Tweetspeak Poetry

National Poetry Month: Show Us Your (Poetry) Jeans

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National Poetry Month Show Us Your Jeans

Did you know that celebrated poet Charles Simic writes in bed? We love that casual approach to a seriously successful poetry life.

So, thanks to Simic, we’re daring you to get casual about poetry for National Poetry Month. Just choose your approach (or multiple approaches) from the list below. We’ll feature some of your creative responses, share others via Twitter and Facebook, and even publish some that are a total fit…in a special e-book.

Approaches:

• Photograph your jeans in a poetic fashion

• Write poems about your jeans (or someone else’s)

• Charles-Simic-style, try writing a daily poem in bed, before you get up each day

• Pick a poet, or a group of poets, to read throughout NPM. Go casual. Don’t like a poem? Choose not to finish it. Love a poem? Take it apart and patch it back together with words of your own (or mix and match with other poets’ words, cento style). Please be sure to credit the source poem or poems, including author names

• Write poems about a jeans company, historic or new to the scene. Do a little research about the company before writing

How We’ll Feature Your Poetry Jeans

Some of your jeans poems and jeans photographs will be featured here at Tweetspeak. Some will be retweeted and Facebooked. Others, if they are a fit, will become part of our 2015 National Poetry Month Project e-book called Casual: A Little Book of Jeans Poems & Pictures.

Sharing your poems and photographs here with us is your way of saying you’d like to be featured or published in the e-book. Please only share the poems and photographs you’d be interested in having featured or published, as we will not be engaging in further permissions requests than this note. Just drop your poem or a link to your photograph in the comment box below. We can’t wait to see your creativity!

Once we release Casual, we’ll send it for free to all current Tweetspeak supporters at the $15 to $100+ levels. For our general readers, it will be made available for free download during National Poetry Month 2016.

If you’re interested in supporting all the poetry for life you find here day after day, you can “just say thanks” now for everything you love and want to bring to more people in the world:

$15 • Tea & Cinnamon Toast
$30 • Keep the Basic Boat Afloat
$100 • Just Say Thanks—One-Time Love!

New Life

One August, my grandmother wears blue jeans
and thumbs a ride from the Caney Mountain foothills
fifty miles north to the crest of Cedar Gap
and the snaking Frisco line.
On as much steam as her own,
the locomotive crawls into old Las Vegas,
where she baptizes her legs
in the El Rancho swimming pool
just long enough to be snatched up
by a flashy suit.
By sundown, she wears the new life
of a showgirl who never returns home.
Gambler’s dotted die latches at temple and wrist.
The only black and white she’s known before—
local newsprint yielding stories
of falling hog prices,
bumper crops of peaches.

—Dave Malone, from O: Love Poems from the Ozarks

Dave Malone O

Photo by Rajiv Ashrafi, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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Comments

    • annette Everosn says

      YESTERDAYS JEANS

      From the loft down came the tattered brown box,
      along with the old moth eaten cuddly toy fox.
      For the charity shops they were destined for,
      sorting out its old smelly contents was such a bore.
      I thought of the good deed I was going it do,
      some of the things would be nearly new.

      There they were, sitting like a blue dark sea,
      still, silent, as if waiting just for me.
      I reached down and felt the material, cold and rough.
      Memories came flooding back of times that were fun but tough.

      My hands held them out in front of me
      and my eyes strained to see.
      Was I really that shapely and thin.
      I couldn’t understand why I kept them didn’t throw them in the bin.
      They brought back memories of sunny days at school
      where I along with friends, played at being the class fool.
      Memories came flooding back, of meeting gorgeous Mark,
      along with his terrier that would constantly bark.
      Of our travels, our days spent hiking
      and of our laughter after muddy biking.

      These jeans had seen a great deal of life.
      But then I remembered the final strife.
      Gorgeous Mark and I, the final fight
      going home, safe, crying with all of my might.
      That’s why I put them in the loft and not thrown them in the bin,
      I was hoping we’d make up, oh what a stupid sin.
      But boy !!! these jeans had made me look great and sexy
      back when I was slim and flexi.
      Now I was overweight, middle aged
      and sometimes felt like I was caged.
      Into the pile of kept they went
      as I reflected on days spent.
      Gorgeous Mark filled with laughter and fun,
      our fight, our love affair that was done.
      Yet these battered jeans made me smile
      as I remembered our travels mile after mile.
      Of foolish days with friends at school
      when we tried to act so cool
      Decided, these old jeans again would be of use
      Perhaps used for something else, that is my excuse.
      In the mirror, she smiled that young happy lass.
      Back in 1999, in the school class.
      A.R.E
      

