Tag: list poem

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VerseLove Day 23 with Barb Edler of Iowa – Things to Do: Write a Poem

Our host today for the 23rd day of VerseLove 2025 is Barb Edler of Iowa. You can read Barb’s full prompt here. Today, she inspires us to create list poems.

Things You Might See in FDR State Park in Georgia on a Springtime Weekend

a trio of Segwayers gliding over the Delanor Lake bridge

a pair of kayakers paddling in the late morning sunshine

a young barefoot boy running up a hill with a shovelful of something to dump in his bucket

a family fishing off the dock

a couple on bikes, one pulling a child seat, with a Collie running between them

a man paddling a jon boat with a woman fishing off the back

a lone female with worn boots and a tent backpack and hiking poles entering a trailhead

two squirrels flipping through the hardwood canopy like Cirque du Soleil gymnasts

a hammock strung between two trees with a reader flipping pages

a Brown Thrasher, the State Bird, breakfasting on worms on the mountaintop

a Magnolia tree with shiny leaves reflecting the sunlight like mirrors

campers and tents of every size and color nestled beneath the trees along the lake

a wooden footbridge with a mysterious cave entrance….a possum’s cottage?

a group of kids circling a table, working on a camp craft

me, raising a Mason jar of sweet tea, offering you a chair

come sit with me and watch the happy world for a while!

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#VerseLove Day 9 – with Britt Decker of Texas – Depending on When You Met Me

Our host for the 9th day of #VerseLove2025 is Britt Decker of Houston, Texas, who inspires us to write. a poem about who we were at various times in our lives. You can read her full prompt here. Maybe you’ll come write with us today! I’ve chosen a list poem for today’s poem.

Depending on when you met me, you would have known

I was a wild preacher’s kid running amok with a

cast of characters that weren’t Southern Baptists ~

that I became them in my closet with a flashlight

obsessed with the words, the characters, the places

in Childcraft Volume 1: Poems and Rhymes

the book with the gold and pink banded spine

where they lived on pages but came alive

in me ~ and stay with me still

I’m Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee

I’m a sugar plum tree at the Lollipop Sea

I’m a little turtle climbing on the rocks

I’m Wee Willie Winkie, crying through the locks

I’m a water nymph with green glass beads

I’m a goblin in the marsh, howling in the reeds

I’m Mary, Mary, quite contrary

I’m a little puffin on an island in the sea

I’m a gypsy, a gypsy, earrings in my ears

I’m a cave boy with a spear hunting prehistoric deer

I’m the Raggedy Man with a wobble-ly calf

I’m the Ice Cream man with a cart full of laughs

I’m Young Melissa sweeping a room

I’m an astronaut….3, ….2,…..1……BOOM!

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November Open Write Day 1: An Invitation

Today, I’m your host at http://www.ethicalela.com to kick off the November Open Write. Please come join me at that site to share your own poem and to read the poems of others!

On the last day of October’s Open Write, I shared this poem:

An Invitation

save the date: November 16

you may choose to arrive by stretch limousine

we’ll be gathering in style for a writer’s retreat

whether castle or cabin or on your own street

we’ll spend the day writing in fantasy places

day one: a packing list poem ~ what’s in our suitcases?

so gather your words ~ select them with flair

I’ll be the door greeter to welcome you there!

you’ll need your location and writing utensil

something to wear, and perhaps a spare pencil

we’ll all need a critter (think Hogwarts style)

and a snack to share to write all the while

and then let’s bring one thing – a gift for the group

something to make us all laugh, cry, or hoot

what’ll it be? oh, I can’t wait to see ~

here’s a basket of tickets – take some – they’re free!

let’s keep Donnetta’s theme words sparking and growing

return in November, keep writing ongoing!

I offered a glimpse of today’s prompt, encouraging writers to think of a fantasy writing retreat and these aspects: location, clothing, writing utensil, critter, snacks, and a gift for others.

Today, I offer this poem to inspire others to write poems about a fantasy writing retreat. Come join us, and share yours on the ethicalela website!

