Still, here it is
lame perhaps
as any attempt
I might make
to excuse my absence.

This small sharing
brings me back in
to move forward
on sharing ideas
that were the brush strokes
over the work that
consumed my days.

The words came and passed
in my time spent
studying other things.
Slowly, now, they make me aware
they still want their say.

Thankfully
I have this space
to give them room and permission
to move off the page
to the screen,
and on into cyberspace.

Today, I’m renewed as
I carve a new space
in my days
for releasing the verses
that breathe
in such synchronicity
with me until
they appear to
breathe for me.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

I shouldn’t try but here’s my excuse: I didn’t have to stop all the poem posting. The truth is, I really wanted the rest from the mad posting of April. I’ve been in a training program, studying and reading since May. My plan is to take the A+ certification exam soon and pass it the first try—it’s a goal.

As much as I wanted the break, I relish my return and the chance to push the Publish button once again. My apologies for it being so rough, but I’m a little rusty.

If not
I’ll lie awake until
it dawns in me that
no matter the worry

there’s no action
I might take to cure it
at two o’clock
in the morning.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

And even at the back
of my busy thoughts
interspersed in my
times free of tasks,
was the idea
the longing to
return to here to share:

The sounds of the birds
as they conversed loudly
mellifluously
hidden in the leafy branches
heavily dressed by spring.

The late, rapid sprouting
of my honeysuckle plant,
and all the delightful things
my youngest niece does
as she blossoms excitedly
like the lilies in my backyard.

I’m home to the tell you
of all the big events
that kept my full attention
and the quiet sights
that capture my imagination.
Hopefully you’re still willing
to be my companion
traveling through this marvelous
world we live in.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

My apologies for so long away. I’ve begun studying a new computer course and have been making plans to move. Writing on my other blogs and all the while wishing I could catch up to here. I decided to just do it! I hope you like my newest draft.

And I’ve got a few more that I just haven’t been posting. So, since things are settling down (somewhat), I’ll try to get back to some semblance of regular. I hope you’re reading and writing poems with the some of the great communities online. If you’re looking for communities, check out the banners I’ve got in my sidebar, and my poets blog list.

Enjoy!

In my search to improve my writing, I sought read writers whose writing allowed me to hear their messages. The idea of constantly appealing to others for decoding is not appealing to me. I prefer to read through the lines, sift through my knowledge base, and query the verses.

Trolling the poetry shelves at my local Barnes & Noble, the first thing that caught my eye, of course, were the titles. First one gem than another. Finally, I was mugged by The Art of Drowning ©1995, by Billy Collins. The title caught hold of my imagination, and I immediately had to know what that title meant.

After reading a few of the poems, I made the happy discovery that it was easy for me to be swept up in his lines-become-the-breeze of relating. And so I figured out that not all poets write to befuddle and confound me into giving up. That was about ten years ago. And I’ve enjoyed reading and hearing his poetry ever since.

Below you can listen to Billy Collins reading The Litany, one of my newer favorites, from The Trouble with Poetry ©2005

While reading through Ballistics ©2008, I found this jammed between the pages.

Inspirational Writers

Billy Collins makes me
want to write;
Lucille Clifton makes me
retire my poet’s pen and paper.
Sometimes
they swap inspirations.

© 2008 Shari Lynne Smothers

Billy Collins’ poems make me work in good ways, to understand his meaning. He tells me about beautiful things and simple treasures in the small moments. And he can make me laugh out loud, like in The Lanyard. His writing draws me in until I’m almost looking through his eyes, and I can see the world with new eyes, and new appreciation.

Below are just a few of his poems I’ve enjoyed, that I was able to find online.

• The Art of Drowning from The Art of Drowning ©1995
• Directions, from The Art of Drowning
• Forgetfulness, from Questions About Angels ©1991
• The Lanyard, from The Trouble with Poetry ©2005

Many of the poems in Collins’ collections are unrhymed, free verse, and are subtly rhythmic. Collins writes accessible poetry. He paints lovely, intricate latticework, detailed and strong enough for readers to cross over to that place where understanding is there for the sharing. Here’s one from The Apple That Astonished Paris.

Etymology

They call Basque an orphan language.
Linguists do not know
what other languages gave it birth.

From the high window of the orphanage
it watches English walking alone to the cemetery
to visit the graves of its parents,
Latin and Anglo-Saxon

Some poetry readers and writers may not appreciate this quality, preferring instead to draw blood from us and themselves. I am of a different ilk. I try not to share my poems that no one else will get except for me and my best friends. I think when a writer publishes, the goal is to impart something comprehensible and meaningful for her and for we readers to share. Billy Collins accomplishes this very well for me. So, I thought I’d say so.

