Challenge from Allison Berryhill: Write an Epistolary Poem today.
Challenge from Allison Berryhill: write an apology poem in the style of William
Carlos Williams’ “This is Just to Say”
this is just to say
i should have been there
more days
you battled
that monster
more days
you battled
that monster
when lewy body
played peek-a-boo:
cruel moments it
exposed the raw truth
played peek-a-boo:
cruel moments it
exposed the raw truth
unremorsefully,
it torched memories
it kidnapped joy
it robbed futures
it torched memories
it kidnapped joy
it robbed futures
Challenge from Allison Berryhill: Write a What I Want poem, using lines of enjambment and your first and middle initials preceding your last name.
Minimalist Makeover by K. H. Johnson
What I want is
to swap this house
and its frippery
for a log cabin
that sleeps 2
and not 12
except for the dogs
leave these 2
and add 10
to Boo Radley and Fitz
because more dogs and fewer people is
what I want
What I want is 1 wall hiding
1 bed and 1 bathroom
with 2 toilets, not 1
because dual thrones are important
crowning features
of log cabin castles
I want 1 sink, 1 counter,
and
0 cabinets to clutter, just 1
shelf for 2 plates, 2 cups, 2 bowls
2 forks, 2 knives, and 2 spoons,
1 pot and 1 pan
1 table, 2 chairs
1 fireplace and 2 lamps
I want 1 minimalist makeover
but please leave
ALL the books,
ALL the Moleskine journals and
ALL the blue-ink Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens because that is
all I want.
Challenge from Allison Berryhill: Write a 20 Questions Poem
Happy Birthday to the Lady with the Alligator Purse
Could the doctor have known the footprint of the newborn he delivered on 2/15/1820 would forever change the world?
Could your mother have known that the tiny hand of her newborn daughter would be writing at 3?
How long did birthday cake last on a Quaker farm, with six siblings?
Was your famous red shawl a birthday gift?
Or was the “Vote! Said the Lady with the Alligator Purse” purse an iconic present?
Did you have to pinch yourself to fathom an annual teacher’s salary of $110 for those ten years – or did it seem a rich blessing compared to the greater injustices you saw?
Should we thank the Sons of Temperance for your fiery passion to speak?
Did they know they messed with the wrong girl when they told you to, “Sit Down, Listen, and Learn?”
Did they know the firestorm they started in you would ignite the hidden sparks of a raging force?
When you got arrested and fined $10 less than your annual teacher’s salary, did you laugh at the symbolism of those “handcuffs?”
When Congress told you NO every.single.year. from 1869-1906 but you kept asking, did you know you taught us that “failure is impossible?”
Were you there in spirit, wearing a pink hat and marching alongside us in the streets, chanting: “failure.is.impossible?”
Did you really not smile because you thought people wouldn’t take you seriously??!
Did God bring out a heavenly birthday cake 14 years after you arrived, when the 19th passed and bore your name?
Do you know we started carrying your image in our pockets in 1979 when you became the first woman to grace US currency?
Did you know that the sisterhood stands in line for hours on Election Day to cover your gravestone with their “I Voted” stickers?
Do you know how much we appreciate you, more now than ever, 200 years later?
Is there cake in heaven today, and will you save all of us a piece for when we get there?
Are you here with us in spirit today with your alligator purse, wearing a pink hat and a red shawl and eating cake, celebrating with all who proudly cast a big vote for the happiest heavenly birthday for our sister Susan?
Or did I already ask that?
-Kim Johnson
A Call of Words poem
Using words from Mary Oliver’s
The Real Prayers Are Not The Words But The Attention That Comes First
Miriam
In the sideways moments
when life seems tilted
and conscience tussled,
fists clenching the wheel
She appears-
silvery wings
against the backdrop of sky
a hawk on a wire
A calming reassurance
Challenge from Stacey Joy: craft a Call of Words poem
By reading a favorite poem or passage and selecting key words to use to construct new ideas and arrangements.
My inspiration poem:
Southern Gothic by Natasha Trethewey
I have lain down into 1970, into the bed
my parents will share for only a few more years.
Early evening, they have not yet turned from each other
In sleep, their bodies covered – parentheses
framing the separate lives they’ll wake to. Dreaming
I am again the child with too many questions –
the endless why and why and why
my mother cannot answer, her mouth closed, a gesture
toward her future: cold lips stitched shut.
The lines in my father’s face deepen
Toward an expression of grief. I have come home
From the schoolyard with the words that shadow us
In this small Southern town – peckerwood and nigger
lover, half-breed and zebra – words that take shape
outside us. We’re huddled on the tiny island of bed, quiet
in the language of blood: the house, unsteady
on its cinderblock haunches, sinking deeper
into the muck of ancestry. Oil lamps flicker
around us – our shadows, dark glyphs on the wall,
bigger and stranger than we are.
my parents will share for only a few more years.
