Death and Mystery and Love

Mini Monster and Me, Fall 2019

Cat and Mom Selfie

Students - The other week, I wrote in my notebook a bit about the ghosts of dead pets coming to visit their owners. I wondered on paper how these dead pets know how to find their loved humans if they have moved to new homes. I think about this because I have loved many animals in my life, including our current seven: Cali (dog), Sage (dog), Sarah (cat), Mini Monster (cat), Pickles (cat), Firepaw (cat), and Fiona (cat). I believe that we will always be connected somehow, just as I am forever linked to my childhood dogs Thor and Valentine, and Mark's and my first dog Eli.

In Cynthia Rylant's soulful books DOG HEAVEN and CAT HEAVEN, she describes these animal Heavens, and my mind and heart will always carry the scene in DOG HEAVEN when the dog visits the family who loved him on Earth.

This idea of pet-ghosts visiting us is a mystery that haunts me in a very good way.

Mini Monster, in the above picture, is a very special cat to me right now. Some of you may know this. If you are interested in reading a 2010 essay about him, you may do so HERE. This piece also appears in Katherine Bomer's THE JOURNEY IS EVERYTHING (Heinemann, 2016).

Today's poem is an almost - sonnet.  It has fourteen lines in iambic pentameter (daDA daDA daDA daDA daDA) with the even lines rhyming.  Then, at the end, the final couplet rhymes too.  You will note a turn after line 8, a change in focus. My poem does not rhyme every alternate line, though, so it's not a true English sonnet.  

If you are thinking about your own poetry, one suggestion I have is to read lots of poems aloud. Tap out the meters, feel the rhythms in your hands and your feet and your body. Poems are songs. Poetry is music. Listen and feel others' poems inside of you, and these poems will offer your own writing more possibility, as the rhythms that live in us cannot help but come out in our writing.

What mystery haunts you? There's a poem there...I promise. Hours after writing this post, I realized that this topic of visitors in sleep must be deeply on my mind. See, my poem Two Girls, from November 8, 2019's post is also about this topic and also speaks to the reader at the end. I am going to pay attention to this curious and current interest.

Carol is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at at Carol's Corner with Maya Angelou's gorgeous poem titled Continue. We invite everybody to join in each Friday as we share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship. Check out my left sidebar to learn where to find this poetry goodness every week in this beautiful new year before us.

All peace and bravery and laughter and light to you and your loved ones in this new year...this new decade!

xo,
Amy

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Be Ready for Characters to Appear

Ghost Gratitude

by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is in the spirit ('spirit!' - get it?) of the season...the whole season of autumn, rolling two holidays into one.  Earlier this month, sometime between the stretch of Halloween and Thanksgiving, this small sprite appeared in my mind, Sammy, the ghostie who loved Thanksgiving most of all.  I have more thoughts about Sammy, but today's poem was my first official meeting with him on paper.

Sometimes it's fun to turn something on its head a little bit.  You know, ghosts SHOULD favor Halloween ...but in a poem, a writer can flip such an idea around.  The ghost world of this poem is normal.  You know...sheets, ghost families, and all of that.  But this ONE thing is different - Sammy loves the wrong holiday best.

Such playfulness is not only plain fun for a writer, it's surprising for a reader too.  Sometimes writing can just allow a soul to take a little trip into a pretend land of the mind.  Everything doesn't have to be real in writing.  We can let our imaginations float a bit, even right through old stone walls if we wish.  I actually have a picture in my head of wee Sammy with a cranberry sauce stain on his sheet.  But that's for another day.

Did you notice the repetition in this poem, repetition of the words thank you and I love?  

Did you notice how I stretched out those last four lines of the poem? This is to slow readers' reading down toward the end, to emphasize the importance of death not being really final to this young ghost.

Pay attention.  Perhaps this week or sometime at the end of this calendar year, a curious character will walk right into your head.  If she or he does, jot down who it is.  Pay attention.  Your mind is creative; you just must pay attention to it.

Jane is hosting today's Poetry Friday party over at Raincity Librarian!  Jane is not only hosting for the first time today...but she is doing so from Osaka, Japan.  Please stop over, congratulate her on her new book WILD ONE....and take part in the poetry joy.  All are always welcome to join this gathering of poemlove and friendship.

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How to Be a Ghost - Listy How-To Poems

 

Fionacat & Amyghost

Photo by Henry LV

Students - Happy Halloween!  I love Halloween, mostly because I love making costumes and carving jack o'lanterns.  When I was a girl, my dad and I would always get big appliance boxes, and we'd make crazy costumes: stove, refrigerator, table...  It is tons of fun to make a costume from old clothes and crazy bits of this and that. Tonight I will be a ghost.  We had a couple of white sheets leftover from our girls' toga day at high school, and so one is now the ghost costume you see above.  Our children are dressing up as a sea anemone, a plastic army guy, and Robin Hood.

Today's poem is simply a set of directions, a how-to poem, a list.  I had fun imagining all of the different things that would be important for a person who wishes to dress as a ghost, especially the black-cat-hugging-part as our little Fiona celebrates her first Halloween this year. 

As with any list poem, I like to to have a bit of a twist, a surprise at the end. Wouldn't it be funny to be snuggled in your bed and to find two eyeholes in your top sheet?

Linda is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at TeacherDance.  There you will find a gathering of poems, poets, and poetry news all around the Kidlitosphere this week.

Happy Poetry Halloween Friday!

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