poetry, like bread . . .

by Cynthia, in category Bread, News

I’ve been making the same Irish soda bread recipe for decades with little variation– some years I’d add currants, and some years I’d add raisins– depending on what I had on hand. But this year, I made a few changes. I have to adapt all my recipes for altitude baking now, so I made some other changes as well. Instead of standard (cow) buttermilk, I used goat buttermilk, and I splurged on Irish butter and Manukka raisins. The tastiest batch of soda bread yet.

bread

loaves

sodabread

I’ve read the raisins hail from the Himalayas, grown at 6,000-9,000 feet, but I’ve also read they are grown in the Middle East …I will definitely need to do more research. But wherever they come from, they are plump, juicy, sweet, and delicious.

moons and poems . . .

by Cynthia, in category metaphors, poem-a-day, poetry

If a poem isn’t coming along very well during my daily writing practice, I look to my writing mentors. I have dozens of poets I read every week–living and no longer living– and I consult with them. Sometimes I will  imitate the form of a poem. Sometimes I will take a line and go on from there. Sometimes the rhythm of the poem will get me going, so that’s what I run with. And at other times, I’ll take the whole concept, but change a metaphor.

Here is a short poem I love by Elizabeth Steinglass titled “Chalk Moon.”  She, in turn, was inspired by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s “Tonight.”

Chalk Moon, by Elizabeth Steinglass

Who made the moon?
Who scribbled it with chalk
on the blackboard sky?
Who blew the dust away
and filled the dark with stars?

So, for an exercise today, I’ve taken “Chalk Moon” and asked myself, what else makes “dust?”

Wafer Moon
Who took the moon?
Who nibbled the wafer-thin moon
and scattered its crumbs 
across the tablecloth sky?

When stuck, it is always good practice to imitate and emulate the masters. This snippet will need substantial additions and revisions  to become its own poem, but the exercise got me unstuck, which is all one can ask for.

 

 

poem-a-day . . .

by Cynthia, in category poem-a-day, poetry

forsythia

I’ve been writing a poem a day since December 1st, though I’ve only posted a few. Most are still in progress. They begin as observations and grow into  poem-fragments, and eventually become poems. Here is an observation-fragment from a recent walk.

 

Painted with yolk-yellow sunshine,
the forsythia blooms 
drip their excess
onto the daffodils poking up
beneath them.

 

 

dancing cranes at the zoo . . .

by Cynthia, in category metaphors, poetry

My own photograph of the crane dancing right before his feeding didn’t turn out, but here is the poem I wrote afterward. The crane reminded me so much of my nephew sneaking up on my mother, it made me laugh.

Dancing Before Dinner

The crane moves

to the rhythms

of a wild orchestra

only he can hear.

Wings open, waving

and jerking,

exaggerating,

running on

giant tip-toe steps,

like a young boy

sneaking up behind

his grandmother

sitting at the table

sipping her tea,

pretending

she doesn’t see

or hear him.