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Virtual Poetry Circle: Robert Herrick

April 15, 2023 by

To Daffodils

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray’d together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
Ne’er to be found again.

Filed Under: Events, national poetry month, virtual poetry circle Tagged With:

Poetry Play: Creating a Fill-in Poem

April 14, 2023 by

When creating poems, I often view it as play. Playing with words, phrases, images, etc. Isn’t this what we do as children? We often make games out of everything, and teachers are great at making learning fun.

Today, let’s create a Fill-in poem. I’ll provide the phrase, and you provide the ending for each line.

Under the stars
under the moon
under the trees
under your arms, I am free.

Here’s a phrase for you to try:

Over ___________
Over ___________
Over ___________
Over ___________

Let’s see what you got!

Filed Under: announcements, Events, national poetry month Tagged With:

The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras by Fran Abrams

April 13, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 23 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras by Fran Abrams is a delight. If you love math or don’t, it won’t matter as Abrams’ wry wit and precise storytelling will tickle your humor bone. She espouses her love of Pythagoras and his math in the opening poem, but she also has a few things to say about his philosophies. We all can’t be perfect, right?

What I love about Abrams’ work is that she can take the every day things we see and feel and make them new. Imagine the poem “Triangle” and see how Abrams transforms it into a poem about trysts and how people must have confused them with the word truss, one of the strongest architectural elements used. She juxtaposes the strength of the triangle with the instability of the tryst in just 7 stanzas.

Triangle (pg. 2)

the strongest shape
used in bridges and in trusses
to support floors and roofs

compression on legs
balanced by tension
across the base

difficult to break unless
one of the sides cracks—
then why is a love triangle

the same shape as a truss
how strong can it be
when it's made of two men

who love one woman or two women
who love one man or some other arrangement
of three not supposed to be in love

how long before one side
of the triangle will crack
causing the structure to fail

the answer becomes evident only
when someone realizes
they have confused tryst with truss

Her chapbook uses the base of math to explore our lives, making astute observations on love, family, and so much more. The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras by Fran Abrams is not to be missed.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Poet:

Fran Abrams lives in Rockville, MD. She holds an undergraduate degree in art and architecture and a master’s degree in urban planning. For 41 years, she worked in government and nonprofit agencies in Montgomery County, MD, where her work involved writing legislation, regulations, memos, and reports.

In 2000, before she retired, she began working as a visual artist. Then, after retiring in 2010, she devoted the majority of her time to her art. After attending a poetry reading in 2017, she realized she missed expressing herself in words and began taking creative writing classes at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD, where she concentrated on writing poetry. In September 2017, she traveled to Italy on a poetry retreat that strengthened her commitment to writing poems. She now devotes the most of her time to writing poetry.

Since 2017, her poems have been published online and in print in Cathexis-Northwest Press, The American Journal of Poetry, MacQueen’s Quinterly Literary Magazine, The Raven’s Perch, Gargoyle 74, and others. In 2019, she was a juried poet at Houston (TX) Poetry Fest and a featured reader at DiVerse Gaithersburg (MD) Poetry Reading. Her poems appear in more than a dozen anthologies, including the 2021 collection titled This is What America Looks Like from Washington Writers Publishing House (WWPH). In December 2021, she won the WWPH Winter Poetry Prize for her poem titled “Waiting for Snow.” Her first chapbook, titled “The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras,” is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Her first full-length manuscript, titled “I Rode the Second Wave: A Feminist Memoir,” is out now from Atmosphere Press.

Filed Under: challenges, Events, national poetry month, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll

April 12, 2023 by

Source: Publisher
Paperback, 84 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll, winner of the Washington Writer’s Publishing House‘s 2022 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize, opens with a quote from Ocatvia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which sets the stage for the whole collection. Moll’s poems are about every day moments that each of us can relate to, such as days in which we have little energy to perform even the simplest tasks or are exasperated with the search for love and acceptance. The collection points to the gradual wearing down of ourselves.

In the first poem, “You Cannot Save Here,” the narrator begins with “the first day of The End,” which sets up readers for the journey through the apocalypse of life. “I don’t do anything just/sit in the dimness of midday/room with unopened blinds” Think about it, would we really know when the end comes? Do we even know when our end is near or that death has come for us? Not usually. This theme of not knowing if it is the end permeates the poems in this collection where the narrator realizes in “If You See Me, Weep” that lyrics about the end of the world and it “being later than you think” have been sung for decades.

