Category: Creativity

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August Open Write Day 2

Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, Linda is our host for The Open Write. She inspires us to write Clunker Exchange Poems, intentionally exchanging a line (I chose into another world to use in my poem and offer all of my lines as clunkers today). You can read her full prompt here.

Sunday Morning Scrambled

all hell breaks loose

here on this peaceful

Sunday morning as I

sip coffee, write

a clunker exchange ~

sudden frantic barking

of my three vicious

Schnoodles bounces

and echoes through

the house as they

slo-mo scramble

from window to window

no-traction toenails

on the rugless wood

floors, looking like

Saturday morning

Flintstone cartoon

pets running for all

they’re worth but

going nowhere fast

when I look out and see

mama D-E-E-R

(no need to spell it

now – besides, our one

speller alerts the

other two anyway)

streaking into the woods

her two spotteds

stumbling along behind

her, pausing at the edge

to look back at this

house of horrors

where hell hath unleashed

its fury on this holy morning

then disappear

into another world

with dangers all its own

far from here (here~

where I want to exchange

all the clunked-up lines

for world peace

on the Funny Farm)

Fitz, the dog who knows D-E-E-R spells deer, leads the charge on scaring the deer away. Even the babies. Especially the babies.

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Day 1 of August Open Write with Wendy Everard

Today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the August Open Write, Wendy Everard of New York is our host for Dadaist poems. You can read her full prompt here. This form is fun – it involves finding an article and cutting out words, then pulling them out in random order to use them to form a new poem.

I took a copy of the July 22, 2024 The New Yorker and wrote down the lines of the cartoons, then cut them up on swatches of a page of a yellow legal pad. Here’s what I dada’ed:

the heat
his ashes
he didn’t want

I’ve enjoyed
smash open the pinata
while you wait

hold on –
as it became clear that
for me to
see you in
the requisite strength

are we sure
same pirate
I don’t love

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Thawing the Kingfisher

no, that bird

wasn’t fake

but it wasn’t

alive either

it was frozen

this Belted Kingfisher

posed for the

painting in all its

grays, blues, and blacks

fresh from the freezer

thawed in the eyes

of the artist

captured in each

stroke of her

brush on the

blank canvas

waiting to

take flight

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Breathless Heaven

only the stars are

visible when

the trees close their

eyes and lift

their leaves

in prayer

when this

pinhole light

of heaven

seeps down

breathing song

into leaf

into branch

into trunk

into forest

when shimmery

halo glitter

of ancestral

angels

cascades down

swaying waves

into oceans

into lakes

into streams

and creeks

for all the world

to hear

the music

of hope

for all those

still here

who listen

**first lines inspired by words photographed at The Immersive Titanic Exhibit in Atlanta, Georgia last weekend

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100-Syllable Book Cover Reveal

that moment when you

see your book cover

for the first time with

your group of writing

friends and hold back tears

for all the waiting,

for all the writing,

for all the hours spent

anticipating

what you always but

never dreamed so real

and possible and

finally right here

here it is, set to

launch September 2

stay tuned for the link

to our stories, to

our wounds, to our hearts,

to our healing words

Cheers for Words That Mend!

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Tsundoku Tricube

Tsundoku,

I tell you!

‘s what I do

you know who

runs this zoo

not too few

‘s nothing new

my books were

overdue

A tribe is a poem with three stanzas, each with three lines, each with three syllables

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Day 4 of July Open Write

This day of the month is my favorite – the day when all three of my online writing groups converge – The Slice of Life (www.twowritingteachers.org), The Open Write (www.ethicalela.com), and The Stafford Challenge (a group on Facebook, led by Brian Rohr and inspired by William Stafford). I look forward to seeing my fellow writers in person at NCTE in Boston in November and hereby volunteer to work with others to help set up meet and greet points where we can all eat and write together. There is something special about getting to know a person through writing and then meeting them face to face.

Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 4 of the July Open Write is Gayle Sands of Maryland. She inspires us to write Important Thing Poems based on the childhood classic Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. You can read Gayle’s full prompt here, and I hope you will write a poem and share it!

I so love this prompt and its reach to everyone, everywhere. This prompt would work to inspire verse in grades Pre-K through 12 and beyond. Classic books have the power to change the world, I am convinced.

Photo by Dhivakaran S on Pexels.com

Sparking Hope

The important thing
about a flame
is that it sparks hope.
You can warm by it,
hold hands by it,
kiss by it, sleep by it.
You can see with it,
you can remember through it,
you can glow in it, pray over it,
refine gold in it,
say goodbye or goodnight with it.
But the important thing
about a flame
is that it sparks hope.

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life for inspiring teachers to share their writing and giving space to read the work of all and share the love of the writinghood.

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Day 3 of July Open Write with Mo Daley of Illinois

Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the third day of the July Open Write is Mo Daley of Illinois, who inspires us to write poems using words from articles. We drew an X over the article and used the words touching our X. You can read Mo’s full prompt here.

I chose the article Best Inbreed: The Rise of Canine Clones by Alexandra Horowitz from the July 1, 2024 edition of The New Yorker, the article beginning on page 22 and my X from a section at the bottom of page 26 including these words: you, few, believe, zebra, individual, seminar, opens, question, you, your, her, especially, another, the, cherished, cloned, cognition, question, lost, subject, white, her, she, eyes.

The Open Seminar

few believe

she cloned

her zebra

individual

questions

led me here

to see

the white

of her eyes,

this cherished

subject

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Day 2 of July Open Write with Jennifer Jowett of Michigan

Today’s host for the second day of the July Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Jennifer Jowett of Michigan, who inspires us to write poems of loss. You can read Jennifer’s entire prompt here.

Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.com

Get Lost

I keep showing them to the exit
but they refuse to leave, to make
themselves scarce once and for all
they’re like Velcro leeches
sacked-out partiers
who won’t get lost
they stick with
me, these
pounds

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How I Beat the Heat


Hallmark’s Christmas in July movies

high velocity fan, full blast

pretending there’s a blizzard

piping hot black coffee

wrapped in sofa throw

Schnoodles piled high

all of us

beating

heat 

The older I get, the less I can endure the extreme heat and humidity. Give me a blizzard to handle the scorching heat! I’ve found that a good snowy Hallmark Christmas in July movie with love instead of hate, free from the problems of the world, is my ticket to a better day! Raising a mug to you – Cheers! Stay cool!