Monday, July 14, 2014

Popcorn poems

Today is day 22 of my 30 day blog challenge.  I started working on a different post for today, but it's a bit more involved than I thought.  And I'm really tired tonight.  In the interest of not staying up way too late, I am sharing a short, on-the-spot, original poem and an old favorite of mine by Maya Angelou.  This is not a well-known poem, I think.  I can't remember where I came across it first, perhaps in a children's poetry anthology.  I do remember sharing the poem with my students when I taught fifth grade way back when.  The imagery in this poem is wonderful and conveys a deep love of and respect for reading.  Not only is it about reading, but also about another thing I love - popcorn!

I Love the Look of Words by Maya Angelou

Popcorn leaps, popping from the floor
of a hot black skillet
and into my mouth.
Black words leap,
snapping from the white
page.  Rushing into my eyes.  Sliding
into my brain which gobbles them
the way my tongue and teeth
chomp the buttered popcorn.

When I have stopped reading,
ideas from the words stay stuck
in my mind, like the sweet
smell of butter perfuming my
fingers long after the popcorn
is finished.

I love the book and the look of words
the weight of ideas that popped into my mind
I love the tracks
of new thinking in my mind.

*****

And here's a sort-of cinquain about popcorn to complete my writing goal for today:

popcorn
buttery, hot
popping, tossing, eating
my favorite snack
yum!

*****

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing! I've not read that poem before but I will be sure to make use of it now that I have been made aware of it. I love that you have kept that poem in your pocket over the years. I also have some poems that aren't too well-known that, for some reason, I've taken a liking to and held onto over many many years. Here is one I used when I was a librarian in Pasadena:
    What We Might Be, What We Are

    by X. J. Kennedy (1929-)
    If you were a scoop of vanilla
    And I were the cone where you sat,
    If you were a slowly pitched baseball
    And I were the swing of a bat,
    If you were a shiny new fishhook
    And I were a bucket of worms,
    If we were a pin and a pincushion,
    We might be on intimate terms.

    If you were a plate of spaghetti
    And I were your piping-hot sauce,
    We'd not even need to write letters
    To put our affection across,

    But you’re just a piece of red ribbon
    In the beard of a Balinese goat
    And I'm a New Jersey mosquito.
    I guess we'll stay slightly remote.

    Maybe it is the idea of synchronicity and relatedness and connectedness that I've always been draw to. Whatever it is, it is special when something speaks to you, resonates with you -- be it a song, art, a poem, a person. In recent years I've heard people refer to the people who are "your people" as their tribe. I think songs, art, poems, etc also belong to my tribe.

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    Replies
    1. Lori, I think you're the person who introduced me to poetry when we were kids. I remember being at your house, and you were reading a book of poetry from the library. And I thought - oh, that's something else I could read! At least that's how I recall it. Although I never thought of it that way, I wholeheartedly agree with your idea that not only people but also songs, poems, etc. can belong to one's tribe.

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  2. Interesting. Could be. I always had a library book under my nose. :-) I remember reading in trees and in the bathroom and all sorts of strange place. And I remember spending lots of time immersed in the shelves of the Tippecanoe Library!

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