Our next Forum meeting is Saturday, May 21, and Jeanette Maes is presenting a program on Ella Wheeler Wilcox. We will meet in the Barnet Gallery, and we have been given special permission to have food. However, the library is having trouble with its water so we are advised to bring our own.
As usual, you are encouraged to bring copies of any poems for which you would appreciate gentle critiques.
In the meantime, I came across this in the New York Times today and thought you might enjoy it!
Back Story
(Stolen from the New York Times, 5/12/2016)
There was an old man in a tree, Whose whiskers were lovely to see; But the birds of the air, Pluck’d them perfectly bare, To make themselves nests on that tree.
That might sound a bit like Dr. Seuss, but it was written by the British painter and poet Edward Lear, who popularized limerick poems in his “Book of Nonsense” (1846).
He was born on this day in 1812, which is why today is Limerick Day. (CKO’s emphasis)
The limerick’s name has been traced to France, where an 18th-century Irish Brigade was serving.
The men returned with a song, “Will You Come Up to Limerick?” — an Irish city and county. The chorus may have developed into what became the limerick form, some scholars say.
Lear had been hired to paint an aristocrat’s private menagerie and he came up with his poems to amuse the children in the household. He said he got the idea from an old nursery rhyme.
The five-line poems have an AABBA rhyme scheme, meaning the first, second, and last lines rhyme, as do the third and fourth lines.
The first and second lines introduce a character, activity or setting, while the third and fourth lines are generally shorter to intensify the punch line.
Wow, it has been a year since I’ve posted anything! Well, that’s life! Some years just run away from you.
But, onward! It is time to spring into Spring with another annual Open Mic and announcement of the Naomi Cherkofsky Poetry Contest winners. If we are lucky, one or two of the winners will be able to come to the Open Mic, too. In any case, we certainly hope you will join us for this lovely celebration of National Poetry Month with a few poems to share.
Date: Saturday, April 16th
Time: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Where: Beverly Public Library, Essex Street, Beverly, Program Room
Light refreshments served.
Most importantly, bring poems!
The May meeting of the North Shore Poets’ Forum will be on the 21st, again at the Beverly Public Library, at 11 a.m., but this time in the Barnett Gallery, which is lovely. Jeanette Maes will give a program on Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Please join us. After the program and some refreshments, we love to share our own poetry. For gentle critique, please provide 6 to 10 copies of your poem.
The Massachusetts State Poetry Society will meet May 7 at the West Branch of the Peabody Institute Library, 603 Lowell St., Peabody. Contact Jeanette Maes for more information, jeanettemaes@comcast.com, or Roberta Hung, robette02@yahoo.com
Now, for a little poem to get you in the mood for even more great poetry! This one is by Eamon Grennan, who lives in New York state. I found this in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry column begun when he was Poet Laureate. It continues today and is available free online.
Up Against It
by Eamon Grennan
It’s the way they cannot understand the window
they buzz and buzz against, the bees that take
a wrong turn at my door and end up thus
in a drift at first of almost idle curiosity,
cruising the room until they find themselves
smack up against it and they cannot fathom how
the air has hardened and the world they know
with their eyes keeps out of reach as, stuck there
with all they want just in front of them, they must
fling their bodies against the one unalterable law
of things—this fact of glass—and can only go on
making the sound that tethers their electric
fury to what’s impossible, feeling the sting in it.
The North Shore Poets’ Forum will meet on Saturday, Sept. 20, in the Barnett Room of the Beverly Public Library, 11 a.m. to 1 ish. Because no food or beverage is allowed in this room, we won’t have any goodies this time. So sorry!
I found my notes from the last meeting, and it turns out I am the one responsible for the program this time. So, since I haven’t decided what it will be, you’ll just have to come to find out. (Maybe poems about food?!)
My notes also state that Jeanette will present a program on Dorothy Parker in October. Again, we can’t have the Program Room, so no food again. And, we can’t have the Program Room or Barnett Room in November.
I think we should revisit where we meet. So, put your thinking caps on.
So, newspapers these days make you, the subscriber and would-be reader, do all the work of trying to get something published. I have been on my little computer here for hours and hours, trying to add the Naomi Cherkofsky contest to the calendars of Boston Globe, Boston.Com, Salem News, Lynn Item, and possibly, although not necessarily, to all their affiliates. (See here, Poetry Contests, for details.) I also tried to add the announcement to the North Shore Sunday calendar, which would, presumably, add it to all the Wicked Local papers. This proved beyond my capabilities. So, I am relying on an old friend and former coworker to do the job for me. Here’s hoping she is allowed to do it!
