Dave Wooley is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 13 of #VerseLove. He inspires us to find poems on the pages of books or sheets of music or newspapers – anywhere there are words. Blackout poems are positively addictive. I could sit all day finding blackout poems and wish I could. I ripped a few pages out of a Steven King destined for a Little Free Library and found this from the pages of Blaze: a single soup-spoon ain’t what I call a thing for grim peculiar amusement
Try a Blackout poem and share yours in the comments! Warning: you can’t stop after one.
Anna Roseboro is our host at http://www.ethicalela.com today for Day 12 of #VerseLove, inspiring us to find our birth poets. I loved her nod to a line from Gorman in her own poem today – we must be the light. And I’m rather convinced that’s the only way to change the world. I found Angela Williams, who wrote the poem Almost Savages – born in northern Michigan – and born on the same day and same year as I. I chose to write a Golden Shovel with this striking line: small fish will scatter away from my steps.
Anna Shines the Light
Here’s to you, Anna Small Roseboro! Words glimmer like tiny fish in your sunlight as each of us will put pen to paper, fingers to keys, scatter in all directions far and away searching, learning, writing from the heart of our birth poets- my same-day-and-year poet and I shared first steps
I enjoy the structure of short syllabic forms of poetry, so I was thrilled with today’s VerseLove prompt using prime numbers from Erica Johnson at http://www.ethicalela.com on this 11th day of the writing challenge. I found a unique book in my mailbox yesterday from my writing sisterfriend Fran Haley from North Carolina, and it inspired today’s poem. We are both watching eggs ready to hatch any day now. I used a partial borrowed line from a poem in the book entitled Memory Garden (in bold) for today’s writing that includes prime numbers of syllables in ascending line order (2,3,5,7,9,11,13….) and I added an ending line of 3.
Feathered Friends
today’s poetry: Language of the Birds cherished gift in my mailbox from a sisterly friend sharing peace and warmth grass withers, flowers fade, but books live on forever like friendship
Today’s host for Day 10 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Brittany Saulnier, who inspires us to write whimsical science poems. I chose to focus on outdoor science – nature and all its discovery and wonder about the world! I have just gotten my flower presses out of the old barn over the weekend and can’t wait to gather flowers and greenery to press on a long walk one afternoon this week. So much of science is soothing, just pure medicine for the soul. Brittany’s gift of a prompt that invites peace is particularly appreciated on this Monday back to work after spring break. Today, my poem is a first-word-Golden Shovel Tanka (5-7-5-7-7) string. I took my striking line as a quote from a birding journal by Vanessa Sorensen: “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bloom!
adopt a mindset~
the practice of noticing
pace your amazement
of observing more fully
nature: less is so much more
her covert moments
secret discoveries ~ what
is our big hurry?
its blessings beckoning us
patience blooms on every stem
Wendy Everand of New York is our host today for Day 9 of the #VerseLove challenge this month as we celebrate National Poetry Month. She invites us to break all the rules or share of a time we broke a rule in her prompt, which you can read here. It’s Easter. I’m breaking every diet rule I can break today, so I’m just going to go ahead and turn myself in. I’m guilty, and the day has barely begun. Happy Easter, everyone!
Homemade lemon ice cream with grated lemon zest ~ like a glorious Easter sunrise! Zoom in!
living with grater purpose
optavia rules
say there’s no eating ice cream
(i sho’ ain’t liss’nin)
i might gain ten pounds
who cares? it’s easter sunday
it’s lemon. homemade.
special recipe
made with three ingredients ~
sugar, whipping cream
and meyer lemons
fran haley’s shared recipe
from a march blog post
today’s about life~
churn a zesty slice of life!
awaken senses!
glorious easter
calls for celebrating life
with grater purpose
If you’d like the recipe for the grate-est lemon ice cream ever, you can find it on Fran’s blog post here. Warning, though: you will not want store-bought ice cream ever again.
Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, Emily Yamasaki is our host for Day 8 of #VerseLove. She invites us to write Something You Should Know poems in the style of the great Clint Smith. You can read her full prompt and poem here.
Note to readers: try this one! I just rambled. Sometimes I use a Sarah Donovan strategy I learned several years ago: just write for 10 or 15 minutes and see what you get. Don't worry about editing or word choice or anything - just draft. That’s what I did today. Please come write with us!
