Tag: Arts

Haikus With My Daughter II

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Best of The Human Rights Warrior, Family, Girls Rights, Memoir, Parenting, Poetry, Weekly Challenges63 Comments

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“I wrote a poem about you today,” I said.  “Well, just a haiku.  But actually, I wrote two.”

This caught my 8 year-old daughter’s attention.  She put down her Monster High doll, the one she just bought with money hard-earned from chores like scooping the cat’s litterbox.

“What’s a haiku?” she asked.  Apparently, they hadn’t yet covered this in her third grade class.

“It’s a kind of short Japanese poem.  It has three lines, with a total of only seventeen syllables.  The first line is five syllables, the second is seven and the third is five.”

As she read my haikus, I said,  “I wrote about you, but  usually haikus are about nature.”

“Like about animals?”

“Sure.  ‘Animals’ is three syllables, so you need two more for the first line.  Then seven, then five.”

“Syllables, like beats in music?”

“Exactly.”

She didn’t even pause to think.  She launched right in.

“Animals live in …”

“You’re doing it!  You’re writing your very own haiku!  Now seven syllables. Where do animals live?”

“Jungle, forest and…”   She counted out the syllables on the five fingers of her right hand.   Then two more on the fingers of her left hand.  She had painted her fingernails in an alternating pattern with red and blue nail polish.  Red, blue, red, blue, red, blue, red, blue, red blue.

“City? Ocean?”

“That’s great!  Which one?  Ocean or city?”

“Nature everywhere.”

“You did it!  You wrote your own haiku!”

She smiled – a small, proud smile – and then she picked up her doll again.

“That was really good.  Let me write it down.   Can you say it again?”

She shrugged, engrossed in brushing the doll’s hair.

“I forgot it already,” she said.

“But I’m your mom and I will always remember,”  I thought.

Haiku by Eliza

Animals live in

Jungle, forest and city.    (or ocean)

Nature around us!

This post, Haikus With My Daughter , Thanksgiving and Haikus With My Daughter III: Girls Rights are in response to the WordPress Weekly Writing Challenge.

Haikus With My Daughter

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Best of The Human Rights Warrior, Family, Human Rights, Memoir, Parenting, Poetry, Weekly Challenges17 Comments

IMG_0449I haven’t written a poem since I was in elementary school.

But today I wrote tw0- not one, but TWO! – haikus in response to the WordPress Weekly Writing Challenge.

My eight year old daughter was the inspiration for the first.

It doesn't have to be perfect to be sussesful.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to be sussesful.

Marginalia

Cleaning her backpack,

I found …my daughter’s wise words,

Scrawled  in the  margins.

She was also the inspiration for the second haiku of the day:

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To My Daughter, Who Is 8

Eight years old, full of

Joy and bold discovery.

Stay this kind and strong!

 

Next up – my daughter writes her very first haiku!  Haikus With My Daughter II

Weekly Photo Challenge: Layers

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Culture, Photography, Travel, Weekly Challenges19 Comments
Photo taken in Nepal
September 2013

When the Weekly Photo Challenge theme Layers was announced today, I immediately thought of a series of photos I recently took in  Nepal of dancers performing a traditional dance.  It was mesmerizing to watch them, their colorful costumes so rich in detail and contrast, their bodies flowing gracefully through the complicated dance steps.  These young Nepali dancers produced gorgeous layers of color and movement that these photographs cannot truly capture.

I couldn’t decide which photo to use for the Challenge, but I did succeed in narrowing it down to two.

Which photo would you have picked?

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Nepal, September 2013

That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Culture, Photography, PoetryLeave a comment
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Sonnet 73 

by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
“Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold” by William Shakespeare. (Public domain.)
Sonnet 73, one of Shakespeare’s most metaphoric works, has long symbolized the season of autumn for me.  With thanks to The Writer’s Almanac, William Shakespeare, Mr. Burns (my high school freshman English teacher)  and Lake Harriet – and everything else  in this world which never ceases to inspire and interest.

Ode to Shel Silverstein

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Best of The Human Rights Warrior, Culture, Family, Famous Activists, Human Rights, Poetry14 Comments

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April is National Poetry Month and one of the “30 Ways to Celebrate”  is to revisit a poem that you loved when you were young.  So tonight I pulled out the Shel Silverstein‘s classic Where The Sidewalk Ends.  We have all of Shel Silverstein’s books, even the posthumous Everything On It. I actually have two copies of Where The Sidewalk Ends. My first copy was a gift I received for my birthday from my great-aunt Audrey.

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There is so much humor and sense and joy in these poems! If I read the opening line, I can close my eyes and recite many of the shorter ones. Flipping through the pages and familiar illustrations, one of my favorite poems jumped out at me.  Perhaps it influenced me more as a child than I realized.

LISTEN TO THE MUSTN’TS

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child,

Listen to the DON’TS

Listen to the SHOULDN’TS

The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS

Listen to the NEVER HAVES

Then listen close to me–

Anything can happen, child,

ANYTHING can be.

In the second of my two copies of Where The Sidewalk Ends, I re-discovered this dedication from my Grandpa Olaf (I have written about his secrets to a long and happy life before) and my step-grandmother Lynda:

Dedication

My grandpa signed it, but this dedication was clearly written by Lynda.  Both have been gone for a couple of years now.   The book was given to us perhaps 10 years ago; I am certain that I have read the dedication before.  But reading it again was a like a familiar touch on the shoulder.  An unexpected blessing.

So I, for one, will be embracing the expected – and unexpected – richness of the National Month of Poetry.

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Two more poems from Where The Sidewalk Ends and one bit of trivia:

HUG O’ WAR

I will not play at tug o’ war.

I’d rather play at hug o’ war,

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs,

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses,

And everyone grins,

And everyone cuddles,

And everyone wins.

Hug o' War
On the way to school in Minneapolis, USA

NO DIFFERENCE

Small as a peanut,

Big as a giant,

We’re all the same size

When we turn off the light.

Rich as a sultan,

Poor as a mite,

We’re all worth the same

When we turn out the light.

Red, black or orange,

Yellow or white,

We all look the same

When we turn out the light.

So maybe the way to make

Everything right

Is for God to just reach out

And turn out the light!

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On the way home from school in Yaounde, Cameroon

Here is the Trivia bit:  Shel Silverstein also wrote the lyrics to the Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue”. (It’s true!)

More about  Shel Silverstein’s poetry and illustrations – and activities, too – can be found on www.shelsilverstein.com.

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For National Poetry Month, here are more of my posts with poems:

A Mother In A Refugee Camp by Chinua Achebe

April Rain Song by Langston Hughes

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost