. Happy Friday. Happy poetry. ​Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference. Tabatha shares a fabulous puzzle  poem while rounding us all up.

​Heidi from the Inklings  suggested that we using the “The Lost Lagoon” by Mohawk poet, Emily Pauline Johnson (d. 1913) “to build your own poem FOR CHILDREN about a treasured place that you return to again and again (geographical or metaphorical).”
#PoetryPals challenges us to write a poem inspired by something overheard.
​

Last Friday, I taught fifth grade. It was a day of eleven students (thank you, surge). These fifth graders were first graders the year I retired. After students write a draft, I have them meet with me to put on Padlet which is an opportunity for a mini-revision.

Enrique brought me his poem, saying he didn't think it very good. It was a perfect opportunity to share with him and the class my interaction with Janet Wong regarding my "Zoom" poem and how it was revised to what appears in the book.  As teachers sharing our little moments of revisions in own writing helps students to see that revision is a part of the process.

I have a couple calendars left and would love to find them homes.
When you comment, you will be entered into a contest.

It's early Friday on the west coast. I am heading into a fifth grade classroom and get to teach poetry today.
 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading is hosting Poetry Friday. I am going to have to share her poem "What Does a Pomegranate Know" with my fifth graders today as I am using the prompt, "What Does a [your subject] Know?" ​ I have been thinking of this prompt since reading an earlier version of Mary Lee's poem

>I've been thinking about this book of late.  Joyce Sidman has a perfect mentor text,
"What Do Trees Know?

Michelle H. Barnes at Today's Little Ditty, interviewed her here and created a Deeper Thinking Poem Challenge.

​

In 2015, I wrote:
​WHAT DOES THE RAIN KNOW?
                                   by Jone Rush MacCulloch 

                              What does the rain know?
                                   Sponge clouds gathering moisture
                                   School children running between raindrops
                                   The pop-up gardens of umbrellas.

                              What does the rain know?
                                   The wind whispering secrets
                                   School children with open mouths catching raindrops
                                   The beginning and end of rainbows.

Today I will be sharing this poem, two ways to do it with students. I'll show them my notebook wonderings.  One way focuses on the senses the other focuses on strong verbs.  I hopefully will get to confer with students and revise with them as we load them to Padlet which I will share next week.

It's the first Friday of the new year and 7 Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink is hosting us all.
Do you want some poetry challenges to start the year?

Heidi from the Inklings  suggested that we using the “The Lost Lagoon” by Mohawk poet, Emily Pauline Johnson (d. 1913) “to build your own poem FOR CHILDREN about a treasured place that you return to again and again (geographical or metaphorical).”
#PoetryPals challenges us to write a poem inspired by something overheard.
​

How can it be Christmas Eve already?  This Friday Buffy at Buffy Silverman is hosting us. She's sharing her poetry gift from her Winter Swap and her poetic response.

one candle flickers
the light shines in the darkness
while we wait with hope

​
For those of you, who celebrate, Merry Christmas.

Welcome.  I am so happy to be hosting today.  I am looking forward to reading all the fabulous posts that our community shares. 
Did you write a Cento poem for the Inklings?
Did you write to the #PoetryPals prompt about that includes bells?

​Do you have happy news or the sharing of poems or poets.  No matter what, you are welcomed here.

The #PoetryPals challenge this month is  writing a poem about bells. It instantly made me think of a couple of bell poem ideas.  However, the one that most resonated with me was one from my childhood.  It must have been when I was in third or fourth grade.  Late at night I heard the jingling of sleigh bells from outside when I was supposed to be asleep.  It was most likely Christmas Eve.  I grew up in a house that until seventh grade, the tree (one from a SoCal tree lot) was not put up until after my brother and I went to bed on Christmas Eve when Santa brought it and the presents.
I recently wrote what I call the “Double Golden Shovel” for my winter poetry swap person using two of their poetry lines to bookend the lines. I borrowed some words from the poems that spoke to me.
This week, I found Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, The Bells to select lines from. Confession: I slightly altered two of the words for a better fit in the lines.

From the poem, The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe
On Christmas Eve
​
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
By the side of the pale-faced moon

To wake at midnight by
the faint jingling and tinkling of bells. The
tintinnabulation from the rooftop out-side
that tells me of Santa’s arrival. His boots of 
so much magic-the secret for walking in silence. The
musically clanging and twanging of reindeer, careful not to disturb pale-faced
Well tucked-in dreamers who slumber in Runic rhyme by the moon.
©Jone Rush MacCulloch ​

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 15 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.

SIGN UP HERE

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      

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sign up for the 2022 Poetry Postcard Exchange

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.

 Be sure to head to Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.  He is hosting the Poetry Friday Round Up and celebrating the arrival of Friends & Anemones: Ocean Poems for Children, created by members of The Writer’s Loft in Sherborn, Massachusetts.

