Tweetspeak Poetry

August Rain: Introduction (and a bit of spiny poetry)

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The heartland is ablaze.

The five-o’clock news anchor tells us that Tower Mountain was kissed by lightning, that it went up like a harvest bonfire before emergency crews responded. “There have been more than 1, 000 wildfires in Arkansas this year, ” he says, “mostly in rural portions of the state.” He makes some awkward Smokey the Bear PSA about cigarette butts and camp fires, but I cannot imagine smoking in this heat — the clock at Pulaski Bank read 113 last Wednesday — and campfires are surely out of the question.

I look out the window at my browning summer garden. I’m running a deficit of national proportions to keep it watered. We haven’t had good rain in this part of the state since late June, and I suspect we won’t see any until September. The sun is sucking the life out of the heartland. In a more dramatic moment, I might mention John Steinbeck.

In seasons like this, I wish we could conjure rain. The Zuni, the Cherokee, tribes in East Africa, certain Eastern Europeans, they all had rainmaking rituals centered around dance. I suspect these traditions are ancient, fraught with meaning and complex.

I neither dance, nor am I ancient; I lament this. Instead of dancing, I stare from the window and dream of rain, how it comes in Autumn like an old earth-lover to germinate the fall seedlings. It pitter-patters on the tin roof of the carport, builds to a crescendo like miniature drums. Droplets splatter onto the old stone walk way, slide off into the dust of the earth leaving snaky trails until they are received into the waiting ground. Earthworms rise from the deep in a greeting, and robins swing from their waiting branches to feast.

All nature waits for rain.

I can’t dance, so I look to my bookcase remembering Glynn Young’s spine poetry piece and I figure on a different kind of conjuring. From the spines of the books compose a sort of cento:

Faraway Home

The Ceremonies
of longing (above
the river, the road)
cry.

The beloved country,
crude world, great.
With child, epic
love.

In the driest season things
fall apart–the Republic,
stone crossings, touching
wonder.

A river runs. Through
it, mercy rising. Faraway
home, the sun also
rises.

Rain on me holy.
The firm shadow
of Heaven,
miracles.

As I finished, a clap of thunder shakes the field. The sky opens up and I watch as the Italian zucchini leaves are pelted by precipitation. Perhaps it’s coincidence. After all, I’m no old-world conjurer. But then again?

Tweetspeak’s August Rain Project.

This month’s found poem theme at Tweetspeak is Rain. We’re compiling poems touching on the subject (no matter how loosely), and we’d love you to join with is. How do you participate?

1.  This month, we will take our cues from book spines (see Glynn’s piece for more information). Look through your personal collection, the aisles at your local bookstore, or your neighbor’s bookcase and grab a few titles.

2.  Arrange a poem completely from words on book spines, or use pieces of the titles to create your own found poem. Make sure your poems touch on themes of rain or water.

3. Tweet your poems (and pictures of the book spines) to us. Add a #tsrain hashtag so we can find it and maybe share it with the world.

4. If you aren’t a twitter user, leave your found poem here in the comment box (we’ll use our mind’s eye to imagine your book spines).

5.  Each week we’ll share a few of the poems. At the end of the month, we’ll choose a winning poem and ask the winner to record his or her poem to be featured in one of our upcoming Weekly Top 10 Poetic Picks.

And speaking of winners, last month’s Mosaic winner was Grace Marcella Brodhurst-Davis.  In “Change” she wrote:

She clacks and clatters
down hardened, dusty way,
hundreds of tiny seeds
spilling by her sway.
Strings of multicolored beads
encircle her weary neck,
muscled by heavy, hand-woven
basket, plopped atop her cinta,
worn like a million women before her.
She barters harvested maize
and the woman still at the conveyor belt,
whose fingers nudge factory-punched
gold medals that stray,
negotiates an exchange.
Her deal made -a fair trade.
Grinning, her teeth like chiclets,
at loggers moving big rigs
with mechanical arms
on her way home.
The universe has made its preparations,
swirling pigments of the old with
so-called new world.

Congratulations, Grace! We look forward to featuring your poem in an upcoming Top Ten Poetic Picks.

Now, go generate a new work and come back here and rain it on us!

