you're first to depart, take your time, and take heart
Remember, the journey, whether easy or hard, will only endure for a span.

Keep a pine cache before you, just so, that its treasures enchant only you.
Though your choices may be moot, sometimes it's a hoot
and a holler to discover the unexpected and, thankfully, true.

...to be continued off line

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Nineteen: A Neo Creation Myth: A Beginning...tbd

That's the writing challenge on day nineteen.  Something absolutely new, or fictional, or experience, re-imagined...I'll try my hand at mythologizing a story that has its  real place in my memoirs.

How the Sweet Tooth Came to Be, by Shirley Smith Franklin

Actually, the tooth was there from the beginning.  

And the child, a girl child, somewhat fragile, content to spend early childhood days shadowing her mother at home whenever she was't reading a book held in one hand, eating an apple held in the other, she was there too or, failing an apple, sucking on her thumb..
It was such an ingrained habit, that sucking of the thumb.  At first it had seemed a good and valid way to avoid over-eating.  But when she became  seven mother said it was time for that sort of habit to stop.
It was post-war (doesn't really matter which war, every war  has its contingencies), so understandably there were some tightenings of the belt, limitations on the family budget, and extra work required in order to create, at home, flour-sack clothes, knitted mittens, and canned produce from the victory garden. A night out for the parents was always as modest as visiting friends, attending a church choir practice, or community square dancing.
And what did the girl child do when parents were away? If you paid attention before, you will have guessed reading.  Which is only partly true.  Read she did, in the attic where nobody would disturb her, and thus the story, on days when it was fair and warm.  Not too hot because that would be insufferable among the stuffy rafters, clothing and decorations stored until their season came due; not too cold, because after a sweater became not enough, a winter coat was too clumsy to wear up the narrow and twisty stairway and amidst the boxes, besides being not enough still to prevent the chill of a Northern Minnesota winter a way into the bones.
Night times in the attic were out, because the one feeble light over the twisty stairway was not sufficient with which to read, at any time of year.  And after all, who would want to be so far away from the world on a night when mommy and daddy weren't even around to know where you were.
No, at night she read in her room, or, strangely comfortably, sitting in a straight chair, at the dining room table.
Now the dining room,my dear, next to the kitchen, may not seem one's first choice for reading. Unless, of course, one has strong associations with food. Strong associations, nay longings, for certain types of food.  Desserts, perhaps, or, as the little girl was often prone to think, candy. All of which little or none was ever found in that house.  Desserts, okay, they were sometimes had, and could be excused as being part of a meal, Sundays or special days.  And they would never be left over.  Two older brothers made sure of that. Certainly there were not desserts everyday, and most certainly no candy.  What would happen to the children's teeth, for heaven's sake!
Every time the asked her mother or father to buy some candy, one or the two of them would definitely say one of two things: Father: We can 't be frittering our money away  on something  that we don't need. Candy is a luxury.(Ironically the word luxury itself was a kind of riches, the smooth beginning and simple ending surrounding that almos- un-American sound, 'ksh'.) While mother would say It's nothing but butter and sugar.
And so it happened that one night the little girl looked up from her solitary reading and thought, I'm hungry for candy.  As she glanced toward the kitchen and thought of how her mother would stand there, cooking and baking the most delicious things, she became aware that her sweet tooth was wanting some candy, and it wanted candy right soon.  And so it occurred to the girl that it might, just might, mind you, not be all that difficult to make some candy herself......After all, hadn't mother said it was only butter and sugar?

                                                                    TBD

NaPoWRiMo 2017 Day Eighteen: To Be or Not?

My immediate response to today's challenge, to write  a poem incorporating a neologism, was not very enthusiastic. Nothing came to mind.  So I did what all intentionally creative people do:  I waited until something did come to mind.

My first thoughts turned back to my childhood home, where playful language was frequently employed, especially, and though sometimes unintended, to the annoyance of other family members. (AKA teasing, namely me ). Sometimes even as a bargaining chip to allow a little sister to join in family games.  Certainly there must have been some neologisms among the epithets? (According to MerriamWebster, an epithet can be understood to be the part of a taxonomic name identifying a subordinate within a genus. Hmmm.)

