Tag: Poetry

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Poetry

Dear Kitchen Cabinets: An Apology Poem

Dear Kitchen Cabinets,

I apologize for slamming

You so much in my 30s.

You were there and

You had a handle.

In a way you

Were asking for it.

But there were

One too many dirty plates

Left in the living room.

(What am I,

The maid?)

And there was

My desire to complete

One measly thought

Without interruption.

(What is “alone time”

Anyway?)

These are little things,

I know, but

These distractions,

These unintended discourtesies,

Are the big stuff of every mother’s life

And, sadly and simply,

They are not to be avoided.

Therefore,

I’m sorry

I took it out on you,

kitchen cabinets of 

Lightly stained maple.

You never broke down

To hang limp from a torn hinge. 

Well…

Except

For that one time.

–Marilyn Yung

Thanks for reading! For more poetry, visit my poetry page. For teaching poetry, visit my teaching website, ELA Brave and True, with more than 350 posts, including a large collection of poetry lesson plans.

Photo by: Eric Nuhr on Unsplash

Categories
Poetry

My ’90s Bomber Jacket: A Treasured Object Poem

Thick and heavy, warm and supple

Chocolate brown leather, a world map lining

Four pockets to hold:

Gloves, change, Kleenexes, icy fingers,

Oversized,

It clothes me in comfort

Distressed,

It encloses me in memories from

Years of travel from

Minnesota to Maine,

Vermont to Florida,

Oregon to Kansas.

My trendy friend found years ago

In a Phoenix boutique

Is now classic outerwear and

Perfect for…

Ever.

–Marilyn Yung

Photo: M. Yung

Categories
Poetry

When I Heard the Learn’d Grammarian

A poem inspired by Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”

When I heard the learn’d grammarian,

When the nouns, the adjectives, were ranged in sentences before me,

When I was shown the graphic organizers and paragraphs, to draft, revise and edit them,

When I sitting heard the grammarian where she lectured with much applause in the classroom,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

To my quiet dining room table, and from time to time,

Look’d in perfect silence at the journal before me.

–Marilyn Yung

Featured Photo: Hayley Maxwell on Unsplash

Categories
Poetry

Cicadas and Geraniums

Cicadas cicadas cicadas

heard since July, the Sunday night of summer

when sunrise rays lower themselves,

heating the concrete, ducking below a deck umbrella,

driving me inside to the white noise of conditioned air

that tells a lie of comfort and coolness…

that gives way to middle August and the

dropping

of

crinkled and matte

oak and

maple leaves, and

withered petunias, and brittle geraniums who

refuse to relinquish the dry soil and the pseudo-sun of

southern Africa beneath which they naturally thrive.

–Marilyn Yung

Photo: Michael Beener on Unsplash

Categories
Art & Architecture Poetry

On Kindred Spirits: An Ekphrastic Poem

Leafy and leafless giants

Loom beneath

Wandering shafts of light to

Illumine

Cavernous crevasses.

Darkened by our verbosity,

An afternoon of pomposity

Is a kindred thing.

We can talk clear out here on this ledge if you feel like it or,

If you’d rather,

We can talk

On a red chalk bluff way out West.

This land is

Far too perfect

Far too ours

Far too expansive

To interrupt our kindred

Conversation.

This is a poem inspired by the 1849 painting Kindred Spirits by Asher B. Durand.

My poem imagines the conversation between the two men standing on the bluff, naturalist and poet William Cullen Bryant and Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole. Durand painted the work to memorialize Cole, who had recently passed away.

For more about Kindred Spirits, watch this video from Crystal Bridges of American Art. To read my post on Medium about Crystal Bridges, read here.

Thanks for reading!

Become a follower for your occasional “art fix.” Check out my recent post about Claude Monet’s Water Lilies:

Monet’s Water Lilies in Kansas City

Categories
Poetry Uncategorized

Rust: A Color Poem

Rust

Rust is the reliable color of 

weakness and endurance,

an erratic reacquaintance.

He’s the embarrassing residue

oxidizing at the edge of iron’s brawn.

A popular environmental color,

he was a favorite at the very 

first Earth Day in 1970.

Unlike his obstinate cousin,

Orange, 

Rust also goes by

Clay,

Cinnamon,

Squash,

Yam,

Copper Mountain.

Crayons know him

as Burnt Sienna.

Redheads call him

Ginger.

The tint of McRib,

he imitates the

machine-formed pork hero:

in and out of our lives —

back for a limited time — 

and then gone for months

(or years) on end.

I recently read “Yellow,” the 1987 poem by Kay Ryan (and “Yellow” the song by Coldplay and “Yellow” the post by Yeahanotherblogger), and was inspired to write the above little verse. Just experimenting. Also thinking about a new poetry assignment for my high school students. Your reactions and thoughts are welcome. Feel free to leave a comment below or use my Contact page!

Featured Photo by Zsolt Palatinus on Unsplash

Categories
Reviews of Books/Music/Films

Kin Types by Luanne Castle

“She can’t keep going, but she does. She and the fire column in movement, she forward. It spins upward a hallucinatory dance. The neighbor and her children have forgotten motion; their screams have left them behind

swirling

charging

the tin ceiling

Did she take note here?

This is the moment my life changes. I can’t finish the dishes, wash my unmentionables, get dinner ready for Dirk and the children before it’s too late. It’s going to happen. It’s happening now.”

This is an excerpt from “An Account of a Poor Oil Stove Bought off Dutch Pete,” one of nineteen chapters from Kin Types, a 30-page book of prose and poems by author and fellow blogger Luanne Castle. Follow her blogs here:  The Family Kalamazoo and Entering the Pale. 

With Kin Types, Castle enters the lives of her ancestors by exploring their pasts through genealogy and the family stories, photographs, and ephemera that reveal that genealogy. Just take a look at Luanne’s blogs to see her comprehensive family explorations.

However, because the past is often defined by what little we know of our ancestors, that knowledge can be scanty. That’s my situation.

So I ordered Luanne’s book to gather ideas for my own family history writing project about a 1930 barnstorming airplane crash that killed my grandmother’s two younger brothers.  (Read this post for more about the accident.)

All I have left of the tragedy are photographs, letters of sympathy, yellowed newspaper clippings, locks of hair. How can I ever understand this history fully? Perhaps by doing what Luanne did, that is, entering the lives of her ancestors via genealogy, photographs and ephemera.

Kin Types will inspire you if you wish to research your own family history or simply desire to connect with your ancestors through the power of writing.

If you enjoyed this post, click “like” so others may find it more easily. Follow this blog for more articles and updates on my project regarding the 1930 airplane crash. If you are a middle school teacher, check out my teaching blog.