2016 Found Object Poem Project: Day 6

It’s Day 6 of our month-long daily writing project.

This year’s theme is FOUND OBJECTS. For those of you who are new to the project, please read my introductory post. You’ll find more information and all of the Week 1 FOUND OBJECTS at this post.

FOUND: Antique Dolls

I found today’s object in my home town, Ellicott City, Maryland. Just down the road from where I live is the center and oldest part of town. Old Ellicott City was the first terminus of the B&O Railroad, a pre-Revolutionary mill town. Today, it is a quaint stretch of old buildings and townhouses with antique shops, boutiques, and restaurants.

I’ve always loved this photograph. Something about the reflection in the cracked window glass makes these dolls feel like more than old toys for sale. Let’s see what everyone came up with.

I wonder whether Jennifer Lewis, who used to live near me, guessed that I took this picture in Old Ellicott City, where trains still rumble through town today.

They’ve Seen Much

By Jennifer Lewis

They saw the train tip in sky,

Offering one last lullaby,

 

They saw the child make a face,

Breath’s condensation, fingers trace,

 

Rock and grass picnic tables,

Twig and stick equine stables,

 

Tea party attire, sipping air,

Guest list inviting Ted E. Bear,

 

Crackling glass, cracking skin,

Wondering if the story ends,

 

Universal melancholy,

When we see, one’s lost dolly,

 

They’ve seen better days this is true,

But homemade memories imbue,

 

The storybooks, the belly’s laughter,

A child’s love for ever after.

 

I wanted to get away from humanizing the dolls and recognize that they are, especially without their usual trappings of clothing and packaging, objects. But one of these ladies had something else in mind. (Heidi — this is a sort of “No” poem.)

 

Window: Antique Shop

by Laura Shovan

 

Without their dresses,

rompers, ribbons,

lace, without

their boxes, gift wrap,

tissue, pink bows,

the dolls stand

disjointed, quiet.

They face the street,

hear no birds,

people, rumbling train,

see no cars pass.

They do not

watch the growing crack

in the glass pane,

nor the one

who seems to raise her

plastic fist to

strike again.

 

In contrast to my poem, Linda Baie added fabrics into her response. Since we are working on sensory details this year, I love this addition to the dolls.

 

Dolly Cry

 

I need a friend:

Pick me, pick me

for garden walks,

dressed up for tea.

I’ll need the softest

organza dress

I’d love a hat,

best to impress.

You’ll play with me

be all I want

a loving child,

a confidante.

We’ll stroll and sniff

those blooms en masse

I spy outside

my window glass.

Pick me, pick me.

Let us conspire.

I’m lonely here,

you’re my desire.

Linda Baie ©All Rights Reserved

Do you find Linda’s final line creepy or inviting?

The last line of Jessica Bigi’s doll poem feels very wistful to  me. I love the wordplay here.

Store Window Dolls

By Jessica Bigi

Umbrella bonnets

Locks looping curlers

Blinking eyelash eyes

Walking talking crying

Umbrella dresses

Store Window Dolls

Hoping for hugs

Diane Mayr uses the last few lines of her poem to reveal the setting.

Parking Lot in New Hampshire on a Sunny February Day

By Diane Mayr

Unbuckle your seatbelt

incline your seat backwards

close your eyes, relax.

Feel the deeply penetrating

radiant heat of the sun.

Relish the seclusion. No

sand in your underwear when

your beach is glass and steel.

From the first lines of Molly Hogan’s poem, you’ll know whether she’s in the “creepy” or “nostalgic” camp when it comes to these dolls.

Breaking News

By Molly Hogan

Mass Escape from

St. Claud’s Center

for Delinquent Dolls

Just this morning

a passing photographer

captured this pivotal scene

of the notorious Brown-Haired Doll

with her famous fringed blue eyes,

gang leader, miscreant,

dimpled arm raised,

baby-blue-shoed foot

kicking out,

targeting the glass barrier,

already fractured,

and demure-looking accomplices

lurking in assumed postures

with their flat and soulless

marble gazes intent.

Look-outs.

All poised on the verge of escape.

I’m impressed with how each poet today uses language to set the tone of his or her poem, communicating different ways of feeling about our found object. This one is from Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core.

Haunted by ghosts

of little girls

who loved them once,

dolls, long forgotten

stare, eyes blank,

through cracked

plate glass.

