Category: New Year Postcards

Poetry Friday, Week 48: December Haiku and Announcements

12/2/2022

Graphic by Amber Fleek

Welcome to Poetry Friday. It's December? Just wow! Catherine at Reading to the Core is hosting us today.
I am writing a small poem every day in December.

December 1
rainy day
birds on the feeder
fireside nap
©jone rush macculloch
December 2
hammers pound
inside my mouth
root canal
© jone rush macculloch
(had not only a root canal this week but microsurgery in the mouth and it's been raucous )

The Poeming Pigeon Book Launch Part II

We have 12 poets reading and I will also be featuring artwork from several artists in various slideshows, so each of you will only have time to read your poem(s) from the book. I will introduce each reader with poem title and page number for those who want to follow. (I’ll send the exact reading order to you a day or two before the show)
Featured Poets: Amelia Diaz Ettinger • Emmett Wheatfall • Leanne Grabel • Anne Richardson • Rebecca Smolen • Eileen McGurn • Jone Rush MacCulloch • Sue Fagalde Lick • M.F. McAuliffe • Dale Champlin • Ann Farley • Carter McKenzie
Here’s the link for registration:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItce6grj0uGtM9iv1mC4LkrDY19wNhS5bB
(Once registered, you will receive a link from Zoom. Then on the day of the show, simply use the link that was sent to you to join about 5 minutes before the show starts so we can start on time). There will be a “waiting room” and Shawn will start admitting people in order of arrival a few minutes before the show. She'll review “zoom etiquette” with the audience after I welcome everyone, so they know how the show will proceed and how to use the chat room / speaker view / how to “applaud” / muting microphones during the reading, etc. I will also formally introduce each of you before you read.
https://thepoetrybox.com/live-12102022

I am excited to be reading.

2023 New Year Poetry Postcard Sign Ups

Won't you join us? Sign up for the 2023 New Year Postcard Exchange. Send five, send ten or send to all. Did you know there are 30 days until 2022 ends? Woohoo! Let's celebrate the New Year with a New Year Postcard? In Japan, it’s called Nengajo, a Japanese custom of ushering in the new year.How It Works:

Choose to send five, ten postcards.
Create a postcard: you can buy a postcard and write a poem on the other side or you can create one postcard to send to everyone (I use Walgreens or Zazzle)
Once you get the names, send by February 1, 2023 (during the Chinese New Years)
If you choose, you can work in the Chinese animal for 2023: The year of the Water Rabbitt. It is not required.

6 Comments

Poetry Friday, Week 47: Celebrating Recipe Poems

11/24/2022

4 Comments

Graphic Design by Amber Fleek

Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town has our Poetry Friday Round-Up today.
This month the Poetry Sisters,
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Kelly @ Kelly Ramsdell
Andi @ A Wrung Sponge came up with a challenge to write recipe poems.

On Thanksgiving Day, Silver Birch Press featured, A Day's Journey, Thanksgiving 1960. This poem is a revision of one I have worked on for many years. Plus, they included an art piece that goes with the poem.
Last Friday, I tried recipe poems with the fifth grade class I subbed in on November 18, 2022.

To celebrate and share the release of What Is A Friend? by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, I decided that we would write "How To Have a Friend" poems, recipe poems when I visited.

when I go into a class, I really like to discuss what makes a good poem. We read some for the book.
then I shared this poem, a draft from my WIP:
Dara: How To Have a Friend

sprinkle laughter
a little cinnamon and chili
knead in mischief, mix in memories
salmon ceremony, eat mealworms on a dare,
snowball fights,and freckles
sift in leaves
from the tree you climbed
melt Europa
caught just yesterday
hold on - let go.

