Farewell to the 2010 Poetry Parade

And so this year's Poetry Parade comes to an end. If you've enjoyed reading a poem a day during National Poetry Month, I invite you to continue the fun by subscribing to Your Daily Poem, where you'll get some behind-the-scenes commentary along with each day's poem. You might also want to follow my occasional poetry-related posts at Twitter.

For now, though, here's the final poem of Wordwoman's Scintillating Springtime Parade of Poetry 2010; it's been a blast!

The Reading Mother
by
Strickland Gillilan

I had a Mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness blent with his final breath.

I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings--
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be--
I had a Mother who read to me.

See more here.

Smitten by Spring

If God was going for perfection today, He achieved it. Perfect temperature, perfect sky, perfectly beautiful everywhere I looked! I spent my lunch hour outside in the sun, sitting beside the Peace Center waterfall and a flowering cherry tree, its pinky-white petals trickling all around me in a delightful spring "snow." I had a club sandwich from my friend's restaurant, the Hot Dog King (open for business again and looking great, with new 11-7/Mon.-Sat. hours, and new menu items underway; Greenvillians, gotta support the HDK!), Pamela Duncan's wonderful book Moon Women (Pamela is now up there with Lorna Landvik as my favorite author of women's fiction), and a half hour all to myself to sit there like a happy lizard lazing in the luxuriousness of it all. To top it all off, my Poetry Parade spectators loved today's poem from John Stanizzi. (I knew you would.) And I'm three for three in my efforts to meet Robert Brewer's write-a-poem-a-day challenge for National Poetry Month. Yay, me! Yay, poetry! Yay, spring! (Yay for all these blessings that helped me get past the fact that both my oven AND my microwave bit the dust last night. We don't realize how spoiled we are till our modern conveniences cease to function; life with no microwave is HARD!)

Today, a UPS Man. Tomorrow, a Spider

I am nothing if not diverse in the array of poems I showcase in my Poetry Parade. Today's selection was from Maine poet Alice Persons--an ode to her U.P.S. delivery guy that was particularly enjoyable for those of us who saw "Legally Blonde: The Musical" at the Peace Center last week! Tomorrow's poem is Walt Whitman's "The Noiseless, Patient Spider," and truly, does that not describe spiders to a tee? They're the most silent little critters there are--especially the long-legged, big daddy types. Good poetry does that: it ratchets down your focus to those miniscule, magnified details, then sums it all up in a handful of perfect words.

Coming up in the parade is a heartbreaker from Ellen Bass about marrying off your daughter, John Stanizzi's beautiful love poem "Cardinals," and a poem from a student at Harvard that put the U.S. Navy on notice. Don't miss the fun! Sign up at www.jaynejaudonferrer.com.