Category: Poems about Change

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Poet Joanna Lee

Prayers in rough wood

My prayers in rough wood
are strung up with twine and hope,
spiral like incense
to an unhearing heaven,
float back to the ears of men

Who with gentle hands
unfold my finger-petals,
suck out from cupped palm
the splinters of unborn dreams,
catch the bleeding dew of faith.

Joanna Suzanne Lee lives and writes in Richmond, Virginia, USA. She writes:
“This was my first effort at a tanka (actually it’s two tanka put back-to-back), and it came from an image I took when I visited Japan two summers ago: an offering left at a Shinto shrine in Nara, where you could write your own prayers or wishes on little wood blocks and hang them on the shrine itself.”
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Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In both Canada and the US, click on the red buttons I’ve added on my sidebar

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Poet Kirsten Shaw

Bent to pray

Spring flowers
pause in silence
from their bloom
it’s not meant
to be like
this

On the news
they recount
a cost
worth more
than any
jackpot luck

The watching
close their
desperate eyes
heads not
turned but
bent to pray

Hoping it’s
not too late
for love
to change the
world we’re
dying of

Kirsten Shaw (@shawkirsten) is a UK poet. She works at a boarding school for children with learning difficulties/special educational needs, teaching and looking after the children who live at the school.
Visit her blog at Poems and their Stories http://kirstenshawpoetry.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In both Canada and the US, click on the red buttons I’ve added on my sidebar

(red buttons are on the home page http://atomic-temporary-2589064.wpcomstaging.com), top right.

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Poet Alan Summers

Gendai haiku

first quarter moon
dancing pinheads burst
into new angel DNA

email to Canada

The moon is in its first quarter

this Japan morning

the day after

Tanka

the long night
and longer day
even our broken moon
over the biggest wave
separates our love

Alan Summers is a Japan Times award-winning writer for haiku and renga: www.withwords.org.uk

He wrote me tonight:

“Many of my Japanese friends are safe, either home, or still walking back
home. One is even on the 20th storey of a big building because Japanese
buildings are so safe, but homes can’t compete. The wave was travelling
at 600mph.”

Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In the US, click on the red button I’ve added on my sidebar

(red button is on the home page https://hgstewart.wordpress.com), top right.

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Poets for Tsunami Relief

I spent the day trying to figure out how to help our friends in Japan, Hawaii, and other areas devastated by today’s earthquake and tsunami(s).

I am just one person, but I realized with the network of talented poets I’ve built over the years, I actually have a lot to offer. Not enough time to publish a book of poems with proceeds to relief – I want to help NOW. After brainstorming with my friends Mark and Brandee on Twitter, I decided I could do something effective, right here on my blog.

Introducing ‘Poets for Tsunami Relief” –a one-week blogzine of poetry by my talented poet pals. I’ll be posting as many poems as I can this week on many different themes. My plan is to offer my audience a variety of excellent poetry in hopes that readers will open their minds and hearts to the poems, and to the cause.

After reading poems in this Poets for Tsunami blogzine, I hope you’ll click on “Donate” button to the right, which leads you directly to the American Red Cross site, where you can choose how you want to donate to help with relief efforts. I didn’t post a link to Canadian Red Cross yet, as most of my readers are American, but I will happily add links to various Red Cross web sites beneath the poetry posts, especially if you ask for them in the comments.

I’m pleased to announce my poet friend in the UK, poet Tony Lewis-Jones, has already submitted a beautiful tanka, which I’ll be posting shortly. Please submit your poems for consideration and a one-line bio to writer@hgrace.com

Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In the US, click on the red button I’ve added on my sidebar

(red button is on the home page http://atomic-temporary-2589064.wpcomstaging.com), top right.

Cheers
Heather

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What Christmas Means to Me

Look what arrived in the mail yesterday–the certificate for the latest Gift of Education donation I made on behalf of readers of Where the Butterflies Go and Leap. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and wishes for a 2011 filled with love, laughter and good surprises for all my other readers. Thanks so much to those of you who have bought my books–you’ve just helped make an entire school of young children happy.

May I ask one more thing of you? My latest poem, “Words,” with themes of anti cyber-bullying and anti gay-bashing, is, to my surprise, taking on a life of its own–over 50 comments, and readers are posting it on their own blogs, Facebooks, and even tweeting about it. I’m thrilled, because you never know who it might be able to help–and with the holidays here and so many kids off school, I’m sure cyber-bullying will be at its height. So, please do continue to pass it on (just link back to here okay? ) Thanks again for reading.
Cheers
Heather

Our December 2010 Gift of Education
Through sales of WTBG and Leap, we gave a simple yet necessary gift: pencils to a whole school.