Sunday, April 13, 2014

Fiddle a Happy Tune: National Poetry Month

Apple Blossoms (4532239974)
By John Fowler from Placitas, NM, USA (Apple Blossoms  Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AApple_Blossoms_(4532239974).jpg

I regularly play in children's poet, David L. Harrison's Word of the Month poem challenge. Each month, Harrison posts a word, and anyone is welcome to write and post a poem using that word. This month's word is BLOSSOM, fitting for many places in April, but not here yet!

Here's my attempt:

At the Old-Time Fiddler Competition:
Junior-Junior Division, Round 2

Waiting in the wings
For her turn in Round Two,
She tried not to tap her booted toes
To “Old Joe Clark,”
A classic her main competitor mastered
Technically.
But she knew she’d turned hearts
In Round One
With “Ashokan Farewell”
When a judge dabbed his eyes
With his blue bandana.

Name called, she stepped forward
And announced, “Apple Blossoms,”
Lifted her fiddle and made melody
That could coax a fruit tree to bloom
With sweetness
In time.

Fiddle contests take place across the country with categories for all ages. Here are the Dillion Junior Fiddlers playing "Old Joe Clark:"

and a young champion fiddler playing "Apple Blossoms:"

What kind of tune says "spring" to you?

4 comments:

  1. Jane, I love your poem, this "coax a fruit tree to bloom/With sweetness
    In time." And the videos of the young people just starting out & so beautifully played. I have a colleague who played violin for years, and is now taking up the country fiddling. Wonderful to hear!

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  2. Thanks for your comments, Linda. I love seeing young people take up traditional arts of all kinds!

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  3. So lovely, Jane. Your poetry is always such a pleasure to experience. "My Jane" is learning an Irish reel on her cello right now! ;-)

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  4. Thanks, Lori, and good for "your Jane"! :)

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