      Reply

    • Alexa Arteaga says

      The Size of Your Jeans

      Pretty and petite you are
      But if one day you don’t fit into those jeans
      Pretty lady
      Don’t let that get into your head
      You’re still so beautiful
      No matter the size of your jeans
      not size zero, size stunning
      not size 25, size gorgeous
      The size of your jeans does not define who you are
      your worth does not decrease
      when the size of your jeans increase
      Please never forget that
      Don’t let society tell you
      That your jeans are too big or too small
      You’re perfect just as you are
      No matter the size of your jeans

      Reply

  4. Richard Maxson says

    The new Italian line of jeans for this Spring.

    http://tinyurl.com/mg5272x

    Fibonacci Jeans

    These are the ones

    everyone wants

    Bring a friend so the two
    of you can take advantage

    of the sale, only three days
    left to get a pair of Fibonacci
    Jeans at this amazing price—

    only five dollars each, and if
    you act now, the first eight
    people to purchase any
    quantity before the thirteenth
    of April, will get a gift certificate

    to Forever 21, our partner
    for this offer. Come to our
    store at the corner of Thirty-forth
    Street and Fifty-fifth Avenue.
    Reviews for Fibonacci Jeans
    have been off the charts. More
    that eighty-nine reviews have
    given the highest rating possible.

    Yesterday one-hundred and forty-four
    pair of Fibonacci Jeans were sold in one
    store alone to only sixteen people.
    That’s nine pair of jeans for each
    person. There are only two-hundred-
    thirty-three pair remaining. So, Hurray!
    We have all sizes for your waist and inseam.
    We have the most popular colors,
    light blue, black, grey and white.
    Prices like these are as good as gold.
    This sale may be extended if more
    people continue to buy in quantities
    like these, but I wouldn’t count on it.

    Reply

  6. Maureen Doallas says

    Jean-ealogy*

    is about the origin of blue
    jeans, vintage cloth made
    to wrinkle and shrink.
    What the small French
    village called Nimes knit,
    Levi Strauss starched
    and sold . . . made to fit!

    A name on denim canvas
    the world over, Levi’s
    the pants market did change.
    Total number’s the story
    this moment, low to high
    demand the way of know-how.

    From zippers to bell-bottoms
    and rivets, like Texas cowboys
    the jeans finally fade. Same’s
    the history for hippies in Frisco
    who grew up to make a billion
    and are aging in the one pair,
    still blue, they are wearing.
    ______________________________________

    * A remix of words (with some grammatical changes) from Chandrakant Shah’s “Jeans 101 – An Historical Poem”, translated by Naushil Mehta and Arundhathi Subramaniam. It’s found at Poetry International, in the India section.

    Reply

  7. Michael Garcia says

    Every Shoes’ Friend

    The soul of a working man’s fabric
    stitched to ensure it a long life
    sturdy as the day is long has
    changed the fabric of a nation.

    Bold and blue tried and true
    available for all the masses
    now has a distinction of classes
    seen to the elite as a form of fashion.

    Regardless, it’s a fabric all can relate to
    holes, tears, dyed, and designer names,
    despite all the years much hasn’t changed
    blue jeans they are and blue jeans they’ll remain.

    Copyright by NewLife2008

    Reply

  8. Richard Maxson says

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSCbIN99-Eo

    Listen first. It’s a cool arrangement and it’s the tune to:

    Billy’s Jeans

    They were more for a first year teen, they were way too lean,
    these aren’t mine, what do you mean they are the ones
    that I bought in this store at the sale?
    She said they were the ones, that I bought yesterday in the sale.

    She called her boss then, and she caused a scene,
    and every eye turned to see the jeans, in case they were the one
    who could buy my return, from the sale.

    (Chorus)
    People always told me alterations were a bust,
    especially at this discount store.
    My mama always told me make sure you try them on,
    ‘cause once you leave the store, believin’ you is done.

    Billy’s Jeans, discount store,
    don’t believe me when I say I’m not the one
    who said twenty-nine, thirty-one;
    they say I am the one who said to have this done.

    For half an hour or maybe more,
    her boss yelled and even swore,
    he took a stand, made a strong demand
    I was the one
    who said twenty-nine, thirty one.
    So take my strong advise, just remember get your ticket signed.

    He had a card and it had a size,
    then he looked at me,
    and showed a line where they wrote the size
    twenty-nine, thirty-one
    for the jeans yesterday from the sale.

