3 Things You May Not Know about TeachingAuthors and a Trimeric Poem

Happy New Year to all our TeachingAuthors followers! In this, our first post of 2022, I'll announce a change coming to our blog and kick off a new topic. At the end of the post, I'll share my first attempt at a trimeric and a link to this week's Poetry Friday round-up.  

NOTE: after publishing this post, I added info about a free webinar I'm presenting later this month--see my P.S. below.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

First, the announcement: we've decided to revise our posting schedule. Some of you long-time followers may recall that when we first started blogging, we posted three days a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We later cut back to Mondays and Fridays only, with an occasional Wednesday Writing Workout. In 2018, we dropped our Monday posts and switched to blogging regularly on Fridays only, but still with the occasional Wednesday Writing Workout and other special posts. 

Believe it or not, in 2022, we will be celebrating our THIRTEENTH blogiversary! Two months ago, the TeachingAuthors team met virtually to discuss whether we still have something of value to share with our blog readers. Our conclusion: we do! But we decided we need not post quite so frequently. Effective today, we're reducing our regular posts to twice a month, on the first and third Fridays. As before, we'll still share an occasional Wednesday Writing Workout. We may also include a post on a second or fourth Friday of the month, if something important comes up. 

As it turns out, last week my fellow TeachingAuthor April received a lovely email from a TeachingAuthors follower thanking her for a post on trimeric poems. The reader also wrote that TeachingAuthors is "one of the very few blogs I rarely miss reading." The message affirmed our decision to continue posting! 

Now for our new topic: We thought it would be fun to kick off the New Year by sharing tidbits about us and our blog that many of you may not know. I'll begin with 3 Things You May Not Know about TeachingAuthors:

1. Our site now includes a Calendar link under the heading at the top of the page. Clicking on the link will display our TeachingAuthors Google calendar from November, 2021 on. If you think you may have missed a post or you'd like to see the upcoming posting dates or topics, you can find the info in the Calendar.
2. Another handy feature on the site is the list of links to all the Poetry Friday roundups for the current six-month period. You'll find the list in our right sidebar, under the Poetry Friday logo. (HUGE thanks to Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading for coordinating the roundup hosts and providing us with the code to display the list.) 
3. Several of the current TeachingAuthors have never met each other "in real life." When we started the blog back in 2009, I knew everyone on the original team in person, with the exception of April Halprin Wayland. April and I later connected several times, even presenting at conferences together. But over the years, there have been several TeachingAuthors I've never met, including one current member. In fact, I don't believe any TeachingAuthor personally knows all the other current team members. I hope that will change when we're able to attend conferences together again.     

Five of the six TAs presenting together at a 2010 conference, left to right:
Mary Ann Rodman, Esther Hershenhorn, JoAnn Early Macken,
Carmela Martino, and April Halprin Wayland

The reader email about trimerics prompted me to re-read April's last trimeric post. And that post inspired me try my hand at writing my own trimeric:

                              TeachingAuthors
        It doesn’t matter that we’ve never met—
        we’re friends, bound together
        by our writing and our teaching.
        We don’t let physical distance separate us.

        We’re friends, bound together.
        Common goals and virtual connections
        help sustain our solidarity.

        Our writing and our teaching
        interlace to form a growing tapestry
        we could never weave alone.

        We don’t let physical distance separate us
        from each other or our blog readers—
        or our students.

   © 2022 Carmela A. Martino. All rights reserved.

I really enjoyed writing this trimeric. Hope you enjoyed reading it! For more poetry, be sure to check out today's Poetry Friday roundup hosted by Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink.

Posted by Carmela

P.S. I forgot to mention that I'll be presenting a free webinar called SMALL PRESS, BIG DECISION for SCBWI-IL on Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 7 pm Central Time. For details, see this page.  

Trimerics: back to the familiar and into the unknown

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Howdy, Campers!  Happy Poetry Friday (PF link & my poem are below)

First of all, we at TeachingAuthors hope you're getting some solid sleep, walking a dog, connecting with those you hold dear, and finding a little island of peace in this brave new world. We appreciate each of you very much.💓

This is our final post on how we're taking leaps in our career or our writing during this leap year, beginning with Bobbi's terrific Taking Leaps in Historical Fiction. (Lately, going to the grocery store feels like a leap of faith, doesn't it?)