Photo (top) by gogoloopie, Creative Commons via Flickr. Post and book spine photo by Seth Haines. 

___________

Buy a year of Every Day Poems, just $5.99— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In August we’re exploring the theme Rain.

Red #9

Seth Haines
Latest posts by Seth Haines (see all)

About Seth Haines

Seth Haines is a writer and photographer who loves the Ozarks, his wife and four boys, and a good collection of poems. He's the author of two books, both of which touch on addiction, sobriety, and spiritual formation.

Comments

    • Seth Haines says

      This was a really fun exercise. It takes a little time and a bit of creative manipulation of punctuation, but I found it to be a really fun prompt.

      Thanks for reading. Let us know what you create!

      Reply

    • Seth Haines says

      Maybe your post-rain dance was a sort of quantum moment? Try again and see what happens. OR… compose a book spine poem and see what happens. 🙂

      P.S. I love those words in Cry.

      Reply

    • Seth Haines says

      Well when you compose that kind of a poem? Grace… I really liked it. I could go on about the rhythm in it, but I’ll just leave it be for now.

      Hope you’ll jot a bit of a book spine poem and share it with us here!

      Reply

        • Seth Haines says

          I hold it down in NW Ark. Specifically Fayetteville. We say “woo pig” here, but we’re still quite civilized. Come down for the farmer’s market one Saturday and I’ll buy you a cup of joe. Thereafter, you can write a poem about the bluegrass bands with shaky cigarette stained fingers and shakier vibratos.

          Reply

  6. Maureen Doallas says

    Salt Water Amnesia

    A thousand vessels
    jam the city in which I love you.

    Tell me
    I have tasted the apple.

    Tell me
    the captain lands in paradise
    where currents meet.

    ___________________

    Title: Jeffrey Skinner
    Poets, in order: Tania Runyon, Joe-Anne McLaughlin and Li_Young Lee, Kim Addonizzio, Mary Crow, Kim Addonizzio, Satah Manguso, Elizabeth Austen

    Reply

  7. Jody Lee Collins says

    from my small stack today
    in (no particular order)

    I wanted to write Poetry
    In the Power of His Presence
    (usually accompanied by living water—rain?)
    So I looked for
    A Way to Garden—
    Praying for a drop
    And possibly an
    Animal, Vegetable,
    Or Miracle.
    there I found
    One Thousand Gifts
    Looking at
    The Artist’s Way.

    a small attempt…but fun. Thank you!

    Reply

  8. donna says

    what if
    the artists way
    brought us safely
    out of the woods?

    what if
    everything i need to know i learned in kindergarten?

    what if
    the places that scare you
    are where there is light?

    what if
    everybody wins?

    and
    what if
    we are all old world conjurers?

    what if?

    Reply

  9. Casee says

    The World As I See It

    Us, gypsies, wanderers of the world.
    The sacred origins of profound things,
    the things they carried, forgotten.

    Magical beginnings, enchanted lives, separated.
    Seeking Utopia with the praise of folly.
    We exchange the living bible for fun with hand shadows.

    Like water for chocolate, the God of small things
    dispatches, from the war room, letters from the earth.
    Adventures in gentle discipline for an ageless body, timeless mind.

    For us, the birth of tragedy.
    Living on earth, the weeping woman, must learn
    the art of racing in the rain, struggling to touch the earth.

    Religions of the world, searching for God knows what,
    desire to be the know it all.
    The paradox of plenty, the death of common sense.

    The Alchemist,the reminding salt,
    Crossing the water,piece by piece,
    Nourishing traditions,

    Turning to one another: simple conversations to restore hope.
    You already know what to do.
    Eat, pray, love.

    Reply

    • Casee says

      I immediately saw things I would change after I posted. But I LOVED this prompt. This was a lot of fun. Thanks.

      Reply

    • Seth says

      Casee, I really loved this line – “We exchange the living bible for fun with hand shadows.” It’s definitely a winner.

      I hope you keep playing along this month.

      Reply

  10. Casee says

    Seth, I will. I actually thought of you and Amber when I wrote “the reminding salt.” And “turning to one another: simple conversations to restore hope” has you guys and group all over it. Y’all have sure felt like shining lights and ‘salt of the earth’ to me. 🙂

    Reply

  11. Daniel says

    Hey, here’s my book spine poem (photo here).

