Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.)
So, this month, our Poetry Princess challenge was a song around bells in some way. I wasn’t able to meet up with my poetry sisters last Sunday, but I did put together a draft on Monday or Tuesday. The sound of bells always makes me feel connected to the world somehow. Kind of the same feeling as the chimney smoke poem I did here.
If you’ve posted a bells poem somewhere, please tag it with #PoetryPals!
I don’t know yet what our poetry plans are for 2022. I hope with next Friday’s post, I’ll be able to share our January plan so that you can join in if you’d like. We love that! Oooh…hold on! Per Kelly: “If you’d like to write to our theme for next month, we are going with “poetry inspired by something overheard.” Our friend Susan Thomsen at Chicken Spaghetti has done several of these as a form of “found poem,” and it seemed like a fun challenge. Here’s a link to one of Susan’s poems.” Whee! So glad my friends were thinking ahead! Speaking of thinking ahead, HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!
Here’s how “bells” inspired my Poetry Sisters!
Kelly
Liz
Sara
Tanita
Tricia
Andi
Mary Lee
Click here to see all our previous Poetry Princesses collaborations.
Carol is rounding us up this week, even though she lives very close to the devastating fires near Denver.
12 Responses
What a lyrical song-poem you penned Laura. I love the imagery in your first stanza comparing/describing a bell to a being and
“its body a bowl.” ” the ringing—its soul.
I also love how you presented your poem, it takes the physical shape of a bell, the title reverberates like a bell, and the transparent ochre color layering ties in with the last stanza and makes the entire poem ring with love–beautiful, thanks, Happy New Year!
I can count on you for great examples of rhyme and form. This poem keeps up with you…love the concrete shape and those last two lines take us to bell song where we are. Just beautiful.
Good morning, Laura! I have thought often about why the smoke of a hearth fire seems to touch my inner sense of safety (what you are calling connected) and had decided that it must be an early evolutionary signal of home–and now I think bell (and drums) have the same powerful effect on humans who lived in inhospitable surroundings where being with your tribe was the safest place. I love how you built this poem, and its charming shape, and I’m going back to try a lai like your smoke poem. I have bells today too–but more like alarm bells!
Wow, I needed this lovely poem today. It rings out in all the right ways, in rhyme and form and word choice…I especially love thinking of that hand that could clasp my own. Thank you.
Oh another gem, Laura. I love the shape and all of your structure and rhyme, but oh, the bell sending love down the mountains through snow lines…wonderful. Thanks for all the ways you share poetry. Happy New Year!
Laura, I love the idea of each part in a bell has a ‘loving’ name, and the idea of connecting when ringing. My daughter had a spiritual leader choose a special bell for me a few years ago and I ring it every time I pass by, listening to its “soul”. This is special! Happy New Year!
Ooh, what a sentiment — the hand that woke me/ could clasp your own — is simply lovely. The various kinds of bells rather lend themselves to varying poems, don’t they? This is like the Zen singing bowl bells that a guest played for my students one day. Those are so cool!
I’m so glad I began my morning with your beautiful poem, Laura! All souls need love and song, and your shapely bell’s song is indeed sending comfort where needed! Happy New Year!
I enjoyed your poem, the shape of it, and love thinking how bells sounds connect to our souls. “Where comfort is needed/ the bell song goes.”
Laura, I love all the rhyme and word choices in your concrete poem! “A bell sends it’s love down mountains through snows.” is such a beautiful image! Thank you for sharing and your inspiration. 🙂 Happy 2022.
Laura, your bell poem is just lovely, especially the last stanza. Love this line: “A bell sends it’s love down mountains through snows.” Bells send us such peace and you captured this in your poem. Happy New Year to you.
I love the personification of bells. This poem feels like a hug. Thank you!