Patchwork Prose and Verse
Jordan, our host for this 19th day of #VerseLove 2025, lives in Suffolk, VA.
She inspires us today to write poems about food.
lots of things I don’t do right in this world
but making a fresh sprout and kale wrap
with beets and a half dollop of
mayonnaise is not one of
them, fortunately ~ and
the difference is
right outside on
the porch where
it grows
fresh
Tammi Belko of Ohio is our host today for the 18th day of VerseLove 2025. She inspires us to use a random word generator to generate words to work into poems. You can read her full prompt here, along with some suggestions for online word generators.
Recently, we had The Poetry Fox visit our local coffee shop to celebrate National Poetry Month by writing poems for people on his vintage typewriter. After his visit last year, I learned that he keeps a list of all the words that people give him. I asked if I could take a picture. I’m using his words today as my random words, but I’m only taking a few of them: dogs, hurry, kindred spirits, wisteria, tulip, watercolor, enchantment.
Watercolor Enchantment
I come to the garden
late afternoon
with the boys
– my kindred canine spirit dogs ~
in no hurry to be
anywhere but here
in this watercolor enchantment
of yellow, red, white and pink tulips
vibrant against the lavender wisteria
fragrant, spellbinding,
deeply rooted
in the business
of being what
they were meant
to be
Our host for Day 17 of VerseLove 2025 at http://www.ethicalela.com is Angie Braaten, who inspires us with a poetry prompt to use Google search phrases to create a poem. You can read her full prompt here.
Googling
how much is enough sleep?
how much is enough to retire?
how much?
when is enough enough?
when is there too little?
when?
should we be worried about bird flu?
should we break up?
should we?
shall we gather at the river?
shall we dance?
shall we?
how can you tell if a cat is pregnant?
how can you tell if a diamond is real?
how can you tell if an egg is bad?
how can you tell whether zeros are significant?
how can you tell?
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
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?
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
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 ÂĽ 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?
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
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
I’m hosting Day 11 of VerseLove 2025, and I’m excited to share my prompt with you today. You can read it below, or you can see it on the ethicalela.com website here.
Inspiration
I’m using a prompt from 90 Ways of Community (p. 140) for today’s inspiration. You can download a free copy here. In the book, I describe Joe Brainard’s I Remember strategy. When members of EthicalELA attended the National Council of Teachers of English conference in Boston, Massachusetts, I combined the I Remember approach with Linda Reif’s Quick Write model to inspire attendees to create random poems in a short time frame. The most heartfelt poems came out of that session. Imagine my surprise when I realized that Linda Reif herself was in that session as we shared her Quick Write model!
Process
â—Ź Reminisce on a time and place in your life that you want to revisit, or
â—Ź Ruminate on a time and place in your life that you want to re-imagine
with new eyes and perspective, or
â—Ź Imagine the future and predict what you will remember.
Give yourself two minutes to list whatever comes to mind, keeping your pen moving the entire time. Circle one idea, then write for two more minutes on your chosen idea. Repeat the process as many times as you like to unearth the specifics. Your poem can be as short or as long as you’d like, and take any form your prefer (see here for a list of form suggestions). Accept that whatever you write is good enough. Give yourself permission to reject this idea and instead write whatever the universe calls you to write today. I’m sharing a previously written poem as my sample poem.
I Remember
I remember clutching
her warm hand
as the death rattle beat the drum
of her final march
deferring to my brother,
“I picked the spot.
You pick the plot”
I remember pleading,
“Lord, I need a sign
she can rest in peace”
confessing I’d prayed for a sign:
a majestic bird in flight, wings outstretched,
assuring peace
I remember fighting tears,
wanting to shoot three birds circling overhead
resisting the urge to punch my brother,
who was fighting his own tears
wait……of laughter?
I remember eyeing him,
raising one questioning brow,
tightening my lips,
muttering obscenities
wondering if he was drunk
as he whispered sideways,
“She showed up! With her parents!”
I remember feeling the full force of her humor,
her sign: sending buzzards in place of an eagle
I remember my animal-loving mother –
prankish and ever-present.
Even now.
Since my poem was previously written, I’ve added a borrowed line poem to today’s blog, since I pledged to write a new poem each day for The Stafford Challenge. I used lines from yesterday’s poems on http://www.ethicalela.com to compose this Cento poem:
I Step Outside
to tend to the present
cradled crescents
the softening sounds of spring
curled against
that dark corner
the return of yellow
watch a swallowtail circle
fuschia petals
the sitting still
but don’t we all?
what I needed that day
comforting
peace
welcome to my front porch
no longer held in expectation’s thrall
the black, brown, gray, sometimes mossy green
most of the morning, watching birds
shouldn’t we give shelter when we can?
I lift the binoculars
I chat with them
which I am grateful and so at home
this present iteration
and all that it holds within
bringing hope for spring
a messenger of change
wait for it….
like a breath not yet let go
outside my window now
a drifting hush like a silent call
smiles ruefully
forever-alive bright
so direct, clear, certain
the fields of flowers and
swirling colors and rainbow creation
steady the tensions
there’s lots of good stuff to smell here
so far, so good……
now I scarcely remember
yesterday
I look around for birds
that are calling to become
will become a constellation of stars and I realize
His treasure.
Common Threads 