Then I shared a poem I wrote as a recipe poem to model
and we discussed the ingredients of having a friend and what we might mix in.
How to Have a Friend by Ms Mac

Add:
Laughter
Kindness
Always there for me

Mix in:
Walking home from school
Singing Led Zeppelin at the top of our lungs
Swimming pool days

Sift in:
Wish I could see her more often
sing Led Zeppelin. Friends for how long?
Melt in:

accidentally walking into her coat closet
Staying out too late
Foothills of Simi Valley
Blend it all together:

Ronky Girl, Forever Friend

We also did a Picasso Face art lesson to go with the friend poems. I was able to get the poems onto Padlet but am working on the art. Below, please enjoy Mrs. Fisher's Fifth Grade poets.

2023 New Year Poetry Postcard Sign Ups

Won't you join us? Sign up for the 2023 New Year Postcard Exchange. Send five, send ten or send to all. Did you know there are 37 days until 2022 ends? Woohoo! Let's celebrate the New Year with a New Year Postcard? In Japan, it’s called Nengajo, a Japanese custom of ushering in the new year.How It Works:

Choose to send five, ten postcards.
Create a postcard: you can buy a postcard and write a poem on the other side or you can create one postcard to send to everyone (I use Walgreens or Zazzle)
Once you get the names, send by February 1, 2023 (during the Chinese New Years)
If you choose, you can work in the Chinese animal for 2023: The year of the Water Rabbitt. It is not required.

4 Comments

Poetry Friday, Week 46: Interview with Rebecca Brock

11/17/2022

10 Comments

Graphic Design by Amber Fleek

Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup has Poetry Friday hosting duties today. She's cooking up a delicious Thanksgiving parody poem. Plus she always has the most scrumptious food photos.

Today I have an interview with Rebecca Brock, author of an adult collection of poetry, Each Bearing Out.

I "met" Rebecca in Laura Shovan's February Poetry Group on Facebook. She just published this wonderful collection about motherhood and the natural world.

JRM: What was the process that led you to create Each Bearing out? Did you set out to write a
collection or did you write poems and then one day realized that there was a collection? I noticed
that several poems found homes in journals first.
RB:Thank you, Jone, for reaching out to me and sending me these questions.
So much of this journey for me has been one of permission. I was finally writing again,
after a long silence, and it took me a while to acknowledge to myself that I was writing
poetry. I hadn’t written poetry since my undergraduate years—I studied fiction in
graduate school and had only ever published in nonfiction. But I was writing a lot of
poems I referenced as my “mom poems.” They felt very personal, like small snapshots
caught from the blur. Eventually, I had so many that I began to think about making a
small book.

JRM: Have you always been interested in the natural world? I noticed you are originally from Idaho.
How did growing up in Idaho play a part in your writing life?
RB: I grew up in Boise, Idaho but moved away over twenty years ago. I’d always planned to
go back, but life gets complicated and that distance between my original home and my
home now informs a lot of my writing. I think my interest in the natural world has grown
deeper through my experience of mothering. My kids were curious, input seeking
creatures and seeing the world through their eyes is what’s really brought me back to
noticing, and paying attention to the natural world.

JRM: I was really struck by the poem “Good Housekeeping”. I struggle with keeping house, writing
and being engaged with my family. Add the concerns about the environment, it really gets
overwhelming. What is one event that led you to write that poem?
RB: “Good Housekeeping” resonated with a lot of my friends who have been busy mothering
through these last years. It was originally published with the tag line “America during
Covid, during Trump.” There has been such a constant tumult these last several
years—political, social, environmental. I would be trying to do the most ordinary thing
like decorate for Halloween or vacuum and just feel this redundant dread, as if I were
participating in a great pretending that lets us go on believing everything is fine. The
question, for me, is still a constant—how do we mother these children toward a future we
can’t even begin to fathom?

JRM: Could you share with readers your process with how you decided the order of the poems?
RB: Mostly instinct. I read them out loud, a lot, and paid particular attention to what would be
the first and last poem. I printed them out and sorted them physically, by hand, all down
the hallway in my basement. From there, I semi-sorted them chronologically according to
my children’s ages in the poems, which left me with a burgeoning teenager by the book’s
end.