    (Chorus)
    People always told me don’t shop at Billy’s Jeans,
    they’ll never get your sizing right..
    And mama always told me be careful what you buy,
    ‘cause if you get it wrong, they’ll never make it right.

    Billy’s Jeans, discount store,
    won’t take returns, if you say you’re not the one,
    around and round, they’ll run
    and say you are the one, twenty-nine, thirty-one.

    Billy’s Jeans, discount store,
    just said I’m wrong—twenty-nine, thirty-one,
    but I know I am not the one
    Billy’s Jeans, discount store,
    won’t see me comin’ here anymore.
    Billy’s Jeans, discount store
    Billy’s Jeans, discount store
    Billy’s Jeans, discount store

    Reply

    • Donna Z Falcone says

      Love this! Had me giggling because I am one of those who can never remember which number comes first in men’s pant sizes! With a husband who hates to shop and two sons I was thrilled when, for a while, one of my sons was a perfect square at thirty-two, thirty-two! 😉 Alas, those days are gone and to all of them I say “buy your own jeans…”

      I’ll warn them to avoid Billy’s Jeans Discount Store. 😉

      Reply

  9. Irish Grace says

    RIVER-BLUES… JEANS
    Lazy noon
    a barefoot smile,
    by river’s edge…
    I’m skipping letters, in torn up jeans…
    their edges frayed.
    I scrape my knees
    on washed-up, pebbled words.
    My cotton defense,
    ragged and worn
    they cloak my skin,
    propel, yet ease.
    As my heartbeats drift…
    pulsing in shades, of melancholy blue
    my pen bleeds deep
    my verse submerged
    in denim dye… and indigo ink.

    Reply

  10. Monica Sharman says

    Brand-Name Jeans

    You had to get the hundred-dollar jeans
    to fit in, and that was twenty years ago. Now,

    the cost for clique entry has inflated.
    Don’t give in. The most popular brand

    is just a question mark at the bottom
    of an inverted triangle. Status attached

    to a symbol sewn by a single thin thread
    onto back-pocket denim. Faded. How long

    do you think that will last? A single breath
    of next week’s gossip would break

    a bond that weak. Don’t second-guess
    your own identity. Wear the jeans that fit.

    Lie down at the top of the green hill
    and let yourself roll. Go home laughing.

    Grass stains on the pockets and knees
    of your jeans, speaking for you.

    Reply

  11. Stormy says

    Denim Blue Obsession

    Thrown into life’s circle with artistic synergy
    
He remains unfiltered as natural wine

    Speaks lines sleek and occasionally sober
    
He tempts in denim as blue as the sky

    He’s infused with the ocean’s spirit

    Wears the turquoise that once hung from her neck

    His jeans
    her blue obsession
    
Blue possession
    Is what he wears best

    Reply

  12. Ceil says

    my jeans don’t fit
    the crouch rides up
    like an unsaddled mule
    elastic waist stretches
    to accommodate rolls of flesh
    I wear my trouser rolled
    Imust be getting old.

    Reply

  13. Jessie Stewart says

    Genes/Jeans

    I welcome the blues as religion:
    the power to uplift the spirit,
    drench one’s life with color and texture,
    fit and flatter like nothing else.

    A straight soft indigo is mid-rise,
    once well worn, but now
    folded and forgotten.
    Snug and stretchy, the black on another
    is threadbare with frayed hems
    that dust just above the ankle.
    Cheeky in spirit, a pair of cut offs
    have pseudo craters
    in the stiff burnished fabric
    but are new nonetheless,
    lack the organic whiskers of broken thread.

    Train tracks laid down the outseam
    run parallel to leg and the
    relationship is formed that
    spurs the process of molding
    and remolding a cast of denim.

    A life imprinted in fabric is
    often revisited decades later
    then renovated to suit a new day.

    Reply

  17. Yailyn Garcia says

    Hot Topic

    The cold, perfume-rich breeze
    encircles my body.

    Automated doors spread out
    and give me sight of the room;

    walls painted black,
    clothes crowd the small room,

    racks that can barely be seen
    because of the jeans folded on them,

    Jeans that run in odd
    instead of even numbers.

    Different fandoms
    adorn this precious store.

