Day in Haiku

Lovely day today
Yes, think I might go swimming
And enjoy the sun

Catching Fire Poetic Review

For the Take a Chance Challenge, one of the task is a poetic review.  Here are my attempts at this for Catching Fire.

Haiku

Katniss survived
The Capital seeks vengeance
Katniss prepares

Limerick

There once was a girl named "Catnip"
who caused the President pique.
While revenge he contrived
she tried to stay alive.
Of entertainment the Capital wasn't deprived.

Free Verse

Smart Girl
Hungry Girl
Plays the Games to save her sister
Wins by a trick
By a "love"
By a deception

Smart Girl
Confused Girl
Off on her Victory tour
Waits for the Capitol's anger
For their vengeance
For her own revenge

cross posted with The Little Bookworm

Poetry for the heart

Besides hosting the illustrious BEDA project, April is also National Poetry Month. In honor of that, I think I will share two of my favorite poems with you. I read these when I was an undergraduate in a creative writing class and they have stayed with me all this time. The bolded parts are the ones that I remember the most and speak to me. I don't know what it says about me now but it might be a good indication of who I was at 20. I had just started dating my husband around this time and he had moved back to his parent's house for various reasons.

Secret Life

By Stephen Dunn

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don't say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you've just made love
and feel you'd rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you're brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant would object to.
It becomes what you'd most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it's like a small fire
in a clearing, it's what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It's why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who'll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.




Balances

Nikki Giovanni

in life
one is always
balancing

like we juggle our mothers
against our fathers

or one teacher
against another
(only to balance our grade average)

3 grains of salt
to one ounce truth

our sweet black essence
or the funky honkies down the street

and lately i've begun wondering
if you're trying to tell me something

we used to talk all night
and do things alone together

and i've begun

(as a reaction to a feeling)
to balance
the pleasure of loneliness
against the pain
of loving you