Category: Literature

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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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Lines

it messes with my

mind and heart, these

Titanic exhibits like

the one in Atlanta,

the Immersive

Experience

(no pun intended,

I’m sure, but I’d

have chosen a

different name)

I learned about the

Titanic as a child when

an elderly couple in

our church were

on the next boat out

late for their honeymoon

on the Titanic ~

the Testers, Mr. and Mrs.,

lived because they were

late, and for all the

cussing I might have

muttered missing my boat,

I’d have learned a

thing or two about

what it means to

let things go

and move on

I can’t imagine the terror

inside the hearts on

those lifeboats

all the loved ones

watching their own

sink to their deaths

in freezing darkness

as they rowed on

I wonder if F. Scott

Fitzgerald started

at the end of Gatsby

and then went to the

beginning to start

again

so we beat on

boats against the current

borne back

ceaselessly into

the past

which is why I

began taking photos

of snippets of

lines in the exhibit

wondering what

poems might

emerge, turning the

grief back to joy

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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 5 of July Open Write

Mo Daley of Illinois is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 5 of the July Open Write. She inspires us to write dodoitsu poems. Mo writes, “I was looking for poetic forms that I was unfamiliar with and stumbled upon the dodoitsu. It’s a four-lined Japanese form with no set rhyme scheme. Its syllabic structure is 7-7-7-5. The dodoitsu is usually comical and usually concerns love or work. Include a title if you wish.”

Mo notes that some consider the dodoitsu the Japanese limerick. It reminded me of our schnauzer, Fitz, who has CUPS disease and has had most of his teeth removed and is scheduled for the rest. He may have lost his teeth, but he hasn’t lost his ranking order.

Toothless Alpha

he’s practically toothless

our aging schnauzer alpha

gumming vicious warning snaps

at badass others

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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 1 of July Open Write with Denise Krebs of California

Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the July 2024 Open Write, Day 1, is Denise Krebs of California. She inspires us to write septercet poems on any topic we choose. Also called a blackjack poem for the 21 syllables in each stanza, the poem features stanzas of three lines with 7 syllables on each line. You can read Denise’s full prompt here. I’ll be presenting with Denise at this year’s NCTE Convention in Boston in November, and I’m proud to call her a friend!

Goddess of No

Harold Monro held me charmed

Overheard on a Salt Marsh

Gold-leaf’d Childcraft Volume 1

Over and over again

In my closet (with flashlight)

I read those words on repeat

Utterly spellbound, transfixed

Give them me. No. Give them me.

Grew up wearing green glass beads.

The nymph to the goblin: No!

He’ll lie in the mud and howl

for beads on her silver ring

She stole them out of the moon.

He’ll howl in a deep lagoon

(like so many creeps out there).

In the best illustration

the goblin’s fingers spark truth:

it’s sexual harassment.

this primer poem for girls

who could read between the lines

Give them me. No. Give them me.

better than a fair daughter

better than the voices of winds

better than stars or water

Harold Monro held me charmed

Give them me. No. Give them me.

I am a Goddess of No.

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In Places Loved Nonet

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

today I loaded my car with books

first editions, autographed names

I’m holding on no longer

to these inked hostages ~

those sentiments are

not mine; nor those

memories ~

I’ve let

go

of

housing

what should live

in places loved

where their worth is not

measured in value of

possible return or in

collectors’ satisfaction but

in what’s inside ~ their words and message

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Open Write June Day 5 with Jessica Wiley/ Day 155 of The Stafford Challenge

Today marks 155 days that those in The Stafford Challenge began a yearlong quest to write one poem each day for a whole year. Last night, we celebrated with poet Jessica Jacobs of North Carolina via Zoom, listening to her share her writing retreat to the desert of Arizona as she wrote about the art of Georgia O’Keefe. When writing group days intersect, it’s always interesting to see how several ideas can combine into one poem and fit in all of the spaces.

Jessica Wiley is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the final day of June’s Open Write for 2024. She inspires us to write poems by taking the spines of books and using them as lines. You can read her full prompt here.

My Reading Life

Life’s Greatest Treasure

Big Magic

Some Much-Loved Poems

Bear in the Back Seat

An Unexpected Guest

Living with Haints

Dead Uncles

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Day 25 of #VerseLove with Tammi Belko: Where I’m From Poems

Tammi Belko of Ohio is our host for Day 25 of #VerseLove. You can read her full prompt here. She inspires us today to write Where I’m From poems, based on George Ella Lyon’s “Where I am From” poem. She provides a template to create a “Where I Am From” poem.

Photo by Xuan Hoa Le on Pexels.com

Royal Fortress Meadow 

I’m from the Royal Fortress Meadow

from Breck shampoo and Johnson’s No More Tears

from wispy locks of amber gold, windblown in the breeze

I’m from chain-woven crowns of wildflowers, dandelions, and daisies

from backlit sunlight exposing the truth: there will never be no more tears

from churning butter and wondering why the pants don’t fit

I’m from ancestors of the lye soap stirred in the backyard tin tub

from the front porch swing and swigging Mason Jars of sweet tea

from wash behind your ears and do a good tick check

from a don’t you slam that screen door one more time! flyswatter granny

who swatted more than flies

I’m from the country church of the cardboard funeral fans

with the off-key piano

I’m from Georgia, Cherokee blood three generation branches up-tree,

still searching for the bloodstained earth of my ancestors

from Silver Queen corn, husks shucked

from shady pecan groves and Vidalia onion fields

from Okefenokee swamplands and railroads

that side that tallied three pees before flushing

from clotheslines of fresh sheets teeming with sweet dreams

from sleeping under a box window fan in sweltering summer heat

from folks doing what they could to survive

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Day 19 of #VerseLove with Dr. Stefani Boutelier of Michigan

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Stefani Boutelier leads us in Irish poetry today. You can read her full prompt, along with the poems and comments of others, here. She writes,”Today I will introduce the Deibide Baise Fri Toin form. It was difficult to find the full history of this form and more impossible to get a clear translation, but I like how it ends with one word to represent the power of single words and syllables. The quatrain form (3/7/7/1) is explained here:

Line 1: 3 syllables, rhyme A with two syllables

Line 2: 7 syllables, rhyme A with two syllables

Line 3: 7 syllables, rhyme B with one syllable

Line 4: 1 syllable, rhyme B

A published example of a Deibide Baise Fri Toin

This link provides a nice templated example at the bottom 

Praise!

shake and sing
gospel choir awakening 
hallelujah voices raise ~
praise!