poetry with jennifer hetrick ♥

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

butterfly haiku.

my lily-lady nieces and i recently spent a long afternoon learning about and catching butterflies in the stowe region of pottstown in montgomery county, not far from route 100. despite being so close to a well-traveled highway, we identified 13 different species of butterflies. the girls caught more than a dozen, in total, including some duplicates by species.

here is a list of which of the 13.

comma
question mark
monarch
red-spotted purple
silver-spotted skipper
cabbage
sachem skipper
peck's skipper
hackberry
indigo duskywing
common sulfar
american painted lady
dark tiger swallowtail

we were fortunate to have the guidance of local butterfly educator ron richael, as he invited us to scout for these majestic winged ones in his backyard. flowers, herbs, and trees which are each known to attract specific kinds of butterflies are a big part of the draw which nudges these insects to make a definite stop in pottstown.

having slowly rotting fruit out attracts certain species of butterflies which often live on apples and bananas. richael's yard accommodates that well.

below is an email which richael sent to his email list recipients on the 8th of september. i asked him permission to share this news, as i feel we can all benefit from this kind of knowledge and enthusiasm for the creatures in our lives which fly and are carrying so much responsibility on their small backs.

Dear Butterfliers,

On September 5th (Monday) Carol & I were sitting in the backyard when we noticed a monarch laying eggs on our common milkweed. The monarch was laying the eggs rapidly on the bottom of the leaves. So rapidly I questioned whether she was really laying them. I did a spot check & found 3 eggs on two leaves that she visited. I checked another 3-inch milkweed that she visited. I found one egg there. What I was witnessing with my wife was incredible. The monarch went to every milkweed patch that we have & laid eggs. We estimated that about 100 eggs were laid. Carol & I were laughing while we watched. We usually average 5 monarch caterpillars a year & now this in September of all things. I estimate these monarchs will not emerge till around October 5th for their trip to Mexico. We tagged monarchs on September 2nd & several more since. All the monarchs flew southwest toward Mexico. Why did this monarch decide to stay here & mate & then lay eggs in the city of all places? I have already raised 56 monarch caterpillars this year & now possibly 100 more. I feel it would too much work to bring them all inside but I may give in. Luckily, my milkweed crop this year was outstanding although now I need rain. We have about 160 milkweeds on our small property. This was an amazing phenomenon that Carol & I witnessed. By Saturday, I will have about 100 caterpillars to worry about. How does Janis Good from Boyertown raise all of those monarchs? 350 last year. I get tired thinking about it. If anyone needs monarch caterpillars please let me know. Hope you are having a butterfly day!

and here is a butterfly haiku from the history of this particular early september day.

wings press september

air as heat of sun meets net:

butterfly hunting

i may use one of these photographs, or a few, more officially for community poetry one picture at a time. but if anyone would like to offer a butterfly poem for now, feel free to send one.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

an invitation for poems about an abandoned house on englesville road.

perhaps fitting well into the seasonal and atmospheric shift of autumn, here is a dose of more community poetry one picture at a time. it features not one but several photographs of an abandoned house on englesville road in berks county.

this is an invitation to write your own poem of ideas which come to mind when looking at this abandoned house. or you are welcome to think of past abandoned houses from your memory and experience, working from those, through this picture, to craft some sampling of creative writing which didn't exist in you before these moments.

please email your submissions to poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo dot com with:

your name
the title of your poem
the state where you live

i'll share the submitted poetry as i receive it and will also update it to the facebook page in each case. feel free to share this opportunity with others.

here is my own first proverbial stab at this.

*

greyed light along englesville road
by jennifer hetrick

hard to know
when the air
conditioner

to the left of the white-painted
front door last rattled, busting

out filtered cold thanks to the final
payment for the electric bill before

they shut it
down, turned

it off at the meter. hard to know
the stories, conversations, laughter,

violent shouting which filled these
unseen rooms. they are now plenty

silent, save
for some bugs,

cricket songs in a quiet, forgotten
house. no fresh scraps of food left

for scampering grey-furred mice, their
anxious little grips searching anywhere

else for nibbles.
a broken window

lets twisted versions of this home's
old history out. it wafts back in while

ripped lace patches of curtain sway
by wind through empty spaces, away

from glass which
met gravity long

before the attention i'm giving these
bricks by writing this poem as it stirs.

