Category: Gratitude

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VerseLove Day 16: Etheree Poems with Katrina Morrison

Our host for Day 16 of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Katrina Morrison, who teaches English and German in a rural community in Osage County, Oklahoma.

Katrina inspires us to write etheree poems and shares her process: “Etheree Taylor Armstong, an Arkansas poet, created the simple eponymous Etheree. An etheree consists of ten lines with each line’s syllabication increasing by one. Line 1 begins with one syllable, line two has two syllables, line three has three syllables, etc. Proceed this way until you have composed a poem with ten lines.” You can read her full prompt here.

The Poetry Fox

have you ever seen a fox type poems

on a classic vintage typewriter

pecking with his paws at the keys

pounding out on-demand verse

for people offering

their favorite words,

then reading each

aloud to

human

hearts?

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#VerseLove Day 15 with Brittany Saulnier – Colors in Nature

Brittany Saulnier, our host for Day 15 of VerseLove2025, is the author of the short story LIGHT OUT in the anthology Just YA: Short Stories, Poems, Essays & Fiction for grades 7 -12. She is the co-creator of Read to Write Kidlit, a podcast dedicated to improving writing craft by talking with authors about their books.

She invites us to think of a recent memory where we were “in nature” and write a poem that highlights the three colors from our memory. You can read Brittany’s full prompt here.

All the Colors of Sunset

what do you call the shade of sunset?

sometimes it’s 14-carat gold

other times, it’s tangerine

or pink cotton candy

sunflower yellow

or lilac storm

….the best nights,

ruby

red

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#VerseLove Day 13 with Dr. Sarah J. Donovan of Oklahoma – Witnessing

Dr. Sarah J. Donovan is the founder of Ethical ELA, a community for teacher-writers, and a 2024 Fellow for the Genocide Education Project. A former middle school English teacher and author, she advocates for humanizing literacy practices, genocide education, and poetry as witness. Her work bridges pedagogy, justice, and storytelling.

Sarah inspires us to write poems in recognition of the past and in celebration of the Armenian people, their voices, and their enduring culture. You can read her full prompt here. I’m sharing a celebration pantoum.

Armenian Culture Pantoum

elders are respected

children are revered

Hellenistic temples

intricate khachkars

children are revered

strong family values

intricate khachkars

lavash and harissa

strong family values

Yarkhushta marriage dance

lavash and harissa

Artsakh carpets

Yarkhushta marriage dance

Hellenistic temples

Artsakh carpets

elders are respected

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#VerseLove Day 12 with Kate Sjostrom of Illinois – Literacy Memories

Our host for the 12th day of VerseLove2025 is Kate Sjostrom, a teacher educator at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

She inspires us to write our favorite literacy memory in a poem. You can read her full prompt here.

I’m sharing a pantoum today – – of the poem that started it all for me…..my deep love of poetry comes down to one poem that mesmerized me and wouldn’t turn loose. It still holds me captive, and it’s the reason I often wear green glass beads…….Overheard on a Salt Marsh, by Harold Monro!

Falling in Love with Harold Monroe

in my closet with a flashlight

reading Childcraft Volume 1: Poems and Rhymes

I fell in love with Harold

when I was 8

reading Childcraft Volume 1: Poems and Rhymes

Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?

when I was 8

Give them me. / No.

Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?

Your green glass beads on a silver ring

Give them me. / NO!

Hush, I stole them out of the moon.

Your green glass beads on a silver ring

I fell in love with Harold

Hush, I stole them out of the moon

in my closet with a flashlight

Water nymph with green glass beads, image generated with AI
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#VerseLove Day 8 with Darius Phelps of New York – The Good Son

Dr. Darius Phelps, our host for Day 8 of #VerseLove 2025, is the Assistant Director of Programs at the Center For Publishing, Writing, and Media at NYU. You can read his full prompt here.

He encourages us to write poems about something we carry from someone before us, or something/someone we try to imitate.

