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poetry

Pop Culture

Woody Harrelson wrote a hilarious little poem for his viral baby doppelgänger

His response was so wholesome.

@DanielleKGrier/Twitter

Baby Cora bears a striking resemblance to actor Woody Harrelson.

We can all get a little fascinated by doppelgängers and it's fun to find people who look alike. But what do you do when your baby girl looks uncannily like a famous middle-aged man?

Mom Dani Grier Mulvenna shared a photo of her infant daughter Cora side by side with a photo of Woody Harrelson on Twitter, with the caption "Ok but how does our daughter look like Woody Harrelson." The resemblance truly is remarkable, and the tweet quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of likes, shares and replies.

Naturally, the jokes about Harrelson being the baby's secret father came next, but then Harrelson himself got wind of it.

The actor shared a screenshot of Mulvenna's tweet on his Instagram page and included a delightful little poem he called "Ode to Cora."

You're an adorable child
Flattered to be compared
You have a wonderful smile
I just wish I had your hair

How adorable and wholesome is that? Not only did he acknowledge his look-alike, but he even made a self-deprecating joke about his receding hairline.

People gushed in the comments and Mulvenna shared how tickled her daughter will be someday by the connection.

"You've made our day ❤️ can't wait to show her this when she's older, you have another fan for life xxx," she wrote.

Mulvenna also shared on Twitter that her daughter doesn't always look like Woody Harrelson, but when she does, she really does.

What a cutie. What's hilarious is that sweet little Cora has no clue about any of this excitement and she won't for many more years. What a fun story her parents will be able to share with her.

Social media has created a world where people can connect in ways they never would have before. When these platforms are so often used for negative means, it's lovely to see something so sweet and pure come out of them.


This article originally appeared on 08.05.22

From Your Site Articles
Family

'Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege' is a powerful poem about parenting in a war zone

Joseph Fasano's heartbreaking poem speaks volumes about our shared humanity.

Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

How does a father keep a child comforted and quiet while under siege?

I've never been in a war zone, but as a mother of three, I've pictured it. Any time I read a news story about a part of the world that's exploded into violence, I imagine what it must be like for parents—especially those with small children—living through it. How do they explain what's happening? How do they comfort their kids when they themselves are terrified? How do they shield their children not only from unthinkable atrocity but from fear itself?

Joseph Fasano's poem "Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege" hits at the heart of those questions in a scenario that has played out countless times throughout human history. The poem's narrator is a father trying to comfort his child while they hide from soldiers in their house, and the way he makes a game out of it highlights the lengths parents will go to help children feel safe, even when they objectively aren't.

Fasano shared the poem on social media and it has been shared tens of thousands of time from different accounts. As one page warned, "Prepare your heart before reading." It's solid advice, though it's hard to know how to prepare for it.

The poem reads:

No, we are not going to die.

The sounds you hear

knocking the windows and chipping the paint

from the ceiling, that is a game

the world is playing.

Our task is to crouch in the dark as long as we can

and count the beats of our own hearts.

Good. Like that. Lay your hand

on my heart and I'll lay mine on yours.

Which one of us wins

is the one who loves the game the most

while it lasts.

Yes, it is going to last.

You can use your ear instead of your hand.

Here, on my heart.

Why is it beating faster? For you. That's all.

I always wanted you to be born

and so did the world.

No, those aren't a stranger's bootsteps in the house.

Yes, I'm here. We're safe.

Remember chess? Remember

hide-and-seek?

The song your mother sang? Let's sing that one.

She's still with us, yes. But you have to sing

without making a sound. She'd like that.

No, those aren't bootsteps.

Sing. Sing louder.

Those aren't bootsteps.

Let me show you how I cried when you were born.

Those aren't bootsteps.

Those aren't sirens.

Those aren't flames.

Close your eyes. Like chess. Like hide-and-seek.

When the game is done you get another life.

- Joseph Fasano

Fasano wrote in Instagram, "I hope these words do what words can do sometimes." They did, judging by the comment section:

"Gorgeously gut wrenching poem to read, and difficult to wrap our minds around the idea that this is and has been far too many people’s reality…I’ve been a fan of your poems for a while. You provide the perfect example I can show my students of how art and writing help us maintain our humanity ❤️"

"Thank you, Mr. Fasano. I have been walking around unable to make sense of anything that is happening in the world and I feel myself shutting down. Your words give voice to everything that I cannot find the words for. Thank you for your poetry. Thank you for sharing."

"Thank you for this tender and horrifying poem at such a time as this. How necessary your words are."

Poetry has a way of saying so much in so few words. Here we see a father's translating his frightened heartbeat and tears of terror into love for his child. We see him calling upon the child's mother as a way to comfort in an impossible situation. We see him blatantly lying—"You're safe. Those aren't bootsteps. Those aren't flames," all to keep his child from being afraid.

And the fact that this could be any father in any war zone in any place and time is a heartbreaking reminder of our shared humanity.

No matter the conflict or the rationale behind it, innocent people are the primary victims of war and children always pay the biggest price. When tensions and passions run high, we must remember this: Wars don't break out between average citizens just trying to live their lives in peace. War is a fight between powers, with men in safe rooms ordering less powerful men to take up arms against their fellow human beings. Average citizens don't want any part of these conflicts—they just want to take their kids to the park, talk about their days over family dinner and not worry about what games to play with their children if or when the bombs and boots start dropping.

You can find more of Joseph Fasano's poetry on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), and you can pre-order his book, "The Magic Words: Simple Poetry Prompts That Unlock the Creativity in Everyone," here.

From Your Site Articles
poetry
Education

Powerful poem explores how kids debate the answer to, 'What's the opposite of a gun?'

Their discussion is both beautiful and haunting.