“Have you seen Emma or Ida or Grace?”

their soulless eyes plead

with people rushing by.

They long for the warmth

of tender hugs

that would break this spell

and mend their broken hearts.

By Catherine Flynn

I’m so pleased to see my friend (and fellow Pisces) Heidi Mordhorst joining us today! You’ll see the image at the left that shows Heidi’s playfulness with form. It’s amazing what spacing can do in a poem. When you compare the two version of “A Doll Trap” side by side, the one on the left is full of movement.

 

A Doll Trap

 

secured behind glass

half-dressed

or less

doubly exposed

glazed

they gaze out

lean reaching toward

freedom

one does more than yearn

raises her

chubby arm

to crack that glass again

again

dolly hai-ya

she will be

free

will walk among

walls and rock

follow plastic paths

to new clothes

new scenes

 

Heidi Mordhorst 2016, all rights reserved

 

Speaking of form, I’m glad to see I’m not the only person trying out prose poetry this month. Margaret Simon sent in this response.

 

The Doll Collection

by Margaret Simon

 

A collection of dolls makes me nostalgic for those days when my girls were young, each one with a favorite baby doll with a name like Danielle or Harriet, carried everywhere, to the grocery store, pushed around in the rolling cart shopping like Mommy, or to the church nursery equipped with a bulging diaper bag, and I cry at the thought that today these well-loved, adorned dolls are alone in a plastic bin inside the upstairs closet waiting for a new child to love her, hug her until the stuffing breaks.  Maybe I hear them crying, too.

***

Another new face — though she has been a regular in past years — is poet Patricia VanAmburg. Great use of a title working against the poem here, which creates so much tension.

 

Lullaby

By Patricia VanAmburg

 

Dolly told Baby she wanted to scream

Baby said, Dolly, don ’t taunt—

You know that we are held in a dream—

and all we can do is haunt.

 

Dolly said, Baby, you’re kind of creepy

Sometimes you make my skin crawl—

I hope that you will soon feel sleepy—

But Baby started to bawl.

***

Last in today is Mary Lee Hahn.

Abandoned

As a child,

my dolls were my closest friends.

When I left for college,

I tried to pack them in a trunk,

but had to release them before they suffocated.

They’ve lived my entire adult life

(up until now)

on the closet shelf

in my childhood bedroom.

Soon,

they will be auctioned away

to strangers.

I will hear them calling to me

for the rest of my life.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2016

http://www.maryleehahn.com/2016/02/found-object-poem-dolls.html

Mary Lee’s poem reminds me of my mother’s dolls from the 1940s and 50s. Several of them are wrapped up, sitting in the bottom of a bureau, waiting for a trip to the doll hospital for some TLC.

DAY 7 FOUND OBJECT PROMPT

See you tomorrow for Day 7 and the Week 2 prompts.

Interested in what we’ve written so far? Here are links to this week’s poems:

Monday, February 1

FOUND OBJECT: 100 year-old mailing box

Poems by: Diane Mayr, Molly Hogan, Mary Lee Hahn, Linda Baie, Jessica Bigi, Margaret Simon, Laura Shovan, Matt Forrest Esenwine, Catherine Flynn, Jone Rush MacCulloch, Brenda Harsham.

Tuesday, February 2

FOUND OBJECT: Fancy peppers and produce

Poems by: Mary Lee Hahn, Jessica Bigi, Diane Mayr, Molly Hogan, Laura Shovan, Linda Baie, Matt Forrest Esenwine, Margaret Simon, Jennifer Lewis.

Wednesday, February 3

FOUND OBJECT: Moth eggs

Poems by: Jessica Bigi, Margaret Simon, Diane Mayr, Mary Lee Hahn, Molly Hogan, Linda Baie, Jone Rush MacCulloch, Laura Shovan, Catherine Flynn.

Thursday, February 4

FOUND OBJECT: Table fan

Poems by: Jessica Bigi, Diane Mayr, Margaret Simon, Laura Shovan, Molly Hogan, Mary Lee Hahn, Linda Baie, Carol Varsalona, Catherine Flynn.

Friday, February 5 at Guest Blog, Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme

FOUND OBJECT: Tomato Moon

Poems by: Matt Forrest Esenwine, Jessica Bigi, Diane Mayr, Molly Hogan, Margaret Simon, Carol Varsalona, Laura Shovan, Mary Lee Hahn.

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