Shaun of Las Vegas, Nevada is our host today for the 18th day of #VerseLove2024. He inspires us to read this poem by Charles Bukowski that you can find here, along with the full prompt. [Bukowski, Charles. Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way. New York: Ecco (An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers), 2003.]
Then, he urges, Think about your life. Do you feel like there is something holding you back? Do you feel stuck or helpless in your circumstances? Do you remember a time when you persevered and overcame the challenges thrown at you? Perhaps you can tap into your inner-coach and deliver that life-changing halftime motivational speech!
I found inspiration in these lines of Bukowski’s
just watch them. Listen to them.
I also added ending lines from Old Woman of the Roads by Padraic Colum
out of the wind’s and the rain’s way
The Neighborhood
there they are building nexts in the garage again three already
we can’t even put the door down because there’s one on top and on the toolbox and in the corner in a box
Erica Johnson of Arkansas is our host today for the 17th day of #VerseLove. You can read her full prompt here as she inspires us to write Echoes from the Past.
Erica explains her process of writing an echo sonnet:
As I told my students, don’t worry too much about the traditional sonnet structure; focus instead on keeping it to a brief conversation of 14 lines between yourself and an “echo” of your choice.
I’ve been down and out with vertigo this week, so the echoes have been loud in between the world spinning.
##!@ ##@* Vertigo Meadows
Green grasses sway and bend and spin (like wind!)
look less like blades, way more like monster fur (sure!)
I’m praying for this vertigo to end (when???)
It’s hard to think when all the world’s a blur (duhrrr!)
Who’s Epley? I get sick from his maneuver (a mover!)
Oh, wait! I jerk my head ~ear crystals shatter (scatter!)
This could be true – a vertigo improver (a soother!)
Just keep a barf bag close so things don’t splatter (it matters!)
Even chirping birds sing sideways songs (gongs)
and baby bunnies loop like Ferris wheels (banana peels)
I need this meadow back how it belongs (it’s all wrong)
my countryside set back on even keels (not these feels)
Dave Wooley is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the 16th day of #VerseLove, inspiring us to write seven- line poems called Kwansabas. You can read his full prompt here, along with the poems and comments of others.
Dave describes this process:
The Kwansaba is an African-American poetic form that was created by Eugene Redmond in 1995. It is inspired by the seven days of Kwanzaa and it is a praise poem.
The rules of the form are: -it is a seven line poem, -each line is seven words in length, -each word is seven letters or less, -and the poem should be a praise poem
Angie Braaten is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the 15th day of #VerseLove2024. You can read her full prompt, along with the poems and comments of others, here. Today, Angie inspires us to write elegies in the style of Clint Smith. You can read two of Clint Smith’s poems here:
Margaret Simon of Louisiana is our host today for Day 14 of #VerseLove, inspiring us to use a borrowed line from a poem to inspire a new one. You can read her full prompt and the poems of others here. For Margaret’s prompt, she chose a favorite Billy Collins poem entitled Today and challenges us to use the line “If ever there were a spring day so perfect….” I’m letting that line be my title today for this borrowed line poem. With a huge thanks and a salute to Margaret Simon ~ and to Billy Collins.
If Ever There Were a Spring Day So Perfect
sun shining brightly would melt winter’s curse planes would trail banners of poems and verse
flowers would smile pinkly, swaying in dance groundhogs would high-five their weather-called chance
jasmine would fragrance porch swing breeze beckoning readers to carpe this diem seize
sun-brewed sweet tea would pour extra-freely buds would unfurl on branches green-treely
butterflies would turn pages of poetry books hummingbirds sip nectar with grateful quick looks
napping hammocks would cradle a snooze on a perfect spring day, we’ve got nothing to lose
wild bunnies would scamper, tumble, cavort neighborhood club kids would hide in a fort
cows in the meadow would slumber unflied folks would seek seashells on shores at low tide
woodpecker bellies would hammer with laughter and the whole springtime world would live happy hereafter
The Poetry Fox in 1828 Coffee Company in Zebulon, Georgia
Barb Edler of Iowa is our host today for the 13th day of #VerseLove2024, inspiring us to use a brain dump process to craft a poem. You can read her full prompt and the poems and comments of others here.
My role as the District Literacy Specialist for Pike County Schools in Georgia involves utilizing grant funds to create Literacy events to ignite reading and writing passion in our schools and throughout our community. When my soul sister Fran Haley of North Carolina posted about The Poetry Fox visiting her school years ago, I tucked that thought away as a dream to bring him from her school event in Zebulon, North Carolina to our coffee shop in Zebulon, Georgia to work his magic, sitting at his table in a fox suit, pounding out poems on his vintage typewriter for folks who stand in line to offer him their word.
He made that 7 hour trip this week from his home in Durham, NC and produced nearly 60 poems between 3:00 and 6:15, delighting people of all ages and from all walks of life – funeral directors who gave the words tears and gravestones, a pilot who offered the word sky, children who offered all sorts of words from monster truck to axolotl, teenagers who brought the words hooligan and baseball, and a librarian who brought the word library – and so many more! I’ve included the list of words in a photo at the bottom of this post. My words were royal fortress meadow since my name, Kimberly, means from the royal fortress meadow.