[ newly submitted poetry, hurrah. ]

Personless Home
By Sam Traten of Pennsylvania

I'm hoping you can help an old vet out.
I once had a bright future full of hope and
fresh paint. Grandmothers and their old men sat
on my front porch, watching the world go by.

Kids tore through my rooms, jumping on horsehair
sofas, screaming taunts and hiding and seeking.
Cats and dogs roamed through me, sometimes
in tense standoff, mostly in friendly cohabitation.

Strapped-for-cash young parents cooked and
made do-it-yourself repairs and modifications,
adding dormers and sheds for storage and
crafting tools and utensils for husbandry.

Grandparents died, kids grew up and moved
to the city. Daddy moved out, their mommy grew old
alone, unable to pay the taxes. Dogs and cats
moved out to the fields and beyond, hungry.

I'm abandoned now.
Is there a Personless Home support group?
Or could you spare some change? I'd use it
on plumbers and electricians, carpenters and
house-painters. Honest!

You could probably get me for the cost of
back taxes and transfer fees. We'd have a good
time together, maybe we'd get the kids and
dogs and cats back.

Can you help me out? Thank you. God bless.

*

Never Forget the Wonder of Houses (a prose poem)

By Joe Swider of Pennsylvania

What wonders, at a glance, do these once noble structures bestow on my imagination. Children laughing, dogs playing, all manner of things growing. Life being created, and life passing on. History being witnessed, and history being lived. Laughter, tears, joy, and sorrow shared with friends, family, and loved ones. A whole world of accomplishment I can instantly understand. Memories long forgotten, instantly resurrected in my soul. Now these abandoned castles have been given another chance to experience their former glory in the words and thoughts of creatures such as us. My question is this, Are we so different than these houses? I believe, because I have to, that houses have souls. In essence, we give them souls. Just like us, they sometimes get neglected and abandoned, and just like us, they should never be forgotten.

*

who says?
By Barbara Tucker of Pennsylvania

who says?
Who says the house is abandoned? Really?
You could say it is temporarily unoccupied
we've gone to Canada or better yet
Florida or the Yukon
Why not Iceland, we've always wanted
to go.
Seriously our home is dear to us
we would never abandon it
not even when kids come by to
throw rocks in the windows out
back.
Or run their motorized thingies
across the grass/weeds wherever they
can and then some.
We love our home since we have lived
there all of our lives, births... through deaths magically
happened all the time, some lived some didn't
you can't expect more, can you?
Our old Ford stationwagon sat outside for months –
sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't and we love it
too, what's not to love? Loving our home or our
Ford – the things we keep in our hands and hearts – it's
all the same to us, you know.
Can you see just us that time on the roof when we were
kids,
climbed up on a dare and to see all around but the
view was unspectacular after all, not to mention the roof
felt slippery and I even broke my ankle getting
down. Was ma ever sore about it!
Think more before you speak next time about
our home, our lives inside, our names written all
over, our heights measured, our guts spilled to
each other over time.
It's ours, not yours to talk about so please don't bad mouth
us again.

*

Dashed Dreams
By Evelyn Aurand of Pennsylvania

It once housed laughter as well as tears.
But the laughter moved on and the tears dried up.
The dreams dashed off into a future somewhere else.
The windows shuttered the memories
And abandoned the story.
Placid acceptance of fate's deadline into oblivion.

poetry class at the schuylkill river in pottstown, montgomery county-- & a late summer collaborative river poem.

in early september, my traveling poetry class joined the schuylkill river's pottstown section again, in the nice, hidden away spot which we discovered in july. and this time, we were glad to have barbara tucker there since she wasn't able to be with us during the previous outing to this particular location.

while there, we talked through edits of our writings from the mont clare, montgomery county, section of the schuylkill river when we visited there in mid-august.

below are scenes of our pottstown waterway-times from this month and the final draft which we prepared together across three voices in a collaborative river poem.

