APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

     I’ve been writing poetry since grade school.  I have some that are pretty silly and some that have actually placed in competition.  I belong to the Illinois State Poetry Society.  The Southern Chapter meets monthly at the Carbondale Public Library.  I have one self-published chapbook of poems titled “Seasons.”  I’ve had a few poems published in other volumes.  

     My poem “Circus World” received a second honorable mention in the category for formal verse in the 2013 ISPS annual poetry contest.

Copyright - 2012 - Doris Grant Frey

     As you are reading this, if it’s prior to September 2014, I have a poem on board the MAVEN rocket ship headed to Mars.  It is a Haiku poem about the space trip, titled ‘Martian Treasures.’  The Maven launched November 2013.

     For National Poetry Month, April 2014, I have one poem, ”Henry the Great”, in a library display by ISPS at the libraries in Glenview, Winnetka and Westmont, Illinois.  The submission was for an animal poem.  So, yes, it is about a cat.  

                HENRY THE GREAT

Henry sits up on the window sill

An arduous student of the great outdoors,

From whence he came at four weeks old,

Toothless yet,

Seeking a home and love,

Which both he found in a yellow house

With a devoted father

Who has taught him how to fight

And play mean and survive,

And a doting mother who has tried

To force an adult discipline

On a juvenile tom cat.

But seeing that he wanted food and water

And love,

And deigned himself worthy

Of sleeping on the bed

At the head no less,

We have taken him into our hearts

And made him into the indoor cat,

Clawless, gender removed idol

Of our affections.

Far be it from me to understand

How he can continue to show such a wild strain

That desires to sniff out the attic dark,

And hide in closets and under beds,

And sit on window sills,

And bound through open doors

All in the hope of making

The Great Escape

Into the Great Outdoors.

Copyright - 1983 - Doris Grant Frey

     Another  display is at the Carbondale Public Library.  The submission was just for a small poem, so I submitted “Ocean’s Child.”  It is on display through April with others by poets in the Southern Chapter.

Ocean’s Child

A tiny drop of salt water,

rests for a moment.

Sparkling,

on the crest

of a giant splashing wave.

Before it becomes,

once again,

lost,

diluted

in the foaming brine.

Copyright – 2013 – Doris Grant Frey

I hope you can appreciate poetry, 

someone's thoughts, ideas, 

words on a line, 

that may or may not rhyme.  

Just an old poet trying 

to share a good time.

April Blog The Iris Garden 2014

Copyright - 2014 - Doris Grant Frey