ON POETRY

APRIL woke me to the realization that spring plans to appear in its frothy blossoms despite persistent daily rains—and April is also POETRY MONTH!  In January, I created 2022 as a year focused on writing.  Surprise!  Now I find myself busy keeping up with three monthly writer and reader ZOOM  groups. Why then, not write a handful of poems this month to be used with all the groups!  I have participated in numerous Zoom functions during the Pandemic years, but now I needed to learn to LAUNCH A MEETING!  And with the help of my two computer adept daughters, I practiced and learned to do this!  At the age of 76, I consider this a great accomplishment.  I no longer wait for praise from others; I simply say out loud to myself, “Good Job Susan!”

 I wrote about poetry in the front pages of my book “Tiny Shooting Stars.”  The book was published in 1999, and the remarks in the front section asked “Why do it at all?”  Poetry faded for awhile.  I no longer found poetry option topics at conferences.   During the homebound days, I wrote about sixty poems describing and in study of ever—changing views from my windows at our home in Union, Washington, above the waters of Hood Canal below the Olympic Mountains. The collection is called “Wind Shadows Over Water” and also contains a few poems from Orcas. 

 I was barely four years old when I wrote my first poem.  Words began to take shape then. I loved their sound and rhythm. I loved fitting words together like a puzzle of descriptive phrases.  For me, poems were songs sung in white space on a page.  I wrote down many of these early poems as my mind and body stretched and absorbed and grew as I lived with my parents and my brother in our smallish Cape Cod style house facing the gravel pit and just beyond The Sangamon River in Decatur, Illinois.  As children our street dead ended in cornfields.  We had such freedom to safely run free and abandon ourselves to creativity.  We played all summer, making up games, creating plays, designing fragile houses for paper dolls from tissues.   Mornings, we ate breakfast at a table in a corner kitchen window and we watched the small shack that traveled about the gravel pit filled with water behind our street.  Pipes beneath the house scooped rock and sent it to the gravel headquarters.  

Poetry helps clarify my thoughts. I  dabble in poetry but have been blessed to know and study with a handful of accomplished poets. There were a few at SUNY BROCKPORT, NY where I earned my master’s degree in creative writing—Stan Rubin, William Heyen, Judith Kitchen.  When I moved to Seattle in 1993, I studied with Jack Remick, and many years later with Nance van Winckel of Spokane, Washington. The UNION POETS were organized just before the Pandemic by Sterling Warner, former Professor of Poetry at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington.  I recently rejoined this group on ZOOM.  I’d joined pre-Pandemic at the local café but fell out when they went to ZOOM format. 

So WHAT DOES A POEM MEAN?  That is the title of one of my favorite books by John Ciardi and Miller Williams.  This book was copyrighted in 1959, by Ciardi and again in 1975, by Houghton Mifflin Publishers.  I acquired my first copy when at The University of Missouri/ Columbia, where I earned a Bachelor of Journalism degree (BJ) in 1967.  I am forever giving my copy away but thanks to Amazon, I’ve been able to find more.

An article about poetry by Elisa Gabbert appeared in the Sunday, April 24th BOOK REVIEW section of the New York Times,  “The Shape of the Void: Toward a definition of poetry.” She describes poetry as something obvious but overlooked, and speaks of the value of the use of space in poetry.  She searches for a definition of something ambiguous. 

WHAT IF YOU WANT TO WRITE A POEM?  HOW WOULD YOU BEGIN?  Below is a technique I’ve used with students of all ages.

First, SELECT A TOPIC such as a favorite color. Next DO A FREE WRITE as described by author Natalie Goldberg in her books, especially  Writing Down the Bones and Old Friend From Far Away.   To free write means to set a timer for ten minutes, lift the pen and write by hand without stopping to judge or criticize or change your writing.  Just write and move the “editor” out of the way.  Do not stop.  If you run out of words add conjunctions like “but” or “and.”   When the timer bell rings, stop, read and share.

NEXT CIRCLE all interesting phrases, words .  Then look at verbs.  Circle the strong or interesting ones.  Strengthen the verbs.    

Now write the poem using phrases and words circled and strong verbs.  You may put the poem into lines at this point.  Read again.  Your poem may not feel complete but you have your “clay”, something to work with. 

Another suggestion that Becca had is to take a book you don’t mind destroying (Becca went to a used bookstore and bought $1 books she wouldn’t read), tear out a page and quickly scan it without actually reading it. Underline words and phrases that stand out to you, then cut them out and see if you can arrange them into a poem. Becca then painted on watercolor paper with three colors inspired by the poem, added images cut from magazines, and then glued the poem on.

