Category: Literature

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#VerseLove April 14 – with Margaret Simon

Today’s host for Day 14 of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Margaret Simon of Louisiana, who invites us to write free verse poetry. I had a burst of brightness this week, so I’m capturing that moment this morning. 

Disco Fever

I opened my eyes
to a disco joint
missing the music 
clearly needing The Bee Gees
or Yvonne Elliman 
or the greatest ever: Abba

hundreds of tiny sunbeams
scattering light rays
in all directions
the kinds of rays
I could reach out and touch, 
measure with a ruler 
their armlengths’ reach
changing refractions

wondering how I would get home
in this overpowering light
too much, really
so much it hurt 

I squinted, tilted my face up 
propped my head on the backrest
closed my eyes
and sat silently
thinking, pondering

“Do you have sunglasses?” 
a voice asked

I do

“You’re gonna need ‘em,” she assured me. “I have some if you can’t find yours.” 

I reached in, fumbled blindly 
through my backpack
fingers searching feverishly

wallet
keys
chapstick
Aleve
Kleenex

Sunglasses! 

I put on these disco glasses,
ready to face the music

when I stepped out 
into the bright sunlight
from the darkness 
of the eye doctor’s office, 
eyes dilated from the exam, 
I had only two things on my mind:
John Travolta and a ride home
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#VerseLove April 13 – with Dave Wooley

Dave Wooley is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 13 of #VerseLove. He inspires us to find poems on the pages of books or sheets of music or newspapers – anywhere there are words. Blackout poems are positively addictive. I could sit all day finding blackout poems and wish I could. I ripped a few pages out of a Steven King destined for a Little Free Library and found this from the pages of Blaze:
a single
soup-spoon
ain’t
what I call
a thing
for
grim
peculiar
amusement

Try a Blackout poem and share yours in the comments! Warning: you can’t stop after one.

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#VerseLove April 12 – A Poet Like Me with Anna Roseboro

Anna Roseboro is our host at http://www.ethicalela.com today for Day 12 of #VerseLove, inspiring us to find our birth poets. I loved her nod to a line from Gorman in her own poem today – we must be the light. And I’m rather convinced that’s the only way to change the world. I found Angela Williams, who wrote the poem Almost Savages – born in northern Michigan – and born on the same day and same year as I. I chose to write a Golden Shovel with this striking line: small fish will scatter away from my steps.

Anna Shines the Light 

Here’s to you, Anna Small 
Roseboro! Words glimmer like tiny fish 
in your sunlight as each of us will 
put pen to paper, fingers to keys, scatter 
in all directions far and away 
searching, learning, writing from 
the heart of our birth poets- my 
same-day-and-year poet and I shared first steps

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Lines In My Prime – Day 11 of #VerseLove with Erica Johnson

I enjoy the structure of short syllabic forms of poetry, so I was thrilled with today’s VerseLove prompt using prime numbers from Erica Johnson at http://www.ethicalela.com on this 11th day of the writing challenge. I found a unique book in my mailbox yesterday from my writing sisterfriend Fran Haley from North Carolina, and it inspired today’s poem. We are both watching eggs ready to hatch any day now. I used a partial borrowed line from a poem in the book entitled Memory Garden (in bold) for today’s writing that includes prime numbers of syllables in ascending line order (2,3,5,7,9,11,13….) and I added an ending line of 3.

Feathered Friends

today’s 
poetry: 
Language of the Birds
cherished gift in my mailbox 
from a sisterly friend sharing peace and warmth 
grass withers, flowers fade, but books live on forever 
like friendship

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#VerseLove April 10 – Whimsical Science with Brittany Saulnier

Today’s host for Day 10 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Brittany Saulnier, who inspires us to write whimsical science poems. I chose to focus on outdoor science – nature and all its discovery and wonder about the world! I have just gotten my flower presses out of the old barn over the weekend and can’t wait to gather flowers and greenery to press on a long walk one afternoon this week. So much of science is soothing, just pure medicine for the soul. Brittany’s gift of a prompt that invites peace is particularly appreciated on this Monday back to work after spring break. Today, my poem is a first-word-Golden Shovel Tanka (5-7-5-7-7) string. I took my striking line as a quote from a birding journal by Vanessa Sorensen: “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bloom!

adopt a mindset~
the practice of noticing
pace your amazement

of observing more fully
nature: less is so much more

her covert moments
secret discoveries ~ what
is our big hurry?

its blessings beckoning us
patience blooms on every stem
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#VerseLove April 8 – Something You Should Know Poems with Emily Yamasaki

Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, Emily Yamasaki is our host for Day 8 of #VerseLove. She invites us to write Something You Should Know poems in the style of the great Clint Smith. You can read her full prompt and poem here. 

Note to readers:  try this one!  I just rambled. Sometimes I use a Sarah Donovan strategy I learned several years ago: just write for 10 or 15 minutes and see what you get.  Don't worry about editing or word choice or anything - just draft.  That’s what I did today.  Please come write with us!

