Tornado Poem

Happy Poetry Friday! Renee has Roundup at the ever-inspiring and above-and-beyond informational No Water River.

I am delighted to share today a poem I wrote for Scholastic's SCOPE magazine. It's about a tornado. Now those of you who live nearby know that our state was greatly affected by the tornado outbreak in April, 2011.

It was such a devastating time in our area that Birmingham Arts Journal, for which I serve as poetry editor, decided to dedicate an entire issue to "storms." After reading hundreds and hundreds of fantastic poems on the topic, I said aloud to more than one person that I didn't think I would ever write a tornado poem.

Ha! Little did I know that a few months later amazing editor Kristin Lewis would be contacting me with the idea of pairing a poem with an in-progress tornado survival story written by another amazing writer, Lauren Tarshis.

But I didn't hesitate. I thought, okay, this will be a challenge. And it was!

Here's the result:

The Tornado

By Irene Latham

The story comes grumbling
over the hill. It tumbles
hailstones and cracks tree-trunks.
It craves front-page news,

so it musters all speed
and muscle. It tears across
Main Street, steals shingles
and un-parks cars.

It whirls, whistles
screams and teems with twists
no one sees coming.
We huddle, hunch

brace ourselves for the end.
When sunshine arrives,
we unfold, emerge.
Our words echo

and soothe as we join
hands with our neighbors.
Together
we sift through rubble

to shape a new story.
It rises like hallelujah!
as a goldfinch gathers
thistle to rebuild its nest.

AND?The great folks at Scholastic's SCOPE magazine even posted a dramatic reading of my poem!?What a thrill! Thank you SO MUCH.

Source: http://irenelatham.blogspot.com/2012/09/tornado-poem.html

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