#NPM18 - 28/30 - Outside

April is #NPM18 - National Poetry Month.

"Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket."

 ~Charles Simic

           

         Be sure to see the page on the bar above for the Progressive Poem's schedule of poets, hosted by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem.  

        And, see what many are doing for Poetry Month, by looking HERE at Jama Rattigan's post at Jama's Alphabet Soup.
          

              My goal for Poetry Month: A haiku diary that may include other forms related to haiku, like haibun, haiga. monoku or renga. My first poem speaks of why I am handwriting the poems.

April’s garden,

growing poems 

on lined pages

                    Linda Baie

links:

       Poem one

       Poem two

       Poem three 

       Poem Four

       Poem Five
       Poem Six  

       Poem Seven

       Poem Eight 

       Poem Nine 

       Poem Ten
      Poem Eleven
      Poem Twelve
      Poem Thirteen
      Poem Fourteen
      Poem Fifteen
      Poem Sixteen 
      Poem Seventeen
      Poem Eighteen
      Poem Nineteen
      Poem Twenty
      Poem Twenty-One
      Poem Twenty-Two
      Poem Twenty-Three
      Poem Twenty-Four
      Poem Twenty-Five
      Poem Twenty-Six
      Poem Twenty-Seven

Here is Poem Twenty-Eight, a haibun. Discover more about them here! 

             My nine-year-old granddaughter Ingrid and I spent some hours at a nearby park that has a stream, a pond and a marsh. We sat and sketched, observed, saw many geese and ducks, heard the wondrous redwings call, observed a pair of egrets tapping at the bank for food, and had the surprising pleasure of watching an otter play for a while. Nature is a wondrous thing, and we were glad to have the time there and together. And while not in this picture, yes, the ducks did waddle out and sat near us while we sketched in another area.

Visiting My OLW

          Time for the weekly Slice of Life at the Two Writing Teachers blog.  Tweet at #SOL14  Thanks Stacey, Tara, Dana, Beth, Anna and Betsy!

          It's time to write about my OLW for the year, WANDER. Remember back when I wrote that I had found a new journal that said wander, and then I'd connected this to meaning MORE WRITING?  It has!
          I have been doing what Merriam-Webster says is the meaning of wander: "to move around or go to different places usually without having a particular purpose or direction" or "to follow a path with many turns".   Some of the time I have had a direction, to improve my writing, but I also need to share a secret. I'm writing different things all the time, seems like practice, and it's fun.  Learning to wander into a new approach instead of just changing a word is part of that. 
            To learn and grow, I've taken the online poetry workshop with Renée LaTulippe (see the button at the right). I've wandered back to Honesdale, PA to enjoy and work hard at a second poetry workshop with David Harrison. I've continued my writing group which has grown smaller, but some of us are still pushing on together. And, I've just signed up for PiBoIdMo. Clearly, I'm following a path of many turns.  


          A friend sent me a quote: "Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing." Paul Valéry, a French poet
          I've been sketching more; it helps me think and imagine. Mostly I sketch what I see, sometimes from a photo. Clearly I'm wandering, and more than once, it's a slice of life that I'm living.