This month’s poetry project was to write ____ is a word poems, a la Laura’s examples here.
I missed our monthly write-in due to travel but my pals tossed a few words my way just in the nick of time! Here goes…
MEMORY
By Liz Garton Scanlon
Memory is a fickle word,
a slippery promise
disappearing
through closed lips
like a hum, like a quiet,
reedy, accidental hum
that you don’t notice has come
and gone until someone says
do you remember that song?
and you think yes!
and you reach for it but
all that’s left is a silver shiver
of breath like a fish, like a glint
of scaled light.
SILENCE
By Liz Garton Scanlon
Silence is a patient word
like a cat without a bell
like a monk, like a child
with a secret closely kept
Silence is a word with room
a word with high ceilings
and the door ajar,
a welcoming word
that makes some people
uncomfortable
You’ll find others here:
Laura
Kelly
Tricia
Andi
Tanita
Mary Lee
Sara
Oh, and Linda at Teacher Dance hosts Poetry Friday today!
An Invitation
You’re invited to join our challenge for the month of November! We’re writing an Ode to Autumn. An ode is a lyrical poem, a way of marking an occasion with a song. Whether you choose an irregular ode with no set pattern or rhyme, or the ten-line, three-to-five stanza famed by Homer himself, we hope you’ll join us in singing in the season of leaf-fall and pie, and sharing on November 26th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.
That’s all this time around. Stay safe and well!
Your memory poem is less like Sara’s and more like my lament over lost words! In my experience, memory is quite fickle.
The contrast in Silence between patience and welcoming vs. discomfort captures the full range of responses.
These are beautiful, Liz. I especially swoon over the last few lines of Memory, which perfectly describe how I wake up most mornings, trying to remember my dreams, but the dreams are as ephemeral as a silver shiver of breath. We missed you!
How fun that we both took the same word and went deep with it in different ways. “a silver shiver of breath” is just gorgeous. And silence is a word with high ceilings…oh! That gives me such a vivid image.
These are both gorgeous, but I especially love Memory. That repetition of the word “hum” is so so good, and the ending is so satisfying.
I love how you used the phrase “… like a…” over and over, making it a song. These are both so beautiful, with such vivid images.
…all that’s left is a silver shiver
of breath like a fish, like a glint
of scaled light.
I remember what it felt like to try and grab a minnow when I was a kid – all slick, and whoosh – then gone clean away. And yep… memory is JUST like that. I know something was there – at one point…
Yes! And ‘makes some uncomfortable’! I enjoyed each one, Liz, precise, with meanings one might find in connection very personally, a story for each! And I enjoyed the way you used “fickle” with memory, a connection with Mary Lee’s ‘nouns’. Lovely poems, Liz!
These two go together so nicely…those fish will glint back in if I can just silence and still my brain, relax, look sidelong at the general mist hanging at the high ceiling of what I want to remember. And still I am often surprised that what I remember (not a word, but an experience) is not at all what really happened.
I enjoyed these poems Liz. They deliver identity, shape and substance to familiar words. It’s not a definition, its more an appraisal. Your words prompt reflection and cause me to ponder other words. Like your work here, well done.
Wonderful pair of poems! The fickle and the uncomfortable called out to me. I know those words personally!
These are both wonderful! But I particularly love that last stanza of Silence:
“a word with high ceilings
and the door ajar,
a welcoming word
that makes some people
uncomfortable.”
Thanks for sharing these!
I love that you and Sara both wrote about memory, and came at it from such different angles. I really love this bit:
do you remember that song?
and you think yes!
and you reach for it but
There’s so much feeling in that but …
I just finished reading Sara’s blog and now rethinking memory
M-all that’s left is a silver shiver/of breath like a fish
On silence-a welcoming word/that makes some people/uncomfortable This is such a beautifully painted picture.
I like your memory association with song, and then you shiver us but end us with “scaled light”—your poem keeps us turning and moving. I really like your 2nd stanza of “Silence” the airiness and then flipping back to someone’s uncomfortableness, thanks Liz!
I love this line: Silence is a word with room. I am sorry to have missed this challenge. I am going to have to come back to it.