Category: Literature

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VerseLove Day 5: Antonymic Revelations

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.

Go on, Figure it out For Yourself

surely the way you stormed out

you did not consider the chicken

they didn’t brood-bathe in the dust

all farms lack luster

as you’ll discover for yourself ~

over yonder the moon hangs frozen

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VerseLove Day 4: Living Poets

Instructions for Traveling with Living Poets

I’m hosting today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the fourth day of VerseLove to celebrate National Poetry Month. Hop on over there and write with us today! Follow this link.

Inspiration 

I made a commitment to follow more living poets in 2026, and I’ve been on a remarkable journey of discovery ever since.  As a third-year member of The Stafford Challenge, it brings great joy to see a surge of interest in modern poetry! At my father’s funeral in June 2025, I chose a poem from an anthology of living poets to read at his graveside – not one written long ago.  I reached out to the poet to let her know I planned to read it, and I sent her a recorded clip of that reading. Imagine my surprise when, with tears in her eyes, she sent her own recorded message back explaining that it was her own cancer journey that had inspired her deeply moving poem. I hope to meet her in person this summer when I travel to Portland, Oregon.

Joy Sullivan, author of Instructions for Traveling West, is one of the living poets I follow on social media.  Her Substack, Necessary Salt, captivates me with each new post.  I think what I find most enthralling is the sheer glory she finds in everyday moments.  I invite you to go on a living poet journey to find new writers throughout the month.  Use their work to inspire your own, even borrowing their style and a line or two to frame your own poem.  You can find living poets at Teach Living Poets, Poetry Foundation, and by using search engines to discover others. 

Process

I’ve selected a poem by Joy Sullivan to get us acquainted with each other using the title alone: The cashier at the gas station asks me where I’m from.  Here is the poem free to download from Pinterest. 

Choose a person and setting (i.e. cashier at the gas station, pastor at church, mysterious stranger at the bar, waitress at a restaurant, passenger on an airplane, etc.) and introduce yourself.  Title your poem as Joy Sullivan does, and offer us a glimpse into your world.

My Poem

The Soapmaster of Green Willow Soaps asks me where I’m from

so I tell her: an hour south of Atlanta

because no one has ever heard of this place

and besides, these towns are so tiny we all just say

                      Pike County

which is small enough to spit watermelon seeds

across, where the sunsets rival Titian red

when we look over Alabama-way

but what I don’t tell her as I place bars of 

Mountain Mist, Morning Citrus, and Purple Haze

into my arm basket

is that I’m plotting retirement in these mountains

sipping black coffee on my porch

         in the shadows of Blue Ridge 

channeling inner birdsong and crystal-splashing waterfalls

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VerseLove Day 3: Ekphrastic Poetry

Today’s Host, Melissa, lives the Rocky Mountains.  She invites us to explore ekphrastic poetry today. She explains: Ekphrasis poetry is inspired by art. This style of poetry typically involves a verbal description or interpretation of the artwork, aiming to create a new artistic experience through the intersection of poetry and visual art.

She shares her process: Look at some art–photographs, sculptures, paintings, etc. How would you describe this piece of art? How does the art make you feel? Where does the art take you? Does the art have a deeper meaning or backstory that maybe one cannot see but needs to explore with words? Does the art bring back memories?

Popping Back for Popping Peachy

Scrolling back through my pictures

my heart aches when I see them ~

flamingoes at The Flamingo

in Las Vegas, Nevada

***

I’d stood and admired them

each morning

safe in their habitat, rescues all

trusting the hand that feeds them

preening demurely for guests

unaware of their own beauty

***

one week later

Peachy was assaulted

birdnapped, tortured by

a deranged tourist turned felon

before authorities came to the rescue

once again

***

felon bully says he’s a farm boy

who knows his birds

how to pop a wing

back in place

***

sounds like he needs a few of his own

appendages popped back in place

{I’m a farm girl – and I volunteer}

Update: Click this link for an update on Peachy

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VerseLove Day 2: Look Around

Our host today for the second day of VerseLove 2026 at http://www.ethicalela.com is Leilya Pitre, who teaches and coordinates the English Education Program at Southeastern Louisiana University. She inspires us to find meaning and poetry in small, everyday moments: You can read her full prompt here.

She explains her process: Look at the world around you—from your immediate surroundings inside to outside of your window or on your path. Somewhere close a poem is waiting for you.

