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Poetry Friday, Week 27: A Poem of Peace, an Announcement, and Have You Read?

7/11/2025

Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference has hosting duties today. Her offerings today have a tie-in to mine. Thanks to Tabatha, I have been mailing out Poetry Swaps. I have gotten a few this week and plan to share next week.

This week, I am pouring over the poems from 19 Varieties of Gazelle by Naomi Shihab Nye. In her introduction, I found this as she reflect on 9/11:
"...what can we do? Writes, believers in words, could not give up words when the going gets tough. I found myself, as millions did, turning to poetry....Poetry slows us down, cherishes small details. A large disaster erases this details We need poetry for nourishment and for noticing, for the way language and imagery reach comfortably into the experience, hold and connecting it more successfully than any other news channel we
could name." (p xvi)

Whoa. As I was tying this and thinking back to 9/11 and fast forward to this month and last week with the awful flooding in Texas, this holds truer than ever. I had to share the "In Memory" so True.

Save the Date: August 9, 2025

I will be holding a Pop-up Poetry Salon from 11-12-12:30 ish EST on Saturday, August 9, 2025.
We'll gather, write, share, and maybe write some more

Have you read this book?,
With the CYBILS on hiatus this year (I still have cranky pants on about it but respect what they are trying to accomplish), I am going to do my best to feature more kid lit poetry books for Poetry Friday.
Wood and Words
My friend, Mary Cronin suggested it . What a delight to read about the childhood and life of Mary Oliver with lovely illustrations. I love the ones where the poetic words were in a playful thread in the forest.

Who knew the different job she took to keep her writing a float.
I do wish that there had been a poem or two in the back matter. One can always find one of hers to go with the book.

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Wordless Wednesday: Week 27

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Poetry Friday, Week 25: Naomi Shihab Nye

6/26/2025

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Tanita at {fiction, instead of lies} is hosting Poetry Friday. She is sharing the poetry challenge for July which sounds very fun and doable.
Its a Sedoka is an unrhymed poem made up of two three-line katautawith a 5/7/7, 5/7/7 syllable count. Since a Sedoka has only six lines, you can totally do this! BONUS: Mary Lee (A(nother) Year of Reading) is hosting next Friday and has the theme for protest Poetry on Independence Day. Try a Sedoka.

We are living in some uncertain times. This past weekend, after the news, I decided to do restart abandoning art. This time I'm making 2 x 2 in canvas hearts. #moreart #morelove.

There are 2 that are heading to Paris with a friend to leave somewhere in the city. I'm going to make more this summer.

The other thing I'm doing is to revisited the poems of Naomi Shihab Nye. This one comes from The Tiny Journalist. It's a book I bought at the 2020 AWP Conference. I found the poem on Poets.org

Moon Over Gaza Naomi Shihab Nye 1952 –
I am lonely
for my friends.
They liked me,
trusted my coming.
I think they looked up at me
more than other people do.

I who have been staring down so long
see no reason for the sorrows humans make.
I dislike the scuffle and dust of bombs blasting
very much. It blocks my view.

A landscape of sorrow and grieving
feels different afterwards.
Different sheen from a simple desert,
children who say my name
like a prayer.

Sometimes I am bigger than
a golden plate,
a giant coin
and everyone gasps.

Maybe it is wrong
that I am so calm.
From The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, Ltd. 2019) by Naomi Shihab Nye. Copyright © 2019 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used with the permission of the poet.

This line is so powerful:
see no reason for the sorrows humans make.

I received the first Summer Poetry Swap from Linda Mitchell. And squee she sent me a fabulous book to read by our very own Poetry Friday poet, Margaret Simon. I am going to begin it tonight. and will be using Linda's hand crafted book mark with the poem, A Book is a Place" by Clyde Watson on the back.

My goal this summer is to read more poetry and to share more titles. You may or may not know this but the CYBILS are pausing their year awards for this year. I get why they are yet I am very sad about this.

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