Angie of Mauritius is our host today for the 18th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com. You can read her full prompt here, inspiring us to write Golden Hinge poems, where the first line of the poem also reads vertically as the first words in each line, As a child, I got hooked on poetry in the pages of Childcraft by one poem that did it for me – Overheard on a Salt Marsh by Harold Monro, and so I took a line from Joy Sullivan’s Remember What It Was Like to Be a Kid? from her book Instructions for Traveling West to pay tribute to Harold Monro today.
Tribute to Harold Monro
have you found the jewel of language
you discovered in childcraft volume 1 when you
found the one with a nymph and a goblin in
the salt marsh mesmerized by an emerald necklace
jewel stolen from the moon
of your dreams, carried in your soul, this captivating
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 HaroldMonroe
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
Water nymph with green glass beads, image generated with AI
Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the July 2024 Open Write, Day 1, is Denise Krebs of California. She inspires us to write septercet poems on any topic we choose. Also called a blackjack poem for the 21 syllables in each stanza, the poem features stanzas of three lines with 7 syllables on each line. You can read Denise’s full prompt here. I’ll be presenting with Denise at this year’s NCTE Convention in Boston in November, and I’m proud to call her a friend!
Throughout my childhood, I was obsessed with one particular book. I spent hours on end reading it – – even took the flashlight into my closet so I could read it in there too and not be bothered while I was mesmerized. I not only fell in love with the words in the book, but also with the pictures – they were enchanting. I studied every detail of the pages in Childcraft Volume 1 – Poems and Rhymes – with the pink band on the gold-numbered spine.
One poem in particular was my favorite among favorites.
Overheard on a Saltmarsh by Harold Monro (14 March 1879 – 16 March 1932).
I lived near salt marshes in those days, on a coastal island in Georgia. I’d never seen any nymphs and goblins in the marshes, but I wondered – – could they really be there? How had I missed them?
Overheard on a Saltmarsh by Harold Monro
I fixated on the goblin and the nymph in the illustration. That’s a water nymph – – they often have plants growing from their heads, I learned. She’s not afraid of that ghastly looking goblin, either. She is confident in herself there in the moonlight, wearing her green gown and green glass beads.
That’s what I’d wanted to be when I grew up – a beautiful nymph with a shapely figure, wearing a flowy gown and green beads, telling my goblins NO.
And so to celebrate this St. Patrick’s Day, I will not sport a shamrock. I won’t wear a green flowy gown or drink a green beer or flash a Kiss Me, I’m Irish t-shirt or paint my face green. Or get a tattoo.
Instead, I have framed my favorite childhood poem and will nymphatically wear these green jasper beads.
Hush, I stole them out of the moon.
A framed childhood favorite poem, with green beads
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers!
Please join us at http://www.ethicalela.com Saturday through Wednesday for the March Open Write. We’ll be writing poetry for the next 5 days. Come write with us!
Common Threads 