The Vibrant Channeled Creator

I-Clouds Got the Dirt on You

03 Oct 2013 1 Comment

by jeannepoland in Family Tags: bird's beaks, breakdown, dirt, drips, far and wide, flies, hawks, haze, i-cloud, leaves, mountains, mud, nose, rains, scatter, screens, seed, spatter, splotches, suck, trees

What will the cloud hold next?
More than raindrops?

The i-Clouds
“got the dirt”
on you!

holds it in the haze
flies it past mountains
screens it from hawks.

Then rains it down as mud
that thuds on heads:
splotches eyes
drips off nose
blows its spatter
on what matters.

Birds
sift for seeds
to grow trees
that grow leaves
to scatter into soil
for clouds to suck
to “hold the dirt”
on you.

Report from Honesdale PA: Skype with J Patrick Lewis

02 Oct 2013 Leave a comment

by jeannepoland in Uncategorized Tags: David Harrison, j patrick lewis, not alone, personified verbs, shapes of our Singing, Skype, The Highlights foundation

The Highlights Foundation set up this wonderful Skype Session For David Harrison’s
Workshop: “Poetry For the Delight of It” here in Honesdale, PA.
Patrick agreed to answer questions about Poetry and share some of his poems with us.

Lewis encouraged us to use many forms for our poems, as shown in: “The Shapes of our Singing”.
We left the 30 minute session with a hardbound copy of “If You Were A Chocolate Mustache” by J Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Matthew Cordell, a gift from Highlights.

Patrick read from a poem he wrote for Oct 1st, The International Day of the Elderly.
“So many things you anticipate, you won’t want to do when you’re old.”
“A rose is a gift to the air”
“Is sadness the reason for rainbows?”
And in a poem for Helen Keller, wrote the refrain: “I’m not alone; Ann Sullivan’s with me”

His most significant advice was to use:
“strong, personified action verbs”
(Delete the adjective-clutter)
As Mark Twain said: “If you catch an adjective, kill it”
Patrick quoted a phrase from a haiku to illustrate a personified verb:
“The bee staggers out of the peony”

We will prompt children to sing, create poetry and rhyme their little hearts off.
Lewis says “he’s a loner” but his poetry and scholarly techniques pluck our strings. We play along like an orchestra in a pod! It’s a setting sun symphony!

Please May I?

01 Oct 2013 2 Comments

by jeannepoland in Uncategorized Tags: baby steps, backward, choose, choreography, free, giant steps, God, Please may I, umbrella steps

As a child we played a game called:
“Please may I?”
The leader on the sidewalk said I could take: three giant steps, or five umbrella steps, or two baby steps, or two backward steps.
One was not allowed to begin until asking: “Please may I”
If you forgot, you had to return and begin at the starting place.
What power was given to the leader to design the choreography,
and then grant permission to proceed.
The game was a grand tribute to courtesy
and we learned to interact with respect.
The word “May” is endowed with power.
Perhaps God used it when He created us, thinking: They may obey or disobey.
I want them to choose!!!!