Early evening, they have not yet turned from each other
In sleep, their bodies covered – parentheses
framing the separate lives they’ll wake to. Dreaming
I am again the child with too many questions –
the endless why and why and why
my mother cannot answer, her mouth closed, a gesture
toward her future: cold lips stitched shut.
The lines in my father’s face deepen
Toward an expression of grief. I have come home
From the schoolyard with the words that shadow us
In this small Southern town – peckerwood and nigger
lover, half-breed and zebra – words that take shape
outside us. We’re huddled on the tiny island of bed, quiet
in the language of blood: the house, unsteady
on its cinderblock haunches, sinking deeper
into the muck of ancestry. Oil lamps flicker
around us – our shadows, dark glyphs on the wall,
bigger and stranger than we are.
My Call of Words poem:
Endless Grief By Kim Johnson
From the shadows of the cruel flickers of awareness
of the disease that closed the door to a golden sunset future,
my mother wasn’t asking for answers
to the endless questions.
She became the island she lived on, her
intermittent unsteady steps
sinking into the muck
of Lewy Body Dementia,
a deepening cold toward the strangers she’d always loved,
dreaming of years long ago as today.
Four years later, why won’t my father face his grief?
He lives on in their house,
sleeping in their bed,
dreaming of catching glimpses of Miriam
In the expressions of another who cannot
see that she will never separate
his heart from Miriam – his high school sweetheart, the Love of his Life.
Challenge from Stacey Joy: write a verse letter to your younger self
Dear younger self who thinks you know it all,
Before you go any further in life,
arrange for yourself a dozen
non-family members
from different walks of life
who don’t know each other
who can give you advice and perspective
and share their stories
from neutral turf.
arrange for yourself a dozen
non-family members
from different walks of life
who don’t know each other
who can give you advice and perspective
and share their stories
from neutral turf.
LISTEN TO THEM!
Feel your own heartbeat
against the backdrop of sound counsel
and don’t fear mistakes
but see them as experience
and learn from them.
against the backdrop of sound counsel
and don’t fear mistakes
but see them as experience
and learn from them.
Read all you can.
Get involved.
Speak out.
Help others.
Oh, and you’ll need millions in lottery winnings
to pay off your student loans.
1/21/15’s Powerball numbers will be 11-12-15-28-57
And the Powerball will be 23.
to pay off your student loans.
1/21/15’s Powerball numbers will be 11-12-15-28-57
And the Powerball will be 23.
Sincerely,
Wiser self who realizes life has more questions than answers
Wiser self who realizes life has more questions than answers
Challenge from Stacey Joy: Write a Wonder Women poem, using only two words per line
Hot Women: a blend of Wonder Women and Hot Lines poetry
After reading Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliott, I found these hot lines for Joan:
Jeanne d’Arc
Maid d’Orleans
Red dress
Captive bird
Advance! Onward!
Needle threading
Hemming, mending
Spinning, churning
Cooking, cleaning
Advance! Onward!
Archangel visions
Inner voices
Determined mindset
Fearless determination
Advance! Onward!
Thwarted expectations
Refused marriage
Changed clothes
Battle armor
Advance! Onward!
Powerful voice
Wielded sword
Led resistance
French Savior
Advance! Onward!
Sacred light?
Mad girl?
Holy One?
Patron saint?
Advance! Onward!
Tower cell
Hands bound
Pyre built
Flames swallowed
Advance! Onward!
High price
Selfless sacrifice
Martyr wings
Victory!
Advance! Onward!
Challenge from Stacey Joy: Write a Hot Lines poem, which is similar to a Found Poem. A Hot Lines poem uses snippets from lines of text that are rearranged, added to, or changed.
I used a Found Poem I wrote April 6, 2019 as inspiration for my Hot Line poem today. My inspiration for the Found Poem was Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet, entitled “To Be an Artist.” My Hot Line poem is “A Matter of Living,” taken from the Found Poem. I’m sharing both below.
To Be An Artist
Go inside yourself. Discover the motive that bids you write.
Draw near to nature. Depict your sorrows and desires.
Express the images that surround you – your dreams, objects of your memory.
Try to raise the submerged sensations over that distant past of your childhood.
Explore the depths whence your life wells forth.
Seek for the depth of things.
Live for a while in books and learn from them what seems to you worth learning – but above all, love them.
Have patience with everything that is unsolved in your heart and try to cherish the questions themselves.
It is a matter of living everything.
Love your solitude.
Be glad of your growing into which you can take no one else with you.
Your solitude will be your home and haven even in the midst of very strange conditions, and from there you will discover all your paths.
There is not more beauty in Rome than anywhere else but much beauty in Rome because there is much beauty everywhere.
Go into yourself and meet no one for hours on end.
Be alone as you were in childhood.
Think of the world which you carry within yourself. Pay attention to what arises in you.
Be without resentment.
Be glad and comforted.
To love is good: for love is difficult, and the fact that a thing is difficult must be one more reason for our doing it.
Be brave in the face of the strangest, most singular and most inexplicable things.
You must not be frightened when a sorrow rises up before you.
Most people get to know only one corner of their room.
Do not observe yourself too closely.
Do not derive too rapid conclusions from what happens to you; let it simply happen to you.
Do not think that the man who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled.
Find patience enough in yourself to endure
and single-heartedness enough to believe.
Let life happen to you.
Conduct yourself carefully and consistently.
May the year that lies before you preserve and strengthen you.
A Matter of Living
Go
Explore
Write
Seek
Question
Write
Observe
Pay Attention
Write
Discover
Think
Write
Endure
Learn
Write
Know
Express
Write
Comfort
Believe
Write
Love
Live
Write
Challenge from Stacey Joy: write an Abuelita Who poem, inspired by Sandra Cisneros
Pat Who
Pat who ran the town
scheduled the blood drives
orchestrated Christmas shoeboxes
rocked Volunteer of the Year
waved and smiled from parade floats
chauffeured the seniors
called her favorite commissioner her son
laughed over lunches at the cafe
scheduled the blood drives
orchestrated Christmas shoeboxes
rocked Volunteer of the Year
waved and smiled from parade floats
chauffeured the seniors
called her favorite commissioner her son
laughed over lunches at the cafe
who ran the church
changed the marquee
typed the bulletin
wrote the newsletter
watered the plants
tended the gardens
organized the missions
rocked the nursery babies
visited the sick
held the hands of the dying
changed the marquee
typed the bulletin
wrote the newsletter
watered the plants
tended the gardens
organized the missions
rocked the nursery babies
visited the sick
held the hands of the dying
who ran the family
planned the birthdays
reserved the tables
baked the cakes
talked Christmas lists in October
approved the Christmas trees
distributed farm land
doled out tree money
scrutinized the VRBOs
sanitized clean hotel rooms
planned the birthdays
reserved the tables
baked the cakes
talked Christmas lists in October
approved the Christmas trees
distributed farm land
doled out tree money
scrutinized the VRBOs
sanitized clean hotel rooms
Pat who loved me as her own
when I married her son
when my mother died
when the sun was shining
when the moon was rising
when time was ticking
when I married her son
when my mother died
when the sun was shining
when the moon was rising
when time was ticking
who taught her daughter AND sons
to scrub floors
to wash, fold, and iron clothes
to negotiate traffic
to choose steaks
to make beds
to love animals
to listen to others
to scrub floors
to wash, fold, and iron clothes
to negotiate traffic
to choose steaks
to make beds
to love animals
to listen to others
Pat who was Christmas shopping one day
and fell out of bed the next
and fell out of bed the next
who was taken to the hospital
and rushed for brain surgery
to remove what they could
of a stage 4 glioblastoma
the day after Christmas shopping
and rushed for brain surgery
to remove what they could
of a stage 4 glioblastoma
the day after Christmas shopping
Pat who ran the hospital
picked her own room
sent tasteless food back
then called for café takeout
got the scoop on nurses’ life stories
then s l o w l y tried to tell us each one
introduced her PT as her tormenter
bravely wore the white mask
courageously tried to smile
even laughed once or twice
before coming home
picked her own room
sent tasteless food back
then called for café takeout
got the scoop on nurses’ life stories
then s l o w l y tried to tell us each one
introduced her PT as her tormenter
bravely wore the white mask
courageously tried to smile
even laughed once or twice
before coming home
Pat who sits in the recliner
as twinkling Christmas lights
are boxed up
as twinkling Christmas lights
are boxed up
who watches from the other side
of the glass
sometimes transparent
always reflective
praying the treatments
buy more days that keep
passing the 2-way mirror
fingernail test…..
of the glass
sometimes transparent
always reflective
praying the treatments
buy more days that keep
passing the 2-way mirror
fingernail test…..
Common Threads 
Dear Moleskine Journal,
You’re a legend –
my favorite affordable luxury (don’t tell the Pilot).
You’re in MY hands, holding MY thoughts and ideas –
But before mine –
You held the depression of Hemingway- Ernest,
The renderings of VanGogh – Vincent,
And the adventures of Chatwin – Bruce –
Who first called you a Moleskine,
Packing you into his pockets for every journey.
If you can handle the depression and adventure of those explorers,
Surely you can handle my little old rural farm life and times.
Dear Pilot Varsity Fountain Pen,
You’re a classic –
My favorite affordable luxury (don’t tell the Mole).
You pick MY brain and share MY secrets –
But before mine –
You shared the side-splitting tales of Twain – Mark,
With his Conklin Self-Filling,
And the mysteries of Doyle – Conan,
With his Parker Duofold,
And the horror of Lovecraft – Howard (H.P),
With his Waterman.
Even Hemingway himself – Ernest,
Has Montegrappas designed for all the phases of his life –
The Soldier, The Traveller, The Fisherman, and The Writer.
If you can stretch into those deep-thinking wells,
Surely you can dip into my little old shallow basin.
Each of you has my heart –
And while I don’t play favorites
Or do love triangles,
I can’t choose between the two of you.
So we shall live our days as a braided trio –
My Pilot, My Moleskine, and little old me!