Just One Last Word: Imagine

Strawberry Fields in Central Park, NYC

Here’s to years of imagining together in the Garden! Love.

Just One Word: Burnished

burnished

By Jean-Jacques MILAN 00:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14364

Weekend Mini-Challenge: Take a chance and step into the mythical realm ~

Mythical goddesses by Katrina Taule, Pinterest

Werewolves, sirens, mermaids and creatures who devour blood, for centuries these myths and tales have continued to fascinate us. They have filled folklore, songs, poetry and works of art. 

But what is it about them that draws our interest? Is it their beauty? Is it because they have magical powers? 

Medusa

by Clark Ashton Smith

Her lethal beauty crowned with twining snakes

That mingle with her hair, the Gorgon reigns.

Her eyes are clouds wherein black lightnings lurk,

Yet, even as men that seek the glance of Life,

The gazers come, where, coiled and serpent-swift,

Those levins wait. As round an altar-base

Her victims lie, distorted, blackened forms

Of postured horror smitten into stone— (Click here to read the rest of the poem)

How the Raven Became Black

by John Godfrey Saxe 

Shall I tell you how it happened

That the change was brought about?

List the story of CORONIS,

And you'll find the secret out.

Young CORONIS, fairest maiden

Of Thessalia's girlish train,

Whom Apollo loved and courted,

Loved and courted not in vain... (Click here to read the rest of the poem)

Mythical creatures have been a subject of popular culture for thousands of years. Whether Greek or Celtic, Hindu or European, every culture has its own creations and myths. 

For instance: The Crocotta, a Greek beast, featured a strange array of different animal parts. It had the haunches of a stag, the neck, tail, and breast of a lion, the head of a badger, cloven hooves, and a mouth which opened as far back as its ears. On top of this terrifying description, it was said to mimic the voices of men.

Crocotta. (donnaquinn)

Your challenge today is to find a piece of art (a painting, sculpture, etc.) and create your own poetic mythology around it. 

Choose your own form or write in free verse, if preferred. I look forward to reading what you guys come up with. Please do visit others and remember to comment on their poems. Have fun!

Just One Word: Dynamite

* dynamite *

Art FLASH / 55

For this weekend's art collaboration, I am introducing an illustrator in mixed media, Cat Schappach, who is a marvel of dark surrealism. She has kindly given permission for us to use her piece entitled Seamstress.

Seamstress
@catschappach

If you repost the image on your blog, please give attribution to Cat, using the following link: https://www.instagram.com/catschappach/

Feel free to pay her a visit on Instagram, where more of her artworks are to be viewed, but not used for this prompt, or follow this link to her Etsy page.

If you post your poem on Instagram, using Cat's image, please tag @catschappach and mention her as the collaborating artist in your post.

Let the image speak to you and respond in a poetic form of your choosing: Literal! Figurative! Reflective! Narrative! Symbolic!

As an alternative, you may write a Flash Fiction 55 inspired by the art, or on a subject of your choice, in memory of Galen, who first imagined this challenge. Prose is acceptable but must be within the limit of 55 words!

From September, the weekend challenge will post early on Friday. I wish to remind all participants that this linky does not expire and the post remains open and at the top of the page until Monday. If you link early, please return to read other poems linked up after your own.

Just One Word: Halved

* halved *

photo by Marian Kent

(Calm down, everyone. This is an eggplant.)

Just One Word: Trinket

trinket

This beautiful trinket quilt was made by Garden visitor Cosmos Cami!

Check out her Instagram for more amazing homemade quilts:  CosmosCami

P.S. I will be away for most of the weekend but can't wait to read your poems when I return!

Weekend Mini-Challenge: Summer Solstice

Machu Picchu - Temple of the Sun on Summer Solstice

Hello All!  I have the happy pleasure of presenting you with a prompt on this day after Summer Solstice - the longest day of the year, the beginning of summer.  We used to pay more attention to nature, to the passing of the seasons, to the sun, moon, and stars, to be more mindful.  I don't mean in a save the earth kind of way, but a love the earth and her treasures kind of way.

