Hop over to http://www.ethicalela.com and click on VerseLove to read Sharon Roy’s prompt for today! She’s inspiring us to write haiku poetry inspired by our reading lives – and is actually writing War and Peace in haiku. She blogs at Pedaling Poet. I’ve been spinning my wheels since February trying to get through Forth Wing, and I’m glad I did. Other than Harry Potter, fantasy is not my preferred genre, but it did stretch me. I definitely am not a fan of romantasy, especially spicy romantasy. But at least no dragons died. I would have been in the floor for days, crying over their deaths. And I finished in the name of book club because it was only fair that we each picked 2 books for all of us to share in reading together. And we do things in the name of book club that we would not do for anyone else! But now I want a t-shirt with the logo below.
A group of dragons proudly hold signs claiming they survived Fourth Wing on a castle tower.
In the Name of Book Club
Fourth Wing fantasy~ not my genre, but I did it for my book club!
Our host today, Corinne, lives in Detroit, Michigan where she teaches at Sampson Webber Leadership Academy in Detroit Public Schools Community District. She serves as a Transformative Engagement Lead at her site, presenting professional development for the staff. You can read her full prompt here.
Corinne inspires us to write two-voice poems, or poems in two perspectives. I have chosen a tricube for today’s two-voice poem, alternating voices in italics and unitalicized text.
Come along and read our 2026 Progressive Poem, where a poet adds a line each day, it’s organized by Margaret Simon and originally started by Irene Latham. Today is my day to add a line to the poem, and you can see below the map of the Land of Poetry. I’m continuing a tweet by Meek Dove today over in Thackeray’s Thicket. I learned, through a bit of research, that William Thackeray has a fitting middle name for a theme of The Land of Poetry.
One possibility for what The Land of Poetry might look like, line and map by Tabatha Yeatts
The Land of Poetry
On my first trip to the Land of Poetry, I saw anthologies of every color, tall as buildings. A world of words, wonder on wings, waiting just for me! Birding for words shimmering, flecked in golden gilding.
Binoculars ready, I toured boulevards and side streets exploring vibrant verses, verses so honest and tender, feathery lyrics, bright flitting avian athletes soaring ‘cross pages in rhythmic splendor.
In the Land of Poetry, I am the conductor, seeking oodles of poems that tug at my heart, a musical medley of sound and structure, an open mic in Frost Forest! Wonder who’ll take part?
There’s a pause in the program; no one takes the stage the trees quiver, the audience looks up. Raven lands, singing Earth’s message of the sage. “Poetry in motion will be forevermore, from forests to sands.”
“Scatter,” she croaked. “Beyond Wilde Pond, to each and every beach.” Meek Dove mustered courage and sang, “Instill humanity with compassion and peace.
Let Thackeray’s middle name, from this thicket, hearts reach!”
Meek Dove perched on a flowering branch singing ‘Make Peace’ from Thackeray Thicket in The Land of Poetry
And I’m handing the fabulous feather pen to Buffy Silverman to continue our journey through The Land of Poetry. Take the wheel, Buffy!!
Below is a list of all the poets where the 2026 Progressive Poem has and will make stops:
Also, hop over to http://www.ethicalela.com to day for the 19th day of VerseLove, where Stefani Boutelier is hosting us and inspiring us to up our game as she gamifies poems. I used a Wordle inspiration today:
God and Emily Having a Garden Chat
take a stand for hope Hebrews Eleven, Verse One the thing with feathers
Angie of Mauritius is our host today for the 18th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. You can read her full prompt here, inspiring us to write Golden Hinge poems, where the first line of the poem also reads vertically as the first words in each line, As a child, I got hooked on poetry in the pages of Childcraft by one poem that did it for me – Overheard on a Salt Marsh by Harold Monro, and so I took a line from Joy Sullivan’s Remember What It Was Like to Be a Kid? from her book Instructions for Traveling West to pay tribute to Harold Monro today.
Tribute to Harold Monro
have you found the jewel of language
you discovered in childcraft volume 1 when you
found the one with a nymph and a goblin in
the salt marsh mesmerized by an emerald necklace
jewel stolen from the moon
of your dreams, carried in your soul, this captivating
Our host today for the 17th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Kratijah, who lives in Mauritius, where she teaches English Language Acquisition and Language & Literature at Le Bocage International School. She inspires us to write poems about our kitchens in free verse, and you can read her full prompt here.
Stacey Joy of California is our host today for VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems of starting over or redefining ourselves in some new way. You can read her full prompt here.
