Orange as a Dragonfly: #TankaTuesday

Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested writing a syllabic poem about a color using a word from a color chart she provided. I chose orange because it is close to my favorite color which is coral. For a word I chose joy.

Last year I posted a photo I took of one of our gorgeous Arizona Flame Skimmers, or orange dragonflies. This beauty is my inspiration.

Here is my tanka:

On a day of cares,

when the water heater leaks

and I am in pain,

I step outside and notice

with joy orange fairy wings.

###

The following photo is a closeup from the free photo library.

The journal The Ekphrastic Review hosts an Ekphrastic (writing inspired by a work of art) Challenge every two weeks. Here is a poem I wrote to one awhile back. The link will take you to a sample of the art by Manuel Espinoza, though not the actual piece I used. https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/manuel-Espinosa-ekphrastic-writing-responses

So from joy to violence. But luckily joy is right outside my door because the Arizona air practically vibrates with dragonflies and hummingbirds.

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Spirit Animal: #TankaTuesday

Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested writing a syllabic poem about our spirit animal. She provided a quiz to find our spirit animal. I took the quiz and discovered that at this moment mine is the turtle. The website, spiritanimal.info, says that “The turtle totem symbolizes our peaceful walk on this earth. It represents the path we take as we embark on our journey through life.  In contrast to emotional or spiritual development occurring in bursts, the way of the turtle anchors our personal unfolding in a slow, more grounded series of steps and longer cycles of transformation. The turtle is associated with our physical and embodied evolution on the earthly plane. Call this spirit animal for help to be more grounded. You can also get help slowing down and pacing yourself, so you can take your next step with more confidence.” While I doubt my spirit animal is always a turtle it does fit right now. I’ve had this torn meniscus and other issues since January, and I am trying to resolve myself to stop fighting it and just proceed in the right direction, working hard at physical therapy, icing, and REST. Yes, this past week it was so bad that I actually rested, and wow, that actually helps . . . a lot. I had a good physical therapy appointment today. Fingers crossed. Moving at my turtle’s pace, in the right direction.

For this poem, I wrote a tanaga, which is a form from the Philippines. This is a 7-7-7-7 Syllabic verse, with an AABB or AAAA rhyme scheme.

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Accepting the Turtle as My Guide

For this part of my journey

I learn to walk with this knee.

A turtle guide teaches me

to keep on without hurry.

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Another thing that I like about a turtle is that while they are slow and seem clumsy on earth, they are quite graceful and fast in the water. With my Sun in Cancer, I was born under a water sign. And grew up in and around the lakes of Michigan.

When I was a little girl, I had a beautiful painted turtle as a pet. The turtle’s shell was at least 4″ long. I must have been about five. I took him or her outside to play a few times. She would fall into the window well and need help out. I recall my father helping me release her to live free, but I don’t remember the details. Today it is illegal to release a captive turtle into the wild. But I do remember that I felt wonderful letting that turtle go have her own wild life.

Then when I was in 4th grade, I was given two tiny turtles to live in an aquarium. I don’t remember what happened to those turtles, but I did used to love to feel their scratchy claws scrabbling at my palms when I held them. Looking back, I wonder if the idea of releasing the big turtle was sympathy for it because of it’s size or if I was too young to take proper care of it.

green and black turtle in close up shot
Photo by Andrew Patrick on Pexels.com

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Acrostic Prompt: #TankaTuesday

Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested writing an acrostic poem based on a word from a list she provided. She asked every line to be 8, 9, or 10 syllables long. I used the word ORACLE. Each line begins with a letter from that word so that if you read down instead of across you see the word oracle. I created a form of 8, 9, 10, 10, 9, 8 and rhymed same count lines with each other.

Voice of the Gods

On the sunwarmed rock she holds court

Ruling a man’s world with prescient words.

All listen and quake, even mighty kings

Clothed in velvet vestments and golden rings.

Love and riches–often doom–they heard,

Even took heed or to the heart.

The Oracle
The Oracle by Célestin Nanteuil is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

A couple of years ago Memoryhouse Magazine published an acrostic poem I wrote using the title of my favorite Whitman poem, “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” Note that my title starts the phrase and then the first letters of each line the last part, “endlessly rocking.”

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Synonym Prompt: #TankaTuesday

Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested we write a syllabic poem using synonyms for the word “work” and “play,” and to contrast the two for this week’s #TankaTuesday.

I have to admit that the synonym prompts are not my favorite. I prefer a little looser prompt, and this was even tighter by the need to contrast them. So go ahead and hate my poem, which is three Badger’s Hexastitch stanzas put together. I used that form because I LOVE the name. It’s like a cross between something a witch does as a hobby and the town that Loretta Lynn sings about in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (Butcher’s Holler).

For work I used the word “toil,” because it reminded me of two of my favorite poems (see below). And for play I used “entertain” and “rest.”

To toil

seems poetic

like Hopkins and Shakespeare.*

Entertain sounds lazy

as if I should

do more.

The cat

does not toil much

except to wash himself

or hunt food if he must,

but entertains

us all.

I hope

that I can be

more like the cat than me

and rest when I need to,

toiling just as

needed.

Hopkins is the Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “God’s Grandeur,” and Shakespeare is Will himself, “Song of the Witches” from MacBeth. I loved to entertain my kids when they were little with the latter.

Here are both poems and you can see where I got “toil” from.