Today on this day after summer solstice, I want you to mark the occasion - to pay attention to the sunrise and dawn, to mark the passing of the sun.  Ancient cultures did this - Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, Chaco Canyon for examples.  The sun pattern on Chichen Itza for the spring equinox looks like a serpent - "the return of the Sun Serpent.

In today's Chaco Canyon, the Ancestral Puebloan people, who were expert sky watchers, carved spiral designs into rock to track the seasons and the passage of time.  In this canyon is a petroglyph called the Sun Dagger because of the way the sun's wedge-shape beams strike it in midday during the summer and winter solstices.

If you did not celebrate the summer solstice or recognize it in some way, I would like you all to do that today.  Write me a poem about the solstice.  Write me a poem about paying attention to the small things, to the large things.  I have included a poem by Mary Oliver called The Summer Day.  Let it inspire you to watch the small things.

I want your feelings about this summer - the fresh berries you had on your cereal for breakfast, the cobbler you baked, the bees you watched pollinating the flowers, the minnows swimming in the creek, the way you watched the sunrise or set, the water on sand.  I want your stillness, your mindfulness, your reverence for this day. I want your joy about the beginning of summer and your vacation!

Please link your poem in Mr. Linky and do visit your fellow poets - all of them.  I will be reading and commenting on all of them.  Let's get in the habit of doing the same.  Remember: I do not want a save the earth Poem.   

The Summer Day - Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do now how to pay attention, how to fall down down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Just One Word: Muddy

muddy

For more inspiration: MUDDY DOG
 

Art FLASH / 55

For this weekend's art collaboration, I am introducing Eli Edward Evangelidis, an illustrator and engraver from Sydney, Australia. Eli has kindly given permission for us to use his amazing piece,
'Beauty Forgotten in Survival's Eyes' (Pen and Ink. October 2018), for our poetic inspiration.

Eli Edward Evangelidis (2018)
Used with Permission

If you repost the image on your blog, please give attribution to Eli, using the following link:
https://www.instagram.com/eliedwardart/

Feel free to pay Eli a visit on Instagram,  where more of his amazing pieces are to be viewed, but not used for this prompt.

If you post your poem on Instagram, using Eli's image, please tag @eliedwardart and mention him as the collaborative artist in your post.

There are no restrictions placed on this challenge: Let the image speak to you and respond in a poetic or prose form of your choosing:
Literal! Figurative! Reflective! Narrative! Symbolic!

As an alternative, you may write a Flash 55 inspired by the photograph, or on a subject of your choice, in memory of Galen, who first imagined this challenge.

Just One Word: Apart

Cover art from Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division (1979)

apart

try making your own here

Just One Word: Gormless

Me again, Toads!

Just one word to inspire your poems this weekend:

gormless

Can't wait to read your brilliant verse! Don't be dull. :)

 

Season Your Poetry

Hello Toads. It has been quite a whirlwind with seasons and weather lately, hey? Three weeks ago we had subzero weather and snow here in the South. Then the Polar Vortex escaped its boundaries (a sure sign of climate change but we won't get into that now) and just about froze us into walking popsicles. Then two weeks of lovely springs weather, then cold again. And now my yard is blue with tiny blue violets. Cold weather sneaks in again this weekend. Ah...the end of winter. Or is it early spring? In Japan, they could the months of their seasons differently than we do in the west. At this point, we have: Early Spring - February 4 - March 5, Mid-spring - March 6 - April 4, and Late Spring - April 5 - May 5. the Japanese count their seasons as such: Spring:; February 4 - May 5, Summer: May 5 - August 7, Autumn: August 8 - November 6, and Winter: November 7 - February 3. See the difference? The season I am most concerned with now is Spring. I lived in Japan for a bit and became used to keeping the seasons in the way of the Japanese. I actually helped plant rice in the spring.

