POETRY MONTH DAY # 16 — NEEDLE DEEP IN PINE FOREST

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NaPoWriMo, that marvellous font of ideas for things to write about, has this for us today:

"today we challenge you to write a poem of over-the-top compliments. Pick a person, place, or thing you love, and praise it in the most effusive way you can. Go for broke with metaphors, similes, and more."

Got as far as this and couldn't think of a damn thing I wanted to praise. Then Kim Goldberg posted this fabulous quotation on social media and I just love it! Also, I have no green thumb at all and now I can't even have indoor plants because the cats will eat them.

"Cover your bookcases with rugs and linens of fine quality; preserve them from dampness and mice and injury; for it is your books that are your true treasure.... Make books your companions; let your bookshelves be your gardens: bask in their beauty, gather their fruit, pluck their roses, take their spices and myrrh. And when your soul be weary, change from garden to garden, and from prospect to prospect." -Spanish Jewish scholar Ibn Tibbon, 12th century

Just watched a wonderful book launch event with Caitlin Press and Betsy Warland who is launching her new collection of prose poems, Lost Lagoon—lost in thought. This was done via Crowdcast, yet another platform allowing us to all get together, yay yay yay, being as how we can't. I liked how today's worked, even thought a couple of times my screen froze, but that is to be expected, I think, given the fact the almost the Whole World is online these days.

So I'm not writing to the prompt because I can't think of anything I love enough to respond to the prompt. Today, that is. I love lots of things (she says, defensively).

Instead, here are two of those three line/six word poems we did a week or so ago. I like that form!

Needle Deep in Pine Forest

Silence
needle deep
in pine forest

Feel
I'm wading
through thick molasses

Hush
be present
in the moment

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JANE BYERS LAUNCHES 'STEELING EFFECTS' IN NELSON, BC

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National Poetry Month was celebrated big time in Nelson last night when Jane Byers launched her first book of poetry.

Steeling Effects, published by Caitlin Press

Jane gave a wonderful reading to a crowd of around sixty people.

I met Jane three or four years ago and it was truly a delight to see all her hard work come to fruition in this lovely collection. In it you'll find poems about work (her background is in corporate health and safety), about her kids (as engaging a pair of six-year-olds as you're likely to find), about being gay, about family and friends and one extremely powerful long poem titled Vigiles in which stanzas examining the role firefighters have played throughout history alternate with quotations from firefighters who survived the World Trade Towers' collapse that is worth the price of admission all by itself.

Otter Books was busy selling books that all but flew off the table!

Jane signed books until her hand all but fell off.

Jane writes intelligent poems punctuated by humour and a keen eye for detail. Steeling Effects takes its title from a term used to describe how coping successfully with stress or adversity breeds resilience, something many of the poems deal with one way or another.

Afterwards there was a wee celebration with cake.

The collection ends with this poem written for a friend's birthday.

AT THIS HOUR

for Betty Daniel, 90 

Long twilight,

almost unnoticed,

until the glacier and the endless day you took for granted,

are gone—

your hand a silhouette.

There is relief in darkness:

sag and wrinkles invisible,

expectations of the day evaporate,

like low-hung clouds

giving way to a half-moon belly dancing on water,

not to be compared to the light of afternoon.

There are moments of sparkle in the darkness—

the firefly, the flame,

that also bring warmth,

mingled with memories

of your full life.

At this hour, you risk delight.

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Look for Steeling Effects at your independent bookstore, or order it through Caitlin Press or, well, somewhere, but give it a read. It's great!

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