Comments on: April Showers bring… POETRY!

By: MW Penn

MW Penn — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:02:34 +0000

Last evening I began wondering at the lovely gift of an award for Number Tree, analyzing the meaning of my response. There’s the rub. I never truly analyze anything.
I’ve had the great good fortune to know exemplar poets: Vivian Shipley; Eileen Spinelli; Lee Bennett Hopkins. They do analyze. They delve into the depths of their sorrow, soar to the heights of their ideals, and take us with them on their journey. Me, I’m a surface person. Give me a sturdy stone wall or an elegant equation to explore.
Vivian, bless her, has exposed me to the graduate class she teaches, most likely hoping to knock some sensibility into me; Eileen, kindly, has tutored me through sessions in children’s verse. I’ll never reach those heights. I’m a rhymer with, perhaps, an ear for meter, a gift for cadence. When I’m able, I use this talent to make math fun, and I love the work. But it lacks the metaphysical.
So, the lovely gift? I didn’t mean to open the horse’s mouth to check its teeth, but I feel uncomfortable riding it. I don’t believe it’s quite greed, wanting to have won an award in ‘my own skin’, but instead, that other five letter g word. Guilt.

By: MW Penn

MW Penn — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:28:38 +0000

Connecticut Press Club. The national press club wrote to ask if I’d like to have my 2009 first place poem ‘Number Tree’ submitted to the 2009 national awards — so they know I’ve gotten a first. (And, of course, I submitted it!)
But the Press Club awards are in May — and they have yet to notify me.
Gosh, I was hoping my feature article might win. Ed says I’m greedy!!!

By: alice

alice — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:38:28 +0000

Congratulations, Marianne! Which prize is it?

By: debbie

debbie — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:19:00 +0000

Congratulations, Marianne!

By: marianne

marianne — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:39:24 +0000

I pinch myself! To my surprise
My poetry has won a prize.
I’d hoped that glory for the text
Of books or features would be next:
That I’d be hailed a jounalist
Or children’s author, but a twist!
Author, journalist? Oh no! It
Seems they think that I’m a poet.
and the winner is:
NUMBER TREE

In a corner of my garden,
I have a number tree.
A tree that blossoms in base ten
And mesmerizes me.

In the very early springtime
When days begin to warm,
The branches sprout with little buds
As tiny zeros form.

The buds burst into flowers
Beneath a climbing sun.
And every slender flower
Is shaped just like a one.

The petals fall in drifts of white
As tiny twos unfold.
The twos develop into threes
Which soon increase fourfold.

The fruit begins to ripen
In balmy summer air.
One day I come to see the fours
And fives hang everywhere.

Each lovely five expands in size
Then grows into a six.
The sixes swell to sevens
And eights enter the mix.

The eights are round and golden,
But I’m afraid to prune them.
I don’t let others see the tree;
They’d shake a branch and ruin them.

So it happens every autumn
Though nobody believes:
In a corner of my garden
Nines are falling with the leaves.