The Jefferson Exchange thanks everyone who sent us poems during April's poetry month celebration. Throughout the month (and beyond) we posted your poems and shared them on air. Every one was a delight and we greatly appreciate your participation. Check out the offerings below.
While we're no longer posting poems, remember you don't need a designated month to write a poem. If you need a little nudge getting started, Amy Miller, the poetry editor for JPR’s Jefferson Journal offers the following tips:
- Keep an ongoing list of poem ideas, even kooky-sounding ones. “That time a gopher chased me.” “The smell of pizza and the memories it triggers.” That way you won’t forget good ideas, and later, when you’re stuck for something to write about, you’ll have a whole list of interesting topics to choose from.
- When using similes (this thing is like this other thing), make them as wild and unexpected as possible. If you think of one simile (“his eyes were like mahogany”), reach farther for a second one (“his eyes were like cold Coca-Cola”) and then a third (“his eyes were like Bing cherries in a jar”). Choose one of the more unusual ones. This puts an original stamp on your writing. Surprise the reader.
- Take something that happened in the past, and write it in present tense. Pare out as much explanation as possible, and describe it with sensory images as if it’s happening right now. What do you see, hear, taste? How much information can you leave out and still have an interesting, sense-rich poem?
- Take a cliché that’s been written about many times—“my grandchild is cute,” or “I am at peace in nature”—and add a “but” to it and elaborate on that. Write about that much-used topic, but put some grit in it to make it entirely new and yours.
Whatever you do, have fun with it! Here's an example from Amy Miller to get us going:
Every day we walk the same dusty path
seeking a sense of orderly routine
avoiding an ugly world’s toxic wrath
knowing that much beauty is left unseen.
Like the cottonwood waiting for spring leaves
standing bare on a sunny winter’s day,
we see a landscape that often deceives
with emptiness and a view of decay.
Yet dreams blossom when we trod this old trail.
Our deciduous nature not asleep,
and our imagination will not fail
to paint a brighter future we can keep.
Chaos is a journey of reflection
sometimes filled with glimpses of perfection.
Barry Vitcov, Ashland OR
The murmurs I grew up with
were hers.
Smoothing my sweaty brow at night
with her cool fingers,
Go to sleep now –
Nodding in the dark
from a chair in the living room corner
when I missed curfew
after staying out with my boyfriend,
Go to bed now –
Years later,
holding my baby
to her newly grandmothered heart,
the hushed lullaby,
the welcome,
There there –
And now, at seventy-four
she learns her blood passes through
deformed cardiac valves,
whooshing –
I see a storm whipping through,
bending tree branches,
breaking them,
she shrugs,
Don’t worry –
They can talk all they want
about heart murmurs.
They can say hers might
one day make her weak.
But I know the true nature
of her heart murmur –
and it is soft
and it is gentle.
It was the first sound
I ever heard in this world,
And it is strong,
All is well –
At sunrise the cat takes a stroll
to find there’s no food in his bowl.
Without any food he decides to be rude
and screams ‘til his belly is full.
The world turns
upside down
women scream day and night
their children shrink before their eyes
farm lands grow dry
their hearts despair
why is no one there?
Common women
walk the rivers deserts marshlands
passion fuels their steps
gangs of female vigilantes dressed in shocking pink
carry wooden lathis in Bundelkhand, India
teams of stalwart women stand for justice
Kali Durga sings through their voices
about what’s gone wrong
what’s come round
The world turns
inside out
no doubt
full of courage bravery
women sing stomp
march into the halls of power brokers
put their ravaged scarred tested
bodies on the line for this time
The world is remade
through the power of fierce women
performing outrageous acts
of creative rebellion
undeterred by forces raged against them
Like bricks fired in the sun
Inanna loves them
every one
There are moments
when their laughter is all I need
the crackle and chirp
popping through the house
like summer hoots and calls in a canyon
bouncing off the wall;
cascading down the stairwell from high above
like the canyon wren calling to its companion
joy
bouncing
down
onto
me.