I typed and thought about this assignment day and night. Still, the neologisms were neither coming nor coming back to mind.  My thoughts turned to nicknames, the ones my family sometimes used for me, as perhaps the next closest thing:  Mom: Te-za-leet 'ree, Tabut'ta boggala, Linti-linti (which I thought was Finnish for 'little bird' (the feathered kind) but evidently means 'tape'--go figure--presage of  my later marrying a 3-M-er?). , and the inevitable mommy choice, Princess; Dad: Squirrelly (which may've been a reflection of my early childhood's chortling attempts to wriggle away from extreme tickling upon his return from a work week away.)  Brothers: Shy (may've been a fact, but not if you knew me personally.  More likely this one was just an abbreviation of my name.)

You may not be tempted to employ these or similar nicknames yourself.  Please make up your own, if you would.  I feel as possessive of these being ''mine' as any adoptee feels possessive of his or her children, their own flesh and blood newly come into the world. Well, maybe not AS fiercely, that one's a joy to behold, this one just 'is.'

Later in the day a neologism did come to mind...I will add it here when the slip on which I jotted it surfaces!

But the question remains, are the nicknames  neologisms or not?  I vote some yes, some not. But just considering the question was fun.

________________
Coincidental sidelight: My comment regarding Finnish narration of a short video I came across today:

 'Can't tell you how delightfully the Finnish narration falls on my ear, even though I can't follow it. I haven't heard it in years but it echoes of uncles (and other relatives') conversations,' background music' to childhood visits at grandparents' house. It must be awfully hard to translate to English, vis the fractured results of so many attempts out there. I applaud my mother, in retrospect, for the translation work she was able to do for others, years after there were few/no others around with whom to speak it. (Thanks to Ingrid, there was at least one!!)

Even more coincidentally, guest musicians in church the next day played and sang a Finnish song!

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Seventeen

                                                                                                         May 18, 2017
Who said the month of poems had to be written within one calendar month?  As April went on, and the world became new, life happened, and so it continues, new from day to day, PTL. So this year's Poohcetera's NaPoWriMo will continue as it happens, throughout the spring, whenever time and thought conspire!

Today's challenge is to write " a nocturne. In music, a nocturne is a composition meant to be played at night, usually for piano, and with a tender and melancholy sort of sound. (The)  nocturne should aim to translate this sensibility into poetic form!"

Ironically, I start this page in the middle of the night, or, (is this?) more accurate(ly) in the wee hours of the morning.

Sounds in the Night
or, Writing the Wee Hours Away

Keys clack under bent fingers.
Tinnitus, tiny mimicry of sound
fills the ears' small channels.
I sniff.  A footstep. Mine. Clack, clack.
A click--my back. Shift posture, stretch.
Black computer tower hums.
Rain rushes, smattering my window,
splattering sidewalk, deck, the drive.
Thoughts jostle in the mind,
rush to places I would go,
places where I must,
routes I then must take
when it is day. Breathe out.
Breathe in. Is it possible, I ask,
to hear my thoughts?
Sleep, sleep, til it is day.
Ho hum, a hum, furnace, frig
or air conditioner.
Sounds combine as one,
become irrelevant when, finally,
bedsheets and softer blanket,
jostle, rustle near my ear,
sleep, sleep til it is day, they say.
And I obey.
                ----Shirley Smith Franklin

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Sixteen, The Letter

Dear Journal,

You must think I'm neglecting you, but you can be sure I remember you.   I think about you every day, but somehow the time slips away or something or someone else comes up and -- there you go. Today's NaPoWriiMo was to write  poem in the form of a letter.  Well, let me start with the letter itself, a letter to you that's long overdue. Here's a short one...

When was the last time met; do you remember?  I know for sure it hasn't been since last year, because I had a knee replaced last summer, and I don't think you even know about that. I think we've only met once since that year in Sweden when my husband and I stayed at our friends' cottage on that pristine forest lake I especially remember that, how we laughed in the sauna because my husband gamely joined our host family, steaming in the altogether, while I, one of her very best friends despite living a third of a globe of distance, insisted on wearing my bathing suit and steaming on a lower bench.

Across the Bay of Bothnia, in Finland, our relatives had declined to heat their sauna at all in that hottest of Augusts ever. There we'd dined on soups, and at tea tables with egg butter, piirakka, crisp rye breads and strawberry tortes. In Sweden we ate steak, along with mushrooms my friend had picked along her morning walk down the sun spackled shade of the forest road. I went with her one da, and found out that there really are mushrooms with bright red, white-spotted caps!  Until then I'd assumed them to be figments of children's book illustrators' imaginations. (Don't eat them: they're poisonous, as many pretty things are!)

