Poetry Reading Day

April 28 is Poetry Reading Day and thus the theme for this week's Etsy Blogger's Blog Carnival. Thinking of poetry, three things immediately come to mind:

First, I recall my some of my first poetic memories, memorizing a poem to recite in front of my high school sophomore English class, taught by the classy Mr. Russell, ye olde English teacher extraordinaire. When we were told we had to memorize and recite a poem, one of my classmates cleverly chose the shortest poem by Ogden Nash.

Fleas

Adam Had'em

I was more ambitious not as clever as my classmate.
I can't remember now if I recited Daffodils by William Wordsworth or a Robert Frost poem. However, I like to think it was this poem:

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Second, I entered my first poetry contest in February. I'm still waiting to hear that I've won the knitting poetry contest from Knitting Daily. See my post from February on this topic. In the meantime, I'm unable to reveal the contents of my certain to be winning poem!

Finally, I have at various points in my life, written poetry. It's been a while (with the exception of my knitting poetry), perhaps since my creative energies have turned in a different, fibery, direction of late. Several of my older poems are here on my blog and you can find them by searching "poem". But here's one more:

Love emerged when I least expected it
Much like spring flowers that
appear
from barren plants and dormant bulbs
Kernels of life that somehow
weathered through the long winter

Love, so like a flower
Strong and colorful, like the tulip
Fragile and scented like the rose
Gracefully bending in the wind
Calling my name.

PS to my post on Earth Day, here are the photos from San Francisco, 1970: