by Carolee Sherwood
It’s July. And except that it’s my birthday month and the birthday month of more than a few of my closest girlfriends (party time!), I really hate July.
I am not a fun-in-the-sun kind of girl. Set aside the fact that I have light blue eyes (greater risk of macular degeneration and plain-old light sensitivity). Set aside the fact that I have fair skin and freckles causing me to burn in 10 minutes even with copiously-applied SPF 50. Set aside the fact that I require an old-lady wide-brimmed hat and an old-lady wide-skirted bathing suit to protect myself (and others) from my intended exposure. Set aside all those things? Now? Now is there fun-in-the-sun? No!
Never.
I hate the heat.
Don’t get me started with the humidity. (But here’s a clue: whose picture is next to the words “cranky” and “beast”? That’s right. Mine!)
So, to “celebrate” the height of summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, I am asking you to write a poem about something uncomfortable related to sun or sand or heat or beaches. Take us bathing suit shopping with you. Strand yourself on a desert island with someone unpleasant. Describe something the heat spoils: potato salad? perfect hair? intimacy? Place us in a traffic jam near your favorite beach. Surround yourself with tourists. Curse the intense sun for toasting your precious flowers. Sweat your way through a summer wedding.
I’m hoping, at least for one glorious day (when you post your links for Monday’s Get Your Poem on), I will be in good miserable company.
Carolee, move here! Rain and mist and gray cool day after gray cool day and a few summer days when people are complaining of the heat because it’s nearly 85 degrees. (And no humidity, almost ever. Water in the air just falls out, here.)
Okay, so you’ve just got your space approved. And I suppose you’d have to find something for your family to do. But think how happy you’d be! We flourish here like mushrooms in the wet and the dark
Goodness Carolee, I believe I have heard about your love affair with summer before! The beauty of heat in the south is the great humidity that accompanies it. The garden is going wild. We cannot keep up with the cucumbers, zucchini, pole beans and purple hulls. And in the evening when the sky is purple, pink and orange at sunset the smell of the magnolias is the only thing more magnificent. One other thing, Southern Bells have a reputation for their great complexions, give that grace to the humidity. it does wonders to cleanse the pores without chemicals slathered on. But then I digress from the challenge at hand. You have given me my subject for a poem and I love it. Y’all come visit a spell, ya hear now? Thanks. DCH
Dale’s right: move here!
It is heavenly weather…and produces amazing beer, coffee, wine, hikes, readers, writers, massage therapists…
Dale, are you in the PNW? Let me go check your Facebook page and see …
Oh yes. Portland. Hello. (I hope a hello can make it from Seattle to Portland.)
i have dreamed about living in the pacific northwest, but i also dream about living in new mexico. i may be too addicted to my northern girl bad attitude to live anywhere pleasant.
No, you can be bad attituded here. It’s all good.
You are NOT complaining about summer…you, the girl who spent hours and many miles with me as a child…riding our bikes for endless hours, traipsing through the woods because it was a shortcut to someone’s house, walking into town and launching ourselves into the lake, running into moonlit fields at night to meet our friends even in 90 degree weather. When did you become so anti-sun? Me???Red hair, fair skin, freckles, blue eyes…and in the sunshine as much as humanly possible…cmon girl, we live in cold weather how many months of the year? The heat is uncomfortable…the cold is just painful…and for the record, you would love New Mexico…warmth without the humidity…or try the outskirts of Vegas (been there, done that, LOVED IT!!!) And your bad attitude…uh huh…right! I’ve known that attitude my whole life…I won’t tell your secrets, I promise! LOL
Donald: As a certifiable southern bell, I respectfully refute the claim that humidity helps clean the pores in any way. It does keep us wrinkle free, though. But as for our clear complexions, they are entirely due to our expertise in black magic.
Carolee: Great prompt. Sometimes the summer makes me really crabby, especially living down here in the fourth circle of hell. But a couple years ago I mustered all my will power and determined to LOVE it out of spite. Kill it with kindness, or something. I’m not sure it’s working, but I actually am somewhat better with the heat and the humidity. The steering wheel burning my hands when I drive, not so much. I can’t wait to poem about this.
[...] heads up on the new RWP prompt by Carolee for next week… get set to write some hot ‘n’ nasty stuff! (Wait, [...]
This sounds like my kind of prompt. Not only am I part albino, I generally don’t go out in the sun unless I have to. So, I should think of something good.
Pipsqueaks has requested a winter poem prompt for those in the southern hemisphere. Can we make that happen? She suggested in on Twitter, proof positive that the RWP Twitter page is not a waste of time. We also talk about buttery nipples over there. Good image for a poem.
Noah: oooooh albino in the sun, that is what you are, no one witnessing, how can sun be wrong, walk away in sun, to another world, and I will burn right there with you, ah-ha, from one pale-skin to another, ah-ha.
(And by that I mean, an albino in the sun is a GREAT premise for a poem.)
http://hummingbunny.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/how-to-write-poetry/
Great prompt. I’ll post something new on Monday, but I wanted to share this archive link with poems about the beach.
Keep up the great work here at Read~Write~Poem.
“As a certifiable southern bell, I respectfully refute the claim that humidity helps clean the pores in any way. It does keep us wrinkle free, though.”
What?! I want a refund, South! You were supposed to keep me wrinkle-free, and you have not done so! Ripoff!
PS: I LURVE the heat. The hotter the better.
“And by that I mean, an albino in the sun is a GREAT premise for a poem”
Didn’t the Violent Femmes have a song about this? “Let me go on, like an albino in the sun…”
Yes, I did post twice in rapid succession. Sorry.
[...] was a sedoka written for Read Write Poem Prompt #35: “fun in the sun” (NOT!). Here is my take. [...]
[...] in the sun That’s this week’s Read Write Poem prompt. And it immediately made me think of Friday, when my son and I spent the afternoon picking [...]
[...] written for: read write prompt #35: fun in the sun [...]
[...] was written for read-write-poem’s prompt – to write about the negative side of “fun in the sun” – check out other poets’ work [...]
I’m not quite sure how this blog works but it all sounds exciting.
My contribution is a rehash of a poem I wrote for children some years ago. It celebrates July in Australia, so it’s c-o-o-o-ld!! Does that mean I’ve broken some rule????
I’d love to collaborate with someone, so I’ll come back here when I have more time to look into the ‘workings’.
My Blog is a daily compilation of original verse, a sort of humorous/ serious diary. I want to write a poem a day till I fall off the twig!
Look on Rinkly Rimes for my July poem ‘Battington Tops’
http://rinklyrimes.blogspot.com/
It should be BaRRington Tops!!
BB