children to their curiosity / … / poets to their truth
Thank you shayne avec i grec for choosing my poem “Duty / Deon” as the winner of Arc‘s January prompt, Duty. Just click the link here to read the poem.
This is a thrill to have my writing recognized by Arc Poetry Magazine.
Please like (if you do) and share your thoughts (either way).
K.
“What they say is / change / can bring you here.” (“Beyond the Dream Hatch”)
Fellow poet, friend, and blogger, Gwynn Scheltema, has recently written a piece about chapbooks — what they are and why we might consider publishing one. Here’s a short excerpt from Gwynn’s Writescape blog (with permission; thank you Gwynn):
(To read Gwynn’s entire blog on Writescape, just click here: https://writescape.ca/site/2021/02/on-chapbooks/.)
***
This started me thinking about chapbooks slipped between full collections on my poetry shelves and to Red Alders in an Island Dream.
RED ALDERS IN AN ISLAND DREAM
… is an example of a 7-inch square, hand-stitched chapbook by Christopher Howell (Trask House Books, Portland, 1980). It was given to me recently by a friend who gifted it from his library. Howell has now published 11 books of poetry and won three Pushcart prizes among other awards.
This little treasure has been read many times. Just because it is small — home to only seven poems (one is in four parts, which sort of makes it eleven poems) — does not decrease its value. Actually, I like Red Alders in an Island Dream better than many full collections on my shelves. Don’t approach chapbooks in a condescending way. Sometimes the best things come in small packages.
The collection ends with the four-part poem “In Grey Water: The Day,” and these are the last four lines of “IV,” the final lines in Red Alders in an Island Dream:
Membranous and steady, like wind
moving in the darkening neighborhoods,
we seek the far shore. And window light
breaks from us
like the sound of oars.
***
For an interesting interview with Christopher Howell: http://true.proximitymagazine.org/2018/11/08/a-conversation-with-christopher-howell/, or just “Google” Christopher Howell poet.
Thanks for reading to the end. Please share your thoughts and this blog. Kate
Thank you, Sarah Law, for accepting my “Haibun: Of Hunger & Fire” for publication in Amethyst Review.
HAIBUN: OF HUNGER & FIRE
A chorus of chick-a-dee-dee-dee greets late winter dawn and spring-hungry us, who clutch mugs of hot coffee against the chill. A flock of chickadees cluster in the barberry bush now doused with snow, their black caps barely visible within the weave of pencil-thin branches. But their bobbing dark heads give them away among last summer’s shrivelled red berries and a few clinging leaves. In groups of five or six, they wing to the feeder and back again, a circus lilting through air, sunflower seeds clasped in their toes. Blue jays, nesting in the evergreens across the way, also wake hungry. They screech a slurring jaay, jaay – whether to intimidate or pre-emptive to mob – I don’t know. The tiny chickadees keep a distance from the raucous bully-blues. You stoke the fire; sparks rise; woodsmoke scents the air.
Snow blankets barberry
Birds jostle for sunflower seeds
Sparks quickly settle
A “haibun” is a Japanese literary term that we can trace back to the poet Matsuo Basho (17th century). Essentially, it is a paragraph-long prose narrative followed by a 17-syllable “haiku.” Haibuns tend to focus on landscape scenes and anecdotes. Style-wise, a haibun is imagistic and captures a moment in time.
I hope that you enjoy this one and that you will leave a comment and share.
“Haibun: Of Hunger & Fire” can be viewed here: https://amethystmagazine.org/2021/02/10/haibun-of-hunger-fire-a-poem-by-kathryn-macdonald/?fbclid=IwAR3h4_NzuMNSsb1Xij6rvQTxIipTfxDCYmHb3k8wQItI4KQT6-_Edu7Dh4Y
Thanks, Kathryn
Does the caged bird sing / of loss…
Alone
Halyards play jazz
snapping rhythm
against sailboat masts.
Floating docks moan.
The sloop rocks.
Me? ….Hollow in the shadow
of angry words flung I hum
a sad Billie Holiday song.
.
Song
Does the caged bird sing
of loss
of sunshine and breezes
of light
of green shadows scented with blossoms
a lilting ballad Billie Holiday blue
a yellow memory?
