Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.)
Before my poem draft, I’m sharing a video about my membership Facebook Group (subscriptions handled through Patreon). If you’re writing poems or picture books for kids, you might find it interesting.
Okay, the Poetry Sisters wrote ekphrastic poems this month–poems inspired by art. Usually I start with the art piece and see what comes. But this month, on the day I was going to be live writing with the PS in the afternoon, I woke up with a scene in my head. A partial poem. It involved flowers, a butterfly, roots, wings, and goodbyes. Here’s what I scribbled:
And THEN I looked at the art choices again and saw this lovely photo Tricia took of a piece of art that was a Chevy truck hood transformed with a plasma torch. See the whole work here.
And here’s what I came up with. This is draft 2.
Can’t wait to see what my Poetry Sisters–and YOU–have transformed into poems this month! I’ll update links as I get them.
Kelly
Liz
Sara
Tanita
Tricia
Andi
Mary Lee
Click here to see all our previous Poetry Princesses collaborations.
Tabatha at the Opposite of Indifference is hosting today, so make sure to visit and check out the Poetry Friday Roundup! She always has interesting thoughts, poems, and poets to share!
via Tanita: Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge in the month of March! Here’s the scoop: we’re writing an etheree. This ten-line form begins with a single syllable, and each line expands by one syllable until the tenth line has ten. We’re continuing with our 2023 theme of transformation, but how you interpret that topically is up to you. You have a month to craft your creation and share it on March 31st (hosted here at {fiction, instead of lies!}) in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.
21 Responses
Those butterfly wings are a gut punch as we see populations decreasing every year. That said, I love the way your title makes me read and reread the poem, considering time from points of view that are not digital/analog/human. We really do need to get over ourselves and take care of our planet home!
Conservation and ecology never even entered my conscious brain here. Just an analogy for different ways of staying, of going. Ha!
Oh, this is both beautiful and achey, Laura. On the edge of time…
This is beautiful, Laura. I esoecially like the words “thready” and “laze.” The “edge of time” can be so precarious.
Laura, the art work on the hood is absolutely gorgeous. I think your poem from the partial poem stage to the finished product is consistent with your theme, Where Time Goes. “On the edge of time” invites me into a dreamy state of blurred vision, holding onto dreams. Your image poem invites me in trying to make sense of life.
I love this! Flowers and butterflies are both fragile and tenacious. You capture both.
I’m always intrigued at how differently we view the same piece of art — and I LOVE that you just arrive with poetry already installed in your brain! The laze, blur, and pixels are just all perfect for summer, the floating of butterflies, and the minute scales on their wings. Lovely.
The butterfly already giving signs of goodbye adds a poignancy to the poem. I can feel the roots in the first stanza gripping as the plant grows.
Well, I like “the edge of time”, too, like everyone, imagined a reference to so much disappearing, and I also like the idea of “holding fast to a home/that will last all summer”. And I always enjoy reading your process, Laura. Thanks!
I love that you wake up with poems on your mind, butterflies swirling.
Holding fast, letting go…you nailed the transformation theme this month! Thready is a marvelous word…and pixels conjured pixies in my brain, adding a touch of magic which felt at home in your poem. Well done, you.
I love the the images of holding fast and letting go. I also love that both you and Mary Lee touched upon themes of time. The butterfly at the end of your poem is so bittersweet.
Oh, that’s delightful! What a wonderful metaphor for the hood metal.
Laura, as always, it’s fun to read your process. It’s so interesting that the poem see found the artwork. Love “on the edge of time”
That is some found art all right: the hood of a truck. I would never have thought of that as a medium for a painting. Or you could call it a sculpture, too, I suppose. Very cool, as is your poem that goes with it.
Your poems always amaze and surprise me! Another beauty here!
I was struck by the contrast between the flower roots holding on all summer and the butterfly wings saying goodbye so soon. Summer is always full of those contrasts.
Oh, I love the pairing of time/the butterfly with Tricia’s image. Lovely, Laura!
Hey, Laura, my comment went through! No “Nonce verification failed” this time, huzzah! 🙂
Hooray–thanks, Karen, for trying again. The mysterious Comments god changed its mind?
Oh so gorgeous Laura, I can feel all the twisting and turning from the flowers weaving into the lines of your poem, and your poem made me think of the bittersweetness of the monarch butterflies plight. Lovely wedding of imagery with your words via the graphic, thanks!