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.
Our host today is former high school English teacher, Kate Sjostrom , a teacher educator at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Writer in Residence at the Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park.Â
You can read Kate’s full prompt here as she inspires us to write about emotions in concrete and abstract terms.
A Wood Thrush sings while perched on a branch in a green forest.
Susan Ahlbrand of Indiana is our host today for Day 10 of Verselove at http://www.ethicalela, com, and she inspires us to write love letters to a place we love. She challenged us to try a villanelle, a 19-line poem of five tercets and a quatrain with a rhyme scheme and refrain sequence. As I sit on the campsite of a Georgia State Park recharging my batteries this week, I could not think of a more fitting place to pay tribute.
Villanelle Tribute to Georgia State Parks
out in the woods on a state park campsite
nestled in shade by meandering creek
Pollock-splashed beams of breeze-filtered sunlight
Our host today for the 8th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is, Linda, who lives in Virginia, where she teaches from a middle school library. Linda inspires us to write prose sentences in the form of poetry the way we would say it in verse. You can read her full prompt here. She gives us this example: “In English, we might say, ‘I feel lost in the chaos of life,” but in poetry we say, ‘The heart wanders through the storm, seeking sunlight in shadows.'”
She shares a process we can use: Take a sentence from English. Translate it via the phrase, in poetry we say…
My chosen phrase is Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.
To bard or not to bard? That is today’s question from Jennifer Jowett of Michigan, our host for Day 5 of VerseLove at ethicalELA.com. Please join us to read poems, or write one of you own to share.
Jennifer encourages us to UNfind lines, making them opposite and see what they bring us in poetry. She says: “We’ve played with found lines. Sorted through them. Rearranged them. Created new poems from them. But have we ever un-found them? Find a line of poetry that speaks to you. Un-find it by exchanging the main words with their antonyms. You may choose to keep smaller words like helping verbs, prepositions, and articles or use an opposite for those too. Write one line or several and join them together. Or use a line as a starting point for a longer piece.”
I’ve been reading Steam Laundry by Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, a living poet in Alaska, and I’m using lines from her collection today. Here are the original lines from the book:
Not the way I came (At Last an Invitation from Eldorado)
I thought of the egg (In the House of our New Marriage)
So we each took turns in the water (Tom and Elmer Dive for the Gun)
Some towns glitter (The New Camp)
When I lose myself (At Last an Invitation from Eldorado)
But here the sun spins around (Lost Luxury)
Here is my Antonymic Revelation Poem for today, and I’m grateful to Jennifer Jowett for inspiring us to write today.
Thank you to all of the organizers and technology friends at Slice of Life who give us this space to blog all during March and weekly throughout the year. So much would be missing without our writing community, and it takes dedication and commitment to continue the work. You are appreciated! A huge thanks to each slicer for teaching me new things all month and sharing in the writing journey. What a gift we have in our fellow writers.
If you ever go to The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, you’ll see a circle in the floor that was cut from the old original Grand Ole Opry when it was at the Ryman Theater down near Broadway and brought to the new Opry when it was built. It looks a lot like a vinyl record album. You can read about its history here. The theme song for years at the Opry, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, is made manifest in that circle where all the greats have stood, reaching into the hearts of their audiences and singing from deep within their souls. All songs, after all, are poems set to music.
You can see the circle in the floor on the stage of The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Click the link at the bottom of this post for the live video with the song!
My friend and fellow writer Barb Edler at Sitting Behind the Eight Ball planted a seed for how to conclude a month of celebrating living poets the day she wrote a spine poem using the titles of the books in my poetry stack from a picture I shared. Then, the seed idea sprouted in a Cento poem from Lauren Camp’s poetry on March 29. It was as if a poet was urging me to think of the center, the truth, the room and to let the vision be as large as creation.
And so today, to conclude The Slice of Life Challenge 2026, let’s gather around the great circular slice and stand together as we invite all of the Living Poets back for a line in the multi-voiced Cento poem that features each poet throughout the month. I have taken one line of each daily poem and combined them into a collective song – to call the spirits of our poetry ancestors, the poets of today, and the future generations of poets to keep writing. What would a world be without poetry, without song, without voice? I envision each poet stepping up to the microphone to say their line, then returning to their place in the circle.
