Category Archives: Poetry

Today’s topic for the Wonders of the World poem is the Panama Canal. I had this vision of lovers on either sides of a lock. I sort of went into an ee cummings mode here.

… and a canal between us …

you, there;
me, here;
waiting, wondering when the water
will rise up to reach us

i stand, forlorn,
knowing that perfect equilibrium
is hard to find
particularly when everyday is a day under
construction

you seem more serene
having more faith
in the ways of the world that I do
or perhaps some knowledge of past history
of lovers divided by a cause

and when we are in this place

where even a kiss becomes political
where there is always the threat of invading armies
where the influence of market forces
has us on edge

i still find ways to float you notes
in little paper boats
that rise and fall with the release of water
knowing that somehow my poems
will make their way into your heart
and into our home

You can view the poem in a prettier form at Notegraphy, too.

And a podcast. It felt right that I needed voice to this one. Do you agree?

Record and upload audio >>

Peace (amid the waters),
Kevin

The Delta Works sounds like a band out of Memphis, doesn’t it? But it’s really a complex engineering system to hold back the ocean in the Netherlands, and as I read about for this morning’s Wonder of the World (with Mary Lee), I had this vision of a shape poem in my head. I had shared Coggle out with some folks last week, and so I decided to dive back into the mindmapping site and create a flowchart poem of the Delta Works.

You can “read” the poem as static image here:

Or you can play around with the embedded flowchart from Coggle:

Peace (in the flow),
Kevin

I wish I had a ton of money so I could buy up every poster about writing that artist Grant Snider creates. Alas, I am a teacher, not a banker. But I urge you to go to his site – Incidental Comics — and get inspired by his visual insights into writing and creativity. His work is wonderful. I’ve ordered two of this posters for my classroom.

Here are some of his posters about poetry which you can purchase in his Poster Shop. (Just so you know, I don’t know Grant. I have his feed in my RSS and just love his work.)

(read more of this comic)

Peace (in the poetry),
Kevin

Today’s Wonder of the World poem prompt is about the Itaipu Dam in South America. I can’t say that I knew much about it, so thanks to Mary Lee for putting it on her list of wonders.

I was imagining the sheer volume of water flowing over the structure as I read about the dam– just a mad rush of flow and a $20 billion controversy in a part of the world where so many people struggle — and so I wrote a poem that I then converted into ASCII code, as if my words were something different, in this case — numbers and code, moving over the edge of this space.

068 097 109 110 046 013 010 073 116 039 115 032 098 105 103 046 013 010 066 111 108 100 044 032 101 118 101 110 046 013 010 065 032 110 101 116 032 111 102 032 101 110 101 114 103 121 013 010 119 104 111 115 101 032 115 111 117 110 100 116 114 097 099 107 013 010 099 097 110 032 098 101 032 104 101 097 114 100 013 010 109 097 110 121 032 109 105 108 101 115 032 097 119 097 121 044 013 010 097 032 115 111 117 110 100 105 110 103 032 115 116 111 110 101 013 010 111 102 032 114 097 119 032 102 108 111 119 046 013 010 072 111 119 032 109 097 110 121 032 109 111 117 116 104 115 013 010 099 111 117 108 100 032 104 097 118 101 032 098 101 101 110 032 102 101 100 013 010 102 111 114 032 116 104 101 032 099 111 115 116 032 111 102 013 010 116 104 105 115 032 101 110 103 105 110 101 101 114 105 110 103 032 102 101 097 116 063 013 010 068 097 109 110 046

Wondering about the poem? You can go into the ASCII/Text converter and convert it back.  Just copy and paste my poem above into the converter. Or you can cheat and go to this link.

Peace (in the flow),
Kevin

Today’s Wonder of the World poem is about the Golden Gate Bridge. As I thought about the bridge, I remembered images of earthquakes (sorry, San Fran friends), and that’s what led to this haiku.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app

Peace (in the shake),
Kevin

I’m not sure if today’s theme is really the Empire State Building or not, for our Wonders of the World poems (I think it is), but I started to think about the word “empire” and then that led me to “family.”

I took my poem — Empires Rise and Fall — and went into Poetry Genius, a site that allows you to annotate poems with text, links, images, and video. You will notice that I put the podcast of the poem into the site, too.

Feel free to add your own annotations to the poem — confront me on my views of memory and feel free to challenge me on the truth of my own family story. Or add your own poem by lifting lines from mine.

Peace (in memory),
Kevin

I saw some friends writing “in defense of poetry” poems (there must be a meme that slipped my view or something, or maybe defending poetry is something that we realize we have to do more visibly) and I started to write one, too, but then realized I was writing about me, working to be a poet.

Peace (in the flow),
Kevin

For today’s Wonder of the World poetry prompt, the topic was the great Channel Tunnel. I decided to go inside the tunnel with a visual poem, writing about finding your way through from one end to the other.

And here is the poem:

You can get here from there
You just need to crawl through small spaces
Hugging walls and pipes and concrete
As you move from there to here.

Nothing fancy with the poem itself but I like how the use of the cylinder shape, with pitch black background and white words like flashlight beams, makes the visual poem something a little special. And the title of the poem, in green, seem like those headlights that miners wear so they can work. (I used an app called Visual Poetry to make the poem).

Peace (in the poem),
Kevin

Today’s theme for the Wonders of the World poem is about the Taj Mahal, but I went in the direction of Taj Mahal the bluesman (who grew up in a city not far from me). And I used Zeega to create a digital piece this morning, too.

Peace (in the wonder of the blues),
Kevin
PS — a little Taj Mahal blues for the morning.