American History in many forms

Gretchen Fletcher's poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including upstreet, Chattahoochee Review, Inkwell, The Mid-American Poetry Review, and Poetry as Spiritual Practice. She won the Poetry Society of America’s Bright Lights, Big Verse competition and was projected on the Jumbotron as she read her poem in Times Square. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Her chapbooks, That Severed Cord and The Scent of Oranges, were published by Finishing Line Press.

About Gretchen Fletcher: American History in many forms:

"While I was teaching American history to fifth graders I wrote these poems to help them remember the main facts from different periods and events. What if there were no history books? No Google? No magazines, TV shows, newspapers? And what if it were your job to make sure everybody knew everything that has happened in the United States from the time it started as 13 British colonies until the present day? All the facts and names and dates and events would have to be stored in your head, and you would have to keep telling the stories of our history over and over to make sure no one would ever forget them. How in the world could you remember all that information?

Early civilizations had no written history but gave the job of passing along the oral history to people who found that the easiest way to remember all the dates and names and places and events was to make the stories rhyme and have a beat or rhythm. This was the beginning of poetry.

When Miller Williams was asked by President Clinton to write a poem for his inauguration in 1997, he wrote:

We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.

This book tells the stories of American history through different forms of poetry which are like our old songs.”

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Visit Gretchen's website: https://www.poetgretchen.com/

Origami Microchap	Selections
American History in many forms
Click above title to download PDF Cover collage by Jan Keough •	THE LOST COLONY, 1587-1590 - as haiku They set sail with hope to colonize the New World. Waves crested and fell. Land and baby named “Virginia,” honored their queen. Dense woods welcomed them They waited for White. Returned with supplies, he found wind-swept empty fields. What could the word mean? “Croatoan”on a post - colonists' farewell. • Gretchen Fletcher © 2018	JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA, 1611 - John Howard, Ship’s Boy I wonder what I’m doing here so far from home. I came along to find the gold and go home rich. That was our aim. There was no gold, no food as well, and many of us died from drinking water full of salt brought in with every tide. Then Captain Smith told us at last that only those who work will get to eat. So gentlemen pitched in and did not shirk their duty. Soon John Rolfe brought us those Caribbean seeds he said would grow to be the “gold,” for every man who heeds his words, and every man set out to plant and weed and hoe. And soon we found our “gold.” Our cash crop became tobacco. We live among Powhatan braves now on this swampy sand. We’ve made our home Virginia’s shore, and this will be our land. (written in common meter may be sung to the tune of “Amazing Grace”) • Gretchen Fletcher © 2018

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