Cricketing

I cricket.

I rub my feet together

to relax.

My father did it

and his mother, too.

It scares me

these repetitive motions

the oldness of it all.

I cricket.

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#VerseLove Day 4 with Dave Wooley of Pennsylvania – Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Dave Wooley, our host for Day 4 of #VerseLove 2025, lives in Pennsylvania.

Dave inspires us to write from the perspective of a traveller, choosing to focus on the place, or focus on the experience of traveling, or maybe just the idea of being a traveller. He suggests using photos to help relive moments and inspire the thoughts of the poem. You can read his full prompt here.

I chose a photo of my youngest granddaughter with me having ice cream at Leopold’s in Savannah, Georgia and wrote a pantoum poem to capture the memory.

Sisterhood of the Southern Sweet Tooth

there we were, so sassy

Magnolia Mae and I

eating rose petal ice cream

at Leopold’s in Savannah, Georgia

Magnolia Mae and I~

grandmother and granddaughter

at Leopold’s in Savannah, Georgia

of the Sisterhood of the Southern Sweet Tooth

grandmother and granddaughter

sharing a spoon and a knowing smile

of the Sisterhood of the Southern Sweet Tooth

Georgia girls with flowery style

sharing a spoon and a knowing smile

eating rose petal ice cream

Georgia girls with flowery style

there we were, together

My youngest granddaughter and I – sharing ice cream
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#VerseLove Day 2 with Leilya Pitre of Louisiana – When Spring Speaks in Tricubes

Leilya Pitre, our host for Day 2 of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, lives in Ponchatoula, LA, which is known as the Strawberry Capital of the World. She teaches at Southeastern Louisiana University and coordinates the English Education Program.

Leilya inspires us to write spring tricubes, and you can read her full prompt here. A tricube consists of three stanzas, each with three lines, and each line having three syllables—quick, rhythmic, and focused. It’s easy to remember as 3:3:3.

It’s a great day to think about spring!

Springtime Tricube

umbrellas

daffodils

rain showers

butterflies

Easter eggs

wildflowers

hummingbirds

sunshine’s warmth

trees tower

Come join us today – read, write, and share! And if you happen to be in middle Georgia today, come by 1828 Coffee Company in Zebulon, Georgia and meet The Poetry Fox. He’ll write a free poem for you between 3:00 and 6:00 and share about his life between 7:00 and 8:00. Hope to see you there!

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#VerseLove Day 1 with Jennifer Jowett of Michigan: The Verse Collector

During the month of April, I’m participating in #VerseLove 2025 at http://www.ethicalela.com. Each day, a different host will lead us in a fresh prompt to inspire writing. These prompts can be used in classrooms or for personal writing development. It is my hope that you will visit the site and consider writing and sharing your own poems as we celebrate National Poetry Month together.

Today’s host is Jennifer Jowett of Michigan, who leads us in The Verse Collector prompt. You can read her full prompt inspiring us to write Cento poems here.

For my poem today, I looked no further than my old Childcraft Volume 1: Poems and Rhymes, the book that started my love of poetry as an elementary school child. I sat in a dark closet with a flashlight for hours on end, mesmerized by the reading. Here are some rearranged lines from that volume of poems that I used to create a new poem.

Stolen Childcrafted Secrets

I was going to the window

(to steal the secret of the sun)

too burning and too quick to hold

but something surely to behold

the swallows blow along the sky

the sparrows twitter as they fly

the wind is passing through

I was going to the window

(to steal the secret of the sun)

(hush, I stole them out of the moon!)

I have so much to tell!