    Reply

  18. Tania Pryputniewicz says

    Cooking Class, Illinois, Mid 70s

    Along her immaculate counter: silo
    of red-handled sifter, bright order
    of silver spoons, lemon bales of butter

    softening in late winter light. In cupboards
    her husband the carpenter built, bars
    of Baker’s Chocolate, dried figs, quartered

    apricots and Mason Jars of brined harvest.
    A good cook puts up her hair, wears
    apron, stores flour in freezer to keep

    Boll Weevils out, uses shells of her egg
    as a tool to separate yolk from white.
    She also wears dresses, I learned,

    when for donning jeans, she informed me
    she no longer wished me to babysit. She cited,
    over the phone to my mother, the effect

    it might have on her son, the kind of wife
    he might choose, the man he’d become
    as I chased him on my hands and knees round

    living room’s glass table she refused to move
    when he was born. He’d learn, she’d said, he’d learn
    soon enough, where he stopped and she began.

    Reply

  21. Taylor Burgin says

    He asked me to patch the hole in his jeans.
    I told him I wouldn’t, that he doesn’t know what the hole means.
    That night He pulled through with a new Chevy in red.
    With a pillows and blankets in the trunk for a makeshift bed.
    He took backroads, to leave the cities lights behind in the dark.
    Parked under the moonlight where the trees parted to watch the stars.
    We fell into the night, deeper than his tires sunk into the mud.
    We fell into the time, but could never be deeper than our love.
    The tires cemented into the swampy ground.
    Your knees meet the rocks pilled under the dampened mound.
    Tugging at the denim, as he pushed the hood.
    Those jeans could of never looked so good.

    Reply

  22. Barbara Crooker says

    POEM ON A LINE BY ANNE SEXTON, “WE ARE ALL WRITING GOD’S POEM.”

    Today, the sky’s the soft blue of a work shirt washed a thousand times.
    The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
    On the interstate listening to NPR, I heard a Hubble scientist
    say, “The universe is not only stranger than we think,
    it’s stranger than we can think.”
    I think I’ve driven into spring, as the woods revive
    with a loud shout, redbud trees, their gaudy scarves
    flung over bark’s bare limbs.
    Barely doing sixty, I pass a tractor trailer called
    Glory Bound, and aren’t we just?
    Just yesterday, I read Li Po: “There is no end of things in the heart,”
    but it seems like things are always ending—vacation
    or childhood, relationships, stores going out of business,
    like the one that sold jeans that really fit—
    And where do we fit in? How can we get up
    in the morning, knowing what we do?
    But we do, put one foot after the other, open the window,
    make coffee, watch the steam curl up and disappear.
    At night, the scent of phlox curls in the open window,
    while the sky turns red violet, lavender, thistle,
    a box of spilled crayons. The moon
    spills its milk on the black tabletop for the thousandth time.

    Reply

  23. Laurie Kolp says

    Shrinkage

    Inky clouds cling
    to sky like jeans

    I heave
    past my thighs.

    Deep down I know
    nothing

    changes a thing—
    he’s leaving.

    I fumble
    with buttons

    of the 501s,
    cursing

    Levi for such
    shrinkage.

    Heavenward,
    my skeptical outlook

    as beyond window
    a willow tree shivers

    before the deluge.

    Reply

  25. Naomi Jeanpierre says

    Ode to Jeans

    Wrapped in a
    translucent plastic bag
    with the scent of artificial air
    seeping from your pores
    you were soft,
    yet firm
    in my hands
    like a ripe mango
    plucked on the
    cusp of June.

    Reply

  26. Noah Snitzer says

    The Farmer’s Daughter

    A girl named Martha
    crept through the forest
    with curious steps
    while weeds twisted away
    to avoid the worn
    leather of her shoes.

    Her eyes darted about
    ignoring the sun’s golden glare
    While the trees cast shadows
    That walked beside her
    and played in muddy footprints.

    A branch hooked her
    like a riverside fisherman
    and reeled in her belt loop
    but she snapped the wood
    to escape like a fish
    and swam through the
    warm shades of green.

    Then came the tree
    which beckoned to her
    with an outstretched arm
    seeking a friendly grasp.

    Martha climbed to the top
    and relaxed in wooden palms
    while she watched the
    farm’s field from afar
    that was peppered with
    white specks of cattle.

    Her clothes had their tears
    and the loose threads
    blew south like freed birds
    with the quiet wind.

    But despite that
    they told her,
    to be a
    ‘proper lady’,
    she always liked
    her jeans ripped anyway.

    Reply

  32. Isabelle Clark says

    Old Maternity Jeans

    Rips in the fabric are
    reaching hands , waiting to
    feel the reassuring touch of
    a mother’s plump kiss,
    against her tender head.

    Freckles are the dots of paint
    peppering her tough expression,
    leaving the memory in the
    lilac walls that once held
    a baby’s smile.