Find the poem that’s hiding in plain sight. Let a road sign, billboard, or passing phrase spark today’s writing. Look for the poetry in the everyday little routines, your (or someone else’s) habits. You don’t need to go far—it might be right in front of you. 

Harlequin Home Invasion

where they all came from,

we don’t know

but suddenly there were

hundreds of them

lady beetles

Harmonia axyridis

called Harlequins

scaling the walls

hugging the lampshades

hiking the armchairs

watching our Netflix

like they belong here

living rent-free in

the place we call home

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VerseLove Day 1 ~ Landscapes of Our Lives

Today is the first day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, and many of the Slice of Life writers and Stafford Challenge poets will be joining this robust group of poets who write during Open Write throughout the year and VerseLove every day in April. We’ll be joined by writers from Poetry Friday and Spiritual Journey Thursdays and those belonging to many other writing groups – from all across the continental United States and from other countries as well. I love March and April because there is a convergence of writers from different groups all coming together.

Today’s host is Sarah Donovan, creator of EthicalELA and human being extraordinare. You can read her opening prompt here, inviting us to write about the landscapes of our lives – along with the response poems of others throughout the day. By the afternoon hours throughout April, there will be an amazing collection of poems all on a theme. Come write with us. Or come read what we’ve written.

the page and the pen

inside me there is a boxcar
bent fork and family
there is a farm
radiant web overhead
there is Golden
Fedder Fountain and Verbivore
there is River Heights
old clock and mystery
there is Mitford Village
Barnabas and covered dish
there is a mountain
Swiss cabin, goats, grandpa

Inside me there are pages
some filled, some blank
where the reader writes the story
but I

I hold the pen

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Celebrating Living Poets: Ada Limon

Ada Limon was our U.S Poet Laureate prior to our current Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze. She writes poems and puts them in a drawer, returning to them later to see which ones seem to have bloomed. She tells writers who are striving to make a living off “just writing” that their poetry wants them to live and work and pay their bills. Limon lives in Lexington, Kentucky and is inspired by nature, and of course by horses, being so close to the Kentucky Derby -and if you’ve never read How to Triumph Like a Girl, you simply must click this link and devour every single line. Ada Limon is one of the two poets our dog Ollie loves best, as his chewing on the corner of Bright Dead Things reveals (I cropped the damage out in the photo below).

I’ve created a Cento poem by using existing lines from two of her collections and arranging them into new poems. The first poem is from lines in poems in The Carrying.

What a Day Is

The big-ass bees are back, tipsy, sun-drunk

The birds were being so bizarre today

that brute sky opening in a slate-metal maw

and the dogs are going bonkers in the early morning

and this is what a day is. Beetle on the wainscoting,

But friends, it’s lunchtime.

Lines for my cento were taken from these poems, in this order: Dandelion Insomnia; Almost Forty; The Leash; The Visitor; Late Summer after a Panic Attack; The Light the Living See

I couldn’t resist TWO poems for today. Need I say that Ada Limon is in my top tier of favorite poets? Maybe even my very favorite. These lines for this cento were taken from Bright Dead Things.

Shower Dragon

I’m crying near the shower

changing swirl of hips and hope

part female, part male, part terrible dragon

But I want to be more like a weed

perched on the edge of euphoric plummet

of psychedelic-colored canaries: a cloud

of air, of water, of fire, of earth

of fast wishes caught by nothing.

Taken from, in this order: Cower, Play it Again, Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds; The Good Fight; Midnight, Talking About our Exes; Adaptation; The Whale and the Waltz Inside of It; The Plunge.

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Celebrating Living Poets: Lauren Camp

Throughout the month of March, I have been celebrating a different living poet each day by taking lines of their existing poetry and rearranging them into new poems called Centos. Today’s living poet is one that I was blessed to hear as part of the Stafford Challenge monthly guest speakers. Lauren Camp was the Grand Canyon’s Astronomer in Residence and a New Mexico Poet Laureate. She read from a couple of her books, including In Old Sky and shared of her theme of darkness and how it is often misperceived.

You can read about Lauren Camp, along with her poetry, here. If I were writing an introduction to my slice I am envisioning for March 31, today’s poem would set the stage.

Voices of the Poets from Center Circle

Many of our people have lived

Nothing is insignificant, but I know the room

Where the center is

is this truth

is, the future

let that vision be as large as creation

Lines for this Cento were taken from these poems, in this order: Diminishing Echo; Reclaiming Perspective; Bluest; Into this Absence; Prognosis; Fear of.