One of Collins’ books, Sailing Alone Around the Room ©2001, is a nice selection of poems from older collections, The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988), Questions About Angels (1991), The Art of Drowning (1995), and Picnic, Lightning (1998).

Writing a poem daily is fun. But, don’t think it’s not a strain. And, writing in public to prompts does not lessen the pressure at all. Still, I’m glad I went the distance.

Now, if you take the time to read my poetry and the prompts, you will see that I came pretty close most of the time. In fact, any deviance from the prompt would be due to misinterpreting the meaning of the prompt. What can I say? It happens. You may also notice that some of the titles leave much to be desired. These are the markings of drafts in the true sense of its meaning.

What’s Next

Now comes the time to review, to edit and revise what I tried to say through my poems this month. I’ll have to see if I can remember how to fit my titles to the poems, like some of the great poetry I read this month. My plan is to revise the poems while keeping them really close to the original poem. It’s the most authentic, and it’s the rules too.

Submitting: If you participated in writing a poem daily and are hoping to be included in the anthology, the submission instructions are up at Read Write Poem. The deadline is May 7, so don’t delay in selecting and preparing your poems according to the guidelines set forth.

And after That

As of today, Read Write Poem is no longer a live site. It’s shut down to new members, to comments, to group activities, to everything except the repository of poems posted there. And what a collection it is, for your reading pleasure! Now’s my chance to go back and read the poems I missed during the month.

I’ve visited several of the community sites that are springing up and being revitalized as a result of the closing of Read Write Poem. They are community sites that offer poem prompts. I find I enjoy using prompts and seeing where they take me. The ones that have my attention so far, are linked in my sidebar by way of their respective banners. They’re worth checking out.

They don’t offer poems daily. For example, Writer’s Island has Saturday prompts with the first one today, already posted.

Time for Review

Posting about poets I enjoy: For my next one, it’s down to two from my bookshelves. Either way, I’ll be reading and exploring someone that I enjoy a great deal. Getting to know the writing of others is big schooling for me.

Poetry books on tap: Frances Mayes’ The Discovery of Poetry and John Drury’s Creating Poetry. I do this because 30 day poem sprints always make me want to go back to school.

What’s on your poetry agenda? What poetry communities have captured your attention? Leave a comment about what’s next for you, or link to your blog post.

Old poems
hold the bitter sweet marrow
until I return to them
remembering experiences wholly
and can smile anyway.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #30, free day (and farewell). Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

Since we could choose anything to write about, I thought I’d extol the virtues of old poems with another one about my daddy.

I wonder now, if he’s still on this earth,
what he must think
of his indictment for thinking
of what is now considered
fairly old news since
we’ve talked using
blue tooth ear pieces for years.
We write with our fingers
on many smart phones,
and most recently on iPads
that remind me a great deal of
Yeoman Janice’s device
to deliver her reports to Captain Kirk
if memory serves me correctly.

And I do wonder, too,
when I look at the companies
and finances in play and
the frenzied welcome
of anything thought innovation,
what would this man be
working on by now
having had our earlier ideas
decades before
even cell phones were accepted.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #29, front page news Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

On top I can see the sea
of all the extending tangents
and extraneous asides
that might be of interest.

What must be written then
are the lines that glow
with the knowing
shimmer of connectedness.
And so, when I see them
at their brightest I simply
reel them in with my trusty ink pen
to splay them open on paper.

And on occasion I allow me
the delightfully twisting query:
Do they glow because they know
to shimmer
or on some level from my high perch
do I in some way ignite them?

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #28, intuition Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #27, let someone else take the lead Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

For this acrostic, I used S-H-A-R-I, my first name. I tried several other words, including purple cows—don’t ask—but I returned to this one and I’ve chosen to live with it.

We chat, muse,
mulling over everything.
I write fast as I can
anything
that catches my attention.

As usual, way too soon
comes the necessary pull
back through my escape hatch,
back into unaltered time
in the land of
distracting obligations.

Still, as usual
I’ve managed to slip back in
with rare, raw treasures
all mine
to refine and polish.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #26, get scrappy Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

And so went my day.

It was one long fruitless effort
to move forward
that saw more sideways shuffles
than any productive advances.

And finally at the day’s close
facing all I didn’t do
and the vicious flaring
of sinus pressure,
laid flat on my back
this morning’s first thought
returned to me:

I’m so sorry three a.m. came
and found my eyes wide open;
my sincerest apologies to me.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #25, first things first. Visit the post to see the details of this prompt.