After three hours of writing poems, he packed up his fox suit and walked down to the barbecue restaurant on our town square and had a barbecue sandwich, baked beans, and banana pudding with me. When we returned at 7:00, he shared a delightful hour telling us about who he is, what he does, and how he came to do it. Beyond watching him work, there is as much amazement in the person of Chris Vitiello as there is the jaw-dropping magic of….
The Poetry Fox!
I. The Suit
there must have been
some magic in that old
fox suit they found
for when he placed it
on his head
keys began to dance around
to swirl up typewriter dust
conjuring the memories
reaching deep for connections
once forgotten, resurrected now
in the deep recesses of minds
and souls
the piercings of heartstrings by
moments of life
summoning past
awakening present
cultivating future
pounded out with two fingers
often superglued for
tenderness support
a suit ~
left behind, abandoned, forgotten
given as a gift by a
friend who knew the quirky depths
of brilliance in THE one who would
wear it best
II. The Roots
because as a kid
he read newspapers
enjoyed the flapping of paper
and the words they held, and
this future fox word volleyed
(forget board games – he played word games)
with friends
to build schema
set egg timers and each wrote 5 poems
all about one word
that had to be different from any other
with his knees against a heater
where his desk sat
the heat rising as the breath
of a boy who would someday
write to the tune of sweat
in a toasty fox costume
III. The Pursuit
and every day live out
his dream of writing
his love of meaning
his incessant hunger
for the exchange of words
for the gift of poetry
this soul-spark of wonder
when words touch places
long ignored
and breath catches
and tears well and spill
and loved ones lost return, smiling
between the lines
and children laugh
because the clever fox
explains in all logic
through poetry
that people don’t
make monster trucks ~
monsters do
and people aren’t the
only ones who write poems
foxes do, too
A group stands watching The Poetry Fox work his magic
I said, “Royal Fortress Meadow,” and this is my poem on the meaning of my nameA poem about monster trucksThe word list The Poetry Fox keeps – for all the words folks give him at his events
Jordan S. of Virginia is our host today for the 12th day of #VerseLove2024. You can read her full prompt here. She inspires us to write an ode to an underpraised or undercelebrated being.
Ode to a Mosquito
O, Mosquito whose proboscis I well know whose kiss makes most skin glow, an inflamed inferno oozing volcano
across the globe in every zone your overt poke ain’t no joke
no matter how remote in glacial smoke or tropical oaks you and your droves of blood-bloated homies drone over innocent uncloaked folks
so to you, my chosen poker, I wholly devote this toast of an ode
Amber Harrison of Oklahoma is our host today for the 11th day of #VerseLove. She inspires us to write Surprising Supplies poems, and explains the process. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems and comments of others.
I want a meadow ~ I think it could supply all the needs a person ever truly has.
Our host today at http://www.ethialela.com for Day 10 of #VerseLove2024 is Joanne Emery, who inspires us to borrow ideas and lines from another poem to inspire our own. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems and comments of others.
She explains her process: Find a line in the poem that stands out to you, expresses something about yourself. Then continue the poem while reflecting how you live your life.
We used Jane Hirschfield’s poem My Life Was the Size of My Life, and I borrowed this line from hers:
and closed its hands, its windows
I also chose one from Joanne’s poem Larger than My Life
Denise Krebs of California is our host today for #VerseLove2024. She inspires us to write List Poems. You can read her full prompt here. I’ve added some pictures, just for fun – – a quick glimpse of our wedding weekend on St. Simons Island, Georgia, where my brother Ken and his bride Jennifer were wed on Saturday afternoon. Narrowing it down to the top ten – – that was a tough challenge!
I love a list poem because it doesn’t have to rhyme, it can be random, and it can be completely out of order or it can run in a countdown fashion to the top of the list. Mine is random, and it’s a photographic prose list poem, a blend of all my favorite kinds. I could not pick a single favorite moment.
Top 10 Wedding Weekend Moments
Straight-from-the-soul smiles on my brother and his bride’s faces, so full of happiness and love,
meeting my brother’s new family and feeling both sides merge into one big family,
getting a new sister-in-law,
placing flowers on the altar in memory of our mothers,
seeing the shoes of my son and husband and feeling them lift me up when I fell,
watching the dads dance – one with a cane, one with bionic knees, but believe it: these two can groove,
watching my brother watch the love of his life come down the aisle,
spending time with extended family and close family (5 of our 6 grandchildren),
figuring out how to win the dinner bill argument with my son since I own nearly one million shares of Shiba Inu (only worth about $25.00 total at .00002 a share, but hey – – it worked),
playing and having a picnic in the parks and hearing my 5 year old grandson’s response when I tried to tell him my ice cream was mashed potatoes and he took the folded arm stance and firmly stated, “that’s impossible!” (they all got ice cream).
Common Threads 