Do you like challenges?  
The Poetry Sisters have an invitation:
You’re invited to join our challenge for the month of November! We’re 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. 

The #inklings offer this challenge: “Write a poem that includes the idea of percentage or percent. Percentages are all around us in recipes, prices, assessments, statistics. Include the idea of percentage in your poem in some way.” 

Friends & Anemones: Ocean Poems for Children, created by members of The Writer’s Loft in Sherborn, Massachusetts, was officially published November 8, 2020!

JRM: GOOD LUCK GOLD was your debut book for kids in 1994.  What was it like to take a class from Myra Cohn Livingston? 
JW: Myra Cohn Livingston mentored a whole generation of children’s poets in her Master Class in Poetry. This was a UCLA Extension class that was offered only to those Beginning Class alums who were invited by Myra; there was seldom an opening. As a result, Myra’s Beginning Class was full of students who had taken it five or more times and were not beginners at all: Monica Gunning, Kristine O’Connell George, Joan Bransfield Graham, and more.
 
Some people who took Myra’s classes were published picture book writers who wanted to know more about poetic techniques: Alice Schertle, April Halprin Wayland, Ruth Bornstein, and Tony Johnston, for example. Earlier this year I was invited by Julie Hedlund to speak with the 12x12 group, and I felt like I was channeling Myra with my emphasis on assonance, consonance, and internal rhyme.
 
Myra died in 1996, but you can still learn from her book Poem-Making: Ways to Begin Writing Poetry (now out of print, but you can find it at a library).

JRM: And you can also find it at Thrift Books. GOOD LUCK GOLD  was written twenty-seven years ago. How has life experiences informed you when writing the new content?
JW: Five years ago, I thought that the discussions about anti-Asian racism weren’t really needed any longer. I was content to let the original GOOD LUCK GOLD rest in peace. But the recent surge in anti-Asian racism has scared me. I’m afraid for my 86-year-old father, worried that some crazy racist will attack him on the street. I’m even afraid for myself sometimes; I’ll think twice before walking somewhere alone. Because of all this, I felt an even greater urgency when writing the prose pieces about racism, an immediate need to connect with readers on a basic human level.

JRM: I could see this book being a mentor text for students to write their own poems about their parents and grandparents, food, and culture. Have you worked with students to create their own collections?
JW: In 2013 I worked with some students from Chadwick School in California to create anthologies—a 6th grade anthology and a 3rd grade anthology where every student was involved somehow: writing, illustrating, editing, copyediting, typing, doing technical work, and even marketing the books that they created, selling them on Amazon to raise funds for charity. I think those students really enjoyed having a “real world” publishing project. If schools want to embark on this kind of project for students in a certain grade or in a publishing club, I know that there are several poets who could provide guidance (for a fee). Jone, YOU would be an ideal poet to help schools make their own books. (Parent volunteers: raise some funds and hire Jone!)
 
JRM: Was there one poem that was more challenging to write?
JW: The poem “Bound Feet” went through many, many drafts. The prose piece, too. There is so much that can be said about the complicated history of foot-binding. After trying to write a narrative poem, I finally decided to keep the poem close to my own personal experience, writing about how I felt as a child when my grandmother first told me about her grandmother’s bound feet. When a poet—or any writer, even a writer of nonfiction for adults—is having difficulty with a topic, I think one good approach is to pretend that you are a child again and write from the child’s point of view.

JRM: What would you like readers of this interview to know about #StopAsianHate and bystander training?
JW: The Hollaback! bystander training session is free and takes just one hour of your time; you can sign up in a minute at ihollaback.org. There are sessions focused on anti-Asian racism and also on different communities and issues. My main takeaway: as a bystander, we sometimes worry about getting involved because we know that we can’t fix the situation alone. And maybe we’re scared. But you don’t have to resolve the problem all by yourself. Just do something to get things started. You can distract. You can document. You can delay until more help arrives. Be the first bystander to step up, and others will follow.
 
JRM: What is your next project?
JW: ​Sylvia Vardell and I plan to continue with our Anthologies 101 and 201 courses next year, working on books similar to the THINGS WE DO book of ekphrastic poems with your fun poem "ZOOM,” Jone. People can learn more about these workshops at our website here. Next up for the January/February 2022 Anthologies 201 group is THINGS WE EAT, a topic near and dear to my heart (and stomach). One of the photos that Sylvia and I have selected features a Korean restaurant scene and the word "kimchi." I am super excited for that book—you could even say I’m hungry for it!

For fun: Sylvia's and Janet's next project is THINGS WE EAT.  What would be a food for the letter X?  Comment below.  Janet is generously sending 6 books to people who comment (3 from last week and 3 this week) I will announce the winners next FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19.

Thank you, Janet for providing readers with great back story about GOOD LUCK GOLD and More.  Looking forward to the next books that you write.