Not only is Moll calling us to task about our obsessions with the end of the world and the death of ourselves, but he also is urging us to “be a whole oak enveloped in kind potential.” (“Fruit of the Unenclosed Land”). Through the title poems (yes, multiple poems are titled “You Cannot Save Here”), readers are immersed in the apocalypses that populate our lives. Humans are such dramatic creatures. Moll is meditating on what it means when we’ve past the point of no return and how do we live with where we are. But don’t expect all of these poems to be dark and dreary, because they are far from that.

You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll is a light in the darkness, teaching us to see what we have and rejoice in that moment. The collection asks what is our potential and how can we achieve it, despite our apocalyptic perspective.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Tonee Moll is a queer poet, essayist and educator. Tonee holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts and a Ph.D. in English. They are the author of “Out of Step: A Memoir,” which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Non/Fiction Collection Prize. Their latest book, “You Cannot Save Here,” won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. They live in Baltimore, and they teach creative writing & literature as an assistant professor of English at Harford Community College.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, Events, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Guest Post and Giveaway: Handsome, Clever, & Rich by Jayne Bamber

April 11, 2023 by

Today, Jayne Bamber is back with a guest post and excerpt from her new novel, Handsome, Clever & Rich.

Let’s check out a little bit about this tale:

What if Elizabeth is not a Bennet by birth, but by marriage?

When Netherfield Park is let at last, the village of Meryton is inveigled in romance, intrigue, and a few less-than-happy reunions. The Bingley siblings return to the home of their youth, an estate purchased just before the death of their father. The neighborhood, especially the Bennet family, is ready to welcome them back with open arms, but Mr. Bingley’s attempt to make a good impression on his community backfires so badly that it is his awkward friend Mr. Darcy who is obliged to salvage the situation in the aftermath of Mr. Bingley insulting Jane Bennet at the Assembly.

Young widow Elizabeth Bennet begins her acquaintance with Mr. Darcy on amiable terms, but the reckless folly of his friend and the regrets from her own past create a bumpy path to Happily Ever After for them.

Not long after an injury obliges Elizabeth to recover at Netherfield Park, her estranged sister finally discovers Elizabeth’s whereabouts, and journeys from Highbury to Meryton in all haste, suitors in tow.

When one unexpected betrothal arises out of necessity, Jane Austen’s most notorious matchmaker is inspired to work her magic at Longbourn, Netherfield, and Lucas Lodge – but she, too, will have met her match in matters of meddling & mischief.

Please give Jayne Bamber a warm welcome:

It’s great to be back at Savvy Verse and Wit! Today I am here to share another excerpt of my new release, Handsome, Clever & Rich, which is now available on Kindle Unlimited.

As you may guess from the title, this Pride & Prejudice variation features appearances from several characters from Emma, including the titular heroine herself! That’s not the only big change you’ll see in Meryton in this variation. The Assembly at the beginning of the novel takes a very different turn when that notorious insult, “She is tolerable, I suppose…” is spoken not by Mr. Darcy, but by Mr. Bingley – in reference to Jane Bennet! This moment of bad judgement plagues Mr. Bingley for much of the book, and sets Mr. Darcy on an unlikely course of being better liked than his friend in Meryton.

Darcy first rescues Jane from the mortification on Mr. Bingley’s insult, and later he rescues Elizabeth in a much more significant way. Today I am sharing an excerpt from the novel; this scene takes place at the Meryton Assembly, just after Mr. Bingley insults Jane. While Darcy stands up with Jane, he witnesses Elizabeth “accidentally” spill her wine on Mr. Bingley. Now, he has asked Elizabeth to dance as well.

***

A rosy blush spread across Elizabeth’s cheeks as she realized he had seen her little act of revenge.

“It was childish of me – I ought not to have done it.”

“I have done worse in defense of my own sister, and would do so again without hesitation,” Darcy replied.

“What age is your sister, sir?”

“Just lately sixteen.”

A trace of something deeply sorrowful flashed in her eyes, before Elizabeth looked away. “It is a difficult age for any young lady.”

