Thursday, May 20, 2021

Pulling on a Line: A Celebration of Mary Lee Hahn

 

 
I once told Mary Lee Hahn that I loved how she managed to live her life as one long poem. (I still consider her a role model in that regard.) Now, in celebration of her retirement from 37 years of teaching and the beginning of a new "stanza" in her life, I am delighted to be able to pay tribute to her publicly. 
 
No doubt there are hundreds of former fourth and fifth graders who are better human beings for having experienced Ms. Hahn's benevolent guidance in the classroom, but I'd like to speak to the impact Mary Lee has had on me and the TLD community. The first time I sang her praises was in 2014 when she was a featured guest in the Haiku Garden. Since then, she's become a friend as well as a dependable presence on Today's Little Ditty. She's contributed to numerous DMC challenges (with six poems selected for The Best of Today's Little Ditty anthologies) and has inspired readers not only with her words, but with her drive to stretch limits and make her voice heard—creatively and otherwise.
 
There's a song called "Pulling on a Line" that reminds me of Mary Lee whenever I hear it. It makes me think of her passion for fly fishing and her association with Casting for Recovery, but it also brings to mind the creative process that is a constant presence in her life. For me, it represents the thread of that lifelong poem that stays with Mary Lee from day to day, month to month, and year to year. 
 
 
"Pulling on a Line" by Great Lake Swimmers 
from the album Lost Channels
 
 
 
Pulling on a Line
 
The line runs through like a train in a book
Or metres underwater, ending with a hook
It sways in the air when there's wind enough to lift
The fine ones are boundaries when there is a rift
 
I'm just pulling on a line, on a line
Oh I'm just pulling on a line
I'm just pulling on a line, on a line
But sometimes it pulls on me

The line, it inks across the freshly fallen snow
Where only those embracing coldness would go
In whistles and in whispers and sometimes in howls
It sings to me sweetly from trees and in vowels

I'm just pulling on a line, on a line
Oh I'm just pulling on a line
I'm just pulling on a line, on a line
But sometimes it pulls on me

The line, it writes itself across the dark sky
In the air, electric flashes ending with a sigh
It weaves itself into a fabric so true
And flows just like the river, graceful and blue

I'm just pulling on a line, on a line
Oh I'm just pulling on a line
I'm just pulling on a line, on a line
But sometimes it pulls on me
 
© Anthony Dekker and Great Lake Swimmers (Nettwerk Records)
 
 
Pulling a few lines from Mary Lee's reservoir of poems on Today's Little Ditty, here are three of my favorites. 
 
 
rain again last night
temperatures above freezing
two cocoons wait
 
it's been a long, dark winter
the right moment is coming
 
– Mary Lee Hahn 
 
From Margarita Engle's tanka challenge (March 2015), featured in The Best of Today's Little Ditty (2014-2015).
 
 
 
Peony Poem
 
an idea
sudden, surprising
like red peony shoots
the first color in a spring garden
 
a draft
leafy, bushy
too much green, but with buds
sweet enough to attract ants
 
a poem 
lopsided, fragrant
overly showy, flamboyant, glorious
cut for a vase or for a grave
 
– Mary Lee Hahn
   
From Melissa Manlove's comparison poem challenge (May 2017), featured in The Best of Today's Little Ditty (2017-2018).
 
 
 
comet of crow
streaks across dark cloudy sky
contrail of bluejays
 
– Mary Lee Hahn
     
From Margaret Simon's #PoemsofPresence challenge (May 2020).
 

Best wishes for your retirement, Mary Lee, 
and for many more fruitful years 
of discovery, wonder, and poeming!
 
 

Many thanks to Michelle Schaub for featuring my poem "Look for the Helpers" on Poetry Boost this past week! Click HERE to read her wonderful blog post about using poetry in the classroom to encourage empathy and spread kindness.





 
Christie Wyman hosts this week's Poetry Friday roundup with an abundance of heartfelt tributes to #MarvellousMaryLee. You'll find the festivities at Wondering and Wandering.




18 comments:

  1. Michelle,
    I am enjoying getting to know Mary Lee through these posts today on Poetry Friday. You've created a very nice tribute for her here. This stanza in Mary Lee's Peony Poem is so powerful:

    "a poem
    lopsided, fragrant
    overly showy, flamboyant, glorious
    cut for a vase or for a grave"

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  2. I really love that "contrail of bluejays"! What a great song pick..."For me, it represents the thread of that lifelong poem that stays with Mary Lee from day to day, month to month, and year to year." -- beautiful!

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  3. Beautiful words, all. Love the song connection! xo

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  4. Such warmth! And I did enjoyed your snippets of Mary's words. (Also lovely to read your poem on Michelle's blog.) Kindness (and helpers) for the win!)

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  5. Lovely & loving, Michelle. I love the song you chose, perhaps Mary Lee is shown today to pull on all our lines, like her students, "I'm just pulling on a line, on a line
    But sometimes it pulls on me". And I love re-connecting with Mary Lee's earlier poems, remember the love for those peonies.

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  6. Wonderful tribute to ML!! Great song and I love the poems you shared (swooning at the Peony Poem). You are so right about her living her life as one long poem.

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  7. A lovely ML tribute. I especially love the crow poem...thanks for reminding me of that one. I saw it acted out just yesterday.

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  8. What. A. Tribute. To be known as a person who lives their life as a poem.
    WOW.
    This is truly lovely, Michelle.

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  9. This is just wonderful, Michelle. You have truly captured the inimitable Mary Lee Hahn. She is a knitter of words, a caster of wisdom, a creator of poems that get to the heart instantly. Her spare poems and on the money word choices always make me notice. How lucky to have been her student. You have done such a wonderful job in capturing her! I adore the song which I did not know. Janet Clare F.

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  10. What a wonderful tribute. I so enjoyed the song and the connections you make to Mary Lee, her life and her poetry. It's so good to see TLD this week.

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  11. Beautiful and rich tribute post for Mary Lee! How I love her cocoon tanka poem, and how it fits so well with today,
    "it's been a long, dark winter
    the right moment is coming"
    Here's hoping for that "right moment is coming". Love the "Pulling on a Line" song and video too, the line that weaves through our lives and through our poems, thanks Michelle!

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  12. What a wonderful celebratory post for Mary Lee! Thanks so much for highlighting some of her poems here--each so rich and nuanced...just like Mary Lee!

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  13. So. Much. Goodness. in this post, Michelle. Just like all the goodness in Mary Lee. :)

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  14. Such a beautiful collection!

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  15. Michelle, it is so good to be back at your ditty post. The song you shared is wonderful and so appropriate. I just love the poems you chose also. I especially like the Peony poem because I planted a beautiful peony in my new perennial garden and it is starting to bud. The last stanza is lovely. Thanks sharing Marvelous Mary Lee's poems I never read.

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  16. I am truly humbled by your kind words. I can only hope to live into what you see in me. The song is new to me, but is all kinds of perfect -- fishing, writing, "but sometimes it pulls on me." Thanks for sharing my poems. Those are three of my favorite I've ever written. Your TLD challenges brought/bring out the best in me! Here's to meeting IRL someday!

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  17. A new stanza....

    Yes, indeed.

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