TED-Ed/YouTube

Brendan Constantine's "The Opposites Game" explores American gun culture through the eyes of children.

"What's the opposite of a gun?"

That's the question at the heart of a powerful—and perpetually timely—poem by Brendan Constantine, based on his own teaching experience. It begins with him describing how he led his students through a poetry exercise called The Opposites Game, in which the students were asked to come up with the antonym of each word in a line of a poem by the famously reclusive 19th-century poet, Emily Dickinson.

"My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun," was the line, and students easily came up with the opposites for the first six words. But when they got to "gun," the students paused.

For a moment, very much like the one between
lightning and its sound, the children just stare at me,
and then it comes, a flurry, a hail storm of answers –

And then came the heated debate among the kids about the nature of a gun through an exploration of what it isn't:

A flower.

A pillow.

A book.

A song.

A prayer.

A baby.

Or what’s that person who delivers babies? A midwife? Yes, a midwife.

Their discussion is beautiful and haunting, interweaving the profound innocence of children and the absurdity of the way we fight over guns in this country. The arguing. The shouting. The clubs forming.

Nothing's decided, she says. We're not done here.

Ha. Indeed.

Poetry has a way of getting to the heart of an issue in a way that rhetoric simply cannot. Constantine's words go beyond the tired tropes trotted out by Americans on barstools, social media and the floor of Congress, laying out hard truths about American gun culture through the eyes of children.

"The Opposites Game" was made into a TED-Ed short film by Anna Samo and Lisa LaBracio, with Brendan Constantine reciting the poem aloud while it is illustrated in stop-motion. Watch:

Nothing's decided…We're not done here. That's the truth of the matter, isn't it?

We can't even agree on what a gun is, much less what it isn't. For some people a gun equals terror. For others, a gun equals freedom. Some see guns as weapons of war, some as tools for hunting, some as methods of intimidation, some as toys for target practice. Some look at a gun and see the faces of the kids killed in school shooting after school shooting. Some look at a gun and see safety and security.

Round and round we go, never deciding, never done. This poem was written years ago, with tens of thousands of gun violence deaths occurring in the U.S. since then, but feels like it could have been written this week.

And the enigmatic last line:

Your death will sit through many empty poems.

As one of the filmmakers said in an interview, “The whole poem is building up to this last sentence, and emotionally you understand exactly what it means, but you can't put it into words."

And that's OK. We've heard more than enough words about guns in this country anyway.


From Your Site Articles
Wellness

Poet perfectly describes the fatigue so many are feeling at this stage of the pandemic

Photo: Canva

We're nearly a year into the pandemic, and what a year it has been. We've gone through the struggles of shutdowns, the trauma of mass death, the seemingly fleeting "We're all in this together" phase, the mind-boggling denial and deluge of misinformation, the constantly frustrating uncertainty, and the ongoing question of when we're going to get to resume some sense of normalcy.

It's been a lot. It's been emotionally and mentally exhausting. And at this point, many of us have hit a wall of pandemic fatigue that's hard to describe. We're just done with all of it, but we know we still have to keep going.

Poet Donna Ashworth has put this "done" feeling into words that are resonating with so many of us. While it seems like we should want to talk to people we love more than ever right now, we've sort of lost the will to socialize pandemically. We're tired of Zoom calls. Getting together masked and socially distanced is doable—we've been doing it—but it sucks. In the wintry north (and recently south) the weather is too crappy to get together outside. So many of us have just gone quiet.

If that sounds like you, you're not alone. As Ashworth wrote:

You're not imagining it, nobody seems to want to talk right now.

Messages are brief and replies late.

Talk of catch ups on zoom are perpetually put on hold.

Group chats are no longer pinging all night long.

It's not you.

It's everyone.

We are spent.

We have nothing left to say.

We are tired of saying 'I miss you' and 'I can't wait for this to end'.

So we mostly say nothing, put our heads down and get through each day.

You're not imagining it.

This is a state of being like no other we have ever known because we are all going through it together but so very far apart.

Hang in there my friend.

When the mood strikes, send out all those messages and don't feel you have to apologise for being quiet.

This is hard.

No one is judging.

- Donna Ashworth

Those of us who find ourselves feeling this way certainly hope that no one is judging. We hope that our friends understand, either because they're in the same boat or because we all get that we're all handling this weird time differently.

It's not that we don't care or that we don't miss people outside of our household desperately. It's more that we miss people so much that we can't stand this half-baked way of being with people anymore. Personally, I'd rather just wait it out until we get enough people vaccinated over the next few months. I'm holding out for the hugs, man. Going into hermit mode in this final stretch feels more doable than straining to make socializing work with all the limitations and the exhaustion on top of it.

There are exceptions, of course. People who live alone probably need whatever socializing they can get. And checking in with people, especially loved ones you know struggle with mental health issues, is important. Some of this pandemic wall can be veiled depression, so we need to look out for one another and touch base sometimes. It's also good for us to make connections even when we don't necessarily feel like it. Sometimes the desire might be lacking, but we're happy to have connected once we've done it.

And of course, there are people who have just pretended that the pandemic isn't happening this whole time. Maybe those people aren't feeling this, even while they're making life harder for the rest of us who are trying to follow the guildelines.

It's all just hard. There's no right or wrong way to make it through a pandemic, as long as we're not actively harming ourselves or other people. Everyone has different needs, and those change as we go through different phases of this thing. It's just nice to see a common feeling in this phase put into words so eloquently.

Donna Ashworth has published a whole book of poems about the pandemic called "History Will Remember When the World Stopped." She also has a book of poetry for women, "To The Women: Words to Live By."

The arts are always a gift, but they can be especially powerful during tough times. Thank you, Ms. Ashworth, for using your words to give voice to what so many of us are experiencing.

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