Fueled by mighty winds you melted plants, and fields,
filled up on our family photos, the growth charts sketched on walls we didn't realize were so thin
You sucked up oxygen as if it would last forever
And roared through neighborhood after neighborhood
Ashland, Jackson County, Talent, Phoenix, Medford.
You greedily feasted on our lives, our memories,
On who we were and who we might have become
Sparks flew and homes melted down into
Rusty, twisted metal sculptures
Melted into
Branches of trees that fell, traumatized by the weight of your fury.
And many of us held our breath
As everything changed.
You traveled over Valley View, over parts of interstate 5
Down highway 99, you held the greenway hostage
With your ashes and flames that connected us all
Through this unimaginable loss.
You took lives, three human lives
And an untold number of family pets
And wildlife that sunk into the earth
Like the red sun did for weeks afterwards, fire in the sky.
It was there
once.
Standing straight-up from its screw-cap.
Black.
Stacked
with four ‘C’ batteries.
It was there
in the cabinet.
Ready
to find
a hidden lid,
an infrequent spice.
It’s gone now.
Somewhere.
And we fumble through cupboards
with bare hands,
blindly
feeling for lost pots.
You left this earth and
went to heaven on a Friday
This earth will miss your grace, love, support
and humbling spirit.
Heaven receives an angel
you received a welcoming I couldn’t understand
Earthly words do not exist to
adequately convey your reception.
You died on a Friday,
I’ll see you on the other side
In my kitchen at midnight, I am making
a memory of the beauty of this day
For in these times,
when all may truly be in peril,
I will not waste gladness nor
trade it for cheap regret.
I am here, my senses encompass Earth,
mother, goddess, consort,
I know the taste of her,
take her into my mouth
as a heady perfume rises.
I hear the songs of birds and insects
making music for our dance.
I relish the gritty feel of her
soil against my skin.
Here, in my kitchen at midnight
I watch the moon rise through my
window and fold its beauty in with
the memory of today’s sun.
I will rest now, and dream of
another beautiful tomorrow.
Poultry Iterations-Russ Silbiger
Poultry Emotion
angry at the rain
refuses to enjoy
chooses to disdain
Poultry Emotion
Poultry In Motion
takes it all in stride
it will cross that road
without every asking why
Poultry In Motion
Poultry Commotion
agitated chickens
protesting the coop
is not how it ends
Poultry Commotion
Poultry Indevotion
colorful shell
but not from a rabbit
really, what the heck
Poetry Indevotion
Poultry Promotion
the roost has a boss
proud to give the order
still, the head was a loss
Poultry Promotion
Poetry Emulsion
yolk and albumen
dancing with dairy
omelette from hen
Poetry Emulsion
Poetry Conclusion
it's the knowledge we thirst
of the egg and the bird
to understand which was first
Poetry Conclusion
When I go fishing time stands still, because nothing is getting done in the rest of my world
A pole a reel a line and a bobber a small hook and some bait is what you need
Down by a lake a pond a creek or river, you will find what it take to succeed
So Pull up a chair near the water or layout a blanket on the grass while you sit and watch time pass
put on some bait and make a good cast and get ready to do nothing while the fun last
Fishing is fun, fishing is relaxing
I don’t feel home when I’m at home
Since no one there thinks that I belong
They try to send me back where I came from
Or tell me that it’s time to move it along
I don’t feel rest when I’m at rest
There’s too much I got to get off my chest
This inner war of conquest
Means that standing still leaves me distressed
I don’t feel love when I’m loved
Too much comes with it that I’m scared of
I don’t want to end up under its thumb
Cause no one ever fits you like a glove
But when I’m with you
It all goes away
When I’m with you
I feel safe
I don’t feel finished when I reached the end
Got too much going on inside my head
No matter how good I intend
That forward motion can’t just suspend
So I don’t feel home when I’m at home
Since no one there thinks that I belong
They try to send me back to the start of the song
Even when it’s time to move it along to…
But when I’m with you
It all goes away
When I’m with you
I feel safe
I don’t feel home when I’m at home
I don’t feel home when I’m at home
I don’t feel home when I’m at home
I don’t feel finished when I reached the end
Oh! how we reminisce about the past
What have we done?