Darcy quietly considered her words. Elizabeth looked to be about twenty years of age; she would have been about sixteen at the time of Benjamin Bennet’s death, which their mother indicated had been four years ago. A difficult age indeed for the beautiful creature before him. He knew better than to speak of it, for Miss Bennet had gone silent and sullen at his attempt to relate to her through a loss of such magnitude.

Before Darcy could manage to say something profound enough to convey that he understood her sentiments, Elizabeth turned the conversation with a pert smile and a twinkle in her eye. “Am I to understand, sir, that you do not begrudge me my lapse in civility toward your friend?”

“The first offense was all his – even Bingley would surely admit as much,” Darcy replied.

“How magnanimous of him,” she drawled.

Again Darcy paused to consider how best to word his response. Unwilling to give voice to the other sentiments Bingley had expressed, which must constitute a betrayal of his friend, Darcy could only wish the words of affection had been spoken as loud as those of censure. And yet, he knew that there was no amount of praise or affection that could justify the comments Bingley had made so publicly, for the lady herself as well as her entire community to hear. Darcy was still pondering the best way to assuage his friend’s dilemma, when an arch look from Elizabeth captured his attention.

“You say you would do far worse in defense of your own sister, Mr. Darcy – what would you have done if you had heard your nearest neighbor speak of Miss Darcy in such a way?”

Darcy did her the justice of genuinely considering the question, and replied with a wry smile, “You can hardly duel him at dawn.”

Elizabeth arched an eyebrow at him, as she had done from across the room when she had caught him staring. “I am sure Benjamin left a pair of pistols somewhere in the house. Jane might even make a fine second, unless she was obliged to face a man who had been so kind to her.”

There was a tone of challenge in her voice, which only strengthened Darcy’s rapidly increasing admiration of the headstrong enchantress. “I would not second any man so unequivocally in the wrong, even if I understood the deeper reasons behind his grievous blunder.”

He could see at once that he had made a misstep in his address, and a moment later, in the movement of the dance. Elizabeth clenched her jaw in righteous indignation. “I am sure I understand the reason behind his blunder perfectly, sir. Nothing could be plainer.”

“I beg you would not base your estimation of his character solely upon his behavior this evening,” Darcy said with a sigh. “I fear the endeavor would reflect no credit on either of you.”

“If I do not take his likeness now, sir, I may never have another opportunity. He ought not expect a warm welcome at Longbourn, any more than I should presume my own family to be received at Netherfield, such as things are.”

“I shudder to think what your estimation must be of myself,” Darcy said, testing his luck from another angle.

Elizabeth was momentarily taken aback by such a direct statement, and she bubbled with startled laughter. “I had always supposed it a woman’s prerogative to fish for compliments in such a way –  though I can hardly do such slander to my own sex at such a time, given the prevailing weaknesses of the men this evening. But you need not fear for yourself, Mr. Darcy, so long as you do not take to the field, should it really come to pistols at dawn with your friend. The key to securing a place in my esteem is and always shall be Jane, and all my family at Longbourn – therefore, you are quite safe at present.”

“At present,” Darcy replied, suppressing a surge of admiration for the diminutive but ferocious woman before him. He could hardly account for how either of them managed to move in time to the music, amidst such a conversation as this – it was nearly too intense to bear, yet he wished to press on still. “I suppose by this you mean that your opinion, however favorable, might be altered by some future offense?”

“Have you any particular assault on my regard planned, sir?”

“No indeed – I merely mean to make out your character in turn.”

Elizabeth grinned at him. “Very well – but of course my good opinion, so newly formed, might rise or fall, depending on subsequent revelations. I am sure anybody might say the same. That is generally how first impressions work, Mr. Darcy.”

“I am quite in agreement. But does it not follow that the reverse must also be true – that an unfavorable impression might also rise or fall? Or is your resentment, once created, unappeasable? Is such implacable animosity not a shade in character?”

Laughing heartily, Elizabeth missed a step of the dance as she wagged her finger playfully at him. “You tease me into praising you, only to repay me by finding fault in my reasoning? Pistols at dawn, Mr. Darcy.”