    Truth and Method

    Off the beaten track,
    the garbage eater
    at Lake Scugog
    refusing heaven
    bird by bird,
    being given
    the best of it—
    seeing the invisible
    God without being
    Paul.

    Reply

  12. LjDowns says

    Seth, I’ve really enjoyed your writing this month. Not just this article but the ones you’ve written since (I’m commenting here several days after this first posted because it’s taken me that long to craft my first poem!). TSPoetry will be blessed if you keep writing here.

    I hope I’ll have a chance to write at least one more, but here’s a crack at #tsrain

    http://bit.ly/NwJOBn

    Reply

    • Seth Haines says

      Thanks for the comment and I hope you keep coming around. I loved the creativity and effort you put into that piece. The result was very nice.

      And as an aside, All is Grace? That book wrecked me.

      Reply

  14. LjDowns says

    A new poem on rain/water, here is the link:

    http://leahjoinerdowns.blogspot.com/2012/08/one-thousand-gifts.html

    One Thousand Gifts

    The night I fell from the sky,
    the dog star shone
    on a temple of trees; dovekeepers,
    they came from a lineage of grace.

    Where the red fern grows,
    wild apples lay on leaves of grass.
    A deer hears rumors of water,
    and follows the stone crossings home.

    The barn owl coos about the
    secret life of bees to an
    elegant gathering of white snows.

    Over the sounds and silences,
    the last coyote calls the
    song of the blood orange moons
    to the princes of the Milky Way.

    The Good Earth is a holy mount
    where every bush is burning.
    It is a moveable feast
    of bread and ashes,
    the thistle and the rose,
    and dawns mistaken for dusk.

    The night I fell from the sky,
    a dog star shone
    on a temple of trees; dovekeepers,
    they came from a lineage of grace.

    As I lay dying beneath
    a blossom rain,
    tender is the night.

    From across the ancient waters
    comes the weight of glory and
    the allure of hope, of necessary endings
    and final beginnings.

    Grand Weaver, whisper my name,
    of you my heart has spoken.

    Reply

  16. Grace Marcella Brodhurst-Davis says

    Well, this was quite a workout for me since I had so many books to dig through! Yep, I’m a book hoarder:) Here’s the link to my poem (with pic of book spines):

    http://gracebrodhurstdavis.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-childhood-biography-of-place.html

    A Childhood: The Biography of a Place

    Belize…
    Unlike the wide Sargasso Sea
    (its fertile underground),
    lies in the seat of the soul
    No rumors, of water it abounds

    Its birds of paradise,
    the sounds of poetry
    in your dreams,
    belong to me

    My borderlands -la frontera
    The violent bear it away
    I taste the wine of astonishment
    Such free fire –a raisin in the sun

    Things fall apart at
    the dyer’s hand
    Brother, I’m dying
    I see the forgotten waltz

    The sugar solution:
    three cups of tea, as
    fair and tender ladies
    praisesong for the widow –Belize

    Little big minds rise above
    incidents in the life of a slave girl,
    member of the whipping club,
    in search of lost time

    A return to the native land
    through the book of awakening
    Geography III on the banks
    of Plum Creek -I’m freed

    A new dawn on rocky ridge
    opens the kingdom of this world within
    -not unlike a history of Latin America
    My childhood: A history of Belize

    Reply

  17. Mark Ettinger says

    June 2009
    ” Rain’s Symphony ” Mark Ettinger

    When I feel the rain upon my face
    I feel Your mercy and Your grace

    As the rain falls all around me
    The countless sounds surround me

    The sound of the rain’s symphony
    Lord, it’s Your majesty

    The leaves of the trees become instruments
    As the raindrops play their song
    A melody from Heaven, rains on and on and on

    The softest song I’ve ever heard
    Rain falling through the trees

    Unlike a song you can only hear
    God lets this song be seen

    The drops of rain that sound surreal
    A song that Heaven lets me feel

    As the rain falls all around me
    The countless music surrounds me

    The sound of the rain’s symphony
    Lord, Your melody rains upon me

    The most beautiful love song

    Reply

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