Stacey has me thinking about freedom and restraints – and the presence or absence of them in their many complex forms. She’s the second person to recommend The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad since yesterday, explaining that one of the writing exercises in the book prompted her etheree form today – a form with ten lines with that many numbered syllables on each line (1-10). I have the book coming my way on an interlibrary loan and hope to be holding it without a wait very soon. I used her etheree as a pattern today, letting her footsteps guide the way as I thought of retirement as a freedom to travel and see more National Parks from coast to coast. I’m in the process of trading my InTech Aucta Willow Rover for a small Class C Tiffin Wayfarer – not quite like Steinbeck’s “Rocinante” truck camper van of 1960 like I camped in with my grandparents in the early 1970s, but one I can drive without a tow vehicle so I can take to the road even if my husband stays back for work and needs his truck. And I’m getting the twin-to-king conversion bed so I can take my husband (king) or a friend (twin) along for the ride, complete with a dog or three. And sip coffee, read, write…..and learn to breathe.
Rocinante
when freedom (retirement) comes in August I hope to behold Steinbeck’s Rocinante packed and ready to explore Open Roads of America enjoying the journey as much as the destination: learning how to breathe
Our host today for VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Erica Johnson, who offers inspiration here in a new-to-me form of poetry called a cascade. These remind me of Pantoum poems. Erika explains: It’s a form created by Udit Bhatia and asks that the poet take each line from the first stanza of a poem and makes each one the final line in the stanzas that follow. This results in the poem resembling a tumbling waterfall, which was when I knew I needed to go look through my photos of waterfalls for inspiration!
Erika shares the process with us: Read over the cascade form and write out the pattern you wish to follow: tercet or quatrain. I found that having the structure written as a reminder helped guide my writing.
My mind went straight to Gibbs Gardens, where I’d rather spend the day in flowers than at work. Here, you can check out the bloom report and see where I’d take you if you were spending the day with me. We’d have lunch at The Burger Bus and order daffodils to plant next season.
Let’s Play
I did not want to get up today I’d like to sip coffee with friends in a cafe talk books, catch up, paint daffodils, play
I’d drive to Ball Ground stroll Gibbs Gardens’ spring blooms I did not want to get up today
the tulips have opened, Monet’s pond awaits I’d load up the girls for a quick getaway I’d like to sip coffee with friends in a cafe
we’d laugh and share stories take off work for the day get a slow start, talk books, paint daffodils, play
Mo Daley of Illinois is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the 14th day of VerseLove. She inspires us to write haiku poems of three lines with a 17-syllable count about tax day, tomorrow. You can read her full prompt here. My One Little Word comes to mind today regarding taxes: Onward! They’re unavoidable. We pay them, we cringe, we brush our hands, and we move on to the next thing. Enough said.
The Tax Man Cometh
Caesar’s rendering my travel fund cindering all fun hindering
Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for VerseLove is Ann Burg of New York, who inspires us to write haibun poetry. Haibun is a form that includes a prose passage to set the stage for a haiku, which immediately follows the prose. You can read her full prompt here. I reflected on a scene from Saturday morning as we ate breakfast.
The Head and The Feet
Saturday morning breakfast at the Country Kitchen on Pine Mountain we were waiting on our eggs and grits when I saw him shuffle past our table. A young and impatient mother with a crying child pitching a fit was stuck behind the elderly gentleman in in the aisle, clearly frustrated at his slow speed, in his ill-fitting sweatpants with black socks and orthopedic sandals. He veered right n the direction of the restroom and she squeezed left to her table, kid still screaming. My husband’s back was to the action as I gave the play-by-play. Notice him, I urged, when he comes back by. I thought it ironic that his orthopedic sandals looked like hiking sandals. Life can be cruel like that sometimes, but eggs arrive to scramble hard truths. I was taking a bite when my husband asked, Is that a veteran’s hat? We should buy his breakfast. And the next minute, this husband of mine – just like his mother would have done – excuses himself to walk by the man’s table to get a better look. And then I saw them talking. Why did tears fill my eyes? Why, here at this table, over eggs and bacon, coffee and grits and buttered biscuits with muscadine preserves, was I crying as I watched my husband place his hand on the shoulder of the old man and his wife as he thanked him for his service. I escaped to the gift shop to collect myself, wipe away the tears, before my husband returned with the scoop – as his mother would have done: it’s a veteran’s hat. He’s 78, was a sergeant in the Army, and he has four kids who are all currently serving in the military. His wife told me he has cancer, and when he finished chemo and his gray hair came back dark. And he always smiles. So we finished our last bites and I felt the tears welling again, excused myself to the restroom, and was almost fine until the old man walked by and place his hand on my husband’s shoulder in gesture of figuring out who’d treated them to breakfast. And I realized what we’d always said of ourselves when we walk into a place: I look down for snakes, he looks up for bees ~ and though we see things differently, we don’t miss what’s important.
Rita DiCarne of Pennsylvania is our host today for the 12th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. She inspires us to write list poems, prose-style or with line, about all the things we love. It makes me think of Tom T. Hall’s song, “I Love.” You can read Rita’s full prompt here.
Common Threads 