This may well be my worst draft yet, that I actually let go of. Probably because it’s true and current—my face is killing me. Hopefully I’ll be able to salvage it in the revision stage.

Endings, standings,
delivering come-uppings,
births and christenings.
Finding acceptance.
Hugging a bigot or keeping your distance.
Successful surgeries, bed rest
meditation and medications
that pull us from the edge
bringing us back for more of this.

It’s all part of the journey.
To each of us our portions of
crazy and volatile with
a measure of calm mixed in.
Plain sailing then is
a matter of perception
and depends on
what gumption we bring
to each situation.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #24, find a phrase Visit the post to see the details of this prompt. “Plain sailing” caught and kept my attention.

For Lucille Clifton

birth: June 27, 1936   death: February 13, 2010

The poetry of Lucille Clifton influenced me greatly. Her wit and rhetoric, and rhythm in delivery are such that they keep me reading and returning to her work. This National Poetry Month, I think on her more often since there are no new words to come, since she is newly gone from us—from me.

Lucille Clifton embraced her gift for poetry, and fortunately we have it to relish, enjoy and learn from. Her poems are prayers, celebrations, indictments, remembrances, and observations. So much more and so moving. Her work embodies the life and times of an entire culture through the eyes of one who was born to see. And I am better for having read her accounts. As, her talent inspires me to strive to improve my skill for poetry.

I want to share with you one of my many favorites of her poems, from her award winning collection Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000, © 2000. It has no capitalization, which is how Ms. Clifton writes them.

study the masters

by Lucille Clifton

like my aunt timmie.
it was her iron,
or one like hers,
that smoothed the sheets
the master poet slept on.
home or hotel, what matters is
he lay himself down on her handiwork
and dreamed. she dreamed too, words:
some cherokee, some masai and some
huge and particular as hope.
if you had heard her
chanting as she ironed
you would understand form and line
and discipline and order and
america.

I first came across Blessing the Boats, thanks to my friend Kirk Byron Jones. I was so amazed by her writing and the way she was speaking to and teaching me, directly. I often write back to what I read—I believe that’s what margins are for. I am not a critic so much as I just like what I like. And when it moves me I’ll put it in the margin. In the margin of the above poem I wrote, WOW. That was all I dared write. Later, in the back of her book, I wrote:

After reading Lucille Clifton

I am awed and inspired
but first daunted. Before
inspiration to pick up my pen
takes over me,
the dauntingly simple profundity
overwhelms me.
And I am knocked speechless
from mouth and pen
to utter any word.

© 2003 Shari Lynne Smothers

Some years earlier, Bonnie Fastring gave me Clifton’s book Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980, © 1987, which I returned to with renewed interest. Since then I have read and loved several of her other collections too. Hers are verses I revisit in good and bad times, to be enthralled, consoled and inspired by her messages, and by her talent for weaving the words.

If you’ve never come across Lucille Clifton’s writing, I definitely recommend you get to know her poetry. If you like the poem above, do read more, and listen to her readings. Visit the links below to find out a bit more about the writer and her works. And always a good trip, visit your local library if you want to read more before buying a collection. Enjoy. And come tell me about it, if you get a chance.

Addendum: You can hear more from Lucille Clifton on YouTube. Here’s another I really like, “won’t you celebrate with me” from The Book of Light, © 1993.

• Article: Interview of Lucille Clifton in 1999 at Poets & Writers
• Brief bio at Poets.org
• Lucille Clifton from Neil Reid at Bearly Audible

I’m so excited it’s Christmas time!
Welcome girls and boys.
I’ll gladly take your letters,
all sticky with chocolate dreams
for magic gifts
and backyard swings.
Let’s talk about those toys!

Children brought their lists
to hand in with a grin.
First one then another
approached the translucent gent
despite the distraction
of his very long rabbit ears,
to impart last minute
gift requests only to get
treats that left them perplexed.

Roger was unaware of
the concern he seemed to be causing.
As he continued his happy banter
and handing out carrot sticks,
he bade each child a giddy
and very special holiday wish:
Merry Christmas kiddies!
You won’t see me soon!
But worry not, you’ll know I’m there
listen for my purple bassoon!

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #23, unlikely couples Visit the post to see the details of this prompt. It works even better in your head if you can hear Roger Rabbit’s lisp and inflection.

One of the lovelier events
nature does offer.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

This poem is for the napowrimo prompt #22, a wordle Visit the post to see the details of this prompt. The words I used are: saffron, rust, tendril, fierce, dizzy.