This is the tenth day of the 2026 Slice of Life Challenge, and we are 1/3 of the way through the month of March’s daily blogging challenge. I’m celebrating some of my favorite living poets this month by sharing a Cento poem I’ve created from one of their poetry collections. I was introduced to Clint Smith through a Book Love Summer Reading Club I participated in through Penny Kittle’s group several years ago when we all read Counting Descent. I hung on every.single.line and marveled in the raw truths of exposed feelings. With poetry this rich and moving, the way it made my soul quiver with such ability to see things more clearly, I could not understand why everyone wasn’t rushing to devour more poetry and make it a main course of their reading diets. I understood why all the holiest books of this world are all in verse. I love the way Clint Smith uses lower case letters in titles and lines, and how he takes a perspective of what was said by many voices to a black boy. He writes prose poetry beautifully, too. Here is a poet who will take a reader of other genres and make them a reader who craves more poetry.
You can read about Clint Smith here. He won the 2014 National Slam Championship, and if I were picking a poet to have lunch with, I’d want my table with Clint Smith.
Invisible
You are invisible until
long after the song has stopped
until there’s nothing left inside
those stained glass shadows
maybe the poem is a cry for help
Taken from: Ode to the only black kid in the class; When Maze and Franie Beverly Come on in my House; what the fire hydrant said to the black boy; what the cathedral said to the black boy; Queries of Unrest.
The first ten poets, in order from bottom to top
A sneak peek of the poets I’m reading the next ten days
Welcome to Day 9 of the Slice of Life Challenge! I’m spending my month slicing about the living poets whose collections I enjoy reading – and using one of their collections to write Cento poetry, composed of existing lines reworked to form a new poem. Today, I’m sharing a Cento taken from the lines of poems in Maggie Smith’s collection entitled Goldenrod.
Maggie Smith appears in an interview here as a graduate of OSU.
Becoming
I am becoming my mother here
crossing a field, wading.
If you feel yourself receding, receding,
whatever your name is, you are with your own kind.
When are we most ourselves, and when the least?
My Cento poem features lines taken from these poems, in this order: Slipper, Threshold, Poem Beginning with a Retweet; Goldenrod; Ohio Cento.
She knows he loves lights – flashlights, landscape lights, Christmas lights, headlamps, city lights. And so on our first rainy night in “her city,” she took us on the High Roller. A surprise with him in mind. And we loved every minute of the half-hour spin seeing the city lights!
Our host for the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com this month was Stacey Joy, who inspired us to write poems honoring human emotions. Since I was traveling, I was off by a day, so I am posting the poem from one of those prompts today. You can click here to read the full prompt.
Emotions
I’ve had a few
severe ones came
on takeoff from
the Vegas airport
yesterday
My phone was in
airplane mode
with Delta wi-fi
but my soul wasn’t
it wasn’t the
proverbial placenta pulling
it was the heartstrings
as I watched my
daughter ping on
Find My Phone
our plane flying
away, away, away
so far home
my firstborn watching
planes from her window
beneath, asking
in her text
if the plane she saw
might be us
On Fremont StreetWe saw The Wizard of Oz as a last-minute Sphere ticket, and what a show!Mallory and I prefer the “original” style slots with the pull handle. You have to feel the vibe, and I was drawn to the Tabasco logo and won a few dollars on this one at The Golden Nugget!My daughter, her partner, and their four-legged “son,” Jackson.
There was a hidden speakeasy at The Flamingo, and we found it!
Walking down Fremont Street, a/k/a “The Old Strip”
For a special surprise, my daughter took us to ride on The High Roller on our first night in Vegas
First, huge thanks and a hug. Second, I’m sharing my plan for March slicing.
I was sitting with my schnoodle Boo Radley in my favorite chair in the living room when the text notification came on Valentine’s Day. My friend, fellow Slice of Life blogger, travel advice guru, fellow Schnoodle Mom, and Stafford Challenge small group buddy Glenda Funk of Idaho sent a Valentine full of smiles and hugs to our writing group that meets the first of each month to catch up and write! One of the greatest blessings of a writing community is finding common interests among those with whom we share some of our deepest feelings and so much of our day-to-day lives. A huge thanks to Glenda today, to all the writers here at Slice of Life, and others in writing group crossroads for making life more friendly and for helping me find the smiles in unexpected places.
Valentine’s Day hugs
arrive from across the miles
arms wide as friendship!
A plan has been brewing. It’s been in my bones, and it has finally taken root. I find that if I have a plan for the Slice of Life Challenge, I’m more successful at completing the challenge ~ and not just finishing it, but actually enjoying it the same way some marathon runners are actually smiling when they cross the finish line.
