Monday Poetry Stretch: The List

Like many would-be poets of my age, I have felt the influence of Walt Whitman. I've just been reading a little of Whitman this week. I bought the book, The Last Child in the Woods, on the recommendation of several contributors to Learning in the Great Outdoors, the Carnival of Environmental Education (Including Tricia of Monday Poetry Stretch fame). A Whitman excerpt begins the book. That inspired me to open A Child's Anthology of Poetry edited by Elizabeth Hauge Sword, to read the Whitman poems there.

And now Tricia wants us to write a list poem. The fact is I use list in some degree in many of my poems. Perhaps this bit of rhyme in honor of my mother is the most apt example:

Dandelions in a Milk Carton

Thank you, Mama,

For nursing me and diapering me,
For a dry set of sheets when I wet another,
For the Bible story book and Uncle Remus,
For all five sisters and my little brother,

And all the good eating stuff
Like biscuits from wooden bowls, datenut cakes, and lemon fluff,
Like Russian tea and yeast rolls
For Jesus-loves-the-little-children and Deep-and-Wide,
For walking to school that first day by my side,
And for your loving smile when I came in a run
With dandelions in a milk carton for all you've done.

-Terrell Shaw

So a list....

ummmm.....

Once again I feel the need to make excuses... It doesn't feel quite whole. It began as a list, but may no longer qualify. It got all rap happy, began rhyming....

It's a Stretch.

Bloggers certainly are a curious lot,
Strange as the names they select.
Look at the bunch my sidebar's got -
Who ever heard? The Miss Rumphius Effect?

Learn about Biden, Barack, and - shoot --
Help blue the whole country at Swing State.
Learn how to vote while you play a Cold Flute,
and Oh!Pinion will show how to punctuate.

The Median Sib's grandgirls are cute.
Joan's paint their fingers and toesies.
(The Sleepless Juggler has turned quite mute,
so Joan tells all at her Daddy's Roses.)

Julie, swings from Pines Above Snow,
And walks in the steps of Ms Carson.
A Volkswagon thief and door wirer, though,
Walks around as a Right Reverend Parson!

And now Terrell, when Mike takes the whim,
Is not, after all, so alone on his Limb.