“If your good opinion, once lost, is lost forever, I should call that a failing indeed. But in cases where one is blinded by a strength of affection that is, by itself, a charming virtue, this faulty reasoning may be forgiven. Your attachment to your sister does you great credit.”

Elizabeth smiled at him still, but now there was steel in her voice. “And yours to Mr. Bingley does not.” “Has Miss Bennet not ever accidentally given offense to anyone?”

“Not once, in the whole course of her life, I am sure,” Elizabeth said cheerfully. “As the Bingleys have
known her for much of it, you might apply to them for confirmation of the fact.”

She was dancing circles around him in more ways than one; it was frustrating, and tantalizing in a way Darcy had never before experienced. The movement of the dance required them to move closer and spin in time together, and for a moment his desire to defend Bingley’s character was lost to other impulses. Darcy was attracted to Elizabeth Bennet, despite their brief acquaintance, the vast difference in their situations in life, and a thousand other obstacles – but for a brief, blissful minute he managed to push past his pragmatism and simply bask in her mesmerizing company.

Finally, Darcy recovered what little of his equanimity he could – he was here for Bingley’s sake, and not his own. He furrowed his brow as he tried to pick up the thread of conversation and salvage the situation before he was utterly lost. “Do you credit their opinion so well? You would still suppose the Bingleys might be honest about that aspect of Miss Bennet’s character, despite what you have heard them say tonight – despite your own unshakable certainty that they are pretentious, ill-mannered, standoffish, inconsiderate snobs?”

“And you would find fault in their estimation of my sister, yet it is my own logic you assault so assiduously – I might as well inquire as to why a man of your intelligence and position, who has lived in the world, might keep such company. But if you mean to tell me that your friends will not give me an honest answer, we might ask anybody in the room to name a circumstance where Jane has been unkind, or anything short of perfection. Nobody could do it.”

Elizabeth let out a peal of confident, self-indulgent laughter and nodded her head vigorously as she spun to the music with the other dancers – Darcy nearly collided with Richard as he froze in place, watching Elizabeth’s sheer glee in utterly devastating his every argument. He forgot how to move until his cousin gave him a gentle shove and a look of curiosity that promised to plague him later.

“Then she is a lucky young woman – but this I already knew, for she has you as a sister,” Darcy replied in a desperate bid to regain the upper hand. “The material point is that everybody makes mistakes – we are none of us perfect, yet all deserving of forgiveness.”

“That can have nothing to do with you or I, sir,” Elizabeth chided him, shifting her gaze pointedly to Mr. Bingley, who still lingered at the edge of the room with his sisters.

“You are absolutely right, and I am sure he feels it most keenly.”

She smiled wolfishly at him as the music faded away. “Be sure, Mr. Darcy – be very sure that he does.”

The excitement of the other dancers ebbed around them as they all applauded the musicians and began to disperse in search of new partners, but Darcy and Elizabeth stood rooted in place, staring at one another in perfect understanding. “I can assure you I shall,” he said softly, so swept up in the moment that he caught her hand in his and began to raise it to his lips – the approach of his cousin George forestalled him from completing the gesture.

Elizabeth flinched and withdrew her hand at once. “Thank you for the dance, Mr. Darcy; it was most invigorating.”

***

Darcy and Lizzy are certainly off to a better start this time around! But poor Bingley has not made a good first impression on his neighbors, despite having some history in the area. Will Bingley recover his reputation in the neighborhood? Will Jane forgive him? And will Mr. Darcy continue to be more amiable than his friend? Follow my blog tour for more glimpses into the twists and turns of Handsome, Clever, & Rich – and don’t miss your chance to win a free digital copy of the book!

Thank you, Jayne, for sharing your new book with us.

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

About the Author:

Jayne Bamber is a life-long Austen fan, and a total sucker for costume dramas. Jayne read her first Austen variation as a teenager and has spent more than a decade devouring as many of them as she can. This of course has led her to the ultimate conclusion of her addiction, writing one herself.

Jayne’s favorite Austen work is Sense and Sensibility, though Sanditon is a strong second. Despite her love for Pride and Prejudice, Jayne realizes that she is no Lizzy Bennet, and is in fact growing up to be Mrs. Bennet more and more each day. Follow Jayne on Facebook.