My Plan
Living poets are near and dear to my heart. I want to not only read and celebrate them, but also have an opportunity to share their work. That will be my own personal March Slice of Life Challenge plan. Each day, I’ll feature a collection of poems by a living poet, and I’ll compose a short Cento poem each day from that collection. Cento poems are some of my favorites – they’re a form of found poetry where lines of existing poems are arranged to create new poems. I’m still curating my featured list, but I wanted to share this idea in case there is anyone reading who is struggling with an idea and needs a place to start. Perhaps there are seeds in this idea. Some of my favorite reading is about books and how they have changed lives – poetry collections included.
I’ll see you at the starting line on Sunday, ready for the journey!
Our host for the first day of the February Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com was Seana, who prompted us to write lines of verse about a special place. We were traveling and on Pacific Coast time in Las Vegas, visiting my daughter and seeing a show at the Sphere. I chose that venue for my special place haiku. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems of others.
I’m also including some video clips from the concert so that you can share the fun – but the videos can’t capture the full stereo sound and the immensity of the Sphere in person. You’ll have to go experience it for yourself for that! Also, a word about sharing: recording is permitted in the Sphere, and as an additional disclaimer, this is not my music, my blog remains free, and I do not profit from sponsors or visit stats.
View of Sphere from The High Roller at night
You Can Check Out Anytime, But…
mesmerizing orb Sphere, Las Vegas ~ The Eagles “you can never leave…”
Yes, they OPENED with Hotel California. Seriously.
My second favorite Eagles Song: In the City
My favorite Eagles song, if that’s even possible : Take it To the Limit
This one got us ready to finish the second half of Route 66.
The one and only – Joe Walsh
They closed with Heartache Tonight
More about our trip to Las Vegas in the coming days~ please visit throughout the week!
We’d gone for a slice of pizza and looked west on our drive through the rural rolling hills of Georgia. What we saw took our breath away. Golden twilight peeking over the hill. I stopped at the end of our driveway and photographed it, hoping to capture the vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows like a brush stroke of melted crayons. The next morning, I opened the front door to the beauty of the sun over the recent harvesting of trees.
Beauty surrounds us in this place we call home, and I wanted to share the artistry of the skies. It’s not always able to be seen this way in cloudless ways, but even though the eye can’t always see through to it, I know it’s always there. It’s euphoric when it reveals itself in its full splendor.
Some Tuesdays I write about a tiny slice of life. A moment. Today, it’s going to have to be the whole pie. You see, I’ve been on a book adventure, and I want to share it with you.
When you fall head over heels in love with a book, its setting, and all the characters, you can’t just shake loose of the mind and heart embrace and move on with life. You want to live there in the pages, remain with the people, and mourn the ending of the page-turning joy that held you tight right through the last sentence. You slowed down because you didn’t want it to end, but you couldn’t stop that train.
When all you want to do is linger, you can’t accept that it’s over. The End. Done.
I’ve told all my friends about Theo of Golden by Allen Levi and its impact. It restores our hope in humanity and leaves us wanting to be more like Theo.
When fellow blogger Sally Donnelly watched Katie Couric interview Allen Levi, she sent me the link. A huge shout out to Sally for doing this ~ I was meeting with my own book club that evening and could not watch live.
When my sister-in-law Bethany finished the book, she was eager to see the coffee shop that inspired the book. We planned the one-hour drive over to Columbus, Georgia and invited our husbands along for the fun. Turns out, there is also the bike shop and the book store and the fountain and so many benches and the Riverwalk and even a character. But we didn’t know about the inspired character until our visit.
The Chalice in Golden is the fictional version of Fountain City Coffee Company, which sits on Broadway, a downtown street two blocks east of the Chattahoochee River that divides Georgia and Alabama. This is where we started our adventure on a rainy Sunday. We ordered coffee and muffins and sat at a table admiring the portraits on the wall – wondering about the stories of each face.
The man in the left corner above, wearing khakis, offered to take the photo below of our group when he saw us discussing the photos and referencing the book. Locals were extra kind and seemed to understand our need to experience this place.
We asked about Fedder Fountain, and one of the baristas explained that Columbus is known as “the fountain city” because there are fountains everywhere. We discovered this as we walked, but as we later discovered in the bookstore, all of the significant places we wanted to see were wrapped tightly within a block or so, and the photo below is probably the inspiration for Fedder Fountain. We believe that they turn the fountain off for the winter months to prevent freezing.
We saw art everywhere, but here is what we believe to be a feather (or a dragonfly wing), below. It resembles the cover of the book even in its gold and beige tones.
