Posted in Uncategorized, tagged crow, daughter, expectations, haiku, January, moon, mother, poems, resolution, snow, wanting, wind on January 21, 2012| 1 Comment »
the wind blows
both ways at once
my thoughts, too
*
fingers covered
in syrup my daughter reaches
to hug me
*
me and the falling snow
both of us
shadowless today
*
crow in the empty
tree, it did not sing to me
like a crow
*
in evergreens
drifting snow and how can it be?
scent of lilac
*
rushing to dance
with the moon, I tripped
on my own wanting
*
January and I
recall over tea we forgot
to make resolutions
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book, gratitude, memory, non-dualism, page, reading, tanka on January 20, 2012| 1 Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, darkness, daughter, mom, mother, night, poem, poetry, window on January 19, 2012| 5 Comments »
In the backseat,
Vivian says, Mom,
I want to know
the darkness,
and so rolls down
her window
and shouts,
Hello Night!
And then she
whispers something
to the air
that I can’t hear
though I strain
against the rush
of road noise
to decipher her words.
The conversation belongs
to her, though, and
to the night, and to
the window that
already she has learned
to open herself.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged entitlement, flowers, generosity of spirit, personalizing, poem, selflessness, sharing on January 18, 2012| 6 Comments »
for Joi Sharp
And there they appeared,
all around me, roses,
lilies and delphiniums blue,
and even some flowers
that weren’t in season—
lilacs, azaleas
and birds of paradise,
all of them blooming,
abundant and blooming,
the air hung with sweetness,
the petals so soft,
and for a while I thought
oh! for me! my flowers!
my bouquets! Until
one by one, though reluctant
at first, and with some pouting throughout,
I was guided to give them away
and they were much
lovelier then.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing things to be, change, haiku, letter, lupine, morning after the storm, mountain, poem, presence, river, storm on January 18, 2012| 1 Comment »
nothing holds back
the river forever—
these hands still trying
same cold, same dawn,
same landscape—even that hill
seems tired of standing
*
again I write
in my head the letter, again
I rip it up
*
and then the day came
when I sat in the lupine
instead of climbing
*
morning after
the storm each glittering limb
the most lovely
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem a day practice, practice, ridgway, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, weehawken, writing workshop on January 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Leaping: How to Wildly Advance Your Writing
A five-week adventure in growing your voice
led by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Wednesdays February 1-February 29
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
When a stranger on the corner asked, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” pianist Arthur Rubinstein famously replied: “Practice. Practice. Practice. “
What’s true for the pianist is true for the poet. If you want to improve, it takes practice. In this five-week class, participants will be asked to write a poem a day for a month.
A poem a day?!
Mmm hmm. You can do it even if you’ve never written a poem outside of English class. All participants will receive a 30-day inspiration booklet with 60 possible prompts written by the workshop leader. This year will also feature experiential prompts. But her prompts are merely suggestions. You can scribble a late-night haiku about your cat or type a 14-line sonnet in rhymed iambic pentameter. It doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter if the writing is “good.” It matters that you write. It matters that you play. It matters that you try new things. More than poetry as product, we’re exploring a poetic life—poetry as path and lens and anchor and kite.
These just might be 30 of the most fun, creative, door-opening, writer’s-block-busting, voice-changing, provocative days of your life. Let’s play.
**
Passionate about language and writing, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer earned her master’s degree in English Language and Linguistics, and for 10 years, she directed the Telluride Writers Guild. Her poems have been featured in O Magazine and on A Prairie Home Companion. Her books include Holding Three Things at Once, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and most recently The Miracle Already Happening: Everyday life with Rumi. For seventeen years, she’s taught in libraries, schools, businesses and universities. Clients have included Camp Coca Cola, The Aesthetic Education Institute of Colorado, Think 360, Business and Professional Women and the National Endowment for the Humanities. You’ll find her own poem-a-day practice at ahundredfallingveils.wordpress.com
**
http://www.weehawkenarts.org * Questions@weehawken.org * 970-318-0150
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poetry, ridgway, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Rumi, weehawken, writing workshop on January 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Why Look Like a Dead Fish?
A Day of Reading and Writing with Rumi
Saturday, January 28
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Weehawken Arts, Ridgway, CO
$85 member/$93 non-member
10 percent discount before January 20
“With passion pray. With passion make love. With passion eat and drink and dance and play. Why look like a dead fish in this ocean of God?”
Jalaladin Rumi (1207-1273), trans. Daniel Ladinsky
And with passion, we’ll read and converse and write. Rumi, a Sufi poet, theologian and teacher born in Persia, has been the best selling poet in America since the 1980s. His is a universal voice for cosmic, Divine love, not limited by religious beliefs, not embroiled in dogma. Into our modern, synthetic, technological world starved for real ecstasy, Rumi spills ecstasy.
For six hours, we’ll talk about Rumi’s life, read his poems from multiple translators, and write our own poems in response to his words. All are welcome, regardless of poetic experience. As Rumi would say, “It’s rigged—everything in your favor. So there is nothing to worry about.”
Passionate about language and writing, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer earned her master’s degree in English Language and Linguistics, and for 10 years, she directed the Telluride Writers Guild. Her poems have been featured in O Magazine and on A Prairie Home Companion. Her books include Holding Three Things at Once, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and most recently The Miracle Already Happening: Everyday life with Rumi. For seventeen years, she’s taught in libraries, schools, businesses and universities. Clients have included Camp Coca Cola, The Aesthetic Education Institute of Colorado, Think 360, Business and Professional Women and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit her website, http://www.wordwoman.com for writing exercises and essays on the art of writing.
to register, call Weehawken, 318-0150
or visit weehawkenarts.org
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dreams, haiku, lily, losing the self, loss, meditation, moon, parenting, real, snow, stars, sufficient on January 17, 2012| 5 Comments »
blank field of snow
just after the blizzard
tracked up in minutes
*
driving sixty
while the tears on her cheeks
went eighty
*
these deep scars
I wish I could forget why
you can’t see them
*
even when I sit
very, very still, God sits
stiller
*
the trees pushing green
and in me a longing to
lose everything
*
even though I know
they won’t fit, I try them on
her mood rings
*
those gossamer dreams
when was it that they became
nooses?
*
all I want to know:
when I am with you, can I
be myself?
*
watching that star
I forget which of us
is moving
*
though all the petals
fell, the lily pistil still
dripping
*
come morning my hair
all tangled after a night
of tussling with words
*
no one says to
the lily, hey, one more petal
would look better
*
these haiku
perhaps I can scrawl them on
bits of DNA
*
more poem sprouts?
said the tears—but we just
started plowing
*
quarter moon
the boy says, it’s broken,
mommy fix it?
*
these dead willow sticks
beside me are so beautiful
I am beautiful
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ego, haiku, moon, pinata, puddle, the path, the process, wings on January 15, 2012| 1 Comment »
why prefer?
the piñata before the strike
or just after
*
mud puddle
only the moon
doesn’t jump in
*
though tattered
I clutch at them, these shreds
of who I was
*
knitting the last row
I consider unraveling
the whole scarf
*
the sun takes me
by the hand—the mountain
can’t be tall enough
*
not the song
that made us look up but
the sound of wings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compass rose, found, freedom, haiku, lost, map, the path on January 14, 2012| 1 Comment »
