Feb 12, 2010

Bites from a Poetry Potluck

by Anonymous

Last week at the end of Lindsay Kate Reedy’s post on the culture of cars, L. L. called folks in the network to find poems about wishes, flushes, or stewards. An odd trinity to be sure.

This week, I’m going to help myself to a little bit of this and a little bit of that, like I do at the church potlucks where fried chicken brushes up against jello salad and cold gamey sausage and green beans with the fried onion thingies on top. These random acts of poetry aren't any more random than a potluck, really. Every offering has intention. Every offering was prepared deliberately by someone.

Here are some of my favorite bites from this week:

This image from Maureen’s Pictures of Patience

the snap-to
of a rattler
seconds before striking

This sad truth from Jim’s promise I Do Not Beg

We read the texts that crowd
The Christian bookstore,
With terrible beginnings

Glynn’s Church Smiles ending in incompletion

My name is.
I am a.

The fantastically playful and somber rhymes of L.L. Barkat’s Flush

Billy's kids (not Billy
the Kid), shot a hole
through the weather
with two ice cubes

flushed,

rushed to frosted
window, blue
hoping they'd killed
a school day good,

power

misunderstood.

Grow Up Deep’s imagery and simile in Fly Away

I held dandelions close to my mouth
blowing the seeds away
in one hard push
like dust from a book

The Whole TweetSpeakPoetry poetry gang and their metapoems

There’s a poem
in my dishwasher, somewhere
between soggy spaghetti,
olive oil, the spoils of day.
There’s a poem swishing
its way.

Under the couch
a poem is crouching,
trying to stick
its tongue to my heels

Milton’s poem for a rainy day

the rain lasted most
all day
a background of soft
applause

I can't say which bite I like best. Why bother to measure brocolli cheese casserole against jalapeno cornbread? Goodness is goodness, no matter the flavor.

The best thing about a poetry potluck, though, is that none of the dishes run out. The kids can't swipe the last piece of fried chicken. There is always enough apple pie for everyone who wants a slice. So head back to the table. Look over the dishes, and grab a plate of something good from all of the folks who participated this week.

ALL RAP PARTICIPANTS
Glynn’s Yellow Pad
Eric’s An Exchange
Erin’s Simple, Not Easy
Erica’s Poem Interrupted
Marcus’s Evangelism 101
Emily’s Baby Blues
LL’s Steward, Sometimes a Picture, and Flush
Kelly’s Drive-By Shooting
Lorrie’s Fly Away
Erin’s Simple, Not Easy
Jim’s I Do Not Beg
Maureen’s Straight Flush
Mom2Six’s Wednesday Poetry
Monica’s Steward of Blessing
nAncY’s snow day
Kathleen’s Rock Salt
Laura’s The Snow Day I Remember
Milton's rainy day
Kelly's When...
Tweetspeak's poems from a party