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Celebrating Living Poets: Sarah Kay

The first time I ever heard Sarah Kay perform “Hands,” I was speechless. She was young, polished, and profoundly moving in her delivery. She’s the living poet I’m celebrating today during the Slice of Life Challenge. Each poet’s collection has inspired me to take a selection of their existing lines and rearrange them, creating a Cento poem from their work.

Sarah quickly became a favorite, and one whose YouTube videos I share with my book club when I send out morning poems during National Poetry Month. Imagine my surprise when I learned that she was coming to Serenbe Pavilion in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia this May! Serenbe is an hour from where I live – a Saturday night drive well worth the cost of a reserved seat. I can’t wait to hear her in person – I’m thinking of it as a small pre-retirement gift to myself to ignite the flame of all the poetry events I’ll finally be able to attend, even if they’re on weeknights. For today, I’m thumbing through A Little Daylight Left and indulging in the joy of her writing.

You can read more about Sarah Kay here; this link has her famous Ted Talk “If I Should Have a Daughter” embedded into the article with the interview.

My Cento:

I study the metronome of his breath

I am a snow globe of worry

So maybe this is a Magic Cat

A tricky riddle cleverly solved

We laugh & laugh & laugh

These lines were taken from the following poems, in this order:

An additional thought today:

When I woke up and read a post this morning from Peter at Five Hundred a Day, I realized that I, too, have been fishing for the place my words are looking for (don’t miss his blog post today – it’ll bring a tear or two or a Kleenex full). In 2025, a colleague and I started an office book club. Recently, she has become a Silent Book Club host, and we have both seen our husbands, infrequent readers prior to this additional club, show up and take ownership in “their” book club. It has been a blessing, and as our ladies’ book club meets for our discussions and adventures, our husbands will go have dinner and discussions of their own. I made a mental note: there is something to showing up without expectation to discuss a book that appeals to folks..

I share all of this to say that like Peter, I’ve been fishing for an in-person writing group in my town and nearby smaller towns, and I found the Silent Book Club equivalent in a group called Shut Up & Write (SUAW). Each writing group where I can share with others is so unique, but one type of group I don’t have in my life and desperately need is in-person. I applied and have apparently made the cut, was approved as an organizer, and will complete my onboarding training during Spring Break in a week and a half. I’m casting my reel out to ask if anyone has attended a Shut Up & Write event and to ask for your experiences. I’d love to get your thoughts.

Ollie eats good poetry; hence two of these books appear more loved on.
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Celebrating Living Poets: David Gate

This month during the Slice of Life Challenge at http://www.twowritingteachers.org, I’m celebrating a different living poet each day and using their work to create a cento poem. David Gate is a poet who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, North Carolina and writes predominantly on themes of nature and the environment. You can read more about David Gate here and here.

When the Baby Goats are Dying

People say “money doesn’t make you happy”

when the baby goats are dying.

It tells you nothing.

They say to “stay strong.”

I always do.

Lines for this Cento were taken from: The Problem of Happiness; I Still Get to Be Yours; Curse these Minutes; Stay Strong; Winter’s Insistence

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Celebrating Living Poets: Billy Collins

If you’ve been following the celebration of living poets I’ve been adding to the circle each day, you just knew all along that this poet was coming to the party. Whenever I need to stop taking life so seriously but still keep the reality in perspective and blend in some humor, I reach for Billy Collins. He’s got me covered when it comes to a balm for the heart on weary days – which is pretty much every day when the pollen count is high and I have spring fever and work in a windowless cubicle. Oh, I have my Billy Collins favorites ~ Whale Day, Banana School, An Irish Spider.…all of them are as unique as his personality and just as engaging. He’s a former US Poet Laureate. In one of his writing videos somewhere in the past, I remember him saying, “Bring in a spider.” The spider is the metaphor for the unexpected zinger in a poem. I see them in his poems, all these spiders, and I strive for them in my own. It’s like that one secret ingredient that makes the poem come alive. You can read more about Billy Collins here on his website.

Worms Speak of a Narcissist

Surely, narcissism fails to capture

people on the street

and what you had been feeding me

just an expanse of white ink

pass through my special glasses, but not you.

Now, I am free of the collar

It’s the science of worms

near a breadcrumb on the curb

and, I swear, they began talking about you.

Lines for this Cento were taken from, in this order: Freud; Height; The Order of the Day; the Peasants’ Revolt; Special Glasses; The Revenant; The Introduction; Height; Carry

31 days of Living Poets in a tribute book stack – STANDING STRONG