JRM: Were there poems that didn’t make the book? How did you decide which poems were in and
which needed to be held for a different space? Are you planning a second book?
RB: Yes! So many didn’t make it. Poems I felt were weaker or redundant…or too sentimental.
I have so many poems about my kids, it is really how I’ve found a way to hold my own
memory of these years. I also asked two friends, Liona Burnham and Ruth Lehrer, to read
through a near-to-final draft and tell me their suggestions. It was easier to know what to
leave out than what to leave in! I am working on my second book already—about
landscape and distance, origin and loss.

JRM: How did Laura Shovan’s February Poetry Month inspire you?
RB: Laura Shovan’s February Poetry Month arrived in my life at just exactly the right time
and inspired me entirely to keep writing and to trust in my own voice and the power of
showing up to the page. I had been working in such solitude and suddenly I was in the
(online) company of bright, gutsy, gracious poets willing to post such new writing every
day—it made writing poetry both more magical and more ordinary. Again, I think I was
seeking permission and the poets from February Poetry Month absolutely holler their
permission at you every day you post. It’s quite a gift and I’m so grateful, every year I
participate, for Laura and for the generosity of that space.

JRM: How did “A Rock is a Rock is a Rock” come to be written? It made me feel the pain and sorrow
when your child comes home from a bad day at school, juggling schedules, dinner, and empathy.
RB: It’s an entirely true story and it’s about my boy who is all heart with arms and legs
attached. He is constant and somedays I just can’t keep up. But he is also the kind of
person who places you, in moments, in the absolute of now.

Here's "Rock is a Rock is a Rock"
Originally appeared online at Whale Road Review, Summer 2022
A Rock Is a Rock Is a Rock
You got your feelings hurt at school, again,
you tell me seriously
that you feel a heartbeat
thump thump thunking
in your pet rock, you swear you can.
I say it’s your own heartbeat,
in your palm, hammering.
I am straddling dinner
and your brother’s baseball game--
and you try to explain
how your best friend tried to make you
throw the stupid thing away.
I say I told you not to take it to school,
I told you, over and over,
a rock is a rock is a rock.
I almost say, out loud, baby
sometimes you’re just too much
but your breaths are coming hard,
your small chest heaves—love,
there is nothing weak about you.
I turn the stove off.
You let me hug you,
the pulse of you
barely surface deep.
When you let me hold him,
Rocky is still warm.
You believe in so many things,
even me.

JRM: What can you share with readers who are exploring writing chapbooks?
RB: Calling it a chapbook necessarily focuses your theme and scope—and that helped me get
my mind around the idea. I wasn’t trying to write a book…I was only working on a
chapbook. I read a lot of other people’s chapbooks. And I looked up contest deadlines
and used them as goalpost deadlines. I found poets whose work I admired, in literary
journals I like, and I ordered their books, scoured their bios for ideas of where to submit.
Submitting my poems before they were part of a book also provided me a sort of
scaffolding—I knew certain poems had resonance and strength.

Time to Think About 2023 New Year Postcard Exchange

Won't you join us? Sign up for the 2023 New Year Postcard Exchange. Send five, send ten or send to all. Did you know there are 44 days until 2022 ends? Woohoo! Let's celebrate the New Year with a New Year Postcard? In Japan, it’s called Nengajo, a Japanese custom of ushering in the new year.How It Works:

Choose to send five, ten postcards.
Create a postcard: you can buy a postcard and write a poem on the other side or you can create one postcard to send to everyone (I use Walgreens or Zazzle)
Once you get the names, send by February 1, 2023 (during the Chinese New Years)
If you choose, you can work in the Chinese animal for 2023: The year of the Water Rabbitt. It is not required.

One More Announcement!

I have very exciting news.

It started as a disappointment, my in-person poetry reading for November 13 was canceled due to health concerns of one of the editors. However, they have decided to go with a Zoom Reading for Issue 12 of The Poeming Pigeon on Saturday, December 10 at 4:00 PST. I will be sending out the information as soon as I get a hold of it.

