Welcome, and happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) I’m so happy you’ve dropped by. Whether you’re a regular participant in the Poetry Friday world, or you ended up here from a search or a link, please know that we’re a welcoming community! Read, comment, think, share, and enjoy!
We have a daughter in the hospital right now after two surgeries for a foot wound. Life is crazy, and this might be my only post this month. When everything went down a couple of weeks ago, I abandoned the inklings of National Poetry Month plans that I had. I just don’t have it in me.
Since my forthcoming fall picture book is a poetry collection, though, I did want to tell you it’s up for pre-order. If you’re interested in the topics of helpers, disability awareness, inclusion, and poetry, I’d be grateful if you spread the word. Pre-orders prod publishers to get behind a book, which is super helpful. Here’s a not-quite final cover. Julia Patton’s art for the book is fabulous!
Warning, this post mentions suicide and bullying.
Last week, I posted an ovillejo and talked about its evolution from a poem I’d been noodling with. After that post, I went back to my initial noodling draft and worked on it some more. Here’s the latest draft of that poem. Feel free to go back to last week’s post if you want to know what sparked this poem.
And for lots of wonderful poetry, don’t miss the Poetry Friday Roundup with author-poet-anthologist Matt Forrest Esenwine, who is funny, friendly, and fantastic.
7 Responses
Laura, I hope that your daughter is recovering well. I am so sorry that you are going through such a difficult time. I feel for you. “Meet the Mighty Helpers” sounds like the perfect balm for this time when helping others seems to have fallen from favor and life feels more like “If You Knew…”
So excited about “Meet the Mighty Helpers”!! Can’t wait! I hope your daughter’s foot has a good recovery. As far as wondering whether they knew…I’m afraid, at least for some, that exerting their power is the point and they see that they’ve “won” through the other person’s suffering. In situations like that, having consequences > appealing to their better angels.
First, I hope your daughter is ok, Laura. Second, this is such an important poem — we’re dealing with things like this and racism and such as a school board and it’s a difficult topic. Thank you for sharing it.
Sorry to hear about the difficult challenges you’ve been dealing with recently, Laura. Hope your daughter recovers quickly. Your poem is powerful and heart wrenching, and sadly so timely. I like the mention of hope at the end. Don’t want to give up on humanity but sometimes it’s tough to stay optimistic.
I hope the healing is happening for your daughter. What a powerful poem. I hope it gets shared with many.
Laura, your poem is most pertinent to modern times and the morphing of bullying into the sphere of social media. Your poem strikes at the heart of the matter and the repeated refrain ties the stanzas together to deliver an ultra strong message regarding the impact of such targetted behaviour. You are confornting a world wide scourge.
Laura, I’m sorry about your daughter’s surgeries and the upheaval for you lately. Thank you for sharing your new book. I’ve just preordered it. Your cyberbullying/any bullying poem is so powerful. Thank you for writing it and sharing it. As Alan said so well, “You are confronting a world wide scourge.” Amen! Thank you for leading the way.