Miracles---Poetry Journal Monthly August 2014

Poetry Journal Monthly has moved to

RainbowWeaves

Please join us there around the first of each month.

Welcome to third month of Poetry Journal Monthly.

This blog is a place to share and enjoy poetry, poets, creative journaling and each other.

Guidelines are here.

Thanks to all who shared their journals and commented.

Sharon Madson is our winner this month and she will receive a rubber stamp from Quietfire Design.

My dear friend Chris is visiting and brought with her a fab RAK package from Dear friend Jen Z. 

Jen and I went through lots of time together, including having babies on almost the same day!

This lovely book, was in the package,

Miracles

Poems by children of the English- speaking world edited by Richard Lewis.

along with a wonderful selection of rubber stamps!

So I altered a bit!

THIS IS A POEM

This is a poem about god looks after things:

He looks after lions, mooses, and reindeer and tigers,

anything that dies,

and mans and little girls when they get to be old,

and mothers he can look after,

and god can look after many old things

that's why I do this.

Hilary-Anne Farley, age 5, Canada

POEMS

In poems, our earth's wonders

Are windowed through

      Words           

A good poem must haunt the heart

And be heeded by the head of the 

Hearer          

With the wave of words, a poet can

Change his feelings into cool, magical, mysterious

Mirages          

Without poetry our world would be

Locked within itself--no longer enchanted by the poet's

Spell.          

Peter Kelso

age 11

Austrailia

I wish you could see this whole book!

I'm going to invite my young visitors to pick a fav page and do some coloring!

Please post a link to your page with Mr Linky below, and leave a comment to enter the drawing for this months prize, a rubber stamp by Quietfire Design.

We Pray for Children.....Poetry Journal Monthly July 2014

Welcome to second month of Poetry Journal Monthly.

Poetry Journal Monthly has moved to

RainbowWeaves

Please join us there. around the first of each month.

This blog is a place to share and enjoy poetry, poets, creative journaling and each other.

Guidelines are here.

Thanks to all who shared their journals and commented.

Darla is our winner this month and she will receive a rubber stamp from Quietfire Design.

I first heard this poem, I pray for children, by Ina J Huges, when I was on a long silent retreat many years ago.

During the retreat there is no reading or writing, and the poem was recited during an evening talk.

the talk was recorded and I listened to the poem over and over again so I could remember it to write it down when I returned to the world.

I just got around to lettering it this week, added a freehand border and my favorite stamp, the flourished heart, and some water droplets that remind me of tears, by Ryn.

  

We pray for children

who sneak popsicles before supper,

who erase holes in math workbooks,

who can never find their shoes.

And we pray, for those

who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,

who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,

who never "counted potatoes,"

who are born in places where we wouldn't be caught dead,

who never go to the circus,

who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children

who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,

Who sleep with the cat and bury goldfish,

Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money,

Who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink,

Who slurp their soup.

And we pray for those

who never get dessert,

who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,

who watch their parents watch them die,

who can't find any bread to steal,

who don't have any rooms to clean up,

whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,

whose monsters are real.

We pray for children

who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,

who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,

who like ghost stories,

who shove dirty clothes under the bed,

and never rinse out the tub,

who get visits from the tooth fairy,

who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,

who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,

whose tears we sometimes laugh at

and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those

whose nightmares come in the daytime,

who will eat anything,

who have never seen a dentist,

who aren't spoiled by anybody,

who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,

who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children

who want to be carried

and for those who must,

for those we never give up on

and for those who don't get a second chance.

For those we smother…

and for those who will grab the hand of anybody

kind enough to offer it.

I can't say this is a poem, I like, and it does express feelings that keep me up at night, that I return to over and over in meditation and conversation.

One hungry homeless child is too many.

Words have power. Art heals.

Let's use our words and our art this month to speak truth to power and bring healing Light into the world.

I was asked how I write a straight line of text on an unlined page.

Practice.

Often I don't care.

Sometimes I use a level with a laser light

Please post a link to your page with Mr Linky below, and leave a comment to enter the drawing for this months prize, a rubber stamp by Quietfire Design.

