It always delights me that April is both National Poetry Month and Poetic Earth Month. They fit together well, don’t they? Since the dawn of humanity, we’ve responded to nature’s marvels with admiration and wonder, which we’ve expressed through word and verse.
The Year of the Monarch is Tweetspeak Poetry’s endeavor to honor one of those marvels: the monarch butterfly. This tiny-but-extraordinary creature possesses one of the most evolved migration patterns on the planet—a 3,000-mile, four-generation-long path from Canada to Mexico. Its equally sophisticated orientation mechanism consists of a sun compass, a circadian clock, and a backup magnetic compass.
Sadly, the monarch butterfly population has depleted swiftly and significantly in recent years, primarily due to loss of habitat. Milkweed is the only plant that monarch caterpillars can consume, but intensive agriculture and extensive pesticide usage have destroyed much of it. Between 2007 and 2017, more than 860 million stems of milkweed were lost.
Since August of last year, Tweetspeak has been collecting pledges from readers to plant native milkweed in their yards in an effort to shore up that habitat. Imagine—we thought—a wide network of yards across the country providing food and safe refuge for monarchs! We hoped to create our own butterfly effect, as that term is used in common culture—our tiny acts leading, hopefully, to large and significant effects.
Collective Effervescence, Collective Poetry
As April is National Poetry Month, it seems the perfect time to highlight one important piece of the Year of the Monarch project: a communal poem. This is Tweetspeak Poetry after all!
Along with milkweed pledges and plantings, Tweetspeak is collecting lines of poetry from individual readers. The lines will be combined to make a much larger and longer poem—a Poetic Butterfly Effect, you might say.
It’s easy to forget the potency of community actions like these. Dacher Keltner, the author of Awe, calls such “collective effervescence” one of the wonders of life. As we act in concert and come together in feeling, “we combine separate perspectives into . . . shared awareness, a collective consciousness . . . .” All of this, according to Keltner, stirs awe, making life richer and more meaningful.
Perhaps it won’t surprise you that Tweetspeak actually originated in communal poetry parties, when four friends came together regularly to write poetic lines. From that time, back in 2009, the Tweetspeak community has continued to grow and nurture one another’s creativity, and, per its mission, “bring beautiful work to light”!
Dear Seed
We hope you’ll participate in the Year of the Monarch’s “crowd-sourced” poem using the prompt, “Dear Seed,” which was chosen to inspire milkweed planting. As an example, this is my contribution:
Dear Seed, let your boundaries dissolve, and welcome soil, water, light—welcome
Earth, welcome life.
You can add your own line to the comment box below. If you prefer, feel free to begin your lines with “Dear Caterpillar” or “Dear Monarch Butterfly” instead of “Dear Seed.”
A Tweetspeak poet will weave our responses together, to represent the way in which we are also weaving together our attention, our intention, our energy, and our commitment on behalf of the magnificent monarch!
Time to (Garden) Party!
Watch for an invitation to a (virtual) garden party this fall, the culmination of the Year of the Monarch! We will share our experiences—both positive and negative!—and Tweetspeak’s managing editor L.L. Barkat has a few surprises in store!
Photo by harold.lloyd, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Dheepa R. Maturi.
- Morphing: Lessons from the Year of the Monarch - October 23, 2024
- Year of the Monarch: Butterfly Kisses—A Romantic Comedy - August 7, 2024
- Year of the Monarch: In Sync — a Communal Poem for the Monarch Butterfly - April 11, 2024
L.L. Barkat says
“Poetic Butterfly Effect.”
Oh, Dheepa, I love that! 🙂
Amazing info on the butterfly’s migration mechanisms, too. A backup system with a backup system. (Maybe we need to also think of ourselves as a kind of backup system for nature’s fragile ones.)
My seeds are still in the fridge. I want to make sure they’ve been properly cold-treated before trying to plant. But I’m feeling the call to the outdoors, especially with the cherry blossoms tenderly waving just outside the front windows. 🙂
Dear seed,
I hope the cold (inexplicably!)
brings you life.
Or unfolds
the life (so patient, so silent)
you already
hold.
Dheepa Maturi says
Oh, yes, I love that–we should indeed be the backup system!
And I also love your contribution to our poetic butterfly effect. Your poetry is always perfect, every time. As you said, a seed holds life, as it unfolds life. Gorgeous!
laura says
“Collective effervescence.” What a cool concept, especially after watching everyone come together to watch the solar eclipse this week. It really is a thing!
dear seed, asleep in the darkness, let
your dreaming be sweet until light
calls you forth and water softens
your walls and time breaks
you wide open
Dheepa Maturi says
Yes, how amazing that we all came together to watch that cosmic phenomenon–I’m just as awed by that as by the eclipse!
And thank for for this beautiful, beautiful addition to Dear Seed! May we all be broken wide open!
Arti Parikh Roy says
Dear seeds,
May you flourish in the first butterfly garden of my dreams, established in 2023 and adorned with hand painted kindness rocks and stepping stones made by my children. Much of my garden is imperfect, but it started with the planting of your seeds I gathered from citizens from
conservation for my daughter’s birthday. Birthdays and taking care of the planet are what brings me the most joy so all these experiences have beautifully come together to create a brighter tomorrow .
Dheepa Maturi says
Arti, thank you so much for adding these beautiful lines to our communal poem. Your butterfly garden sounds both idyllic and inspiring!
Laurie Klein says
Dheepa, what a marvelous communal endeavor! Of course, I had to try. BUT given a sentence, I’ll make a whole stanza. (Glean and harvest, as needed, please.) And thank you for chance to chime in!
Seed, dear . . .
(dear, being “read,” backwards),
open your infinitesimal book
en route to roots
(spreading deep and wide),
your eventual upshot
home to a nodding,
bell-shaped corolla: then, O
felty pods to come, little cousins
to Persian slippers
bursting with floss—and more
seed the color of saffron
(being read as a symbol
of royalty), praise be
each fountaining plant,
emblem of resilience, renewal,
transformation, hardy with hope.
Dheepa Maturi says
Oh, Laurie, you are an exquisite, exquisite poet! Truly, I am undone–I love the elegant images, the playful parentheticals, every single sound and syllable. So happy that your gorgeous words and generous spirit will be part of our community poem–hurray!
Julia says
I’ve always wondered if the Monarchs I encounter will be the ones that make it all the way.
Dear Monarch Butterfly,
May your wings safely traverse quilted landscapes to homespun habitats,
Where tenderly sown milkweed magic awaits to nourish little ones.
As leaves turn, please linger with purple asters and goldenrod offerings,
So we might marvel at your beautiful ballet once more
While forests ready their fir beds for your winter’s haven at journey’s end.
Safe passage, dear one.
Dheepa Maturi says
This is absolutely beautiful, Julia! “Quilted landscapes,” “milkweed magic,” “beautiful ballet” — so evocative and lovely. And the last line brought tears. Thank you so much for contributing your lines to this project. I can’t wait to see everyone’s words come together!