poetry

Writing Workshop with Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita April 6 in Beaverton

Poetry is not the domain of just a few.
It’s as natural and accessible as heartbeat and breath. Writing poetry requires nothing more than a love of words and a willingness to let your pen move across a page, following language wherever it takes you.

Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita, will be presenting a writing workshop on Thursday, April 6th, 2017, from 6 to 8:30 pm, at the Beaverton Library.

The workshop, “Anyone’s Domain: A Writing Workshop,” is devoted to generating new poems using innovative springboards that include notable poems and “an exhilarating plunge into language.”

The event is limited to 30 people, and open to all levels of experience from beginners to experts.

To register for this free event, sign up at the Beaverton Library.

Prompt: Answers to Questions Unasked

The prompt today was based upon the concept that we often have questions we wished we’d asked parents, grandparents, and other people in our life about how they lived, but never got the chance to ask – and what you would answer if you were asked those questions by the younger generation today.

The prompt was inspired by the poem, “My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold,” by William Wordsworth, and the line:

The Child is the father of the Man…

The Book

The following is by Writer’s in the Grove member, Bev Walkler, a poet, author, painter, and family historian.

It laughs, it cries, it shouts, it sings,
  and makes no sound at all
It’s a photo, a painting, a place to live
  you can hold in the palm of your hand.
It holds everything you can ever imagine,
  and sees nothing.
It has no hands or feet or brain
  to do what it proclaims, still
It builds a house, makes a quilt, sees an atom,
  takes you to the moon.
It comforts, cajoles, strikes terror, or peace,
  Depends on what you put in it.
It is the still small voice
  of all there is, was, or ever will be.

Meeting Our Selves

The following was written and submitted by our Writer’s in the Grove member, Ralph Cuellar.

Our “selves” are like spirits
Until we meet in the flesh
and misunderstand each other
When we’re offered information
we’d rather not accept
When we’re confronted with alternate
versions of our dreamed reality.
Our external world is like a series of
collisions in a bumper car amusement ride.

Celebrating National Poetry Month

The Vernonia Library has announced that Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita Paulann Petersen will have a reading at the Library on Sunday April 10, 6-7:30 pm.

This unusual opportunity has prompted the library to open on Sunday to accommodate this special reading event. The reading with the celebrated poet and teacher is open to the public.

Contact the library (503) 429-1818 or library@vernonia-or.gov with questions.

 

Prompt: Limerick

The prompt this week was to write a limerick. A limerick is a poem style that gained popularity in the early 18th century and has a strict form and rhythm. It is such an accepted form of poetry, many can finish the last line if the writing compels them to do so with rhythm and rime.

According to Wikipedia:

Limerick is a form of poetry, especially one in five-line, predominantly anapestic meter with a strict rhyme scheme (AABBA), which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The third and fourth lines are usually shorter than the other three.

According to some experts, a limerick isn’t a true or pure limerick unless it has an obscene element, and that clean limericks were just a “passing fad.” Edward Lear (19th century poet) truly popularized the form and was published in the papers, though he claimed these were not limericks.

An example of an early form of limerick by an unknown author is:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

A limerick consists of the standard form of a stanza of five lines. Using the measurement of a “foot” as the limerick’s meter and pattern, it is ta-ta-TUM, an anapaest. The first, second, and fifth rhyme with each other and have three “feet of three syllables each.” The third and forth lines are shorter and rhyme together with two “feet of three syllabus.”

The storytelling order of a limerick is:

  1. Introduce a person and a place, with the place words at the end of the first line.
  2. Line two continues the action, and rhymes with line one.
  3. The third line sets up the “fall” of the person and is short and sets up the rhyme for the next line.
  4. Another short line continues the action and rhymes with the line above it.
  5. The last line is the punch line, and rhymes with the first and second lines. Sometimes this is a repeat of the first line through a twist of works, but not always.

One of the most famous examples of limerick forms is:

There was an Old Man of Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
His daughter, called Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
– Anonymous

The prompt was to write a limerick. Play with rhymes and storytelling, and attempt to create a twist at the end.

Sun Flowers and Bananas

According to the author, Bunny Hansen, the following was inspired by the wearing of a sunflower costume “hat” by Susan Schmidlin and Lorelle VanFossen during the meeting.

Today I saw a golden array,
A yellow wreath, an ocher garland
Surrounding a brown berry face.
It is of no matter and little importance
If its rays are brilliant, bold sunflowers
Or luscious, life giving, ripe bananas.
Today I saw generosity’s tiara and comfort’s crown.

Knock, Knock

The following is by Lorelle VanFossen, member of Writers in the Grove, inspired by Prompt: Scary Palindrome.

Goodbye, sleep.
Sound in the night.
Knock, knock.
It’s the rain.
Knock, knock.
Is it the wind
Knocking something over?
Is that the cat?
Knock, knock.
Is someone there?
Knock, knock.
Whose there?
Knock, knock.

Knock, knock.
Whose there?
Knock, knock.
Is someone there?
Knock, knock.
Is that the cat
Knocking something over?
Is it the wind?
Knock, knock.
It’s the rain.
Knock, knock.
Sound in the night.
Goodbye, sleep.

Prompt: Scary Palindrome

In honor of Halloween, our prompt this week was another palindrome, a word, phrase, number of other sequence that reads the same way backward or forward. The twist? Write the lines out, make them tell a scary or spooky story, then reverse them for the second stanza.

For instance, write 10 lines, numbered one through ten, then write the next stanza with the same lines, ten to one.