But before we get started, a brief detour. The Jewish holiday of Passover in 2020 begins at sundown on Wednesday, April 8, and ends Thursday evening, April 16. The first Passover seder is on the evening of April 8. Here's how to celebrate Passover online, posted on the blog ReformJudaism.org, and here's an article on how those in Staten Island are (or are not) celebrating Passover in this strange time (Orthodox Jews cannot celebrate online).

So the other day I got a lovely email from Alysse Rich, the Principal of the Children’s Jewish Studies Program in Toronto Canada's Danforth Jewish Circle. If you have 10 minutes, enjoy watching Alysse (and little Arthur) reading and singing my Passover picture book, MORE THAN ENOUGH, (cheerfully illustrated by Katie Kath) to her school. (Alysse plays a mean guitar player and has a lovely voice.)

Okay ~ now let's get back to our regularly scheduled program: the leaps each of us has taken or hopes to take.

Today I encourage you to take a leap: try a poetic form that's new to you. And since I've fallen in love (again) with trimerics, why don't you try writing one? 

In June 2011, I posted about falling in love with trimeric poems for the first time. Here's a good definition from http://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/trimeric/: Trimeric \tri-(meh)-rik\ n: a four stanza poem in which the first stanza has four lines and the last three stanzas have three lines each, with the first line of each repeating the respective line of the first stanza.  The sequence of lines, then, is abcd, b – -, c – -, d – -. 

My love for trimerics faded, but now I love being back in the arms of this form. In fact, trimerics have become my escape from pandemic pandemonium (and emails!  Is everyone drowning in helpful or alarming or helpfully alarming emails?!?).

Why do I love trimerics? Because all I need is a first line. That line takes my hand and leads me to places I've never known. Each new poem pushes me to leap into the unknown.

drawing (c)2020 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are three trimerics.

In TENDER, the first line walked onto my page, unattached to any idea. It grew into a poem about my son when he was a young teen.

TENDER
by April Halprin Wayland

He's a slip of a boy, really.

Tender as a slim green shoot

just angling out of earth.

But there are other ways in him.

Tender as a slim green shoot,

he also bristles into cactus,

a dragnet of needles—watch out!

Just angling out of earth,

he can still be caught (wear gloves!)

He can still be taught to breathe gently.

But there are other ways in him

beyond tender, beyond thistly.

Walk into his rooms. Switch on each light.

==============================

I have NO idea where this one came from:

CHANGE OF PLANS
by April Halprin Wayland

"One more thing," she said quietly,

not wanting to interrupt him.

He looked up from the last chapter.

He had been reading a murder mystery.

Not wanting to interrupt him

was her mantra, her world view, her Golden Rule...

until Aunt Blanche had that talk with her.

He looked up from the last chapter

and saw that she was aiming a blow torch

at his lap.

He had been reading a murder mystery.

He was dying to know how it ended.

He didn't know that she had been reading it, too.

==================================

And this one I wrote today. Once again it started with the title.

FRIGHTENED? ME?

by April Halprin Wayland

When I was little,

my mom used to say,

"Every bad dream is a story you tell yourself."

She would rock me to sleep.

My mom used to say,

"Dark things that shake you awake
will be gone in the morning."

"Every bad dream is a story you tell yourself,"

she'd murmur, rocking.

I loved her warm flower smell.

She would rock me to sleep.
She can't anymore.

I've learned: now I tell myself a different story.
=================================

all poems (c)2020 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

If you DO find yourself fiddling with trimerics when taking a break from sewing face masks (which, even if they're just bandanas, are apparently great if you want to keep yourself from touching your face 90 times a day), please share them with me ~ I'd love to read what you came up with!

Thank you, Tabatha, for hosting Poetry Friday
at The Opposite of Indifference

posted in good health from a respectful distance by April Halprin Wayland

Try a Trimeric! Happy Poetry Friday!

x
Howdy, Campers!  

We've just completed our VCFA series, which began with Jodi Paloni's entry, "The Point of Point of View."  After Jodi's post,  Cynthia Newberry Martin shared a technique for letting the characters tell you what happens next in your story in her piece, "Decide vs. Discover."  Sion Dayson gave us another method for moving forward called, “What Happens Next? Inch Forward in the Dark.”  Then, Lynn Miller-Lachmann showed us the VCFA way to critique a fellow writer’s manuscript in "Critiquing Others: The Constructive Critique." And we ended the series with guest blogger Pam Watts's post, "Finding the Heart in Your Story"

Thanks to the VCFA writers who shared their writer's journey with us!

