Poetry Friday - Starting Wild

Thanks to Carol Wilcox at Carol's Corner for hosting today. Like Carol, I am far from the terrible fires in the Boulder area, have been watching the news all last evening. More will be revealed today, including how to help. 

I'm beginning prep for Cybil's Poetry Judging - Round Two. Round One judges have given our group a marvelous list of finalists. Stay tuned! All the lists will be shared tomorrow, January 1st!

         Sorry that I missed the Poetry Sister's "Bell" challenge but I'm looking forward to reading how everyone responded! 

         

          All year, I've been reading a lot of poetry, and every day a new poem from this book, published by Nosy Crow, an imprint of Candlewick Press, Fiona Waters collected the poems for each season, thus the title. Lovely illustrations by Frann Preston-Gannon walked hand-in-hand with the poems. That last poem, for December 31st, is one I guess most of you know, Beatrice Schenk de Regniers' "Keep A Poem in Your Pocket", thus setting a goal for 2022!

       Fiona Waters has created a new one for the coming year, out for the first time in 2021 in the U.S. This time, she's selected 365 poems about animals. I don't recognize all of the names and perhaps that is because it's from Great Britain, but she has chosen some from America's past like Valerie Worth and  Emily Dickinson and those still writing like Jack Prelutsky, Elaine Magliaro, and Jane Yolen. From the titles, I see familiar poems, all animal antics from varying points of view. There are indexes of the poets, the poems, and first lines at the back. Britta Teckentrup's illustrations add to the lure of each poem. If you don't know much about an animal, you'll want to know more after reading the words and viewing each lovely page. Along with other anthologies and poets' collections, it feels like 2022 will be a special one for poetry!

            Thanks again to Candlewick Press for this copy!

       I've chosen some beginning lines from each month. Can you guess who the poet is?

January - "Have you heard her yipping/when the moon is down?"   

February - "Imagine overturning/The teeming anthill"  

March - "Make your home/in the damp darkness"  

April - "The air is like a butterfly"  

May - "Pigeons are city folk/content/to live with concrete/and cement."

June - "A hedgehog's hug is mainly hid" 

July - "A narrow fellow in the grass" 

August - "Giraffes/I like them./Ask me why."  

September - "The buffalos are gone." 

October - "Ploffskin, Pluffskin, pelican jee." 

November - "Allow me just one short remark" 

December - "I saw the two starlings" 

 

        Way back in 2015 I wrote this 'first' poem of the year. It seems apt for our beginnings tomorrow. Wishing you all a joy-filled 2022! 

With past power

and future hope

I navigate

the tangle-covered

threshold to the year.

Linda Baie ©