Filed Under: giveaway, guest post Tagged With: ,

Dear Selection Committee by Melissa Studdard

April 11, 2023 by

Source: ‎ Jackleg Press
Paperback, 132 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Dear Selection Committee by Melissa Studdard is a poetry collection that will have you on your toes, make you gape in awe, and have you wishing you kept some of your own boldness on the surface. These are poems of empowerment. In the opening poem, “Dear Selection Committee,” readers will see immediately that Studdard is bold and ready to ask for what she wants, whether it is a corner office or the ability to drink chardonnay when she wants.

In “My Kind,” the narrator says, “I’m building a life/out of sad songs, good friends, and leftover microwavable food./It occurs to me that I may be my own soul mate. That’s how I’ve/ended up in this body alone.” While there is a great deal of socialization, Studdard also brings to the forefront the inner life and loneliness of this persona. How do you fill those voids you experience? With friends, good food, pets? In “Untitled,” her persona’s “address is nostalgia/for things that never happened. I wander in/and out of coincidence, dragging a wagonful/of unrequited lovers behind me.” and later the persona says, “Oh — what we embrace/to avoid the life we’ve been given…Generate/a disaster in your life to sidestep/the true catastrophe of your life.”

The poems at first blush appear to be very tongue-in-cheek, with wild situations and imaginative conversations. Beneath the surface there is a powerful female voice carving out her due. From burying the past and digging it up to expressing exasperation with being human and all that requires. One of my favorite poems is Wrap it in Silk, which was published in The Los Angeles Review.

Dear Selection Committee by Melissa Studdard reminds us that we are center stage in our own lives and we need to live it boldly and without excuses. We can be kind, but also we can get what we want by going after it, not waiting for it to come to us. This collection is funny, sexy, and empowering. You won’t be able to put it down.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Melissa Studdard is the author of five books, including the poetry collection I ATE THE COSMOS FOR BREAKFAST. Her work has been published or featured by places such as NPR, PBS, The New York Times, The Guardian, POETRY, Kenyon Review, Psychology Today, and New England Review. Her awards include The Poetry Society of America’s Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, The Penn Review Poetry Prize, the REEL Poetry Festival Audience Choice Award, the Tom Howard Prize, and more.

Filed Under: challenges, Events, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #729

April 10, 2023 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

Her Whole Bright Life by Courtney LeBlanc, which I purchased.

Her Whole Bright Life is a collection of poems that weave together the trauma and exhaustion of a life lived with disordered eating and the loss and grief of the death of the poet’s father. Love and hunger intertwine and become inseparable as the poet grapples to find, and listen, to both. With a distinct and feminist voice, this collection delves into a life now lived without a beloved parent, while trying to survive a pandemic and battling demons that have lived inside her for most of her life. With both fierceness and tenderness, we see a woman trying to find her place within her own body and within an ever-changing world. This collection of poems is both an elegy and an anthem – praising both those who’ve been lost and those who remain.

The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras by Fran Abrams, which I purchased.

The Poet who Loves Pythagoras is very funny at times, profound at others, and exceedingly well-done. Anyone who loves math or poetry or both will also love this book!

–Raima Larter, Author, Spiritual Insights from the New Science

In the aptly titled collection, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras, Fran Abrams gives us a surprising perspective: the poet and the mathematician. In the first poem “Pythagorean Theorem,” she writes, “Few things in life are certain,” but we are certain of her talent and craft. At this convergence of math and poetry, Abrams strives for precision and economy, which is often the case in mathematics. She questions what we know as true and pure and opens its relationship to equations and proof. Whether she is discussing trying to find “true love” or the shortest distance between A to B, Abrams wants us to consider life’s puzzles—remembering what can stabilize the chaos of the everyday. She asks us to consider Pythagoras and his theorems and trust them with our hearts.

–Jona Colson, Author, Said Through Glass and Co-president, Washington Writers’ Publishing House

Equal parts clever and vulnerable, The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras wields the vocabulary of mathematics and science like a blade. Fran Abrams reveals a wry humor in poems such as “Solve My Life,” which makes available a series of calculations: “The number of siblings I have is equal to / the number ounces in a quarter pound…The number of children I have brought into the world / is the same as half the number of siblings I have…The number of pounds I have gained and lost and gained during my life / is higher than the highest speed recorded at a NASCAR race.” Parallel lines engage loneliness; a road trip becomes a matter of counting the miles, literally. Readers who prize the consideration of big questions, balanced against agile specificity of phrase, will delight in this quirky collection. To quote an Abrams title that playfully promises a commercial device to harvest extra minutes: “Save Time! Order Today!”