Something You Should Know
is that I only moved my lips when Mrs. Flexer
played Living For Jesus all those Sundays
in the big group before small group
because I can’t sing except with
my heart
and that I just acquired the old oak secretariat that
has been in my parents’ home since I was
a baby in Kentucky along with the old red
milk can for my porch, but back to the
secretariat: I love that it shares
the name with the greatest horse
who had to win in Kentucky first
to win the Triple Crown
and that as a child I was mesmerized by Harold Monro’s
poem Overheard on a Salt Marsh
from Childcraft Volume 1 Poems and Rhymes
with the nymph in the green dress
and it’s framed by my bed today because
I’m still mesmerized by it
and that I savor Saturdays with morning coffee
and good conversation
and that I love plants but can’t grow them
because they all die except Leafy Jean and
Leon Russell, who are thriving on the front porch
and that I have four bluebird eggs in one birdhouse
and baby Carolina Wrens in my garage
up over the garage door apparatus
and Brown-Headed Nuthatch hatchlings in another birdhouse
and fledgling cardinals in my Yellow Jasmine vines
and a nest under the porch eave
and I saw an eagle a week ago
and that all three of my Schnoodles have literary names
Boo Radley for obvious reasons
Fitz because of, you know, the party animal F. Scott
and Ollie for my favorite poet Mary Oliver
and that I blog daily and call all my writing group
people my friends
including you.
Ollie, all tucked in while campingFitz, a true party animalBoo Radley, who recently lost his beard for running through the pasture and getting matted with field spurs
Denise Krebs of California is our host today for #VerseLove, inspiring to write poems about death. You can read her full prompt here. I think of the death of Jesus on the cross today, the resurrection, and promise of eternal life for believers. For me.
But in my travels on Wednesday up in North Georgia, I saw the strangest thing. And that is what I share today. I can’t get it out of my mind, can’t unsee and unwonder. And so I write.
Plummeting Chicken Death
three dead chickens lay
on I-75 South
in North Georgia rain
feathers everywhere
chicken carcasses strewn out
like castoff garments
how did this happen?
there were no farmlands nearby
no livestock, no barns
imagination
kicked into full gear – these hens
(I presumed) died fast
all the better, really
maybe a poultry truck door
swung open, flinging
these ladies groundward
to the hard concrete below
…or maybe they jumped
thought they could still fly
then realized the truth too late
as cars tried to swerve
most not successful
they’re all three dead, either way
these interstate hens
He explains: “Every April, during a six-week unit on poetry in Kentucky, I’d assign students to think of a person, place, or thing worthy of a poem, and write it as if you are gifting random thoughts/ideas/verse or insight for another. We began calling these ‘poetic drive-bys’. Students loved this, often chalking poems on a neighbor’s driveway or creating one to hand to strangers at the mall (a few even ‘tagged’ abandoned buildings with their writing and one young man drove around handing what he wrote to fast food employees working in drive-thru windows). Write a poem for the boy who bags your groceries, or the sidewalk where you walk, or for the stranger you see in the park.. The goal is to craft a poem that you can leave for another to find (maybe a specific someone or maybe not — make it a poem to be discovered or gifted.”
In my county in middle Georgia. I’m leaving QR Codes with poetry videos throughout the square. Below is an example of one. I’m reading here with Ethan Jacobs, whose book Dust will be available on Amazon this spring. This is for YOU, dear reader:
Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 4 of #VerseLove is Jennifer Guyor Jowett of Michigan, who invites us to write grammatically ungrammatical poems, using mixed up parts of speech in place of others and made up words without regard for rules. You can nounify verbs, verbify adjectives, or whatever you want to do to write this type of poem. Come meet Jennifer and read her poem and prompt here!
A daughter of mine on a desert hike with a peace sign
Birkenstock Peaced-Up Pipe Dreams
when we wander Birkenstocks
corkbed frolic nope to socks
camouflagely sherpa’d arch
hippiescuffle guitar’d march
bellishbottomed denimly jeans
knowexactly peaced-up means
leatherfringe’d-up gauchovest
showsly braless halter’d chest
macramae’d-up shoulderbag
carefree pet rock tail-she-wag
daisychainedup tousled locks
when we wander Birkenstocks
Common Threads 