Poetry Friday: Drs. Sora and Swallow

This month's inspiration was provided by Poetry Sister Laura Purdie Salas. She says "These are two parts of a 7-part ceiling fresco at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. I spoke at a children's literature conference there a couple of weeks ago and loved huge, colorful ceiling in Terrence Murphy Hall. The art is by Mark Balma (markbalma.com) and is called The Seven Virtues (it's a Catholic university). I loved the colors, the surrealness of the images, and the fairy tale oddness of them."

Yes, me too, Laura! I was also curious about frescos, so I read up on their construction at the University of St. Thomas website. Then I took a gander at the seven sins, and the seven virtues---especially, Temperance, which is the subject of this fresco, and in the end...

...my eyes were caught by those realistic birds in the corners of each fresco. WTH?

Turns out all the birds depicted in the seven frescos are species who take sustenance from the Mississippi River.

Analysis (expositors of sacred writ to the ignorant*)

Drs. Sora and Swallow

don’t know what to make of it

Neither does Herring Gull

called in to consult

nor Golden Plover

(a solid second opinion)

The birds need the river

to flow wrathfully 

slicing the land before snaking,

sloth-like into silty deltas

They envy those who consume

art; not shad or lice

They lust for full communion, 

not half-bodies, imploring

They cannot eat stones

glutton-fed paint by boar’s hair brushes

What of greed? they pick

at the edges. What of pride?

Every stroke is permanent

What is temperate about that?

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

*By the way, the title comes from the article on the University site, which explains that ancient fresco makers took their art very seriously, as they were the “expositors of sacred writ to the ignorant, who know not how to read.”


To see what my Poetry Sisters made of this fresco (or the other choice, a fresco about Hope), follow these links:

Liz
Laura
Tanita
Andi
Kelly
Tricia


Poetry Friday is hosted today by Amy at The Poetry Farm.

Sedoka: Two Halves Make a Whole

Whirling head poem.  

That's how one site translates the ancient Japanese poetry form, the Sedoka  (旋頭歌)  

Don't you love that?

The idea of Sedoka is that two poems (each of the syllable count 5-7-7) are put together, and the whole is a more complete picture than either half.

Bowl of cherries, ripe.

Best to eat them, one by one

By oneself, with attention.

Bowl of cherries, ripe.

Best to pie them, all in all

Before you get too mind full.

----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)


The Sedoka can also be used as a form of dialogue, with one poem talking to the other. That includes head-whirling joke-telling, right? (Please forgive me.)

Waiter, there’s a fly.

There! in my soup, back-stroking!

Put him back in the punch line.

Doctor! There’s a joke

There! In my coffee, sinking!

Milk it, my dear one. Milk it.

Mortician! There’s no

brevity in my wit; could

rigor mortis have set in?

Scribe, a eulogy!
There! in my plump thesaurus!

It’s dying a thousand deaths.

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

My Poetry Sisters all played with Sedoka today, too. Go see what wonderful wholes they made:

Liz
Laura
Tricia
Andi
Tanita
Kelly


Poetry Friday is hosted today by Linda at TeacherDance.

Poetry Friday: Response to Picasso's Sculpture of a Cat

Response to Picasso’s sculpture of a Cat

She’s pregnant, this cat
or just given birth. She’s muddy;
her tail's been broken.
Look at her neck, stiff

as a stanchion. Look at her compact
head; so ill-made for big thoughts
you fear her tail is pulling
her backwards. She isn’t curled

by contentment, or preying
with merciless grace, or cagily
sinuous. Still—
she is Cat. She disdains

opinion. You can tell
by the vainglorious shine
of her ears, as if she is listening to
an undivided convent

of cats chanting her name
lapping up her blessing
as she passes them. She has lived
fully; they have been holy.

Picasso stretched time between
sculptures; using his brush to pry apart
skulls, turning to his hands only when the Muse
purred to him. He was never trained

to mold clay or pour bronze but
what he made, he kept
close. They fattened
his household. Did he speak

to Cat? Attempt to straighten
her tail, even as she hissed? How do
you feed a Muse who doesn’t need
you? She’s given birth; he stirs mud.

                        ----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)


Thanks to Liz Garton Scanlon for discovering the intriguing Picasso sculptures, which provided the inspiration for this month's ekphrastic poetry challenge. (The Poetry Seven plans to respond to an image or piece of art every other month in 2016.  I'm already researching which artist to choose when it's my turn...)

Here are the links to my Poetry Sisters' poems (each of us chose a Picasso sculpture from a select group, so there's some overlap in the inspiration images, but glorious uniqueness in the response!)

Liz
Tanita
Tricia
Laura
Andi (taking a breather this month)
Kelly

More about Picasso's sculptures.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by one of the Poetry Seven's own, Tricia, at The Miss Rumphius Effect.