life – Page 16 – Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry

Open Pocket: Insert Poem

April 17, 2013April 17, 2013 ROMPoetry

I will always love paper. Paper of any kind—in books, newspapers, letters, postcards, cardboard, playing cards, wadded up paper, paper made into origami figures and footballs and those little fortune-teller things you used to make in junior high during history class, notes, grocery lists, wrapping paper. Yeah, you get the idea.

April 18, Poem in Your Pocket Day, is about paper. And more specifically about poetry on paper. I know you can “cheat” and carry a poem on your phone or some other electronic device or in your head or some such. But I prefer old school Poem in Your Pocket Day. A poem on a piece of paper folded and inserted in your pocket. Not in your purse or your backpack or your car or in your lunch. In your actual pocket. Continue reading “Open Pocket: Insert Poem” →

Poems

Moving

April 15, 2013April 15, 2013 ROMPoetry

The spoonbill were running at low water dam,
But the shirtless and shifty left little room
To cast a line. We took the advice
Of the bait shop clerk and a one-legged war veteran
On a scooter and headed across corps land
To a sand bass creek. Crossing a low area, Continue reading “Moving” →

Poems

Exploding Seashells

April 9, 2013 ROMPoetry

“CIA assassination plots included poisoning a box of Castro’s favorite cigars with botulinus toxin and placing explosive seashells in his favorite diving spots.”

The box of oatmeal broke apart
In my hands, the Quaker man
Decapitated, his smile
An unreturned greeting
Forever.

One wonders how chance
And plan intersect. I found
A missing earring when I bent
To scoop up the oats.

What if he had not been drawn
To the purple drupa
And instead reached
For the virgin murex? Continue reading “Exploding Seashells” →

Events, Musings

The Poetry-Friendly Classroom: With 7 Hostile Verbs

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 ROMPoetry

I was a high school and college English teacher for 24 years and littered the classroom with poetry as much as I could without causing epic upheavals and riots . . . though we did get close. Because I’ve loved and written poetry since I was young, I carried that love into the classroom, with mixed results, of course. I learned over time that being a stealth poetry teacher was the best mode of attack: Don’t let them know they are reading or writing poetry. Continue reading “The Poetry-Friendly Classroom: With 7 Hostile Verbs” →

Musings

Poetic Vandalism

March 25, 2013 ROMPoetry

Ken and I just spent the weekend at Beavers Bend State Park, and we stayed in cabin 4. The cabin was small and cozy with a fireplace and good heat. It was a bit chilly, though just fine for hiking weather. We went on some trails, searched for a few geocaches, and enjoyed the park’s natural beauty and silence. Continue reading “Poetic Vandalism” →

Poems

Almost, Almost

March 18, 2013 ROMPoetry

We wait for the crabgrass and dandelions and wild onion
To shuffle aside the fall leaves, our feet crunching
What has died, our attention focused on sun and wind,
The beauty of not-yet-spring, oh but almost, almost. Continue reading “Almost, Almost” →