Now, journey along with us as we celebrate Poetry Friday ~

Thank you, Carol, of Carol's Corner, for hosting Poetry Friday this week!

Okay, I have a confession to make: I.  Am having.  A love affair.  I'm so excited about this new love in my life, in fact, that I want to share a poem I wrote about it:

I'M HAVING A LOVE AFFAIR

by April Halprin Wayland

You're the only one I'm telling:

I'm having a love affair.  

My husband knows.

I don't sneak around whispering that name.

I've having a love affair!

My new love makes everything so simple,

helps me see the world in a new light.

My husband knows.

He phoned and heard my hypnotized voice.

He came home unexpectedly and saw triplets dribbling drown my chin.

I don't sneak around whispering that name—

I sing it, I shout it:

Trimeric! Trimeric! Trimeric!

2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

Yes, I'm in love with a form of poetry that appears to have been invented relatively recently called the trimeric. The inventor, Dr. Charles Stone, says it rhymes with limerick.  (I prefer to call it a try-mer-ic, which sounds lovelier.)  Here is the definition on his trimeric page: 

"Trimeric \tri-(meh)-rik\ n: a four stanza poem in which the first stanza has four lines and the last three stanzas have three lines each, with the first line of each repeating the respective line of the first stanza.  The sequence of lines, then, is abcd, b – -, c – -, d – -."

In searching for more information (there isn't much), I found one poet who rhymes the last two lines of each stanza, but this isn't part of the official definition.

Here are more trimerics I played around with this week:

TIRED

by April Halprin Wayland

She said, “No, I'm too tired.”

“Let's explore the word

tired,” he said

then the tortoise lumbered in the door and they laughed.

“Let's explore the word

for creature who looks

like a dinosaur but lives in our house.  He's obviously not

tired,” he said,

though if you look closely, 

the tortoise did have dark rings under his eyes.

Then the tortoise lumbered in the door 

and she reached for his hand.

“I like your wrinkles better than his,” she said, and they laughed.

2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

************************************

AT THE DOG PARK

by April Halprin Wayland

Walk the perimeter, the trainer says.  

You're the leader, the one to watch.

Eli will look up every now and then

to find you.

You're the leader, the one to watch,

he's the guy in the field, taking notes,

doing the research, collecting the data.

Eli will look up every now and then,

give you the secret wink

and you'll know the coast is clear, the deal will go down.

To find you,

he'll launch his implanted dog paw device

and you will reach nonchalantly for your cell phone.

2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

Eli, getting ready to go incognito to the dog park

************************************

FIRST A MOUND OF SOIL

by April Halprin Wayland

First, a mound of soil burst open—then, 

a stem poked through.

The next day,

it blossomed in the sun.

A stem poked through—

but it wasn't a stem.

What then? A finger.

The next day,

more fingers, an arm, 

a body bathed in dirt.

It blossomed in the sun:

green eyes, asparagus-fern hair,

a boy of greens and ground.

2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

************************************

SIT-STAY-DOWN

by April Halprin Wayland

She used to be nicer to me.

Something's happened.

Now her voice is stern; 

she frowns at me for little things.

Something's happened.

It used to be all about scratching my rump,

or giving me that big bone stuffed with peanut butter.

Now her voice is stern

and she'll only give me that big bone

when I've done all that sit-stay-down-roll over stuff.

She frowns at me for little things.

I wonder if pulling all the stuffing out of the couch 

had anything to do with it?

2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

My favorite part of Thanksgiving is the stuffing...why should Eli be any different?

WRITING WORKOUT: TRY A TRIMERIC!

I love the surprise package of a trimeric--at least the way I write them. It appears as if the poem is about one thing, but if I can turn it the right way, then--surprise!--it's about something else.

So write one or two or twelve.  It's simple...and it's not.  But it's certainly addictive.  And please share yours with us--I'm really interested in seeing what you come up with!

And remember to write with a sense of play.  I mean, why else are we doing this? 

P.S: I wanted to do a few drawings to break up this post.  But each drawing takes a long time, so I took photos instead.  Saving my energies to work on my book.  Just thought I'd share that.  We all need to prioritize, right?

poems and photos (c) 2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved