Poetry Friday.
Chinook, Hines Emerald Dragonfly, and Irises, Endangered Species” WIP, © 2017 Michelle Kogan (Shared with permission from Michelle Kogan)
Chinook
The scent of salmon lingers.
Creek waters ripple over
smooth stones. Cedar and
moss fill the air. At dusk,
near water’s edge, bears feast.
While snow covers the ground,
eggs wait in nesting pockets.
Winter turns to spring and in
gravelly redds, alevin hatch.
Spring warms to summer.
In quiet pools, fry –the
size of pine needles–
swim, searching for food.
Summer passes.
Fry mature to parr,
camouflaged with dark
rounded patches on their sides.
Fall chills to winter, then
snow melts again and parr
lose their patches, turn
silver, become smolt.
Waters rush and tumble,
carrying smolt away with
the scent of their home
buried deep within.
Surrounded by hazards, they
journey to an estuary to
complete smoltification,
making ready for salty seas.
In salty seas, they travel far
surviving deadly perils —
nets and whales and
otters and seals.
Until one day,
from deep within,
they hear the call
of their mountain creek.
Carrying seeds of life, they
homeward turn against currents
of fresh water, leaping falls and
rapids, overcoming grave dangers.
No stopping on this final race
for life. They must return to
the place of their beginning
before snows fall again.
They’ve a nest to dig,
spawn to release,
a cycle to complete,
to start again.
At dusk, near water’s edge,
bears feast. Cedar and
moss fill the air. Creek water
ripples over smooth stones.
The scent of salmon lingers.
© 2018 Alice Nine All rights reserved.
Columbia River Gorge, looking east near Crown Point
Writing about my writing
In February,
During the month of February I participated in a daily poetry writing challenge extended to a FB writing community — Laura Shovan’s 6th Annual February Poetry Project. On Day 22, our prompt was a lovely painting — “Chinook, Hines Emerald Dragonfly, and Irises, endangered species” by Michelle Kogan. Michelle wrote: “This is a watercolor and watercolor pencil, painting I’m working on. I began it as a demo of washes for my Watercolor class that I teach.”
Living in the Pacific Northwest, I was immediately drawn to the chinook and drafted a life cycle poem about chinook salmon. From the beginning of the draft, I wrote with the end in mind. [This is not always the case; sometimes I have a beginning and then the poem writes itself.]
My subject was perfect for a circular poem. I actually wrote my first line and following stanza first and then before writing the “body,” I played with the phrase order and used the same words/lines as my last stanza and last line.
Salmon have a keen sense of smell. It is that sense of smell which ultimately guides them back to the stream where they hatched. Also, research has established that salmon are sensitive to the scent of their predators. One study showed that salmon will flee when a fisherman rinses his hands in the stream. New research shows another interesting aspect: salmon know when a predator is around because they can tell that it has eaten salmon. The scent of salmon is on the predator. My opening / closing line contains these thoughts, as well as the thought of the death of the salmon. How living and dying are intertwined. How everything that lives, must die. And how everything that dies continues to contribute to living.
Having a beginning and an ending, I then wrote the body of my draft from my general knowledge of salmon. Knowing it was a draft and working under the challenge of writing a poem every day, I did not take time to do any fact checking.
In Mach and April,
I returned to the draft frequently — to fact check, to be purposeful about vocabulary, to add details. Each time I let the poem rest for several days, maybe a week, letting it get cold. Then I would read more about chinook, have a new understanding or inspiration, and return to the poem to revise again. This I repeated numerous times.
In May,
I did still more revision work. I determined to share on a Poetry Friday in May. Deadlines always add a bit of productive pressure to my work. Since I’m participating in Margaret Simon’s photo/poem swap for May 25th Poetry Friday, I had to share by May 17th.
So this week, I’ve been tweaking words and fussing with line breaks. And I’ve been wrestling with stanzas. After trying many possibilities, I chose to divide the poem into four-line stanzas, each stanza loosely representing a stage in the cycle of a chinook’s life.
I think it is worth noting that in all of my revision work, I did not alter my original opening and closing lines.
Nearly three months after penning the first draft, I publicly share this draft. Perhaps it will be my final draft.
In my classroom
Vocabulary.
Life Cycle Map.
Follow the cycle from upper right (Eggs) to left (Parr), to lower left to right, (smolt), and around to upper right (spawning).
For the fisherman
In my research, I happened upon this descriptive account of fly fishing for trout while shooting the rapids in Black Canyon.
Rebecca at “Sloth Reads” is hosting the week’s Round-Up. Thank you, Rebecca!
#PoetryFriday
Poetry Friday Schedule
January – June 2018
Thanks for the glimpse into your process! It’s been a long time since the seeds were planted back in February, but what a great poem for us to harvest.