Introduction to Poetry (Journaling)

Debbie in LA left me this comment on this weeks Poetry Journal Monthly prompt post.

As a retired English teacher, I can attest that "poetry" is a hated subject in most classes. Adults have "analyzed" all the fun out of reading and writing it. I love free verse and any writing that does not follow a stiff pattern. It sometimes takes years for young people to learn a new love for poetry. Your type of blog has been needed for a long time. I hope many people discover it and share your/our joy. 

*thanks Debbie*

It reminded me of my Fav Billy Collins poem that I copied into a journal many moons ago in a retreat with Paulus Berenshon.

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem   

and hold it up to the light   

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem   

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room   

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski   

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope   

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose   

to find out what it really means.

When I went back to it in the journal it was just purple text on a white page.

Shout out to Marlene who gave me these lovely texture stamps, and reading and enjoying the poem anew, I colored, painted stamped and spritzed.

The facing page is part of a poem,  from Marianne Moore,

Stenciled, watercolor washed, stamped Italic Caps by Quietfire Design.

Poetry

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
      all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
      discovers in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
      they are
   useful. When they become so derivative as to become
      unintelligible,
   the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
      do not admire what
      we cannot understand: the bat
         holding on upside down or in quest of something to 

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
      wolf under
   a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
      that feels a flea, the base-
   ball fan, the statistician--
      nor is it valid
         to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make
      a distinction
   however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
      result is not poetry,
   nor till the poets among us can be
     “literalists of
      the imagination”--above
         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"
      shall we have
   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
   the raw material of poetry in
      all its rawness and
      that which is on the other hand
         genuine, you are interested in poetry.

Please join me and share your pages with Mr Linky here.

Comments and Question welcomed, and leave a comment here to be entered in the prize drawing for a Quietfire Design Stamp.

Blogless Poetry Journalers

I'm getting some comments that folks want to PJ, and they have limited digital lives.

No worries.

Send me a photo, or whatever file you have of your pages, and I will post them here and link them up to PJM.

Send Meg some love via comments and I will pass them on.

Be sure to check back here to see the latest posts and add your pages! and leave a comment to enter in the prize drawing at the end of the month.

Here is one from Meg.

Sometimes in the middle of the night

I write bad poetry

Because trust is something you give

Knowing it may be broken

And reality is the thing that goes bump in the night

In all its glorious confusion

Poetry Journal Monthly-an Introduction and Invitation and a Giveaway!

Poetry Journal Monthly has moved to

RainbowWeaves

Please join us there. around the first of each month.

 I love  poetry, journaling and creating simple, small journals illustrating this love!

Please join me once a month( for starters) to share our poetry journals.

The general concept is to write out a poem,written by you or anyone,and embellish the poem on your journal(using the term loosely ) page.

To celebrate our first on line poetry journal slam, one random commenter will receive a hand lettered, quote, rubber stamp-generously donated by Suzanne Cannon of Quietfire Design-perfect for using in your poetry journal!

Check back here often, as I will be posting journal making projects, shout outs to PJers that catch my eye and other fun stuff I haven't even thought up yet!
Sign up to follow by email in the sidebar so you don't miss a post.

Guidelines:

• Have fun
• Create without limits
• Read my monthly post to check for challenges or prompts for the month.
• Create a blogpost using your poetry journal page, using Poetry Journal Monthly in the title.
• Use the link tool at the bottom of this post to link to your blog post.
• After linking refresh the page and note the number of your link.
• Leave me a comment telling me that you linked and some kind words about my page!
• Take some time to visit other PJs (poetry journalers) and leave them some kind words and the number of your link so they can visit you back. 

Close up of this months page.

Setting a low bar.

The lefthand page poem was inspired by a wonderful drawing teacher, Marcia, I had while facilitating at a Open Connections, a homeschool resource center.

Thanks Marcia!

The right hand page poem, by Henry Taylor- another kind of lesson I thought completed the page layout.

I showed you mine, now please show me yours!

Add your name and link to Mister Linky below, and as this is the first post, if Mister Linky doesn't cooperate, just leave a comment and we'll deal!
Be sure to leave a comment on this post, as well as your link to be entered in the prize drawing!