Category: Reflection

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National Poetry Month’s KidLit Progressive Poem – April 2025


The annual National Poetry Month Kidlit Progressive Poem is well underway, and along with other poets who have added a line before mine, I’m adding one today.  Margaret Simon is our host, inviting 30 poets to create a communal poem throughout these 30 days of National Poetry Month.

My line follows Amy’s line from yesterday:

Open an April window

let sunlight paint the air

stippling every dogwood

dappling daffodils with flair

Race to the garden

where woodpeckers drum

as hummingbirds thrum

in the blossoming Sweetgum

Sing as you set up the easels

dabble in the paints

echo the colors of lilac and phlox

commune without constraints

Breathe deeply the gifts of lilacs

rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings

feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end

remember long-ago springs

Bask in a royal spring meadow

Tune in tomorrow to see what Margaret Simon adds! You can see the list of poets and their dates below.

April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise

April 2 Tricia Stohr-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect

April 3 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge

April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write

April 5 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care

April 6 Buffy Silverman 

April 7 Jone Rush MacCulloch

April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse

April 9 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference 

April 10 Marcie Flinchum Atkins

April 11 Rose Capelli at Imagine the Possibilities 

April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces

April 13 Cathy Stenquist

April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainely Write

April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink

April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm

April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads

April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche

April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page

April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading

April 21 Tanita Davis 

April 22 Patricia Franz

April 23 Ruth at There’s no such thing as a Godforsaken town

April 24 Linda Kulp Trout 

April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe

April 26 Michelle Kogan 

April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance

April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight

April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry

April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors

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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 14 with Padma Venkatraman – Safe Spaces

Padma Venkatraman, our host for Day 14 of VerseLove 2025, is the author of The Bridge Home, Born Behind Bars, A Time to Dance, Island’s End and Climbing the Stairs. Her books have sold over ¼ million copies, received over 20 starred reviews, and won numerous awards: Walter Dean Myers Award, South Asia Book Award, Golden Kite, ALA Notable etc.

Today, she inspires us to read her poem entitled Safe Spaces and think about a place that feels like a safe harbor – and bring that space alive in a poem.  You can read her full prompt here.

My friend Margaret Simon, host of Poetry Friday, introduced me to a Shadorma form. I love the short forms, and this one contains six lines with this syllable pattern: 3-5-3-3-7-5. I’m trying this for my safe space poem today.

Safe Harbor Shadorma

safe harbors

places we can breathe

without fear

but tell me ~

do they exist anymore

in this mess of now?

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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 9 – with Britt Decker of Texas – Depending on When You Met Me

Our host for the 9th day of #VerseLove2025 is Britt Decker of Houston, Texas, who inspires us to write. a poem about who we were at various times in our lives. You can read her full prompt here. Maybe you’ll come write with us today! I’ve chosen a list poem for today’s poem.

Depending on when you met me, you would have known

I was a wild preacher’s kid running amok with a

cast of characters that weren’t Southern Baptists ~

that I became them in my closet with a flashlight

obsessed with the words, the characters, the places

in Childcraft Volume 1: Poems and Rhymes

the book with the gold and pink banded spine

where they lived on pages but came alive

in me ~ and stay with me still

I’m Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee

I’m a sugar plum tree at the Lollipop Sea

I’m a little turtle climbing on the rocks

I’m Wee Willie Winkie, crying through the locks

I’m a water nymph with green glass beads

I’m a goblin in the marsh, howling in the reeds

I’m Mary, Mary, quite contrary

I’m a little puffin on an island in the sea

I’m a gypsy, a gypsy, earrings in my ears

I’m a cave boy with a spear hunting prehistoric deer

I’m the Raggedy Man with a wobble-ly calf

I’m the Ice Cream man with a cart full of laughs

I’m Young Melissa sweeping a room

I’m an astronaut….3, ….2,…..1……BOOM!

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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 7 with Erica Johnson of Arkansas – Villanelle on the Vine

Erica Johnson of Arkansas is our host for Day 7 of #VerseLove 2025. She inspires us to write poems today about meanings behind favorite flowers using a villanelle. She offers this process: “I started by simply searching for the meaning behind my favorite flowers.  Once I had a list, I selected my favorite connection and started work on shaping that into a villanelle.  Because it is a closed-form poem it has pretty strict rules about rhyme (ABA) and repetition (the 1st and 3rd lines repeat throughout) – this can be challenging, but I find that is also part of the fun!” You can read Erica’s full prompt here.

I chose the Larkspur as my flower, because as a child in the village of St. Simons Island, Georgia, I enjoyed the annual craft fair, where one year in the mid 1970s I got a leather bracelet with my birth flower and name stamped into the leather. Larkspurs symbolize lightheartedness and youth, likely because they grow in the summertime when carefree days are spent away from school.

Village Hippie Villanelle

leather Larkspur bracelet for a July lass

birth month flowers stamped and snapped on thin tan straps

village craft fair hippie, barefoot in the grass

groovy girlfriends ~ running wild, full of sass

softball jerseys, cleats and shorts and backward caps

leather Larkspur bracelet for a July lass

snippy, snappy, clicky clackers ~ spheres of glass

banana seats and wheel spoke straws click and clap

village craft fair hippie, barefoot in the grass

Kissing Potion, Lip Smacker, and Sunjuns (Bass)

macrame and halter tops and treasure maps

leather Larkspur bracelet for a July lass

roller skates and unicycles need no gas

gaucho pants and go-go boots and cowboy chaps

village craft fair hippie, barefoot in the grass

childhood in a decade-era school of class

dancing queens of disco, jazz, ballet, and tap

leather Larkspur bracelet for a July lass

village craft fair hippie, barefoot in the grass

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#VerseLove Day 6 with Stacey Joy of California – Where I’m From, Again!

Stacey Joy, our host for Day 6 of #VerseLove 2025, is a National Board Certified Teacher, Google Certified Educator, and 2013 L.A. County Teacher of the Year. Stacey has taught elementary school for 39 years in Los Angeles Unified School District.

Today, Stacey invites us to write Where I’m From poems. She offers this process: “Visit George Ella Lyon’s website for a refresher on Where I’m From. If you are a list person, create a list of people/places/things/memories. Then compose your poem in any way you prefer. If you are more comfortable with a form, you can write your poem following a form you prefer.” You can read her full prompt here.

Today, I’m writing a Where I’m Not From poem.

I’m not from here.

I’m not from this chaos.

I won’t play these games.

I won’t clean up the mess.

I won’t sit at the table.

I won’t partake of the feast.

I won’t bow for a fake prayer (I know the difference)~

I won’t smile and pretend.

I won’t take the bait.

I’m not from this chaos.

I’m not from here.