Poetry Friday November 29, 2019


Poetry Friday is hosted today by Bridget Magee at wee words for wee ones. She's sharing her experiences of trying to host a Thanksgiving dinner in Switzerland where she now lives. Don't miss her turkey poem!

Don't forget to check out the links to other participants sharing poetry today.

I have been contemplating Michelle Barne's Little Ditty challenge since the beginning of the month. I thought playing around with language would be simple. After all, I do it a lot with my grandchildren!

My husband and I are lucky to live with my son, his wife, and Ada, their two year old daughter. When Ada and I are out and about together, we mess around with language. Some of this is about rhyming games I create to help her pronounce words more clearly. Other times it’s for the shear joy of basking in our magical power over words and sounds. Recently while we were traveling in the car she entertained herself by creating her her own rhyme. I heard her sing song chanting roly poly, roly poly, roly poly. Then she shouted from her car seat, "I did it! See Gramma! I did it!" She played with those words while I beamed with pride and listened  intently from my driver's seat. It ended up something like this.

roly poly
roly poly
roly roly poly
roly roly poly
up up up
down down down
roly poly
roly poly
roly roly poly
roly roly poly
round and round

by Ada aged 28 months

It wasn't until later that I realized it was her version of a song she learned in story time at the library. I still think she's brilliant.

Soon after Kate O'Neil's challenge I was walking to my car in the Costco parking lot. The late afternoon light emanated a scene from The Birds. Sky, bushes and trees were thronging with cawing crows. Watching them congregate on their daily migration home in the evenings is an ordinary occurrence here, but I have never been in the middle of it before. Experts estimate that between 13,000 to 20,000 crows converge at the rookery near where I was. The following video gives you a sense of what it's like. 



After gazing starstruck by the spectacle, I crawled into my car and scribbled a collection of words. It still took what seems like forever to come up with this draft.

Crow Magic

it’s a caw caw caw
cawcophony
of crows

it’s a caw caw caw
cawnjure
of corvids

it’s a caw caw caw
cawreening
cawnga line

it’s a swoop loop troop
whooping
home to bed

it's a caw caw caw
cawniferous
cradle

it's a sh sh sh
shnoozing
roost of crows

Happy Thanksgiving to all you American contributors to Poetry Friday!




28 comments:

  1. Just read Linda's post - there's a crow theme today. Love it! And I love your granddaughter's poem! A few months ago my daughter, a recent college graduate, thanked me for sharing poetry with her throughout her life so that it isn't scary for her the way it is for some of her English-major friends. I have a feeling Ada might say the same to you some day...

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    1. What a wonderful thank you from your daughter, and a thank you for this hint of what might come for me in the future. I wonder if I love poetry because my mother used to recite poetry to us before we went to bed!

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  2. I smiled to see your words, "Crow Happy", Cheriee, because I too wrote about crows today, but just one. When I'm driving around time, I love seeing a "cawnjure/of corvids", sometimes stop just to listen. And for your post, I love how you have fun with Ada, then connect her fun poem with your own, a bit more sophisticated, but still, the rhythm is there in both. Love the video, too! Birds are amazing to watch!

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    1. I loved your crow poem this morning too Linda. Birds really are a glorious sight!

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  3. LOVE your poem -- I do find crows fascinating, and your wordplay is brilliant. :) Also fun to read Ada's little rhyme -- I have the words "roly poly pudding" up in my dining room.

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    1. Thank you Jama for your kind words of appreciation. I just went to find and read the words to roly poly pudding. I had no idea there was even such a thing, never mind how many kinds!

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  4. Oh what fun, Cheriee! And I can tell exactly why it took so long to get that poem just right--your efforts give us a caw caw cawfully corvid experience!

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    1. lol Thanks Heidi. I'm loving all the cawments from this post!

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  5. So much creative energy here Cheriee. Love your Granddaughter's inventive work with words. You further develop this in your own wordplay when writing your poem about Crows. This clever manipulation of words is a powerful demonstration of the poet's ability to reshape meaning, be inventive and have fun with the language. Love it! In fact you deserve a cawlossal cheer...

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    1. Thank you so much Alan. I appreciated the cawllection of cooking verbs on your post today.

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  6. I love this post... the playful words of your grand daughter (she IS brilliant) and the cawing of crows. Thanks for your post... and in return, a groaner for you: How should one approach a murder of crows? (Caw-tiously!)

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    1. lol Any kind of cawmedy is good when we are talking about crows!

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  7. I think Ada is brilliant too - very clever of her to remember and play with words that way.
    And I love your crow-play, especially: cawreening cawnga line.

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    1. Thanks Sally. Ada just loves to play around with language these days - creating her own rhymes and stories.

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  8. We saw a seemingly never ending flow of crows coming in to roost earlier this week, and I have to say, your poem gets it PERFECTLY right! It was an AMAZING sight! (Glad my car wasn't parked under those trees!!)

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    1. Thankfully the tree I was parked near was just a sapling. I don't even want to think it might be like to be parked under those trees!

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  9. Isn't that fantastic, Cheriee! Love seeing all of those crows coming to roost. It reminds me of when I lived near the Bosque del Apache in New Mexico and we used to watch a similar display of cranes at sunset. Love your poem's fun crow language and your grandgirl's playful poem as well. It's lovely that you can share wordplay together!

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    1. Wow Michelle. I just went and watched a video of those Cranes. The didn't sound quite as obnoxious as crows, but they sure are noisy!

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  10. Cawngratulations on your cawcawphonous poem--loads of fun. And I love your grand girl's rolypolypoem.

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  11. It's sweet to hear about you and your granddaughter playing around! Your cawreening crows are an impressive sight.

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    1. We are very lucky Tabatha to share a house with her!

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  12. Crows are such fascinating creatures, the more I learn about them. Do you ever hear the podcast Bird Note? ICYMI, here is the fascinating Crow's Night Roost episode. Imagine 100,000 all at once! CAW CAW! https://www.birdnote.org/show/crows-night-roost

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    1. Wow! Thanks for the link. I can't even imagine that many crows!

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  13. Getting to play with words and sounds with your granddaughter is such a gift for both of you. Ada's creation is brilliant as is your 'cawcophony' poem, Cheriee! =)

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    1. Thank you Bridget. I think she is on the way to becoming a brilliant poet in her own right!

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  14. I enjoyed overhearing your word play with your granddaughter--what a lucky little girl. Your cawcaphony of a poem is such fun. I can't imagine being there in person to experience it.

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    1. Today Ada and I were grocery shopping and came out to a mini version. We think a group was cawljecting together before making the final journey to the roost.

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