May the Circle Be Unbroken
When the earth makes a particularly hard turn
I can’t sleep at night
Glazed eyes, I go into a poem
perched on the edge of euphoric plummet
Eyes up, Arms out
Lulled by the rhythm of pewter waves
whatever your name is, you are with your own kind
Listen closely and maybe you’ll realize – it isn’t your voice
allow that it’s supposed to be in bloom right now
beneath each human move
beneath this wing
A poem is a gesture toward home
Inside the case were all the photos
we rouse ghosts
wanting in
what’s left is footage: the hours before
My life is filled with the souls of women
There are parts of you that fade with time
women in rustling skirts, old men with walkers
people on the street
They say to stay strong
I am a fortress
Maybe the poem is a cry for help
A star shoots across the sky
A tricky riddle cleverly solved
for the nonbelievers
Yesterday, you constructed an aqueduct of dreams
Never forget that
let that vision be as large as creation
That that parade of it all might ignite me
Side note: Denise Krebs also wrote a Cento using a line of each of her Stafford Challenge poems from this month so hop over to Dare to Care to read hers as well. She, Barb Edler, and Glenda Funk are the others in a small group that meets once a month to write together. These ladies are not only writing friends, but also real friends I’ve met in person and who may know me better than those who sit feet from me at work every day. Truth.
Here is the poem as it looked when I used Cento sticks to arrange it, and the order of the sticks from the underside that tell the order of each poet who wrote each line in the photo beneath this one.
Here are the poems and poets from which each line was taken throughout the month, in this order that appears above (but not in date order 1-31):
The Song of the House in the House by Joy Hard
I Worry by Wendy Cope
How Nature Calls Me by Glenis Redmond
Midnight, Talking About our Exes by Ada Limon
Undivided Attention by Kate Baer
Back to School by Amy Nemecek
Goldenrod by Maggie Smith
Whose Hate did You Swallow by Victoria Hutchins
Brazen by Marcela Sunak
Showing Up by Naomi Shihab Nye
The Cashier at the Gas Station Asks Where I’m From by Joy Sullivan
Duplex by Jericho Brown
Salvage by Miranda Cowley Heller
Who We Gonna Call by Amanda Gorman
Noche, La Casa Mag de Lena, Lamy, New Mexico by Sandra Cisneros
Providence by Natasha Trethewey
Marriage of Friends by Hannah Rosenberg
Blue by Sophie Diener
Eclogue with Paris and Prayer by Chelsea Rathburn
The Order of the Day by Billy Collins
Stay Strong by David Gate
Virginity by David Elliott
Queries of Unrest by Clint Smith
Before by Brian Rohr
An Address I’ll Forget by Sarah Kay
The Dark Doorway by Lyndsay Rush
First Snow by Arthur Sze
What Not to Say to Your Students at the Juvenile Detention Center by Nicole Stellon O’Donnell
Fear Of by Lauren Camp
Taxi by Misha Collins
Finally, here is a video of the theme song sung during the 100th anniversary celebration. Click the link below the pictureand sing along as we bid farewell to the 2026 Slice of Life Challenge and invite it to journey on in our daily lives….and to return in 2027 with more voices in this great circular Slice of Life.
For April, please consider coming to join us for VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. The party starts tomorrow, and we will be writing a poem daily through the month. If committing to an entire month seems too much right now, perhaps you can come on weekends or a couple of days a week. We’d love to have you join us! As Denise Krebs shared today: I’ll be writing poems each day in April at Ethical ELA’s #Verselove. Maybe you’ll join Kim Johnson, Glenda Funk, Sharon Roy, Margaret Simon, Rita DiCarne, Erica Johnson, Barb Edler, me, and many others. No need to sign up. Just join us here: https://www.ethicalela.com/verselove/
I was transfixed on the smiling poet delivering her poem with grace and poise at the Biden inauguration. Wearing a yellow coat, with red, she beamed and took the podium. When she spoke, I was speechless, mesmerized. Her name is Amanda Gorman, and her poetry is healing. Our nation needs a spoonful – perhaps a bottle full – of Amanda Gorman right now. You can read more about Amanda Gorman here and here. I’ve composed a Cento poem using Gorman’s lines from various poems, listed beneath the poem. Her words: Pay Attention. Learn from them. are words I will carry into the day.
