A Halloween Hootenanny

 

Greetings, Friends!

           Welcome to my humble, haunted abode—

 

 

HAUNTED HOUSE

     by Valerie Worth

 

Its echoes,

Its aching stairs,

Its doors gone stiff

At the hinges,

 

Remind us of its

Owners, who

Grew old, who

Died, but

 

Who are still

Here: leaning . . .

 

                   Read the rest HERE.

 

 

We're all feeling a bit exhausted these days, aren't we? 

 

So, please, rest your weary bones at Today's Little Ditty's Halloween Hootenanny!

 

There will be singing,

 

 

 

there will be dancing,

 

and there will be storytelling— oh yes, there will be storytelling!

 

Today I'm serving up a selection of Halloween-flavored treats from the last seven years. Think of it as a haunted open house—spend as much time as you like sampling what's on offer. There's something for everyone (you never know what you'll die for), but rest assured, it's all good, light-hearted, spooky fun.

 

 

MUSIC AND DANCING:

 

"Dance Macabre" by Carrie Clickard

•  a pas de deux performed by a zombie ballerina and her mummy dance partner.

"Dance Macabre" Op. 40 by Saint-Saëns

• a song for voice and piano, based on a poem by the French poet Henri Cazalis.  Also a cartoon aired by PBS in 1980.

 

MY ORIGINAL POEMS:

"Insomnia" by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes

• an unfolding story in limericks

"The Witching Hour" by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes

•  a poem about an unlikely friendship

"Thoughtless" by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes 

•  a zombie zeno (Read more Halloween-themed zenos HERE.)
  

 

TLD COMMUNITY COLLECTIONS:

 

Five for Friday: Horror Magnet Poetry

Five for Friday: Call of the Beast

Five for Friday: Post Halloween Stress Disorder

DMC Wrap-Up: Monster-themed haiku

DMC Wrap-Up: Poems about things that spooked us as children 

DMC Wrap-Up: Poems about things monsters are afraid of 

     (Based on a Halloween-themed Spotlight ON interview with Rebecca Herzog.)

 

QUOTATIONS:

 

Wynne McLaughlin

 

Ray Bradbury

 

PICTURE BOOKS:

 

It's Raining Bats and Frogs, by Rebecca Colby (Limerick Alley)

 

Magic For Sale, by Carrie Clickard (Spotlight ON interview)

 

The Ghostly Carousel: Delightfully Frightful Poems, by Calef Brown (Spotlight ON interview)

 

 

And now, an extra special treat for five lucky TLD trick-or-treaters! The winners of last week's giveaway for one copy each of HOP TO IT: Poems to Get You Moving (Pomelo Books), courtesy of Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, are:

Linda Baie

Shannon Gebhart  

Mary Lee Hahn

Kathleen Mazurowski, and

Carol Varsalona

 

Congratulations! 

 Please email your postal addresses to me at TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com.

 

For more Halloween fun and an extra large grab bag of bite-sized poetry goodies, join Linda Baie for this week's Poetry Friday roundup at TeacherDance.

May DMC Wrap-Up Celebration

Marco Verch

The little things? The little moments? They aren't little.
          – Jon Kabat-Zinn


At the beginning of this month, Margaret Simon challenged us to write poems of presence— mindful poems about the present moment. Mary Lee Hahn and Heidi Mordhorst took up the challenge with enthusiasm and turned it into a movement... or at least a hashtag on Twitter

that has been quietly bustling all month long. Combined with activity on blogs and other social media platforms, there were far more mindfulness poems this month than could possibly be captured on our humble DMC padlet. Nevertheless, we ended up with a diverse collection of more than 50 submissions that I'm proud to share with you today.

I marvel at so many of these insightful little gems—

poems from home . . .

"Mindfulness Meditation" by telwink

 from yards . . .

"Keeping the Balance" by Matthias Ripp

and gardens . . .

"Zen in the Gardens" by Joseph Illingworth

from our jaunts around the neighborhood . . .

"Mindfulness" by Paul Ritchie

poems that teach us

"Wherever you go, there you are."

                    – Jon Kabat-Zinn

Satish Krishnamurthy

and

"The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are moments where we touch each other." 

          – Jack Kornfield

Sharon Pazner

Thank you to everyone who contributed poems this month—I was touched by them all. I hope they've helped you stay afloat as much as they've helped me.

"Mindfulness on Red Lake" by Steve Jurvetson

But most of all, my heartfelt gratitude goes to Margaret who came up with just the right challenge at just the right time.

Scroll through the poems below or CLICK HERE to open a new tab.

Inspired to add your own mindfulness poem to the collection? Visit Margaret's spotlight interview for instructions and then click on the pink dot with the plus sign to add your poem to the padlet. While there aren't many days left in May, I'll be leaving this padlet open indefinitely, so feel free to add to it at any point in the future.

At this week's Poetry Friday roundup, Mary Lee Hahn introduces readers to the Reading Without Walls challenge and multi-award-winning "activist poet" Marilyn Chin. Join her at A Year of Reading.

April DMC Wrap-Up Celebration + Giveaway

"leak of ideas" by Anja Mexicola
(click on image to enlarge)

I hope you enjoyed our new Lessons from the Bookshelf series this month! Many thanks to Patrice Vecchione for allowing me to debut the series with an in-depth look at My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry & Speaking Your Truth (Seven Stories Press, 2020). I know I learned an awful lot. I hope I was able to pass along some of my enthusiasm to you.

If you missed any of my posts about this insightful and comprehensive book about writing poetry and living the poet's life, please click on the following links:

Introduction and Part I—Poetry's Calling: Finding Yourself on Paper

Part II—"If One Part Were Touched, the Whole World Would Tremble": Writing Poetry from the Inside Out

Part IV—"How Might the Impossible Be?": Getting Your Poems Out There

I also had the pleasure of sharing three writing prompts from Part III—Who Said You Couldn't Say That?: Twenty-Five Poetry Writing Suggestions in Twenty-One Short Chapters:

barbara w

"These are the Hands": Write about the place that empathy has in your life—a time you offered compassion to another or a time it was freely given to you.

patrice-photographiste

"Lost and Found": Write about a time you lost something or somebody. 

sammydavisdog

And "Into the Future: Take Yourself There Now": Write about that place called future, as you imagine it; peer into its unknown terrain, and see what you find.






Although there wasn't a lot of shouting in your responses . . .

Charles Lam

 or shattering, for that matter . . .

chiaralily

there was certainly some whispering . . .

Marc Cooper

also singing, praying, crying, imagining, and a whole lot of caring and truth-telling.

Elaine Moore

It's tough times, these days. There's no doubt about it. But it helps to know we have each other to lean on, don't you think?

allywin13

I appreciate everyone who dug deep to write from your hearts this month! Some of your contributions seemed like they would suit more than one writing prompt, but I sorted them as best I could. If I placed yours incorrectly, contact me via email—todayslittleditty (at) gmail (dot) com. I'm happy to make changes.

Scroll through the poems below or CLICK HERE to open a new tab.

Has National Poetry Month been keeping you busy? Did you miss one of the challenges? April's not over yet! This week I invite you to write a poem for any of the three challenges presented this month. You have until Thursday, April 30th, to add your poem to the collection. You'll find the padlet and more information about each of the prompts HERE (for empathy poems), HERE (for lost things and people) and HERE (for imaging the future). I will then move your poem to the wrap-up presentation.

Participants in this month's challenges will automatically be entered to win a copy of My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry & Speaking Your Truth by Patrice Vecchione, courtesy of Seven Stories Press (US addresses only). One entry per participant, not per poem.

Alternatively, you may enter the giveaway by commenting below or sending an email to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject "my shouting giveaway." All poem contributions, comments, and emails must be received by 5:00pm on Thursday, April 30th. If you contribute a poem and a comment, you will receive two entries in total. The winner will be chosen randomly and announced next Friday, May 1st, when we reveal a new Reader Spotlight and our next DMC challenge.

Join Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering for a poem inspired by Henry David Thoreau, the latest addition to the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem, and, of course, this week's Poetry Friday roundup.

March DMC Wrap-Up Celebration

Bennilover

Games are the most elevated form of investigation.
          – Albert Einstein


At the beginning of this month, Tabatha Yeatts challenged us to write a poem about a game (which, if you ask me, is also a pretty elevated form of investigation). She elaborated:

It could be a board game, a sport, a fictional game—any kind of game—and the narrator could be in the middle of playing it or teaching you how to play or telling how it went very wrong or the poem itself could be a game.