I adore getting glimpses into the behind-the-scenes process behind your writing, it’s such a valuable reminder that creation is a process, not an moment, and that creating beauty can take time and effort, but is well worth it!
Thank you for telling me that, Jane. I like reading the behind-the-scenes processes of others and hope others do also.
Alice, I really love the writing about your writing. It’s absolutely inspiring. I always feel like I don’t work fast enough….which is crazy because who am I trying to please? I love all the aspects of research and context. Amazing. This gentle turn in the poem is spectacular in how gentle it is….but how much the poem’s success depends on it:
Until one day,
from deep within,
they hear the call
of their mountain creek
Thank you, Linda. I so appreciate your noticing of those four lines and commenting on them. “Gentle” is a good choice. When I was writing, I was conscious of working on what came before them as a “unit” and what came after them as a different “unit.”
Fascinating poem and backstory to it also Alice! I’ll have to send you a copy of the finished image of the painting. I liked hearing about your writing and revising process over the last few months. I also like the rhythm you picked up and carried through the remaining poem beginning with this stanza:
“Until one day,
from deep within,
they hear the call
of their mountain creek.”
Beautifully put also. I enjoyed the Fly fishing article also. Nice surprise to see my image here, thanks for all, well done!
If you do send me a copy of the finished painting… I think I will do another post with the draft of your painting and my poem from Feb… and the finished painting and poem…. that is if you don’t mind me posting it. Ah, you noticed the rhythm… I tried to capture the determination of the salmon to reach their home creek. Did you know, they don’t even eat during their entire journey back? I thought that was amazing.
Not only is your poem lovely, it also taught me much about salmon. And thank you for sharing your process of writing and revising it. Your post is like a master class in poetry today!
Thanks, Kay. I always appreciate your comments!
How wonderful! Your poem makes me feel as though I am right there overlooking the creek. I always appreciate how you share your thought process behind each of your poems, Alice!
Thank you, Kiesha, for reading and sharing with me.
Wonderful poem. Loved all the backstory about your process too! Salmon are wondrous creatures, glad to learn more about them here.
Thank you, Jama. I thought I knew a lot about salmon before I wrote the poem; however, I really learned so much more and I clarified so much of my former knowledge. Thankful for so many great wildlife websites.
I love that you kept those first and last verses all the way through the revising, Alice, an inspiration from Michelle’s painting set in stone! And enjoyed reading about this life cycle. I am amazed at the ability to smell that has been documented. Your poem is a wonderful example of science and poetry linked!
I like that thought — “inspiration from Michelle’s painting set in stone.” I too am amazed by the salmon’s sense of smell. Who knew they probably smelled the hip waders we wore when we walked the streams and fished.
Love your life cycle poem and how you’ve incorporated it into your class. After I read your poem, but before I read the rest of the post, I thought it would be perfect to use with a life cycle unit.
Thank you, Kimberly. Life cycles are great subject matter for poetry.
Hello Alice! Have we already discovered that we are Pacific Northwest neighbors? I’m in Kalispell, MT. Your poem and post was so full of great learning about the life cycle of salmon. (It also made my mouth water a little..I do so love grilled salmon!) Your photo of the CR Gorge was lovely too – we traveled along the Gorge on our train trip to Portland in March. So lovely!
I think we can count ourselves neighbors, Dani! I too love grilled salmon. A train trip sounds like fun. I took the train from Pocatello, ID, to Kansas City and then another time from Dodge City to Chicago — those where in my college years, before I started flying. My mother always took the train cross country to visit family back East; she hated flying.
Alice, I love your poem! When I lived in Utah, I was an avid fisher-woman. I dreamt (and still do) of doing an Alaskan fly fishing trip. I loved how packed your poem is with nonfiction, but it is done in such an engaging and wonderful way. The reader is able to feel like they are on the journey with the fish. It really is incredible that any of those little fry make it to adulthood and back to the river to spawn! Thank you!
Thank you, Rebecca. I agree, the salmon live an incredible journey.
As I read your poem I thought about the power of poetry to teach and how your poem can bridge science and literature. I’m doing some revising of my speech classes to offer opportunities for writing poetry in conjunction with persuasion.
I loved reading about your writing process. I’m trying to push myself to write poetry, but now that April has ended, my mind is noisy again. One more week of school and time to quiet my thoughts. Reading poetry helps, so I’m buying more poetry books and reading poetry daily. For now I’m allowing myself to share fragments so that I’m at least writing something verse-like each week. At least that way I’m staying in the game.
I hear you, Glenda! I’m pushing myself to write regularly. I have the photo/poem swap that Margaret Simon challenged us to do for next week. And I joined Tabatha’s Summer Poem Swap this year… and that’s stretching me a bit, writing a poem for a specific person.