river writing, mid-august 2016

Collaborative River Poem by Sam Traten, Jennifer Hetrick, & Barbara Tucker

Sam: Ah, we're back—

A steel town's river and

the canal that brought

coal from upriver collieries to

fuel blast furnaces

Jen: barbara’s feet caked lightly in mud,

now dry, sam introduces us to caviar on rice

crackers as we sit in camping chairs

spying a great blue heron

slow-prancing in duckweed

under an island, home to one

wavy-branched willow tree

Barbara: lazing on a stone-strewn bank,

the muddy big water flow

southeast toward the atlantic ocean

as we watch & talk, talk & watch,

remembering other times & places

S. Plants closed now,

converted into condos,

—nightlife and art galleries

alive with young lovers

B. we make toasts, pink moscato

to all, to the baby blueness

and fluffed up whiteness of sky's clouds looming

over the tall, straight, many-colored trees

J. an unmoving rope swing suspended high

from the shore across from our poetry-writing

selves—when we are brewing in our conversations,

the great blue heron we could hardly stop gazing

at earlier is yards away from us, sniffing out our

little jar of caviar

B. without us noticing, mr. big heron pops up

next to us before taking wing, and with dynamic

precision, swoops right onto the other side of the water,

lands, grooms his feathers, and i whistle

J. attempting to photograph the winged

one fast enough, midflight, over this

pushing surface, under this august sun

S. herons stalk minnows in

shallows here for millennia,

and nothing is changed

B. i can't help it, i really can't help myself

& the deep feeling of wanting to touch him

& hold him or just be known to him

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

g emil reutter and diane sahms-guarnieri: philiadelphia poets at studio b in early september 2016.

a traveling duo of philadelphia-based poets ventured to studio b in boyertown, berks county, this past weekend and hosted a two-hour reading in the gallery on the day before the one which is all about labor-thinking.

these poets who made their way to our area were g emil reutter and diane sahms-guarnieri.

here is a listing of more of reutter's poems which you can read online.

one of his throws of language which i loved immensely for its machine+music sound and truth was this.

rhythm of pedal and belt

and here are a few phrasings from sahms-guaranieri's poems.

full bulb of moon's black night

her haunting tongue

delicate and bony body

homegrown corruption

shells of mills

you can read more of her poems online.

onward with the the inner-necessity of poems.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

poetry class at the schuylkill river in mont clare, montgomery county.

in mid-august, my traveling poetry class met at the schuylkill river in mont clare, montgomery county. we had a wonderful time, to put it lightly. it turned out to be such a beautiful set of life-minutes for us all that i think we felt like the luckiest people on earth, or close to it. and this goes to show that time spent alongside rivers (and even in them !) is just fully, completely good for the body and all of its insides. wholesome, heart-hugging balance is what happens when you are settling down to enjoy poetry class by your local river.

here are some videos which student sam traten took of moments during and after our lessons as we let ourselves get a little friendly with the water. and incidentally, thin sasquatch-like female instructors sometimes find their way out toward the middles of rivers on slippery patches of rocks.

we're working on a collaborative river poem, which is mid-editing, and i'll share it when it's ready. it will span across three voices.

also, spy a few glimpses of a blue heron below. this winged one hunted and swooped very close to us during class. we were fortunate to have cameras in-hand.

Friday, August 26, 2016

community classes & workshops in 2016: poetry & flash fiction.

please feel free to pass this on to anyone who you believe might be interested in signing up for one of my creative writing workshops or classes. information about offerings is below. links as the course titles will take you to the sign-up pages for each. feel free to reach out with any questions which you may have. onward with language-throwing.

nature poetry night
location: the education center @ nockamixon state park
description: children will have an opportunity to hear and then practice reading sample animal poems out loud, followed by creating their own unique pieces. guest speaker and local poetry guru, jennifer hetrick, will guide the children through the artistic process and show them new ways of seeing the natural world through the art of words. we encourage parents to get involved, too !
when: friday, september 30, 2016 from 6.00 to 7.00 p.m.
cost: free; pre-registration is required

the pull of poems

location: via chester county night school @ owen j. roberts middle school

description: this course will tie together some of the same themes as when it was offered in the spring semester, but it will also introduce a few new topics to test out in poetry. identity-exploring, childhood memories, rivers, letters to poems, lists as poems, exploring colors, the moon, and loss and death will be some focuses potentially weaved into this session, but students are also welcome to voice any other themes which they'd like to study and practice.

when: tuesdays, september 20 through november 1, 2016, 6.00 to 8.00 p.m.

cost: $82

flash fiction (in chester county)

location: via chester county night school @ phoenixville middle school

description: delve into the sub-genre of flash fiction in this new course. flash fiction paints out on the page as an often poetic form of prose and storytelling. sometimes flash fiction is 500 words or less, and it can even be barely a sentence or two. but it carries rich language in its brevity. sherrie flick, an author from pittsburgh, will be the main inspiration for this course, which includes workshopping of flash fiction by students.

when: mondays, september 19 through november 7, 2016, 6.00 to 8.00 p.m.

cost: $99

poetry inspired by dr. seuss