I could go on...more discoveries and imaginary figments every day.

Figment...'must add that to my list of interesting words...one of the distractions from getting back to you, my journal friend, on a daily basis.  Although, alas, I've begun neglecting her too.  The list, that is.  And I do have lists: to-do lists, grocery lists, call-back lists, bills-to-pay lists, things to take along on the trip list.  They all add up, subtracting more and more from what ideally would be my 'quiet' time. My rest time.  My catch up with my friends time.  Receding, receding, receding....

'Have to go now...I'm pretty busy living the day-to-day, these days.  'Nice talking to you!

Love,
Shirley

P.S., I think I want to try re-writing this as a poem...At least. this here's  a start....

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Fifteen, The Natural Middle (Unfinished poem tbd)

Day Fifteen's challenge is write a poem that reflects on the nature of being in the middle of something. The poem could be about being on a journey and stopping for a break, or the gap between something half-done and all-done. Half a loaf is supposedly better than none, but what’s the difference between half of a very large loaf and all of a very small one? Let your mind wander into the middle distance, betwixt the beginning of things and the end. Hopefully, you will find some poetry there!

Whatever you do
     mother would admonish me
     that I still hear her voice
     never ceases to astonish me

do with all your might
     she tried with motherly might
     at home, at church, at school
     to distinguish wrong from right.

a job done by halves
     whether homework assignment
     or setting table for dinner
     or enduring a long confinement.

is never done right.
     according to my brother
     .......
     .......    Oh mother

if you could only see me now!
                     

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Fourteen, Short and Sweet

Day Fourteen's challenge is to write a clerihew, a four line biographical poem satirizing a famous person. Similar to a limerick, which has five lines and does not (necessarily!) refer to real person.

Here's mine:

And now folks, here's Stephen Colbert.
For skewering news he has a flair.
*He's a profound proclivity
for satirizing civility.
                                 --Shirley Smith Franklin

* I realize there's the possibility of interpreting this as He IS instead of  He HAS, as I intended.
   but it's all just in fun---so go figure!

**Okay, you're right, an outright HE HAS would work better.  See? That's how (I would guess most) poems get written (and re-written, and re-written...), a little at a time, one step forward, two steps back, until it finally tells the author it's done.  And yes, I call it fun.

NaPoWriMo Day Thirteen 2017: What I've learned about Ghazals

Day Thirteen:  What I've learned about Ghazals So Far

Today's  prompt is to write a ghazal, a form NaPoWriMo says originated in Arabic and Persian poetry. According to poets.org,  the ghazal "is composed of a minimum of five couplets—and typically no more than fifteen—that are structurally, thematically, and emotionally autonomous."  There are other modified definitions out there, including using the same or similar second line throughout. I just use what works for the ghazal at hand. The form of simply a series of couplets, seems to be becoming more popular in English language writing these days, --I enjoy the ghazal because it has some discipline of a given/chosen/defined form, along with the freedom to combine a variety of thoughts, line and poem lengths,  and the option to rhyme or not to rhyme. 

 I've written several perhaps a dozen of ghazals, a couple of which, I think, 'work.' Although, one writing teacher paused at the fact that my poems seemed to address themes, rather than consisting of relatively random, unrelated verses not, or not related beyond sharing a topic or mood...(what's the difference between that and "a theme"?!)

Ideally, "both lines of the first couplet end with the same phrase or endword, [which] is also repeated at the end of each couplet...[and the poem includes] internal rhymes[,] a reference to your own name in the final couplet." (from NaPoWriMo Day Fourteen challenge).

Ghazals have traditionally consisted of laments, thoughts about love, or drinking thoughts (?). One tradition in writing a ghazal is to include a question, request, plea, or lament addressed to God or a higher power in the last couplet, as well as incorporating the author's name or reference. Modern or American ghazals often take more liberties (those Americans!), but retain the couplet format.

Oh, and did I say that, ghazals can be fun?!

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Nineteen, How ____________ came to be

Today's NaPoWriMo challenge is  write a poem that recounts a creation myth. It doesn’t have to be an existing creation myth, or even recount how all of creation came to be. It could be, for example, your own take on the creation of ball-point pens, or the discovery of knitting. Your myth can be as big or small as you would like, as serious or silly as you make it.