I’m excited because now my online poetry friends will be able to tune in.

10 Comments

Poetry Friday, Week 8: Exquisite Corpse Poem and Poetry Postcards

2/24/2022

Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
is hosting the Poetry Friday round up this week.

The Poetry Sisters came up with a challenge to write an Exquisite Corpse poem. It is a collaborative effort.
You can read about it at Poets. org
I've been meeting with a small group of poets that shared some zoom classes.

We decided to play. The result was two poems created in two different ways. And second, we each wrote a line. I coordinated the words and the lines by assigning names, pulling them out of a hat. The results are as follows. We had great fun.

First, we followed the recommendation list at Poets.org.
We decided on a ADJ-N-V-ADJ-N sequence. Everyone go at least one adjective and one noun.

For the second one, each person was assigned a line and created the ADJ-N-V-ADJ-N sentence.

No one knew what the others had written until the end.

They sort of remind me of fever dreams. I love the word choices in each.

Finally, here is the video I created with Canva Pro to share all the New Year Postcards. Such a fun learning curve.

If you want to see want I was up to this past weekend, visit Robyn Hood Black's blog.

Poetry Friday, Week 49: A Cento for Solstice and a Call for the New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

12/10/2021

Cathy at Merely Day by Day is hosting us and thanking the Poetry Friday community. So glad you are in the community, Cathy.

Molly Hogan of The Inklings, suggested for the December challenge, that we try the cento poem/patchwork poem.

# PoetryPals the December challenge is to write a poem about bells.

After reading MaryLee's cento last week and Carol Varsolana's cento this week, I am jumping in with one about winter's arrival.
Did you know that the CENTO is an historic poetic form, relying entirely on other poets’ published words? According to Linda Black, Ausonius (c310 – c395) was the Roman originator of the form.

For mine, I researched poems about the winter solstice.

One Solstice

When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire
which burns the spark of luminous goodness

when I stare at paper or into silences
the dark, too, blooms and sings,

The world appears very large, very round now
extending far as the moon

A quiet light, and then not even that.
all the singing is in the tops of the trees

which shook in the wind of night
to drive the dark away

One winter I lived north, alone

©jone rush macculloch, 2021

Sources for One Solstice:
LITTLE GIDDING BY T.S. ELIOT
A WINTER SOLSTICE PRAYER BY EDWARD HAYS
SNOW BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
TO KNOW THE DARK BY WENDELL BERRY
WINTER SOLSTICE BY HILDA MORLEY
AN OLD MAN’S WINTER NIGHT BY ROBERT FROST
WHITE-EYES BY MARY OLIVER
THE COLD EARTH SLEPT BELOW BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
THE SHORTEST DAY BY SUSAN COOPER
THE WORLD BY JENNIFER CHANG

2022 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

Won't you join us? We have about 10 at the party so far and there's room for more. Sign up for the 2022 New Year Postcard Exchange. Send five, send ten or send to all.

Did you know there are 22 days until 2021 ends? Woohoo! Let's celebrate the New Year with a New Year Postcard? In Japan, it’s called Nengajo, a Japanese custom of ushering in the new year.

How It Works:

Choose to send five, ten postcards.
Create a postcard: you can buy a postcard and write a poem on the other side or you can create one postcard to send to everyone (I use Walgreens or Zazzle)
Once you get the names, send by February 1, 2022 (beginning of Chinese New Years)
If you choose, you can work in the Chinese animal for 2022: The year of the Tiger. It is not required.

A shout out to this book, HOP TO IT edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell has won the Kids' Book Choice Awards.
I love this book.

Next week, the Poetry Friday Party is here! I'm hosting. Bring your bells and centos and winter solstice greetings!

Poetry Friday, Week 48: 2022 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

12/3/2021

Please head over to Michelle at Michelle Kogan to see other poetry posts. Plus Michelle shares her gifts of art.

