Digging...or Cutting

 

Favorite Things

 

Historically

 

Suddenly Family

My mentor text for this poem was "Because A Redwood Grove" by Joe Cottonwood.

The Women Who Made Me Who I Am

The women who made me who I am
     gave each other home perms
     led Cub Scout dens and Brownie Scout troops
     grew asparagus for the challenge of it
     ran the swimming pool and coached the swim team.

The women who made me who I am
     opened businesses
     drove tractors
     canned pickles
     read voraciously.

The women who made me who I am
     put meals on the table
     put kids to bed
     put petunias in the planter
     put family first.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019

Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations.7

By ru:user:NikolayS (ru:Файл:Lockstitch.gif) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0, GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The very last category in the Featured Pictures section of Wikimedia Commons is Animations. This animation of a sewing machine completing a lockstitch opened the door on a flood of memories of my mother, her little black Singer sewing machine, and all of the clothes she made for me and my dolls.

In my notebook, I jotted:

me by the front door

Easter Dress

daisies, yellow sash, folded socks, white patent leather shoes

eighth inch buttons on Barbie's clothes

patterns--tissue--pins--pinking shears

(It was at about this point that I started crying, and I didn't stop until my poem was done. Who knew that the animation of a sewing machine's stitch could unleash such a flood of memories?)

precision, measured

constant

love

And here's my poem:

A MOTHER'S LOVE

A mother's love:

measured in yards

of fabric on the dining room table

and rows of eighth inch 

doll clothes buttons.

A mother's love:

tissue-patterned

with traditions and rituals,

lockstitching the seams

of son-daughter-husband-family.

A mother's love:

made from scratch,

sturdy and functional, but embellished

with rick rack and sequins

and pearl head snaps.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

The theme of my 2013 National Poetry Month Project is 

"Common Inspiration--Uncommon Creations." 

Each day in April, I will feature media from the Wikimedia Commons ("a database of 16,565,065 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute") along with bits and pieces of my brainstorming and both unfinished and finished poems.

I will be using the media to inspire my poetry, but I am going to invite my students to use my daily media picks to inspire any original creation: poems, stories, comics, music, videos, sculptures, drawings...anything!

You are invited to join the fun, too! Leave a link to your creation in the comments and I'll add it to that day's post. I'll add pictures of my students' work throughout the month as well.