Now, will anyone read those? I’m not sure. Therefore, I beg you, my fellow poets in the North Shore Poets Forum and those of you who aren’t but occasionally drop into this blog for a bit of news, to enter the contest, to tell your friends to enter the contest, to tell them to tell everyone to enter the contest. If they aren’t poets, please encourage them to join us on April 26 for our National Poetry Month celebration, during which the winners of the contest read their winning entries. An Open Mic follows, during which we have always had very talented people show up to share their work. After all, most people don’t write, but they do enjoy. Here’s to those wonderful enjoyers!
And, here’s another little poem to get you in mind of warm breezes and Spring.
Bring along some poems by your favorite poet to share with the group at our meeting Saturday, Oct. 19, 11 a.m., at the Beverly Public Library. Add a few words about the poet and the reasons you think he/she is so terrific. We had intended this agenda for last month, but then changed it to a Seamus Heaney retrospective given his recent demise. It was a great meeting, and I expect the next one will be, too.
I will bring Mary Oliver (I think) and Roberta said she was going to bring Elizabeth Bishop. Of course, I mean their poems, not their bodies, although that would be a kick. One (quiz time: which one?) is not with us anymore, but given the onset of the Halloween season (it is a seasonin Salem), it might work. (Just kidding.)
At our September meeting we also outlined an agenda for the rest of the formal Forum year.
November 16: Write a poem about thankfulness. If you can’t write one, bring one by another poet to share.
December 7: Joint meeting with Mass State Poetry Society. This year we will have a special Tribute to Althea Adelheim, one of our founding members who died this year. As usual, we will have lots of good food. We will also have a Yankee Swap, gifts in the $5 range, with the Most Apt Poem contest sponsored by the North Shore Poets’ Forum. To participate, you simply write a poem to describe the swap gift you are bringing. You do not sign the poem or swap gift package. A judge will determine which poem was the best description of the swap gift, and the winner gets $10. It’s always fun!
January 18:We are stretching our poetic muscles and writing poems in forms. In addition, bring another form poem by an established poet to share.
February 15:Mary Miceli will lead a program on rhythm, using the rhythm of music as an easy route to understanding. You might consider bringing in the sheet music, or simply the words, to one of your own favorite songs.
March 15: Even though St. Patrick’s day is right around the corner, Melissa and I (Cathryn) are ignoring that great day and presenting a program on the Imagist poets.
April 26: Annual National Poetry Month celebration with readings by the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky contest followed by an Open Mic.
May17: Poems of Place. Bring, write, explain.
Anyone who was at the September meeting who has a different recollection of the decisions made regarding the agenda, please let me know.
The next meeting of the North Shore Poets’ Forum is Saturday, Sept. 21, 11 a.m., at the Beverly Public Library. We have to set up our agenda, so please come prepared to volunteer to prepare a program.
For the first meeting, too, I hope you will bring a poem or two by a different poet (not yourself) to read. Then we’d like to hear what you admire about this poet/poem.
New this year: If you bring a poem of your own that you want to share, please bring six or seven copies so that we can gently critique it. This is in the longstanding tradition of the poets’ forum that we all need feedback, that there is always more to learn, and that we humbly realize we need help to become better poets.
Roberta Hung listens to the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Contest .
There isn’t a harder working intellectual mind full of curiosity and brilliance than Roberta Hung. Unfortunately, Roberta has been busy painting and
Ellie is such a brave and beautiful soul reading from her notebook of thoughts and poems.
participating in an online course regarding ancient Greek history and did not have any new poems to share that wonderfully sunny Saturday we celebrated National Poetry Month by honoring the winners of the Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Contest and participating in the annual open mic event.
(Roberta, if you happen to read this please post the information about your class and the artistic group in the comments section! )
You can read all about who the winners were in Cathryn’s earlier post. But I was just going through a ton of photos and came across these from our reading.
Richard Samuel Davis received an honorable mention for his poem “Waiting for Deer at the Island Refuge”
(You know how it goes, you take the photos and you love the representation of the
The illustrious leader of the Massachusetts Poetry Society Jeanette Maes.
moment but you never seem to get the pictures developed. It’s as true today in the digital worlds as it was in the days of film. Tell me you don’t have at least a few rolls of film kicking around in a drawer somewhere that you have no idea what’s on it!)
I do so wish that I had been better about posting sooner, so I could give a recount of the wonderful words that were shared. I am sure that I took notes, buried now in my notebook, highlighting some turn of phrase that I loved. I promise that when I do come upon those notes, I’ll leave a comment on this post with them!
At any rate, here are a few of the other photos I took that day (don’t worry Joan, I didn’t take any of you!) and where I think I have the correct identification I’ll make a notation.
The results of the Naomi Cherkofsky Memorial Contest are in, and we are very excited to share them with you. We do hope any of you who entered and are not on this list know that all of us have notbeen on some list or other! It doesn’t mean you are not terrific. Please know that we would love to have you join the winners to share your poetry during the North Shore Poets’ Forum’s annual celebration of National Poetry Month on Saturday, April 20, at the Beverly Public Library, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. It is always an entertaining time.
And now the list:
1st Prize Carol Seitchik – “Tel Aviv: Meandering Back”
2nd Prize Clemens Schoenebeck – “Resurrection”
3rd Prize Sally Clark – “One Loose Screw”
Honorable Mentions:
1HM C.H.Coleman – “A Mother’s Moment”
2HM Clemens Schoneback – “Old Dog”
3HM Ms. Phyllis Hodge – “Blizzard in the City”
4HM Peter McDale – “Almost Spring”
5HM Alan Swartz – “In the Dream there was a Card Game”
6HM V. G. Bisaillon – “A Partly Blocked View”
7HM Richard Samuel Davis – “Waiting for Deer at the Island Refuge”
We invite our winners to come to our celebration to read their poems. After they read, we have an Open Mic. Lots of people join in, and we all have a great time. Please try to make it!
The deadline for the annual Naomi Cherkofsky contest has been changed to March 15, to give this premier procrastinator (i.e., Cathryn Keefe O’Hare, AKA Cathy, AKA director of the North Shore Poets’ Forum) a little more time to get the news out about the contest.
Help, please!
(Please notice my use of line breaks here to add emphasis, something I learned from Melissa’s presentation on line breaks to the forum. See her earlier post.)
Tell your poet friends and neighbors and enemies. It’s cheap to enter, and it’s a lot of fun to attend our annual celebration of National Poetry Month with readings of the winning poems before an Open Mic and other great poems from those in the audience.
This year the celebration is on Saturday, April 20, 11 a.m. to 1 or so, in the Program Room of the Beverly Public Library.
Rules are spelled out under the “Contest” tab. In brief, any subject, any form, 40 line-length limit, poets 18 or older, no more than 5 entries per poet, $3 per entry. Send two copies, one signed with contact information, the other not (for judge), to Jeanette Maes, 64 Harrison Ave., Lynn, mA 02105, by March 15.
Dictionary.com (funny that we used to quote Webster’s or other “books” and now we quote online sources, isn’t it?) defines “reckoning” as:
Noun: 1. count; computation; calculation. 2. the settlement of accounts, as between two companies. 3. a statement of an amount due; bill. 4. an accounting, as for things received or done. 5. an appraisal or judgment.[2]
This morning, my husband Chris and I stayed late in bed remembering his birthday from August. We were on a cruise. I asked the waiter to do something special for him. On the other side of the restaurant, Happy Birthday rang out. He leaned over and whispered, “I hope that doesn’t happen to us.” I agreed, nodding sheepishly, as the crew trotted over singing… not Happy Birthday but doubly embarrassing Happy Anniversary.
I started writing this post earlier this month, maybe even late December, thinking about the nature of turning of the calendar and social/emotional implications of New Year celebrations. The nature of memories. The nature of that reckoning with memories achieved and plans unfulfilled.
The month itself—January—is named for the god Janus, the guardian of the gates of Heaven, ruler of time. When men prayed they were to have prayed to Janus first regardless of the god they hoped to entreat since he was the initiator of human life. He is depicted as two-faced, one facing the front and the other facing the back. To Julius Caesar, who presumably chose Janus and was the first to pick January as the first day of the new year, this symbolized the transition from one year to another. (It is also why Janus is the god of bridges, doors, and gates—because he can see to both sides and all beginnings and ends.)[3]
In the days before my birthday, I worried over the idea of reckoning. What had I learned over the past year? What had I accomplished? (For those of you who don’t know, Cathy O’Hare and I share the same birthday. We are both Capricorns, joined over the span of time–and careers, and hobbies, and love of poetry as well–by the day of our birth.)