The Game of Life has been tough these days.

"Life" by Will Folsom

Many more Snakes than Ladders

"Snakes and Ladders" by Jacqui Brown

and plenty of Trouble and Sorry! to go around

have made some want to throw their hands up in defeat—

"You sunk my battleship!"      by Derek Gavey

It's true, finding joy these days has been no Trivial Pursuit,

"Jara vs. Trivial Pursuit" by Manuel J. Prieto

but I'm grateful for online communities like ours that are still going strong—coming together as we always do to write, listen, share, and otherwise lighten the load for one another.

It leaves me with a feeling something like this . . .

StartUpStockPhotos

Thank you to everyone who contributed a poem this month and/or supported others with comments, and special thanks to Tabatha for inspiring our month-long poetry game-a-thon!

Scroll through the poems below or CLICK HERE to open a new tab.

If you would like to write a poem about a game, visit Tabatha's spotlight interview for instructions and then click on the pink dot with the plus sign to add your poem to the padlet. While there aren't many days left in March, I'll be leaving this padlet open indefinitely, so feel free to add to it at any point in the future.

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH PREVIEW

Samantha Aikman from Mount Mansfield Union High School in Richmond, Vermont,
has been named the winner of the 2020 National Poetry Month Poster Contest for Students.

With National Poetry Month just around the corner, there are many places besides Today's Little Ditty to gather together and celebrate poetry. Many thanks to Jama Rattigan for rounding up next month's poetry projects at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

At Today's Little Ditty, I will be introducing a new series called "Lessons from the Bookshelf" where I take an in-depth look at educational books about writing poetry. Beginning Friday, April 3rd, I will focusing on My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry and Speaking Your Truth by Patrice Vecchione (Seven Stories Press, March 31, 2020). I hope you'll join me!

The winner of last week's giveaway for a signed copy of The Nest That Wren Built, by Randi Sonenshine, illustrated by Anne Hunter is . . .

MARY LEE HAHN

Congratulations, Mary Lee!

Our DMC game-a-thon coach, Tabatha Yeatts, is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup and sharing a beautiful, thought-provoking poem about acceptance. You'll find her keeping score at The Opposite of Indifference.

February DMC Wrap-Up Celebration + Giveaway

MonikaP via pixabay

At the beginning of this month, Buffy Silverman challenged us to write a poem using combined or invented words. She offered up a recipe that involved combining nouns and verbs to create new adjectives, as she did in On a Snow Melting Day: Seeking Signs of Spring.

With nature as our test kitchen, how could we go wrong? 

tumblr.tastefullyoffensive.com

We added our ingredients one by one, mixing and stirring . . . 

"The cook" by Harry Whittier Frees

whipping up our words until they held their own . . .

"Barker was Busy in the Kitchen" by Harry Whittier Frees

the perfect amount of sweetness in each and every bite-sized poem.

ddraw at freepik

No doubt you will find something to your taste.

"A hungry bunch" by Harry Whittier Frees

Many thanks to everyone who participated, and especially to Buffy for cooking up such a satisfying challenge!

Scroll through the poems below, or for best viewing, CLICK HERE.

Feeling inspired?

If so, you have one more day (until Saturday, February 29th) to write a poem using combined or invented words. Post your poem on our February 2020 padlet and I will add it to the wrap-up presentation.

 

Participants in this month's challenge will automatically be entered to win a signed copy of On a Snow-Melting Day: Seeking Signs of Spring by Buffy Silverman (Millbrook Press, 2020). One entry per participant, not per poem.

Alternatively, you may enter the giveaway by commenting below or sending an email to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject "snow-melting giveaway." Comments and emails must be received by Tuesday, March 3rd. If you contribute a poem and comment below, you will receive two entries in total. The winner will be chosen randomly and announced next Friday, March 6th, when we reveal our next Spotlight ON interview and DMC challenge!

Karen Edmisten is sharing a beautiful poem by Jane Hirshfield about the "extra day" we are blessed with this month. Join her for this week's Poetry Friday roundup.