GOD'S GRANDEUR
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

###

SONG OF THE WITCHES
by William Shakespeare

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Notes:
Macbeth: IV.i 10-19; 35-38

Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983)

Now if you’re still reading, here’s a sonnet that I wrote based on the Hopkins poem which was published in Last Stanza Poetry Journal by editor Jenny Kalahar. After that you can see a pic of my cutie pie Meesker.

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod*
by Luanne Castle

and I am shackled to the backlit screen,
subjected to technology’s caprice,
my feet immobile, hidden, and benumbed,
my thoughts dispelled by cumbrous messages
of discounts, password problems, and a troll,
and so I scroll my Twitter notices
and scan What’s Happening, then Google God,
procrastinating still and find, alas,
my spirit drifts away, mere haze, but then
the images of light dividing clouds
is how we see the brightest wings and warmth
and you appear and take me by my hand
to share the garden, smell the sweetbush, hear
the cactus wrens, and trill for butterflies.

*Title is a line from "God's Grandeur"

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Robbie Cheadle’s Guest on Treasuring Poetry

I’m excited to be author and blogger Robbie Cheadle’s May guest for her monthly Treasuring Poetry article on Writing to be Read. She had some wonderful questions for me about writing, and I enjoyed answering them! You can find the publication here: https://writingtoberead.com/2023/05/17/treasuring-poetry-meet-poet-and-blogger-luanne-castle-and-a-review-poetry-poetrycommunity-bookreview/. Robbie has also posted a beautiful review of both Rooted and Winged and Our Wolves.

With son and DIL living here, we have their dog Theo here as well. He’s such a little goofy guy, and I get to let him out when his mom and dad are both gone for three hours or more. I can’t physically handle walking him on a leash, although in a pinch I can take him on the driveway on a leash because he’s very good for me. But I like to let him roam the backyard, which is fenced. He’s very loved and what’s rewarding for me is that he loves his Grandma! In his photo you can see a very typical expression he gets on his face as he is always trying to figure out what’s going on.

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Mad Swirl Gave My Stuff a Spot

This is kind of exciting to me: Mad Swirl has published a few of my art pieces with an offer to add to the online gallery (I guess I better start playing in my messy room in spite of my leg!).

http://madswirl.com/gallery/castle_luanne/

This is what the editor wrote:

Mad Swirl is excited to bring a new artist, Luanne Castle to the Mad Gallery, with work somehow as whimsical as it is haunting. Luanne brings us these magical collage pieces from Arizona, USA, and we must say, her passion for poetry and art is evident in the way she uniquely blends odds and ends of both together in her eccentric and intriguing work. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something very Alice In Wonderland about her collages – a little mystical, dreamy & strange, like maybe we’ve plunged into a rabbit hole ourselves. ~ Madelyn Olson”

Language is part of these pieces, whether you can see it all or not. There is also a word some might not like so if you are sensitive about cussing you might not want to check out the images (or read too closely into the screen shot). If it doesn’t bother you, I hope you like them!

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Photo Prompt: #TankaTuesday

Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested this beautiful photo byTerri Webster Schrandt as a prompt for this week’s #TankaTuesday.

I wrote another tanka as I first tried a different form (tetractys), but couldn’t make it work for this image. Though the actual setting was the Sacramento river delta, I saw a lake. That also worked better syllable-wise.

Stubborn wildflowers,

solitary and trembling

in the springtime breeze,

cloak the melancholy lake,

blurred lights of humanity.

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A 3rd Poem Up at MasticadoresUSA

Thanks to Editor Barbara Leonard, MasticadoresUSA has published my poem “Screaming.” https://masticadoresusa.wordpress.com/2023/05/09/screaming-by-luanne-castle/

person s shadow
Photo by Nadi Lindsay on Pexels.com

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Our Wolves: Readers’ Thoughts

Our Wolves has received some lovely and “interesting” attention that I thought I would share with you.

There are some wonderful reviews on Goodreads (and Amazon), including those by veteran reviewers Elizabeth Gauffreau, Suanne Schafer, a couple of Library Things reviewers, etc. I also received my first one star rating ever!!! Yes, “Donna” wrote: “An interesting take on Red Riding Hood. Dark and shades of abuse. Might be someone else’s cup of tea but not mine.” Apparently, even though it’s an interesting take, because it’s not her cup of tea, it warrants a one star.

Read the reviews here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/111018194-our-wolves

You can purchase a copy here for $10.99: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Wolves-Luanne-Castle/dp/B0BTKNP31D/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Q5U4FV04LXCI&keywords=our+wolves&qid=1683584909&sprefix=our+wolves%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1

Little Red-Riding Hood's Meeting With the Wolf
Little Red-Riding Hood’s Meeting With the Wolf by John Doyle is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

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Ekphrastic Contrapuntal Tanka String with Haiku: #TankaTuesday

Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested this prompt today: to write a syllabic poem using this 19th century painting as inspiration. She mentioned how it looked like the girl is on her cell phone. For a time it was hard to unsee that cell. But then, after I saw something hanging down from the “cell phone,” I realized how important our own world views are to how we see something. As I researched, I read that Hitler loved the paintings of this artist, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, and made his work Nazi favorites. But the artist (blessedly) never lived long enough to see the Nazis come to power or to know the name Adolf Hitler. All these different perspectives are where my poem today comes from and it is what complicates the form, creating an ekphrastic contrapuntal tanka string with haiku.

I’m sorry that the poem had to be a screenshot as I couldn’t make it stay on the screen otherwise. If you click on the poem image a couple of times you might be able to make it larger. Please let me know if you can read it or if I need to figure out something else. Any ideas would be appreciated.

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