“Alone” and “Song” can be viewed here: https://jerryjazzmusician.com/2020/12/two-poems-by-kathryn-macdonald/
Thank you Between Festivals: A Journal in Time of Pandemic and Lockdown for publishing “Quarantine Wishes.”
QUARANTINE WISHES
black heads bobbing chicka-dee-dee-dee
among winter-shrivelled barberries
goldfinches’ ti-dee-di-di music
lilting like waves through air
plump mourning doves in pairs
singing their sad ooahoo oo oo oo
congregations of ducks quack-ing
a family of swans silently swimming
fish in the river
and heron along the shore
turtles floating on logs
even a snake or two
children on bicycles
parents jogging along
seniors slowly strolling
young lovers embracing
our hearts want spring
and ordinary things
parks and trails
rivers and bays
the earth renewed
with grass and flowers
blue sky
corona-free
***
To view the poem on Between Festivals: A Journal in Time of Pandemic and Lockdown: https://festivalofthearts.ca/2020/11/27/quarantine-wishes-by-kathryn-macdonald/
I chose the photograph, above, by Carol Nemeth because it illustrates a coterminous moment of trust and serenity, a connection between wild chickadee and a person, a precious moment. Thank you Carol.
Please leave a note and also share. Thanks.
Wear Dali’s time-melting /
watch
SHADOWS
When you slip down
go deep.
Wear Dali’s time-melting
watch curl into dream
beyond shallow façades
dig within night’s folds
the moon’s secrets
where phantom fingers journey
over skin lips caress until
encircled two melt
lost until dawn
when light
routs shadows and time
shoots through your chest.
***
Visit the site for a gallery of paintings, photographs and poetry: https://spiritofthehills.org/expanding-and-evolving/
Please leave a message and share. Thanks, K.
Notice her concentration /
how she stands on stilty legs /
Thank you, Sarah Law, editor of Amethyst Review, for selecting Honey Light for publication (August 8, 2020).
HONEY LIGHT
When you wake in honey light
linger where river meets the curve
of a bay round as a waxing moon
where the pearl-feathered heron
glides with outstretched wings
alights in weedy shallows
to become just another shadowed reed
perfectly still in solitude.
Notice her concentration
how she stands on stilty legs
in harmony with time and place
like the pause between piano notes
the space that makes the music
…..the downward pause of Billie Holiday
…..Cohen’s gap that lets the light come in
stands alert and dreamy at water’s edge.
Do not rush through the honey light
but flow in the effortless action
and inaction of night becoming day
of the moon’s light giving way to the sun
and the sun’s rising and sinking
into the ebb and flow of the sea
step into the shallows
stand in wu wei.….a heron-woman.
.
Please “like,” share and send your thoughts on the poem. Thanks.
conjure embraces / your laughter kissing my ears / as we sway to a Coltrane tune.
Thank you, David Jordan, for selecting “Tartan Lament” for inclusion in the June 2020 (#10) issue of Crossways Literary Magazine (Cork, Ireland).
Tartan Lament
Your grandmother’s armchair
cloaked in wine tartan
sits dappled in sunshine.
The cactus you bestowed years ago
blossoms its paper-thin petals
fragile as a grieving heart
its prickly spines set to pierce
unwary fingers warding off
touch as I twist a golden band
conjure embraces
your laughter kissing my ears
as we sway to a Coltrane tune.
Curled in the chair’s embrace
another mid-May day settles
with its abundance of lilac
blossoms like those draping
the mantle behind us
as you gifted
your tartan name.
I’d love to learn your thoughts about this poem, the way it addresses the theme and the way it closes. Please leave a note…and share. Thanks.
From your small balcony roof-top high / you listen to doves cooing in their dovecot / tippy canoe tippy canoe / a rooster crowing. / You wonder / if you’ve slipped into Alice’s rabbit hole.
Thank you, Felicity Sidnell for publishing “The Doves Seem to Croon Tippy Canoe Tippy Canoe” in Spirit of the Hills’ “A Journal in Time of Pandemic and Lockdown” (July 10, 2020).
