Tag: Brian Rohr

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Celebrating Living Poets: Brian Rohr

Day 2 of the Slice of Life Challenge has me feeling energized with all of the fabulous writing that bloggers are sharing at Two Writing Teachers for the 2026 Slice of Life Challenge, where writers share daily snapshots of meaningful moments of their lives. You can check it out here.

My theme for this month was inspired by a friend who recently sent me a book she’d read (The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali). Thanks, Glenda Funk! Glenda said that she passes most of her books on, but she keeps poetry. It got me thinking about the living poets who are part of The Stafford Challenge and other writing groups like Poetry Friday. Perhaps I could expand my own collection of living poets – and that became a mission.

And so I set out to take a hard look at a diverse range of living poets. I discovered that no matter who we are – male, female, of all ethnicities and heritages, of urban or rural settings, of all religions and ages and places in the world – we all need poetry. Especially now. Especially in these times. Some of us read it, some of us write it, and many of us read and write it.

I decided to feature a living poet each day, celebrating their work and using their poems to create Cento poetry by taking lines of their existing poems and weaving together a whole new poem. You can read more about Cento here.

Today, I celebrate Brian Rohr, author of Shaken To My Bones: A Poetic Midrash on the Torah.

Brian Rohr started The Stafford Challenge, now in its third year of inviting poets to come together and to write a poem every day for one year. You can read more about Brian at his website. I’ve taken his collection of poems and formed a Cento poem, and I’ve listed the names of the poems I used, in order, beneath the poem.

When God Speaks

A star shoots across the sky.

Blue and red birds appear in my birch tree.

A bird with a blue head and blue wings flies past my window.

There are ways God speaks to me.

We can see the breath.

Taken from: Before; My Longing; Outside it is Raining; I am Joseph; In the Cool Air of the Morning Mist.

The first ten days of March will feature these poets – this is a sneak peek photo!
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Year 3 of The Stafford Challenge Kicks Off Today

Have you ever wondered whether you could write daily?

Do you love poetry and prose?

f Are you strapped for time and wonder about the commitment?

Wonder no more.

Come on, take my hand and walk down the shore. See the beauty?

Join the Year 3 kickoff of The Stafford Challenge today. It’s not too late to sign up, and you may just ask yourself what took you so long to join. This writing circle is completely free (you can make a donation only if you want – and I did not donate until the 3rd year). You will meet writers from all over the world, be inspired by them, and have the option to join a small group writing circle (you can join with others you don’t know or form your own like we did), where you will share and form some of the closest long-distance relationships you’ve ever had. Even if you don’t consider yourself a strong writer – – or a writer at all.

Come on, stick your big toe in the water. It feels refreshing in here.

My small writing group meets the first Monday of each month ~ Barb Edler of Iowa, Glenda Funk of Idaho, and Denise Krebs of California. We catch up on life, we talk about what we’re reading and what we’re writing, and we share our poetry. Sometimes we write during our Zoom. You know that poem The Cure by Kate Baer in her latest book How About Now? It’s how I feel about my writing circles. This is so much more than breakfast.

Today is the kickoff, and you can sign up at this link. I would love to see you there today. I’ll send you a wave from my tiny screen.

Come on, dive in! You can swim or float, and either is divine.

writing, belonging

to a group of likeminded

poets, anchors me

Come on. I’ll be waiting.