How we dream of what is to come
What will we do?
Be with me and savor all that is
All that swirls between what was and what will be.
Grateful for all that is
Peaceful in all that is
Are we now?
A Park guide, slim winter steward in olive canvas
leads snowshoers novice and gallant, together and awkward alike
on the Sunday lake rim hike
Skirt the hidden, spring-loaded hemlocks and you’ll be fine
Insisting we understand – and care – Ranger Dave pulls
laminated images from a rucksack
The ways wildlife angle into winter, into snow, is a timeless lesson
Migration. Hibernation. Confrontation.
He repeats and repeats
Long-legged elk and deer glide down the mountain
the first day they can’t paw through white
Cougars, unable to survive on fleet game, descend in the herd’s tracks
Stalk or starve, the big cats hum
Chipmunks and kin suspend animation: 200 heartbeats a minute pull back to 4
Imagine months of endless semi-sleep, and the dreams
Confrontation is the cunning’s choice Martens, some foxes go white beyond invisible and are the landscape
They dare winter to take them
Prey shuffling below the crust, sensed only by owls and hawks, can’t escape
Next winter we’ll all decide: flee, sleep or fight.
Dear Quartzville Creek_Dave Stone
From the time I first laid eyes on you, it was love at first sight.
Your cascading waters and quiet pools sing a siren song I can’t resist.
You wind through the forest, at times revealing, at others hiding your pristine charms,
lovingly caressing the fish that swim your refreshing waters.
You adorn your depths with glittering flakes of gold.
Where have you been all my life?
Emerging from your headwater meadow high in the mountains,
you nurture the trees and the wildflowers and the salamanders and all the rest,
on your way to the sea.
Your bankside trees catch the mist carried by the eastbound winds
and pass it on to quench the thirst of your trees so they grow tall.
They will shade you and keep you cool enough
to hold all that oxygen that the fish need to thrive.
You carry away the excess rain and snowmelt to the valley below
where the people and the farms await your precious waters
when the winter rains stop.
You gather the runoff of the streams that feed you and that increase your riches.
As you rush through your rocky course, you invite the oldest tall trees to lay down with you,
slowing your waters at times so the migrating salmon can take a rest
on their way back home to give birth to the next generation of watery travelers.
I’m not your only lover.
Osprey and bald eagles and kingfishers and ouzel all have succumbed to your charms.
You are a breath of fresh air in this world of trouble.
Yikes! Here comes a wildfire, doing its job, ridding the forest floor of fallen branches, needles and leaves,
leaving behind newly nourished soil to feed the young saplings eager to continue the cycle of forest succession.
You do your job, keeping the fire contained
so it doesn’t sweep the entire forest away at once.
Pay no attention to the suitors that would defile you with dams and clearcuts.
They know nothing of your virtues.
I’ll be back again and again to protect you
from those who would violate your purity.
Explosions land hard
in the spring-cocked field
Dull sun’s morning glories die
strangled in rings
Plows waiting in furrows lie
warped, done and free
Wee cries of a child riding low in a sling
are silenced
when roar from the fire takes o’er
Barn windows blast out
spitting raptor-like shrieks
Raining glass
covers pathways
breaking flesh with
such ease
Yet the mother crawls west
staying low in tall grass,
groping madly, gambling memory
for that gap in the fence
And her babe
dreams of flying
Deaf larks
thrown up high
drop
downward
so gently
in
faint
yielding
sighs
Each thing is ordered in this place.
Books with books,
the light slant and sharp,
moves now broadly through each room
like an interrogation.
Molded glass reflects in spasms on the mantle,
and each room is spangled
with early dim light.
These things, if light is also a thing,
make my morning coffee meaningful.
They form to memory:
a scent from boyhood of rotting plums and red clay.