Oops, didn't get around to it. Sorry.

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Twelve: A Litter of Alliteration (Consonants) and Assonance (vowels)

NaPoWriMo Day Twelve's challenge is simply to write a poem containing alliteration and assonance, which I'd describe as playful efforts to load the poem with words containing similar consonants and vowels.

This is fun.  I've enjoyed it in my own school days. Though it sticks in my mind as something to which I was introduced during junior high school, it's really what little children do spontaneously as they develop their vocabulary, ritually chanting words and phrases that fascinate them.  First graders, of whom I've taught quite a few! like to get into the alliterative mode, in particular.

I enjoyed, though I labored some over, the following poem.  Is it a heart cry?  Hmm, 'may be a good match for others I've written about writing...tbd.

Is this just a draft -- or final copy? (I think it is wanting one more line. Oh! I've got it! But I won't write it here so that what you see is unfinished and, augmented, presumably can be submitted as 'never published.' Look for/listen to me at the Open Mike Night at Bloomington Old Town Hall on Penn and 90- somethingth, this April 20th!)  
...


A Litter of Alliteration
by Shirley Smith Franklin

A little alliteration, they said,
try a little alliteration.
Authors pondering upon day twelve
the depths of their minds will have to delve,
forced to foray into the very interior,
evaluate their verses, whether sup- or inf-
rior, their valuable verses, whether they rhyme,
whether verses validate, are fine or absurd    
or simply evoke a celebratory word.
Consonants and vowels with a smile or a frown,
wander the alphabet up and down.
Such slight sounds volley words fine or absurd,
I invoke God, my muse. I must be heard.

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Eleven

Day Eleven:  The "(optional) prompt for the day is the Bop," invented by poet Afaa Michael Weaver. It's a hybrid of a sonnet and a song." Like a Shakespearan sonnet, it introduces, discusses, and then solves (or fails to solve) a problem. Like a song, it relies on refrains and repetition."

 In the basic Bop poem,
  
     a 
     six-line 
     stanza 
     introduces
     the 
     problem,
             followed by a one-line refrain.

    The next,
    eight-line 
    stanza 
    discusses 
    and 
    develops
    the
    problem, 
             followed by the one-line refrain. 

    another 
    six-line 
    stanza
    resolves
    or concludes 
    the problem, 
            followed by the refrain. 

"Here’s an example of a Bop poem written by Weaver, and here’s another by the poet Ravi Shankar."  
                     I don't know whether NaPoWriMo's examples will open for you from my blog. Let' s both try, and learn something in the process. (Note: They did open, for me.)  I was especially taken with Ravi Shankar's poem,  with a refrain taken from another writer! The poem reflected my morning moods this week.

                     The Bop sounds like a very fun and do-able form. I will have to table it until several current priorities in my life progress to a certain point. I'm checking them off mhy list, one by one. Staying focused. Stay tuned!

NaPoWriMo 2017 Day Ten: You Were Important to Me

Today's assignment:  Write a poem that is a 'portrait' (not necessarily describing looks) of a person important to you.  Wow, it might take a long time to zero in on just one.  For some reason, it occurs to me to write about someone who once was, but no longer is.



When I Needed You

It was then, on the cusp of adulthood
You were always there when I needed you,
Learning to spread my wings would have been good,
You were always there when I didn't, too.

It was there, in the unguarded moments,
You were very there when I needed space,
accompanying my ordinary
You were also there when I needed grace.

Despite the time I poured milk in your lap,
always there when I needed rescue, truly.
Careening into cusp of adulthood,
you were there to consider options, coolly....

{rough draft of first verses,  more to come and be revised.}.

You were important to me then, not  now,
no, not even then, not now, not ever,
I'll forget you til memory fades forever.
you were never that important to me.
                          --Shirley Smith Franklin
Good bye.

Typically spare, bare, my poetry.  How can I infuse metaphor, color, gut-feeling into this poem which is like so many of mine, presented in the abstract, with  not a whole lot of context to draw upon....Although the subject is a therapeutic one for me...helping me offload nagging negative memories that only time has lessened so far.

It looks like it wants to be disciplined into a 'form,' a form that nags at you, yet ends with a resolve... too...I will want to follow up on this one.