Here are the poems from which I took the lines, in order:

Once I Saw a Little Bird, anonymous

This is My Rock – David McCord

The Falling Star – Sara Teasdale

Song of the Wake-Up-World – Countee Cullen

April – Sara Teasdale

Wind Capers – Nancy Byrd Turner

Who Has Seen the Wind? – Christina Rossetti

Repeat 1

Repeat 2

Overheard on a Salt Marsh – Harold Monro (the poem that put a spell on me for life)

March – Emily Dickinson

My original book had a pink spine and a whole different set of illustrations. This one features the same poems, but is from a different year of this set of books. One day I hope to recover the original book from an attic somewhere……..
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March 31: 9:00-9:31 p.m. The Goodnight Magnesium and Music Festival

bedtime rituals

foot rub magnesium cream

relaxing music

I’m a firm believer in sleep – not too much, and not too little. I wish I knew the sweet spot of food like I know the sweet spot of sleep. I head bedward at 9:00 so I can start getting sleepy. The goal is to be fully asleep between 9:30 and 10:00 and to wake at 5:00 without exercising the snooze option more than a couple of times (much more challenging on a Monday).

For years, I took melatonin, but the nightmares were real. That’s when my sister in law told me about magnesium foot cream, and my sleep has never been better. This is the first part of my sleepy time ritual.

Plus, there is music. Which leads me to Leigh Anne Eck’s Music Festival. I’m showing up in pajamas and slippers, hair up and face drenched with moisturizer because my music is focused on peaceful relaxation and not feeling like I want to get up and dance or bust a move my body can no longer handle.

Let’s start with Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World. No one on earth offers greater reassurance that things are still okay with the world than Louis himself. I need that at the end of a day when everything has reached the crescendo of doubt. Trees of green and red roses, skies of blue and clouds of white and babies…..it’s a feast of all-is-well, now go to sleep knowing it’s going to be okay. Tom T. Hall’s I Love is one that offers some reassurance, too, but not quite like old Lou.

B.J. Thomas may be in my top 5 artists with songs like Don’t Worry, Baby for relaxing. This one is on par with The Alan Parson Projects’ Eye in the Sky, which brings it waaaaay up on the list with its one greatest line in the whole song: the sun in your eyes made some of the lies worth believing.

But the best ever, the top top top line I love in a song is actually a question, and anytime we hear it playing, my husband and I look at each other and answer, “Yes.” The Eagles: Take it to the Limit – – if it all fell to pieces tomorrow, would you still be mine?

Now I could go far down the John Denver Country Roads and Calypso lyrics a long, long way…. they’re on my relaxation playlist, too, at this Goodnight Music Festival.

Let’s get this goodnight party started as we close out another year of The Slice of Life March Challenge and look forward to the Tuesday slicing all year long.

Good night, Moon! Good night, March! Good night, Slicing family! Thank you for the stories and for sharing your lives this month and inspiring everyone. See you on Tuesday!

Hey, wait……that’s tomorrow! In that case, see you around 5:00 a.m………

Special thanks to the TWT crew for making this month of slicing possible, to each of the writers for all of the inspiration, and to Glenda, Barb, and Denise for slicing in time increments throughout the day. Your writing kinship means the world to me, and I’ll end with a group hug and an invitation to write through April with another writing community starting tomorrow as we kick off VerseLove 2025 at http://www.ethicalela.com. If you wrote for 31 days, you can write for 61 – – believe it! Hope to see you there!

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March 26: 6:20-6:51 Handwarmer Mug

6:20-6:51 p.m.: My peace rituals are more necessary these days than they’ve ever been before.

Is it because I’m older?

Or because life is busier?

Or because the world feels so different today than it did yesterday?

Some evenings, I take a long walk with the dogs. Other evenings, I light candles. Some nights, I soak in a hot bath. Most every afternoon or evening, I make a pot of hot green tea and my husband and I indulge with local honey and a flavored herb blend. There is nothing that compares to the feeling of togetherness and unwinding over steam rising from a cup. When the world is cold, there is warmth in togetherness.

Steeping Peace

I come home from work

steep a mug of hot green tea

sweetened with honey

grab a tea towel

slip my hand inside the mug

buffered towel warmth

when the world is cold

a handwarmer mug steeps peace

from the inside out