Project Poetry Month 2023
2021 we first celebrated poetry month by publishing Project Poetry. In Project Poetry, we ask Michiana poets to write about the art of Michiana artists, ekphrastic poetry. These artists and poets generously donate their art and words. This year six poets and artists were paired to create a unique combination of art and writing. Project Poetry 2021 and 2022 can be found on our website.
Ben Roseland
Water Music
by Carol Estes
Water nymphs dancing
Sprites with pockets of joy
Azure waters pool to join their spirits
Spreading peace and harmony to all.
Photo by Kay Westhues
True Magic
by Anne Born
Don’t worry, little one, let them all laugh.
Magic spells are more easily broken by defiance than by compliance.
You see, I have no desire to return to my vain self,
As long as you can see me as a handsome prince.
by James Donoho
Leave No Doubt
by John Homan
In a flash of white darkness is banished.
All doubt destroyed in the chalky explosion.
Truth shines, untouched by prejudice.
Sadly, the faces see no need of such luxury
Only confounding them momentarily,
As they numbly await oblivion.
by Beth Kane
I sang vertigo with the midnight stars
by MariJean Wegert
They’ve lied to us
About Icarus.
The warning was that
Reckless curiosity comes to ruin—
This is true.
But what they didn’t say
Is that
Ruin
Isn’t the end.
The broken wings
Are only part of the story.
(Maybe
They floated, dovelike
To the ocean waves
Making a raft
Maybe they found his feet like the fins of a dolphin
As he swam to shore.
Maybe not.)
The moral of the story:
I’m not here to avoid falling.
We have more than one life.
photo by Krista Kuskye
be no stranger
by Chris Wheeler
There are many ways to know you belong: Hot buttered toast,
for one. A mantle of clouds blushing pink at the day's advances.
Bare feet on cooling pavement. A host of sparrows burbling
promises from a telephone wire. Tiny arms clinging to your knees
like seaweed. A window (any window). How we all grow beyond
the bounds of childhood and into them at once. Learning to pray
welcome to the child I will become, forgiveness for the child I lost,
grace for the child I am now. How we repurpose all the old light.
Be no stranger to this place, my friend.
Look up. Come in. Be loved.
by Ellen Brenneman
by Valerie Jairosi
Starlight lies awake in her galaxian crib - watching,
Milky-way dribbling down her chin where she suckled from night skies.
She anxiously watches your inferno hair scorch Earth beneath you,
While you carelessly set his world alight in your sleep.
He will roar, “how dare you be so powerful, to burn me unknowing?
How dare your beauty leave a mark on my earth?”