We Rouse Ghosts
Even as we stand stone-still
we rouse ghosts ~
A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries.
This truth, like the white-blown sky.
What endures isn’t always what escapes.
Pay attention.
Learn from them.
Taken from: The Shallows; Who We Gonna Call; The Miracle of Morning; & So; Cordage, or Atonement; Hephaestus; In the Deep
She knows he loves lights – flashlights, landscape lights, Christmas lights, headlamps, city lights. And so on our first rainy night in “her city,” she took us on the High Roller. A surprise with him in mind. And we loved every minute of the half-hour spin seeing the city lights!
Our host for the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com this month was Stacey Joy, who inspired us to write poems honoring human emotions. Since I was traveling, I was off by a day, so I am posting the poem from one of those prompts today. You can click here to read the full prompt.
Emotions
I’ve had a few
severe ones came
on takeoff from
the Vegas airport
yesterday
My phone was in
airplane mode
with Delta wi-fi
but my soul wasn’t
it wasn’t the
proverbial placenta pulling
it was the heartstrings
as I watched my
daughter ping on
Find My Phone
our plane flying
away, away, away
so far home
my firstborn watching
planes from her window
beneath, asking
in her text
if the plane she saw
might be us
On Fremont StreetWe saw The Wizard of Oz as a last-minute Sphere ticket, and what a show!Mallory and I prefer the “original” style slots with the pull handle. You have to feel the vibe, and I was drawn to the Tabasco logo and won a few dollars on this one at The Golden Nugget!My daughter, her partner, and their four-legged “son,” Jackson.
There was a hidden speakeasy at The Flamingo, and we found it!
Walking down Fremont Street, a/k/a “The Old Strip”
For a special surprise, my daughter took us to ride on The High Roller on our first night in Vegas
First, huge thanks and a hug. Second, I’m sharing my plan for March slicing.
I was sitting with my schnoodle Boo Radley in my favorite chair in the living room when the text notification came on Valentine’s Day. My friend, fellow Slice of Life blogger, travel advice guru, fellow Schnoodle Mom, and Stafford Challenge small group buddy Glenda Funk of Idaho sent a Valentine full of smiles and hugs to our writing group that meets the first of each month to catch up and write! One of the greatest blessings of a writing community is finding common interests among those with whom we share some of our deepest feelings and so much of our day-to-day lives. A huge thanks to Glenda today, to all the writers here at Slice of Life, and others in writing group crossroads for making life more friendly and for helping me find the smiles in unexpected places.
Valentine’s Day hugs
arrive from across the miles
arms wide as friendship!
A plan has been brewing. It’s been in my bones, and it has finally taken root. I find that if I have a plan for the Slice of Life Challenge, I’m more successful at completing the challenge ~ and not just finishing it, but actually enjoying it the same way some marathon runners are actually smiling when they cross the finish line.
My Plan
Living poets are near and dear to my heart. I want to not only read and celebrate them, but also have an opportunity to share their work. That will be my own personal March Slice of Life Challenge plan. Each day, I’ll feature a collection of poems by a living poet, and I’ll compose a short Cento poem each day from that collection. Cento poems are some of my favorites – they’re a form of found poetry where lines of existing poems are arranged to create new poems. I’m still curating my featured list, but I wanted to share this idea in case there is anyone reading who is struggling with an idea and needs a place to start. Perhaps there are seeds in this idea. Some of my favorite reading is about books and how they have changed lives – poetry collections included.
I’ll see you at the starting line on Sunday, ready for the journey!
Common Threads 