This month our mother/daughter book club group read and discussed books by poets Kate Baer, Mary Oliver and Nikita Gill (see below).

Kate Baer  I hope this finds you well  

Kate Baer What Kind of Woman 

Nikita Gill  Where Hope Comes From

I also restudied:

Edward Hirsch  How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry

John Ciardi and Miller Williams  How Does a Poem Mean? 

A few of my recent poems are shared below.

NOTE: If you would like a copy of my poetry book Tiny Shooting Stars, send  your address and $2 for postage to me at Post Office Box 28, Union, WA  98592  

 ON GREATNESS

BY Susan Glenn Lampe

To live at the foot of a mountain 

Is to kneel beside magical majesty,

To marvel at the ever-changing scenes of weather rising up, disappearing and concealing

   Sharp black crags of peak.

To bathe those peaks in rain and snow and fog and storms that bear the unmistakable

   Roar of wind.

Then displays rainbows. . .as if an amend will forgive destruction from power outages,

    Broken trees ripped, shredded,

    Remnants strewn on the ground.

If the rainbow means to promise “never again.”

Why does it keep happening?

To live at the foot of a mountain is to recognize how small we are as humans,

To understand in a miniscule way

The roar’s tones that imply,  “You are greater than you know 

      We are greater than you know.”

To kneel at the foot of the mountain

Is to gasp at the ever-changing paintings of nature,

That bear the message of the wind’s roar,

“You are greater than you know,

     But we are greater than you.”

To live at the foot of a mountain is to know,

We have much to learn from one another.

THE ESTUARY  

BY Susan Glenn Lampe

Gull cries send caws into my slumber,

Screechy, sharp, restless

As dawn’s sunrays whisper light onto far shores covered by tall firs.

An assortment of birds flit past my windows

    crooked lines aimed to reach the deepest part of the estuary—

    eagles, osprey, herons, Canada geese, loons, and black and white ducks.

I envy the freedom of their wings to lift bodies and go wherever imagination or food beckons.

As fall winds ruffle the Hood Canal waters below our windows, my partner and I drive to Twanoh Park where our footsteps pause on well-worn wooden planks of the bridge above clear stream waters, 

Ripples polish brown and gray pebbles. 

Our eyes search for movement.  We temper our impatience with knowledge that when autumn rains flood streams, they will come.

Silver bodies will slip from Canal waters into river streams, camouflaged but we know to peer closely for the salmon who often travel in groups of two or three to gather encouragement and assistance.

Like the Indigenous peoples who once waited on the shores of Oregon along the Pacific and lit fires to welcome the First Salmon, we join others who live near the Canal individually or in groups.

We ask one another, “Are they here yet?”

Awash in quiet expectancy, we form a restless haunt.

When will they arrive?  Will they arrive at all?  There are fewer each year.

Our hearts quicken the day we glimpse a quivering silver sliver disturb water ripples.

A fish trio huddle along a stream sandbar.

Their size always catches me unaware

Some span four feet, maybe even six.

People on the bridge call out and point, “They are here!”

Magic miracles.  

I can barely imagine the miles traveled; the obstacles overcome 

   As the salmon thread their way from the Pacific Ocean.

Within hours, the gulls land, waddle upstream, grab fish chunks

    with their beaks, leave the rest to rot.

The gulls carry nitrogen onto the land, into forests, drop on soil.

Small fish slither back into the Canal, thrash to sea.

Once I saw a stream near Dosewalips State Park, so thick with salmon

     we could walk on them to cross.

That abundance is gone.

Indigenous People took only what they needed, left the rest to breed and return.

     Abundance was assured.

Today, these people’s ancestors are our neighbors,

The Skokomish Tribe reside near the Skokomish River wetlands at Hood Canal’s end. 

They run a school, a casino, a quick shop/gas station and a new recreation center.

Their neighbors are the cattle farms, and fish hatcheries that attempt to beat nature at her own game.

Each year fewer fish return and fewer people great them. 

Almost no one remembers to shed gratitude on the miracle.

Gradually the fish disappear.    

MY BODY’S SONG By Susan Glenn Lampe

My body sings its own song

A melody woven in starlight

Celestial vibrations,

Eternal joy—

Wrap me,

Envelop me,

Bathe me

In the humming resonance

Singing bands of my own special music.

GRAY  by Susan Glenn Lampe

Pearl gray water below

Soft puff clouds

Weep through winter’s raindrops. 

At April’s Mother/Daughter Bookclub, Susan joins Becca (L) and Mindy (R) in a discussion of poetry on ZOOM.