Then. Steam, too. Drifting, dipping arabesques shaped by a cool, wet, dainty breeze,
a lilting lip of white leaning to grey and dark
rising like lacy fog from the cup.
Inside there is a gentle rocking.
The morning adverbial, labial,
formed on the tip of lips.
I will curl myself in my chair,
and pull my blanket closer
as the house deepens and darkens.
The oak floors now slammed and jutted
by focused streams of forced light.
Then the room projects its own moods
as the light grows and dissipates with it.
All things next to each other,
nothing singular.
I watched a raven’s shadow,
its black self streaked from its flight,
my books shaped and formed
by its passage.
My tongue plays
with the varied words I write.
My hand darkens the page
with my shadow and flesh,
double digits
drafting the shapely early hours.
Ecstatic for another morning
in my formless and wandering mind.
On her way to school
through the zig-zag
of streets
lil v sees el nopal
that to all eyes
but hers
is hidden
so that when she points it out
to her grandfather
who holds her hand
he says, no Mija,
that’s un maguey
But lil v
at five
has taken enough lessons
of late afternoon
loteria
to know a nopal
when she sees one
and so
she is insistent
until her grandfather sees,
discreetly,
behind el maguey
the lone penca
with una tuna
perched on top
If for a Moment I Could Become-Diana Coogle
(For John Muir)
If for a moment I could become
the root that loves the rain
maybe I would water my garden more carefully.
If I could become
the blossom that loves the bee,
the nut that loves the bird,
the dirt that loves the worm,
maybe I would love more assiduously my garden soil.
If I could become
the air that sings to the hummingbird’s wing
and swings the spider’s thread like a hammock,
I know I would try harder at my pranayama.
If I could become
the rainbow that arcs like a mother’s arm
when the sun drops a kiss on the rain’s new face,
I would more often drop colors on the black days of others.
If for a moment I could become
the wave that carries the whale’s song,
the silence that crackles when the frost goes hard
the dark that lights the Milky Way’s path,
maybe then I would know at last
that I am not picked out by myself
but am hitched by deep nerve patterns
to everything else in the Universe.
Clash, clamor, clatter,
Whoosh, pop, thunder
mix with the sweet, pungent flights
1,000 violins
As lovers and the aged of all the species
spend their boundless energy in unthinking joy
In the warm glow of sunlight,
in the life affirming rain,
under the light and navy blue skies
of April ... Welcome!
Like a puddle of ink
on a glossy sheet of white,
Woody, the neighbors’ black cat,
slinks across the snow,
cautiously dipping his quill pen paws
into wells of frosty white
that open beneath him,
slowly making his way
toward a quail dining on
orange pyracantha berries.
focused on her morning brunch,
but with her invisible bird ear
cocked toward the sound
of crunching snow,
and one eye
on the approaching cat.
Suddenly she takes flight,
disappearing into the orchard.
Woody, obeying some
cryptic cat code that disallows
acknowledgment of defeat,
turns nonchalantly,
pretending to be distracted
by a crow high in the pines,
and pads home.
Apricot Gods-Traci Nathaniel Walker
We already know what happens
Every ending already written
Right past us
We come here to keep
Secrets from ourselves
Like the apricot nighttimes
We still taste the next day
As we swear this world
Was never dark
Somehow we are
What's dark
We think
And close our eyes
Like gods
To say what we forgot
Never was
You who journey among the stars
Look down upon us,
Light our way from afar
Once your feet walked this earth each day,
Now you’re walking the Milky Way
Yet a whisper of remembrance,
a touch of tenderness,
we feel you in the evening breeze,
we sense you in a breath of air,
when all is still we know you’re there,
Reaching down from afar,
Smiling upon us from a distant star
Or singing to us in the language
of flowing waters
Winging past us in the silent flight of the bird
Your voices are known, though rarely heard
Yet the heart records each unspoken word
Your love lies unbroken within the
world you once knew
And we learn to love the earth as
we live in it with you.