Some of you may have read my blog “Reflections on Mackerel Cove.” If you did, then you’d know what a failure it was. I was so excited to begin that project at the turn of 2012. I believed it would re-energize me and my writing.
But blogging lasted most of January, some of February. It came sparsely in March and ended in April. I kept taking photos. Many of which I am proud of. But I never did hand anyone one of my “business” card, never interviewed anyone.
The closest I came was introducing myself to Hannah, a curly-haired blonde who wears big sunglasses and rides her bike to work at Montessori up by Endicott College in Beverly. She reminds me of sunshine even when I think of her now. But otherwise nothing.
I never finished helping my friend Cindy Zelman, a terrific non-fiction writer, with her manuscript. I had trouble keeping up with my email poetry circle and almost never got around to submitting new poems.
I never did floss every day.
I never did take my vitamins every day.
I stopped walking every day, too.
Reckoning.
Although, I can’t say that I never lost a pound. I did. I lost one, then I found one, then I lost five and found five. A year ago, I weighed 165. Today, I weigh 160.
Reckoning.
Yet… I took an exquisite cruise to the Bahamas with the man I love.
I had my first mammogram.
I took my father to his first Red Sox game. Took him on his first ferry ride into Boston, his first Boston taxi-cab ride, his first train ride. He lived 20 minutes away from the city his entire life and never did those things. I will cherish those memories as long as possible.
This year, I bought a new car. My dream car. A 2004 Ford Mustang convertible with 42,000 miles. It leaks water or collects water but I love it. It drives like a dream. I can’t wait until summer.
Reckoning.
Is there more I can do? Of course.
In 2012, I visited my nieces Jessica and Marie. I reconnected with my niece Emily, met her new son.
In 2012, I visited my aunt Ida who wasn’t expected to survive the year. A few days ago, we celebrated her 96th birthday.
I will strive to do more in 2013 but more than that I will strive not to lose faith and not to look for too much more than I already have because I have so much.
Will I make more resolutions to diet and eat better and take my vitamins and floss my teeth and walk more and make good on last year’s promise to take more photos and meet my neighbors and fellow walkers on Lothrop Street? Of course.
I’ve already got my eye on a new juicer.
How do you reckon with reckoning? You don’t. You just keep on enjoying every moment this world, this life, has to give. Forget about reckoning, write and enjoy.
Happy (belated) New Year.
Here are a few New Years’ poems I thought you might enjoy and that I thought were apropos:
Others perhaps get two attempts at New Year’s efforts. They get the option to refresh at the date of their birth, a true new year from their own arrival on the planet and also to revel with the majority in a cultural reboot. This poem by W.S. Merwin recalls the “Janus” face of old.
Writing exercises
Here are a few writing exercises that I thought might be fun for us North Shore Poets’ Forum members to try as we start 2013.
List poem: Think about your resolutions of years’ past. Write out as much of that list as possible (when possible see if you can’t add a date to that list) for me it would be quit smoking, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004. lose weight, every year/infinity. When you’ve emptied your memory. Take a separate sheet and list out resolutions for 2013. Now review the list with a poetic eye toward composing a “list poem.”
The list poem is just that, a list. It itemizes things, events, and thoughts. It is an easy form of poetry to teach, with one caveat. Yes, a list poem is a list, but the list should be resonant and compelling, driving the reader through the poem.[4]
Changing perspectives: Ask a friend or relative to share their list of New Year’s resolutions with you. Ask them to be honest.
Write a paragraph (keep it private however) about how you feel about your friend and their list. Take a break and get a cup of water or wine.
When you come back write a paragraph about what your life would have to be like for you to have written that same list of resolutions.
Take another break.
When you come back write a paragraph about how you would plan to achieve those resolutions if you were in your friend’s place. When you’re done review your material.
Now write a letter poem (Epistolary poem)[5] either from your own point of view or from your friend offering advice about the new year.
Lyric poem: The perfect day changes your perspective. Creating New Year intentions rather than resolutions frees the mind, enabling you to be creative and flexible. Imagine what your perfect day would look like from beginning to end and be as descriptive as possible. [6]
North Shore Poets' Forum 