December
the long and short of it
year passes

2022 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

It's time. Sign up for the 2022 New Year Postcard Exchange. Send five, send ten or send to all.

Did you know there are 29 days until 2021 ends? Woohoo! Let's celebrate the New Year with a New Year Postcard? In Japan, it’s called Nengajo, a Japanese custom of ushering in the new year.

How It Works:

Choose to send five, ten postcards.
Create a postcard: you can buy a postcard and write a poem on the other side or you can create one postcard to send to everyone (I use Walgreens or Zazzle)
Once you get the names, send by February 1, 2022 (beginning of Chinese New Years)
If you choose, you can work in the Chinese animal for 2022: The year of the Tiger. It is not required.

I have a few 2022 Calendars for sale, $15.00 (includes shipping ).
If interested, please fill out this FORM.

Poetry Friday, Week 44, November #poetrypals Challenge and More

11/26/2021

Ruth at there is no such thing as a God-forsaken town is hosting us and old school style this morning. Her Ode to Haiti in Autumn is beautiful and poignant with all that is happening in Haiti right now. I pray for peace in Haiti.

The Poetry Sisters invited us to join their challenge for the month of November! Writing an Ode to Autumn. An ode is a lyrical poem, a way of marking an occasion with a song. Whether you choose an irregular ode with no set pattern or rhyme, or the ten-line, three-to-five stanza famed by Homer himself, we hope you’ll join us in singing in the season of leaf-fall and pie, and sharing on November 26th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

Well, sometimes I miss little details, like this was to be an ode for autumn, not November. Maybe it's because my grandfather always referred to November as the darkest month. And my father agreed with him as Grandfather Mac died in November and my mother, pregnant with my brother was hospitalized with non-paralytic polio. So maybe I was unconsciously look for a way to lift up and light up November. I begin this month with the lighting of white twinkle lights outside. My flameless candles are set to flicker on at sunset (how cool is it that flameless candles can be programmed?)

I've been keeping up with my #gratiku note booking. Last week, I read through my blog to mine words.

November Ode

Later sunrises
Gunpowder grey skies
Pink threading the clouds
Wind blustering more
Leaves and letting go

Earlier sunsets
Darkness and candles
Warming by a fire
Family gatherings
November; autumn's hug

© jone rush macculloch

It's time. Sign up for the 2022 New Year Postcard Exchange. Send five, send ten or send to all.

Did you know there are 36 days until 2021 ends? Woohoo! Let's celebrate the New Year with a New Year Postcard? In Japan, it’s called Nengajo, a Japanese custom of ushering in the new year.

How It Works:

Choose to send five, ten postcards.
Create a postcard: you can buy a postcard and write a poem on the other side or you can create one postcard to send to everyone (I use Walgreens or Zazzle)
Once you get the names, send by February 1, 2022 (beginning of Chinese New Years)
If you choose, you can work in the Chinese animal for 2022: The year of the Tiger. It is not required.

Would You Like?

I am very pleased with the 2022 calendar.

For the first time, I'm offering my small poems
and photos calendar for sale.
It's $15.00 including shipping.

If you would like one, send me an email at macrush53 at yahoo (dot) com.

I have a limited run for sale.

Poetry Friday, Week 43: Call for New Year Poetry Postcards

11/19/2021

Thanks to Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink for hosting the round up. Her autumn gallery is stunning as usual.

And it's a busy weekend for many who are attending NCTE!

The winners of GOOD LUCK GOLD AND MORE. Lucky winners have books winging their way to them.

I am thinking about the November challenge to write an ode to November. I went through old posts looking for words.
#gratiku, Day 19.

word mining
old blog post treasures
recycle

It's time. Sign up for the 2022 New Year Postcard Exchange. Send five, send ten or send to all.

Did you know there are 43 days until 2021 ends? Woohoo! Let's celebrate the New Year with a New Year Postcard? In Japan, it’s called Nengajo, a Japanese custom of ushering in the new year.