Something You Should Know 

is that I only moved my lips when Mrs. Flexer
    played Living For Jesus all those Sundays
       in the big group before small group
          because I can’t sing except with 
                my heart

and that I just acquired the old oak secretariat that
    has been in my parents’ home since I was
       a baby in Kentucky along with the old red
          milk can for my porch, but back to the
            secretariat: I love that it shares
               the name with the greatest horse
                 who had to win in Kentucky first
                   to win the Triple Crown

and that as a child I was mesmerized by Harold Monro’s
   poem Overheard on a Salt Marsh 
     from Childcraft Volume 1 Poems and Rhymes
       with the nymph in the green dress
         and it’s framed by my bed today because
           I’m still mesmerized by it

and that I savor Saturdays with morning coffee
    and good conversation
       and that I love plants but can’t grow them
         because they all die except Leafy Jean and 
           Leon Russell, who are thriving on the front porch
          
and that I have four bluebird eggs in one birdhouse
    and baby Carolina Wrens in my garage 
       up over the garage door apparatus
         and Brown-Headed Nuthatch hatchlings in another birdhouse
          and fledgling cardinals in my Yellow Jasmine vines
and a nest under the porch eave
            and I saw an eagle a week ago

and that all three of my Schnoodles have literary names
   Boo Radley for obvious reasons
     Fitz because of, you know, the party animal F. Scott
       and Ollie for my favorite poet Mary Oliver

and that I blog daily and call all my writing group  
    people my friends
      including you.
Ollie, all tucked in while camping
Fitz, a true party animal
Boo Radley, who recently lost his beard for running through the pasture and getting matted with field spurs
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#VerseLove April 7 – with Denise Krebs

Denise Krebs of California is our host today for #VerseLove, inspiring to write poems about death. You can read her full prompt here. I think of the death of Jesus on the cross today, the resurrection, and promise of eternal life for believers. For me.

But in my travels on Wednesday up in North Georgia, I saw the strangest thing. And that is what I share today. I can’t get it out of my mind, can’t unsee and unwonder. And so I write. 

Plummeting Chicken Death

three dead chickens lay
on I-75 South
in North Georgia rain

feathers everywhere
chicken carcasses strewn out
like castoff garments

how did this happen?
there were no farmlands nearby
no livestock, no barns

imagination 
kicked into full gear – these hens
(I presumed) died fast

all the better, really
maybe a poultry truck door 
swung open, flinging

these ladies groundward
to the hard concrete below
…or maybe they jumped 

thought they could still fly
then realized the truth too late
as cars tried to swerve

most not successful
they’re all three dead, either way
these interstate hens
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#VerseLove April 5 – Poetic Drive-Bys with Bryan Ripley Crandall

Bryan Ripley Crandall is our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for #VerseLove. You can read his prompt and the poems he inspires here. Today, he challenges us to write Poetic Drive-Bys.

He explains: “Every April, during a six-week unit on poetry in Kentucky, I’d assign students to think of a person, place, or thing worthy of a poem, and write it  as if you are gifting  random thoughts/ideas/verse or  insight for another. We began calling these ‘poetic drive-bys’. Students loved this, often chalking poems on a neighbor’s  driveway or creating one to hand  to strangers at  the mall (a few even ‘tagged’ abandoned buildings with their writing and one young man drove around handing what  he wrote to  fast food employees working in drive-thru windows). Write a poem for the  boy who bags your groceries, or the sidewalk where you walk, or for the stranger you see in the park.. The goal is to craft  a poem that you can leave for another to find (maybe  a specific someone or maybe not  — make it a poem  to be discovered or gifted.”

In my county in middle Georgia. I’m leaving QR Codes with poetry videos throughout the square. Below is an example of one. I’m reading here with Ethan Jacobs, whose book Dust will be available on Amazon this spring. This is for YOU, dear reader:

Poetry for others to find in a framed QR Code
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#VerseLove April 4 – Grammatically Ungrammatical with Jennifer Guyor Jowett

Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 4 of #VerseLove is Jennifer Guyor Jowett of Michigan, who invites us to write grammatically ungrammatical poems, using mixed up parts of speech in place of others and made up words without regard for rules. You can nounify verbs, verbify adjectives, or whatever you want to do to write this type of poem. Come meet Jennifer and read her poem and prompt here!

A daughter of mine on a desert hike with a peace sign 
Birkenstock Peaced-Up Pipe Dreams

when we wander Birkenstocks
corkbed frolic nope to socks
camouflagely sherpa’d arch
hippiescuffle guitar’d march
bellishbottomed denimly jeans
knowexactly peaced-up means
leatherfringe’d-up gauchovest
showsly braless halter’d chest
macramae’d-up shoulderbag
carefree pet rock tail-she-wag
daisychainedup tousled locks
when we wander Birkenstocks