    The blue wash is her tears,
    scratchy on her soft affection,
    yearning for another lovely laugh
    to grace her innocent face.

    Reply

  35. Elizabeth W. Marshall says

    And this one, too

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Let’s Get This Straight: A Couple of Haiku

    You’re my slip into
    Something more comfortable
    Every single time

    You’re my second skin
    Softer than velvet, to touch
    Off and on again

    Reply

  38. Elizabeth Marshall says

    The Clothesline

    Driving South on Highway 17
    They blow
    Stiff-legged, crisp, board-straight
    In the quarter-acre backyard
    Rusted old fence-line
    Hemming in the half-naked children
    And the malnourished flock of laying-hens
    Three days from now
    They will still be cold-wet
    Unwearable
    Unable to clothe a working man
    Unable to get out of bed
    I blink
    Covered in shame
    The line houses too
    A worn-out quilt
    Neiman Marcus’ email slips in my
    in-box
    Size 2 Lucky Jeans on back-order
    Two America’s
    Yet again

    Reply

  40. michelle ortega says

    Here’s mine, just under the wire 🙂 Will catch up on the reading over the weekend!

    saturday

    heat rises
    on the city street

    i slip one finger
    through the belt loop
    of his jeans

    as we weave
    a pedestrian tapestry
    with cutoff
    cotton threads

    Reply

  41. Debbie Dovel says

    Chad’s Jeans

    I gave my son’s jeans away today

    Carpenter jeans that fit loosely
    with lots of pockets that he’d stuff
    full of all the little things he loved

    Elastic waist jeans with drawstring ties
    when he could no longer manage
    the button and zipper

    Some like new, others faded
    showing the wear and tear
    of years of washings

    Funny, how they still
    held his fragrance and brought back
    the essence of his spirit
    and so many memories

    I buried my face in the soft fabric
    and longed to feel
    the warmth of his body
    within them once more

    As tears fell from my eyes
    I packed them away
    into large bags
    to be taken to Goodwill

    But the memories remain
    and keep him alive
    in my heart

    After all, they were just jeans

    Reply

  42. Suzanne says

    Jeaneration
    (Collage poem using advertising slogans for jeans.
    Brands include: Levis, Lee, Wrangler,
    Jesus Jeans, Brutus, A.Smile Inc.)

    Tough as your spirit,
    I will weather any storm
    and put a smile on your ass.
    I may look fresh but
    I’m ready to eat dirt
    for those who toll.
    I will not sit at home
    collecting dust, for he who
    follows me, loves me.
    Live with passion and a
    style all your own.
    Now is our time and
    jeans aint’ what they used to be.
    Strike up for the new world.
    Everybody’s work is equally important.
    Go forth.
    Go one greater.
    Make jeans, not war.

    Reply

  44. Giosue says

    Looking out of my Lunette,
    A sky filled, cimmerian shade,
    Which got red, from morning flare,
    I breath newfrangled,dissimiliar,untouched and unspoiled.
    Smokeless Air;
    The black, branches are dull,
    and leaves, wet.
    no Moon out of my lunette,
    NO STARS, just planets,
    No glossy and the glowing,
    cloudless and soundless.
    Just the slight wind dared vibrate,
    a red flambeau danced in shadows,
    lulled the gnomes as they slept.
    and a bomboo rushing, grey waters,
    down dark green pavement.

    Zephyr bonked the dark sea,
    and murk sprayed,
    taste of horror!
    Taste of AWE!
    and
    Deep set sunken eyes,
    a blank stare,
    pin cushion slits it had,
    and grimly, gay smirk.
    It blinks, like a slow owl,
    it blinks, once more with it’s
    glittering,haunting,lamps of ships.
    sitting on the wet surface of thou,
    silky, crepuscule hair.

    All lamps dozed,
    and hollows stared at me,
    as if they kill me,
    and the shadows follow,
    My shadow.

    No more light, just gloom,
    no flambeau but shadows.
    Just darkening sky,
    a pillow and bed sheets,
    to hide in, and creep out of
    at first light.

    or a better one would be, to not creep out
    to just close the curtains out of my Lunettes

    Reply

Trackbacks

  6. […] over-eager to make an April 1 showing. However it happened, while the rest of the world launched  National Poetry Month with resounding stanzas of well-clipped iambic pentameter, we dove off the top of the coop right […]

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  9. […] so much to everyone who participated in our National Poetry Month “Show Us Your Poetry Jeans” Project. We love doing special projects with you over the year, as well as celebrating fun days like our […]

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