Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Glitter!



FutureStar has been working on a poster this week, for school, that apparently required large quantities of glitter. Glitter designs, glitter over glue, glitter glitter glitter.


Of course, we now have glitter everywhere. Kitchen floor, family room carpet, kitchen table, pretty much every pair of socks in the household, even FutureStar's eyebrows (don't ask).


It's a great poster, and it's been fun watching FS really focus all that energy on making it the best one possible.


So the proliferation of glitter is a small price to pay, really.


It also reminds me of my first-ever published work, a poem that was included in my college literary magazine. I'd written for years before that, but this was the first time I'd ever held my own work in published form, and it was magical.


Funny thing is, I'd submitted a bunch of poems, almost all of them emo and "deep", and they picked the light-hearted one I'd tossed in on a whim. And a year later, a friend told me that they'd been sharing favorite poems in class and someone had read mine. Just goes to show that you never know what's going to make the biggest impact.


So here it is! My first published work:


Astronomy

somebody spilled
glitter on the hallway rug
bare feet scuff up a cloud of stars
galaxies sparkling
I dance
through the Milky Way
(wrap Orion's belt around my big toe)
and waltz off to bed
Cassiopeia clinging to my heels

2 comments:

Laurie Ryan said...

I LOVE that poem, Kate, and can see why someone picked it as a "fav'. And the glitter story is priceless. Picking up glitter (for the next few months) will be a fond memory for years.

I've written poetry for years and have rarely shown anyone, so you're way ahead of my game. My husband did give me heart palpitations once in Hawaii. We were in an open air (of course) bar listening to some musicians whose music I liked. I grabbed a napkin and wrote:

Two Singers.
Surfers by the look.
Yet singing with a cause.
Look back, it's Woodstock.

On the way out, my husband stuck the napkin in their tip jar. It took everything I had to not run back there and yank it out. :)

Kate Davies said...

Oh, I love that story! I bet it was the best tip they got all night. :)

But yes, I know that impulse to keep that poetry under wraps. There's just something so personal about it, isn't it?