We Are Woven (my Gift Tag poem)

Give a copy of GIFT TAG!I’ve posted before about Gift Tag, the new poetry e‑thology edited?and published by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. It’s only $2.99 (buy it from the link on poetrytagtime.com), a complete bargain for poetry lovers (and perhaps a converter for?kids who aren’t already poetry lovers).

Today, I thought I’d share my poem. We each chose a picture from a bunch of choices and were to write a holiday-related poem about it.

Here’s the picture I chose. And my poem.

We Are Woven

Where one loop goes,
Another follows.
No lonely lines.
No empty hollows.

They dance and chase.
They hold on tight.
Like you and me,
They fit just right!

–Laura Purdie Salas

Each poem has a brief prose introduction by the poet.

I made gazillions of these potholder gifts as a kid! This picture made me think of neat, close things, like farm crops. But holidays mean family! Tight-knit (ha!) families weave several people together, and that’s what my poem is about.

And, finally, each poem is ingeniously linked to the previous poem. Sylvia and Janet are amazing! My poem follows the contemplative “Nativity,” by Lee Bennett Hopkins, which?mentions tight-wrapped presents?in it. So from tight-wrapped, we go to tight-knit families in my poem. And the next poet, the lovely Joan Bransfield Graham, tells a? heartwarming story of a just-right neighbor.

I was re-reading Gift Tag last night, and every time I read it I have new favorites! Last night, it was Amy Ludwig Vanderwater’s “Snow Gifts” and Robert Weinstock’s “Xylophone.” So many fun and fantastic poems here!

8 Responses

  1. This is six kinds of cute. I LOVE, love, love it. I was never one of the handy kids who could make things, but even I managed a pot holder at Vacation Bible School — and was I proud! I LOVE the linking idea — what cleverness! What a great project this looks to be.

    1. Thanks, Tanita. Yeah, the potholders were something we could almost all do, right? Even if we struggled with lanyards, God’s Eyes, or noodle frames :>)

  2. This is six kinds of cute. I LOVE, love, love it. I was never one of the handy kids who could make things, but even I managed a pot holder at Vacation Bible School — and was I proud! I LOVE the linking idea — what cleverness! What a great project this looks to be.

    1. Thanks, Tanita. Yeah, the potholders were something we could almost all do, right? Even if we struggled with lanyards, God’s Eyes, or noodle frames :>)

  3. I made bazillions of these potholders when I was a kid–it was a way to link to both neighbors and family for me. A friend and I would sit on a blanket on the grass and make them together–and then I’d choose which unsuspecting relative to “gift” them to. We found some in my grandma’s kitchen drawer after she died.…Now I have a bunch of them sewn together as a throw in my office, which links me to my own past as well.

  4. I made bazillions of these potholders when I was a kid–it was a way to link to both neighbors and family for me. A friend and I would sit on a blanket on the grass and make them together–and then I’d choose which unsuspecting relative to “gift” them to. We found some in my grandma’s kitchen drawer after she died.…Now I have a bunch of them sewn together as a throw in my office, which links me to my own past as well.

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