Five Ways to Read a Poem:

1. Read it like sweet honey is seeping out

of the poem, and you can hear the bees

buzzing inside the words.

2. Give the poem to a rain cloud and read

it when it comes down to Earth again as

little wet droplets.

3. Read the poem as if it’s grown wings

and can fly away any second, without

reading quickly or rushed.

4. Let a tree’s roots grasp at the words of

the poem and break each poetic particle

down so it becomes part of the tree. Read

the poem in the process.

5. Leave the poem somewhere far from

the city, in a place only you will know

how to find. Come back 5000 years later,

once the poem has fossilized, and read it

again.

We just finished a poetry unit in French class and I thought I'd share one of the poems that I wrote, in case any Francophones happen to come across my blog... At first, I had given an English translation as well, but then I decided to keep only the French poem since it really loses something in the translation process. I included the image that inspired me beneath the poem.

Notes du changement 

Je lève l'archet avec soin,
le place doucement sur la corde.
Je sais que le son traversera loin,
entendu entre ce désaccord.

Les gens rassemblent autour de moi,
les notes flottent comme des bulles.
Aujourd'hui, on va faire ce qu'on doit
et on ne va pas prendre du recul.

Ils ébrèchent à l'est et l'ouest,
la liberté remplace les briques.
Nous, de Berlin, ne serons pas en reste,
le monde a besoin des actes héroïques.

Thought I'd post a poem that I wrote a few years ago that served as the inspiration for my blog title. I wrote this on August 7th, 2009... it's a haiku.

Birds settling in rows,

Filling fields like words on lines.

Wheat, words, and the birds.

I'm hoping this blog will be a good way for me to get my poetry out there into the world, and possibly recieve some feedback from a different audience. It will also give me a little extra motivation to write throughout the school year.