Cherry Blossoms and Fuji

The Japanese are all about honoring the seasons and nature. Their belief system, Shinto, holds that when a person dies, they may in that death become a part of nature - from the lowliest flea to the greatest mountain. Therefore, all of nature is to honored. The poetic form of Japan, created by Basho, is the haiku. The haiku is all about being in the moment, all about nature. There is a directory of over 50,000 kigo called a saijiki. A kigo is literally a name for a seasonal piece of a season. I am not going to ask you all to write a haiku. What I am going to do is to ask you for a brief (and I mean brief) poem about a kigo in spring. the form is your choice. The subject is your choice. Just make it about spring. Here is a list of spring kigo. This is from an extensive list of which many kigo have been deleted or apply only to Japan. I have translated the kigo from the Japanese.  Please pick one or several and write a poem or, even a haiku. Remember: haiku must use a kigo and a kireji (a cutting word), be in the moment (sort of like a photograph) and have three lines: 5-7-5 syllable count or, short-long-short lines. Please write no more than 10 lines. In the Japanese tradition make it brief, to the point, and without a lot of flowery description. It is all about the season. Please take the time to read all the poets who post here. I read all the poets every week because I enjoy reading and learning from your words. Who knows, you may learn something? smiles

Spring Kigo

Season: spring months: late February, March, April, and May; beginning of spring, early           spring, departing spring, late spring, lengthening days, long day, mid-spring, spring dream, spring dusk, spring evening, spring melancholy, tranquility, vernal equinox. Sky and Elements: balmy breeze, bright, haze or thin mist, first spring storm, hazy moon, March wind, melting snow, lingering snow, spring breeze, spring cloud, spring frost, spring moon, spring rain, spring rainbow, spring sunbeam, spring snow, slush, warm (warmth). Landscape: flooded river/stream/brook, muddy/miry fields, muddy road, spring fields, spring hills, spring mountain, spring river, spring sea, spring tide, red tide. Human Affairs: balloon, kite, shell gathering, planting or sowing (seeds), plowing or tilling fields, spring cleaning, swing, windmill, Boys Day, Dolls Festival, Ash Wednesday, Lent, Palm Sunday, Easter ( ~ bonnet/clothes, ~ eggs, coloring/hiding ~ eggs, ~lily, ~ parade, ~ rabbit/chicken/duckling), May Day ( ~ basket, ~ pole),  Animals: abalone, bee, baby animals (nestlings, fledglings, calf, colt, kitten, puppy, fawn, lamb, etc.), butterfly, bush warbler, cats in love, crane, flying squirrel, frog, horse-fly, lizard, pheasant, robin, mud snail, soaring skylark, stork, swallow, tadpole, whitebait (a fish), hummingbird, nightingale, wild birds’ return (geese, etc.). Plants: anemone, artichoke, asparagus sprouts, azalea, bracken, bramble, camellia, cherry blossoms, cherry tree, crocus, dandelion, leaf buds of trees and shrubs (almond, apple, apricot, maple, oak, pear, peach, pine, wisteria, etc.), forget-me-not, grass sprouts, hawthorn, hyacinth, lilac, lily of the valley, mustard, pansy, parsley, plum blossoms, plum tree, California poppy, primrose, seaweed or laver (nori), sweet pea, shepherd’s-purse, tulip, violet, willow, pussy willows or willow catkins. A few spring haiku by Basho to get you in the mood. Note the brevity and the straightforward style. spring is passing - the birds cry and the fishes fill with tears on their eyes a cloudy day during the cherry blossom season - whether the sound of bell at  Ueno or Asakusa  try to plant as for a child - A little cherry tree 頑張る がんばるor, Haijin gambaru! - Good luck and strive to do your best Terraced Rice Field in Spring .
	l