Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone, whether you’re brand new or a regular! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.)
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks because I was in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Randy and I were so lucky to see so much beauty. I’m sure I’ll share more about it in the coming month or two, but meanwhile, here’s one pic of a favorite place–the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.
So, this month’s Poetry Princesses prompt was to “Write a poem in which you literally build and/or take apart something for your reader. Focus your attention on constructing or deconstructing your object, taking into account technical terms, instructions, perhaps even the source of your materials. The object you build or take apart may be small, like a bird feeder or model plane, or it may be huge, like a house or a monument.” This sounded simple and even appealing. I love recipe poems, and this seemed similar. But then I tried it.
I first attempted writing about a sea pole monument we pored over in Skerries, Ireland, to those lost at sea. But I couldn’t write a poem without knowing more facts, and some details were too hard to find quickly. I decided I needed to write about something closer to home, literally and figuratively.
Remember the knitting project I mentioned in my Classroom Connections post Wednesday? I finally made the call to scrap it. Sigh. Look at the big shelf on my back in this try-on photo. And that was only one of three or four major issues! (Here’s what it actually should look like.)
So, I unraveled it. And here’s my (un)building poem. I started out with some ship/ocean metaphors throughout, probably still thinking of that monument in Skerries and also the Titanic Experience we visited in Belfast. But they didn’t work, and I looked up some construction lingo lists and shifted in that direction.
If you’d like to see a snippet of the actual unbuilding, just click play.
Here’s what the rest of the group got up to!
Click here to see all our previous Poetry Princesses collaborations.
If you’d like to write with us in November, here’s our mission: Pluck a line or a theme from Jane Hirshfield’s “Two Versions,” and let that inspire your poem. I don’t find an online version easily available, so I’ll give you the first two lines:
“In the first version I slept by a stream.
All night awake things traveled near.”
Be sure to share your poem on Friday, November 29th, and use #poetrypals if you share it on social.
And, finally, the wonderful Carol Varsalona is our host this week, so don’t miss the Poetry Friday Roundup.
16 Responses
Gosh, all that knitting work and wearing the shirt and then to pull it apart –and VIDEO it! I loved the video –that little sleeve or arm hole took on a life of its own (I’m sure there’s a poem in there, too). Laura, we visited Giants Causeway back in 2018 with our sons and were mesmerized. I’ll look forward to more travel poetry!
It was so SAD! But I’ve grown used to it, sigh. Giant’s Causeway is the whole reason we went to Northern Ireland. We even took a bus tour. We generally hate group tours like that. But it was completely worth it. It’s an amazing place. Never thought I’d see it in person. I love that we both have. <3
Laura your picture of the Giant’s Causeway is fascinating! It looks like someone stored thousands of end tables along the sea. And your sea of yarn – so sad to see your work unravel, but a happy outcome that you salvaged a poem out of it! : )
UGH, I hate frogging things SO, SO MUCH. It’s a natural outgrowth of creativity, though — or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. We create, we destroy, we, the demigods of our own arts.
That makes us sound MUCH better and more in control of all our projects, doesn’t it?????
At least it was a pretty color of yarn???? ☺ Better luck next time, friend.
Hehe, I’ve done it so much! And usually the yarn…I’m just sick of it by that time, even if I initially loved it. This yarn, which isn’t as neony as it looks in the pics, is a lovely color, though. I’m going to make some pairs of fingerless mittens.
“unraveling” takes a life of its own here, Laura! I like the idea of “a hazard of dreaming”, brings to mind some trial for all of us. I keep wanting to shout during the video, “Thar it goes…” I love your pics from Ireland, the sharing you did!
Hahahaha–I know–that yarn looked like it was going to spin off and become a tornado and tear through the house!
So many hours of knitting only to be taken out in a matter of minutes, seconds. Oh, your poem pains me. I am not a knitter, but I crochet. I’ve taken to granny squares because they are small and if I mess up, I can always make another one. “Why is demolition so easy?”
Wow! In a matter of minutes (seconds!) your hard work is deconstructed! The video is priceless. Thanks, too, for the picture of Giant’s Causeway. I’ve been following your trip on Facebook and it looks like it was fabulous!
Love the ship-lingo in your poem, and oh that video so quickly all gone😔 And your “hazard of dreaming” I keep on re-reading. Thanks, and also for sharing the “the Giant’s Causeway” Wow! Hope to see more pics from your trip and poems inspired too!
Laura, I am late in checking with everyone. I caught a respiratory virus more than likely from the youngest grand Las Sunday. I ended up rushing through my trinet sequence for the October poem, but it was fun decorating the house. I am homebound because I don’t want anyone to catch my cough.Enjoy the week.
Oh, if I had videos of every time I picked out stitches or ripped out seams! Isn’t it crazy that so much of the work of construction is actually DEstruction? Drafts and sketches and first attempts before we get to what we actually had in mind in the first place…or something entirely new.
LOVED your pictures of Ireland as we were hiking Scotland! Travel is lifechanging.
Here’s my link: https://ayearofreading.org/2024/10/24/poetry-friday-constructing-deconstructing/
One of my favorite pieces of writing advice is knowing when it is time to “rip out all the stitches,” and start again. I love the metaphor of this and your literal description in this poem. I’m sorry you had to rip out. But, I believe firmly that no learning is wasted. Look at how those un-knitted stitches became poetry! Wow! Lucky you. Lucky us!
This is so meta!! I love it, although as a non-handiwork gal it also positively devastates me — how do you bear it????
This is how my knitting usually goes–undoing. I love all of those lovely sss sounds in your poem.
“quietly as a plague” — Oh, I’ve been there with a variety of projects! 😀