How It Works:

Choose to send five, ten postcards.
Create a postcard: you can buy a postcard and write a poem on the other side or you can create one postcard to send to everyone (I use Walgreens or Zazzle)
Once you get the names, send by February 1, 2022 (beginning of Chinese New Years)
If you choose, you can work in the Chinese animal for 2022: The year of the Tiger. It is not required.

Poetry Friday: The Round Up is Here! Join Us!

2/4/2021

I'm so happy to host Poetry Friday this week.

A new year, fresh and into the second month already. How does that happen?

Poetry Friday is a weekly happening for all who love poetry, Write it. Read it. Pass it on.

I found my first Poetry Friday post HERE. It was to announce the CYBILS POETRY winner for 2006. The post ran in February 2007. Thirteen years of Poetry Friday for me. Whether you are new to Poetry Friday or have many posts, welcome, welcome.

THE 2021 POETRY POSTCARD POETREE

I thought of this image as I wrote the poem. Tualatin Wildlife Refuge, 2016.

There were a total of eleven participants for the 2021 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange.
This week I curated words from all the poems creating a FOUND poem. I hope you will consider joining the exchange in 2022.

Refusing to Wait for Springtime

Minted moon silverdrops, yesterday’s rain,
reflecting an invitation for merrymaking on the icy pond.

Beneath the surface, unseen creatures
busy themselves with an honest day’s work.

Chickadees flying free, blue herons perching
high in a tree watching the morning joy.

© jone rush macculloch (2021 draft)

Poetry Friday: More New Year Poetry and a Giveaway

1/8/2021

There is much poetry goodness in the world and do we ever need it now. Head over to Sylvia at Poetry for Children. She has the inside scoop of the 2021 titles being born.

What a week. I think what lifted my spirits was the arrival of New Year postcards.

Linda Mitchell's New Year Poem is based on the Year of the Ox and it happens to be her OLW. That it is a bookmark is a bonus. I love her mixed media art.

Janice Scully's tree made me swoon. I love trees. I am ready for some merrymaking and some spring.

2021 Photo and Poem Calendar

I have an extra photo and poem desktop calendar. If you would like to win one, please let me know in the comments.

<<Previous

Poetry Friday, Week 48: December Haiku and Announcements

The Poeming Pigeon Book Launch Part II

2023 New Year Poetry Postcard Sign Ups

Poetry Friday, Week 47: Celebrating Recipe Poems

2023 New Year Poetry Postcard Sign Ups

Poetry Friday, Week 46: Interview with Rebecca Brock

Time to Think About 2023 New Year Postcard Exchange

One More Announcement!

Poetry Friday, Week 8: Exquisite Corpse Poem and Poetry Postcards

If you want to see want I was up to this past weekend, visit Robyn Hood Black's blog.

Poetry Friday, Week 49: A Cento for Solstice and a Call for the New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

2022 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

Next week, the Poetry Friday Party is here! I'm hosting. Bring your bells and centos and winter solstice greetings!

Poetry Friday, Week 48: 2022 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

2022 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

Poetry Friday, Week 44, November #poetrypals Challenge and More

Would You Like?

Poetry Friday, Week 43: Call for New Year Poetry Postcards

Poetry Friday: The Round Up is Here! Join Us!

Poetry Friday: More New Year Poetry and a Giveaway

2021 Photo and Poem Calendar

Author

Categories

Archives

​

The Poeming Pigeon Book Launch Part II

2023 New Year Poetry Postcard Sign Ups

2023 New Year Poetry Postcard Sign Ups

Time to Think About 2023 New Year Postcard Exchange

One More Announcement!

​If you want to see want I was up to this past weekend, visit Robyn Hood Black's blog.

2022 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

Next week, the Poetry Friday Party is here! I'm hosting. Bring your bells and centos and winter solstice greetings!

2022 New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange

Would You Like?

2021 Photo and Poem Calendar

Author

Categories

Archives

If you want to see want I was up to this past weekend, visit Robyn Hood Black's blog.