Next, we strolled down to the Riverwalk. The bricks to the left in the picture below form a walkway that extends a good way, and this is where Ellen and Theo would have taken their bike ride along the river. You can see the bridge in the photo, too – this takes you to Phenix City, Alabama on the other side, and there is a bike shop called Brickyard Bike (RiverRides in the book) where Ellen arranged the bike ride. Along the banks would be the place where she showed him the birds’ nest. One of my favorite parts of the book is when she takes out the Student Driver tag and puts it on the back of his borrowed Noble Invention after giving him these instructions: “Don’t bring anything with you. I want you to be able to keep both hands on the handlebars and your eyes on the trail. The last thing I need is a casualty. I’ll bring some water for us in my basket.”
Next, we found the bookstore. JudyBug’s Books was exactly as I had pictured The Verbivore from the descriptions in the book. The man behind the counter was as friendly as they come. We asked if he was the inspiration for Tony, and he grinned a knowing grin, tapping his chest. “I’m Tommy,” he smiled, introducing himself while stressing his similar name.
I have never met a bookseller I didn’t like, but I genuinely took interest in Tommy. He talked with us and told us about the town, even pausing to explain how before Covid, men would gather outside and talk (the Penny Loafers). I could tell that this man was happy and unhurried, peaceful and well-read. I asked him the title of the last great book he’d read. He ambled over to the display, kind of scratching his chin, and recommended Big Fish as the one he recommends to everyone. He explained that while he isn’t big on magical realism, he thinks this book is the best in its genre. Of course, when Tommy from JudyBugs or Tony from the Verbivore recommends a book, I’m buying it as I envision him drinking port with Theo from that bottle that told the story of a life.
I’d overheard a woman speaking with my sister in law as I was paying. She said she’d overheard us talking about Theo of Golden, which her book club was reading this month, and wondered if we’d read it. “Oh yes,” Bethany explained……and I watched the woman’s face light up as they talked after Bethany asked her if she realized she was standing in the Verbivore.
Tommy at JudyBug’s Books
Before leaving town, we drove across the bridge to Phenix City to see Brickyard Bike Company, which sits just half a block away from the river. It was closed, but we imagined Ellen giving biking advice to Theo before setting off down the Riverwalk.
A quick video of The Riverwalk in Columbus, Georgia
The photo below I have intentionally saved for last to leave those who have read the book with one last photo gift ~ Theo’s balcony.
if you know, you know
the significance of that
balcony upstairs……
I nearly cried when I saw it: there, directly across the street from the coffee shop, is a balcony with the most exquisite railing.
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life
If you don’t have a book club in your life, go find you one – or better yet, start one – that likes to read across a variety of genres, gather and discuss books, and be so inspired by them that there is that one little thing or two that makes you want to do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do, see, taste, or experience. People who say that books can change your life aren’t joking; my father always said that if your book isn’t changing your life, it’s time to change your book. His words were never more true than yesterday, on what was his first heavenly birthday.
That’s one of the reasons that in the Kindred Spirits Book Club, we squeeze every drop of life from every book by allowing it to take us to new places. I think back to that first book we read together in January 2025, The Beautiful and the Wild by Peggy Townsend, and one of our group members noticed that one of the characters was always serving hot tea. We found a local tea room and paid them a visit one Saturday morning. One year later, we’re still going strong, seeking the full adventure that’s ours to claim as we find it between the pages.
Our last book of 2025 was The Book Club Hotel by Sarah Morgan, and one group member noticed that the chef in the book was always talking about her cookery books. It inspired us to want to take some sort of food class – a charcuterie board class, a cooking class, or some type of cake or cookie decorating class. We found the answer right in our own small town. A retired teacher created a cookie business as her next chapter and now travels the surrounding area with her own personally-designed cookie decorating kit, setting up in homes and giving groups the opportunity to create together.
L-R: Janette, me, Joy, Jennifer, Chris Tyree, and Jill (we were missing: Martina)
We called our friend Chris Tyree of Cookies by Chrissoula, and we set Friday, February 13 as our cookie decorating party, complete with a chili dinner and the fun of togetherness – in pajamas, sweats, and slippers. We laughed, we concentrated on cookie details, and commiserated over the woes of the world. If a cookie broke, we learned how to glue it back together with icing – discoveries that become metaphors for all the broken places in our own lives. Just slap some sugary sweetness in between the jagged edges and put it back together and keep going. In a world of tension and deadlines, frustrations and disappointments, we counted our blessings and considered the icing on our cookies, so to speak.
Georgia Heard’s Substack offers writing calendars that work for both children and adults. Here is her February Valentine Mini Writing Calendar, inspiring us to fall in love with the everyday. Day 6 asks us to fall in love with love with a small ritual that brings us comfort or joy such as morning coffee, walking the dog, or lighting a candle.
Common Threads 