Month: April 2014

The last “Wonder of the World” poem for this month is the theme of “people.” Most days, I did not peek ahead to the themes coming up each day, and waited for Mary Lee Hahn to share her poem and inform us of the key word at A Year of Reading.  But one day last week, I did get an accidental peek at the last word on her list, and saw “people” and thought, hmmmm.

I decided I would try my hand at a “sound poem” in which I would use sound effects from FreeSound to layer in audio with the words and phrases of a poem I began writing.  I was trying to get at the strange connections we have to people around us — the good and the not-so-good — and make the poem “listenable.” I hope it works as I wanted it to work.

Take a listen to The Wonder of People.

The Wonder of People

The world wonders of People:
mostly generous;
sometimes mean;
often finding some middle ground
in-between.

Maniacs about some things;
passive with others;
and when you least expect it:
Friends
becoming
Family
becoming
Community
coming together.

Colleagues, whose talk
enlightens our days
with surprise and virtue
and utter understanding;
Colleagues, whose talk
darkens our days,
with rumors and innuendo
and utter misunderstanding.

A word here;
A word there;
Each sentiment tilts us on our axis,
and shapes our interactions
with everyone we meet;
wandering here, and there,
everywhere,
day in
and day out.

We share these footsteps
with the big wide World
in hopes that our thoughts and actions
might lock us in
and transform us all in ways
that connect us as
People walking these spaces
together.

 

Process Notes: I wrote the poem and revised it a few times, trying to get what I wanted to say in poetic form. Then, I identified key phrases that I wanted to layer in sounds.

 

I then searched on FreeSound for what audio might work. Once I found something, I downloaded the file. I used Audacity to gather up the audio files together, and recorded the poem, moving and shifting the sound effects to the right places in the poem.

Finally, I mixed it together and shared it out on Soundcloud. Feel free to remix it, or use it for whatever might work for you.

Peace (in the found sounds),
Kevin

We’re nearing the end of our month of writing poetry about Wonders that Mary Lee has so graciously conjured up for us, and it’s been interesting to move to less tangible wonders the last few days. Today’s theme is “imagination” and I decided to go simple again, with a haiku.

Peace (and creativity),
Kevin

Today’s Wonder poem is about chocolate. I decided to do a prose poem of a stand-off, of sorts, using a bit a humor to tell the story of the last piece of chocolate in the tin.

The Chocolate Sat, No More (a prose poem)

So, here’s the conundrum:
the last piece of chocolate sits
in the tin, and it’s just you and me
and the space within, our eyes
narrowing with confidence that the other
will give in and so we’ll win with words of
love and radiant smiles, and swim inside
this story together, these miles and miles
of open road of the knowing and the understanding
and the sacrifice of the sharing
with the other and yet before we know it,
twitching young fingers will have reached across
and in and scooped the chocolate out, into their
mouth, a smouldering smile and a gentle shrug
of shoulders as if to say, in so many words,
Thank you mom and dad, as the back door screen door
slams shut, leaving us now speechless with the sheer
bravado of youth and the canvass of an empty plate
where the chocolate once sat
but no more.

Peace (in the yum),
Kevin

I did some lifting of lines on Twitter yesterday morning, as part of my “line lifting” project to remix new poems from the shards of others’ poems. I’ve written about why I do this (to honor writers and to celebrate the remix of ideas) in a previous post, in case you are curious.

Peace (in the inspiration),
Kevin

Today’s Wonder of the World poem is about “sunrise” and I was tinkering around with the idea of playing with text, and decided to write a Sunrise/Sunset poem with one poem mirroring the other. It’s sort like a virtual foldable poem.

Sunrise

We bathe in the hint of light,

just above the treeline,

knowing that when we close our eyes

to the silence of the fading night,

this moment will disappear almost as quickly as it arrived

as yet another day breaks into the start of

a new poem.

—-

˙ɯǝod ƃuıƃɐ uɐ

ɟo puǝ ǝɥʇ oʇuı sʞɐǝɹq ʇɥƃıu ɹǝɥʇouɐ ʇǝʎ sɐ

pǝʌıɹɹɐ ʇı sɐ ʎןʞɔınb sɐ ʇsoɯןɐ ɹɐǝddɐsıp ןןıʍ ʇuǝɯoɯ sıɥʇ

‘ʎʞs ƃuıpɐɟ ǝɥʇ ɟo ʇǝınb ǝɥʇ oʇ

sǝʎǝ ɹno uǝdo ǝʍ uǝɥʍ ʇɐɥʇ ƃuıʍouʞ

‘ǝpısןןıɥ ǝɥʇ puoʎǝq ʇsnɾ

‘ʇɥƃıן ɟo ʇsɐן ǝɥʇ uı ʞuıɹp ǝʍ

ʇǝsunS

 

I did a version at Notegraphy but I don’t like how it looks when I converted it into an image file (which is how I often share it here, as an embeddable file).

Peace (along the folds),

Kevin

I think it was Margaret who was writing an ode the other day, and so when I saw that this mornings Wonder of the World poem was about the polar ice caps, it made sense to think in terms of an “ode” for the ice, which is slowly melting.

Peace (in the poem),
Kevin