Those of us abroad when Covid-19’s impact hit were about to have our travelling lives interrupted. It was to have been a writing trip, a month in a place that I love. Baracoa is a small city near the northeastern tip of Cuba, facing the Atlantic Ocean with mountains to her back. Geography makes it rather isolated and beautiful. I would visit friends, but mostly I would walk the long malecón and then the much longer curve of beach, and I would write. But then the news broke that airlines were cancelling flights, boarders were closing: paradise interrupted.
THE DOVES SEEM TO CROON TIPPY CANOE TIPPY CANOE
Baracoa and Boca de la Miel, Cuba
1
Rain falls overnight
cleansing heat and dust of day
susurrus song on the pillow.
Travelling news greets morning
airlines suspending flights
a case of coronavirus at home
factories and daycares closed
the mantra of self-isolation repeated
and repeated
while the sun rises above Baracoa
island town
of ocean waves and mountain breezes.
You feel a bit like Robinson Crusoe.
2
Woodcut visions of medieval plague
bodies stacked and dangling from carts
emaciated people leaning from balconies
cross your mind before you quickly wipe
them aside.
3
Walk miles of ocean shore
to lounge upon a sheltered beach.
Eat uva caleta grapelike berries
from the tree of Columbus’ cross.
Crack almond shells with a stone.
At the small fishing village of Boca de la Miel
listen to riffs of Spanish voices
drift across Made’s verandah
devour fried platano
sip ice-cold cerveza
walk home to your casa on Calle Maceo
close to the malecón.
4
From your small balcony roof-top high
you listen to doves cooing in their dovecot
tippy canoe tippy canoe
a rooster crowing.
You wonder
if you’ve slipped into Alice’s rabbit hole.
Night’s rain has emptied clouds.
The sullen sky has changed to blue.
Time flattens like a Dali watch.
The doves sing their haunting song.
You may also like to read a previous post by SOTH: “Some Poetic Reactions to Covid 19” (May 20, 2020) as well as visit the SOTH website.
When this pandemic passes and we travel again, if Cuba is on your list of places to visit, think about contacting my friend Alber the Hiker who is a wonderful guide who will share his knowledge of Cuba from its history to its unique flora and fauna. He knows his island home from west to east, north to south. He’s a great guy.
Writing Tip: If you haven’t yet joined a writing group, think about doing it. They bring creative people together for sharing, inspiration, encouragement, and often, like SOTH, offer publishing opportunities.
Please leave a comment and share. Thank you.
Thank you, Carole Baldock, for including “City of Tulum” in Orbis: International Literary Journal, #191, Spring 2020.
My visit to the Maya ruins of Tulum came about as a wonderful bit of travel serendipity during a sailing sojourn to Isla Mujeras. My friend and I took a ferry from the island to the mainland and rented a car to drive down the Maya peninsula to the archeological site. Rain pelted and the streets flooded as we crossed Cancun and made our way southward. Harrowing — as Tulum once was for sailors approaching from the sea.
Tulum is unique among Maya sites: it is the only one of the ruins on the water. That day, after the rain softened to mist, we ventured along winding paths past stepped-structures reaching into the sky. We could hear waves breaking before we came to the precipice overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. The poem describes one of the historic edifices, as well as the use the people made of the treacherous shallows. I hope that you enjoy reading “City of Tulum.”
Yucatan, Mexico
A veil of constant rain cloaked Tulum
perched high on a cliff above this ancient Mayan port
where ships with hulls of treasures were guided into shallows onto reefs
where once Mayan priests
ritualistic keepers and writers of knowledge astrology and cultic rites
climbed wearing long robes their heads drooping plumage
climbed close to their gods in the sky
where a still beating heart pulled from a chest fed the gods’ hunger
where shadows cast ominous stains on an altar.
I search the ruins of Tulum
for what lingers ghostlike in the mist.
At the precipice above fishermen casting nets from small boats
my feet cling to the edge high above the sea.
Far
far below
waves assaulting shore
in stunning agony.
Check out the journal: Orbis International Literary Journal.
Please share and/or leave a note to let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Kate
Kathryn MacDonald 