–Sandra Beasley, Author of Made to Explode

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , ,

Virtual Poetry Circle: Audre Lorde

April 8, 2023 by 

Power
by Audre Lorde

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”
Filed Under: Events, national poetry month, virtual poetry circle Tagged With:

Magnetic Poetry Magic

April 7, 2023 by

I hope to provide some fun activities this month for you to think outside the box about poetry. Today, is magnetic poetry magic! I just love magnetic poetry tiles. You can put them on the fridge and let the magic happen.

What is magnetic poetry?

You can buy kits with words on individual tiles to place on your fridge. No, you don’t have to put the entire box on the fridge. You can change out words once a week, once a month, or even once a year. It doesn’t matter because the combinations are endless.

The beauty of these tiles is that they can be arranged and rearranged on the fridge to create phrases or sentences and full poems.

You can buy the magnetic poetry kits online at Amazon, or just about anywhere and start creating as a family. You can also give it a try online.

Here’s a word bank for you that I created, and I hope that you’ll share any of your poetic creations in the comments. Be crazy. Have some fun!

blue   canoe    orange   dog   there  here  is   as   the   balloon  help   slip   dump   rise  sunset  happiness

fuzz    slim   green   grass   spring  daffodils   life   love   crime   demolition   strike   gowns   goddess

phenomenal    crisp   wait   run   shrink   dwindle  laugh  yellow  was  forever   at  or  about  and  a  can

have   left  right   create   beauty   subtract  add  arrange  lift   bridge   train   lap  tree   shade   flight

I can’t wait to see what poems you come up with!

Filed Under: Events, national poetry month Tagged With: ,

Dispatches from Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow

April 6, 2023 by

Source: Publisher
Paperback, 124 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Dispatches From Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow is an in-depth account of teacher in a poorly funded charter school and the pull of an educator to fulfill their passion in educating children and the tension it comes with when there is little funding, students are hard to reach, and family takes a back seat to her students. In the opening poem, “Dispatch for: [redacted]” the poet says, “I do not want    do not want cannot/stand this world/for them  So I touched/ her and listened.    She did/not dissolve    today but/surely she will/and/if I can   I will be/the nurse who notices   the silent shivering  the silent tears   and brings/an extra blanket//” (pg. 16)

Throughout this collection, readers will experience what it is like inside the classroom, dealing with managers, and caring deeply for students. She wants to reward her most engaged students, but the world seems to conspire against even the simplest rewards – a donut party. There’s a deep sadness in some of these poems. It’s clear the narrator of these poems is dedicated to her students, but teaching itself is hard enough without having to handle the pressures of the administration and compliance with rules. in “Dispatch re: Complaince” “I have / nothing else / to give   no ideas better than these / no students more woke / no donuts / no tears left to cry in the parking lot dawn / no me” (pg. 19)

Beddow tackles guns in school, education compliance, testing, inter-personal relationships between students, teen pregnancy, and how teachers must be involved but not be too involved in students’ lives. From “Dispatch re: Our Scholars” (pg. 55), “To take children of color and   performatively / age them into such series / stuffy  academics Lock them away in / an ivory tower  until they / emerge civil and / obedient  fit to meet the nation’s needs”

Dispatches From Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow is a deeply moving collection of horror and beauty in educating students in a tumultuous time where students and teachers are under enormous pressures. Beddow is a masterful storyteller; she will have readers crying and thinking deeply about our education system.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Sarah Beddow is a poet, wife and mother. She is the author of the book Dispatches from Frontier Schools (Riot in Your Throat) and the chapbook What’s pink & shiny/what’s dark and hard (Porkbelly Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in Bone Bouquet, Menacing Hedge, Entropy, GlitterMOB, and elsewhere. She has degrees in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University and Sarah Lawrence College. After completing her MFA in poetry, she earned an MS in Urban Education from Mercy College and spent nearly a decade teaching high school English. Though she now works in educational publishing, she looks forward to one day returning to the classroom.

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