Location: I’m arriving by Oz-graced Yellow Brick Road

to this heavy oak castle door with just an armload

Clothes: wearing overalls under my farm-writing cape

this magical cloak of virtual escape

with shimmery amber-hued dragonfly wings

and chicken foot bracelets and beetle leg rings

just a suitcase, you see, for this week here together

with all of my writing pals ~ birds of a feather

Utensil: and speaking of feathers, I’ve brought my quill pen

plucked from the wing of a feisty owl hen

Snacks: I’ve sugar-spun cauldrony crinkles for snacks

shaved off curled spikes from chameleons’ backs

Critter Companion: made easier by Razor, my pink crocodile

I walk on a bling-leash, in true Funny Farm style

Group Gift: and one more thing: I bring a group gift ~

truth glasses for all, to see things others miss

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My Retirement List 31-40 of 50

I’m taking the week to write list poems of all the things I’ll do when I retire. They say we should never retire from something, always to something. So I’ll retire to some work and some play, but I want to steer the wheel and throw away the clock. This is day 4 of 5 that I’ll list ten things I’ll do when I am officially off contract for life.

First, a review of the previous days:

  1. I’ll write into the day.
  2. I’ll visit the library twice a week to check out new books.
  3. I’ll read into the evening, dogs snuggled in my lap by the fire.
  4. I’ll shop at the farmer’s market for fresh fruits and vegetables.
  5. I’ll cook things fresh-grown and scrubbed clean.
  6. I’ll take morning walks with the dogs, strolling instead of hurrying.
  7. I’ll make pictures and put them on calendars and notecards.
  8. I’ll pick wildflowers.
  9. I’ll put the picked flowers in the flower press.
  10. I’ll make bookmarks with my pressed flowers.
  11. I’ll savor my coffee, linger longer before showering.
  12. I’ll meet friends for lunch.
  13. I’ll design patterned rag quilts.
  14. I’ll cut flannel quilt squares and stitch them in rows.
  15. I’ll go to sleep when it’s dark and awaken when it’s light.
  16. I’ll wash my dishes by hand in warm water with fragrant dish soap – and blow the bubbles.
  17. I’ll bake fresh, healthy muffins for breakfast.
  18. I’ll volunteer to drive someone to a doctor’s visit.
  19. I’ll make a big pot of soup every few weeks to freeze and give to shut-ins.
  20. I’ll pick my own apples in North Georgia.
  21. I’ll take more impromptu personal field trips to satisfy my curious adventure spells.

22. I’ll coordinate my wardrobe down to the kind where all the tops match all the bottoms and all the outfits have three shoe possibilities for my minimal approach – and live more simply.

23. I’ll go on writing crawls, writing in first one place and then the next through the day.

24. I’ll attend more book festivals near me and listen to more regional authors speak.

25. I’ll sit in Starbucks and write just for the crooner music and the perfectly-lit ambience…oh, and the coffee.

26. I’ll carry only a small Travelon crossbody bag with my driver’s license, some money, and a tube of Candy Cane chapstick that I buy by the box.

27. I’ll sit on my front porch and pray.

28. I’ll learn more about making salves and tinctures, and take a hobby class on it.

29. I’ll wrap all my wine bottles with twine to create vases and fill them with wildflowers and leave them on random doorsteps where they don’t have Ring cameras to catch me.

30. I’ll take more slow country drives at sunset to see the sun sinking below the fenced cattle meadows.

And now for today’s list:

31. I’ll choose to see matinee movies on cold days and take a blanket to the theater.

32. I’ll read more travel genre books and go to places my feet may never actually walk.

33. I’ll spend more time grooming my dogs with glove brushes because they love it when I place them in my lap and give them the brush glove massage.

34. I’ll spend a few hours each week one morning chopping vegetables and fruits to go in plastic tubs for easier use in omelets and soups and snacks and dinners.

35. I’ll take more writing cabin excursions and map my route on Roadtrippers.

36. I’ll hang my tree hammock in the afternoon shade and read until dusk.

37. I’ll stroll through the aquarium and take the time to really see what I’m looking at, and spend more time watching my favorite critters (the otters) play.

38. I’ll read more blogs.

39. I’ll listen to more podcasts.

40. I’ll sit in silence more, savoring its goldenness.

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Day 9 of #VerseLove2024 with Denise Krebs: List Poems

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).

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Why I Watch Birds – Stafford Challenge Day 6

Photo by Jean Paul Montanaro on Pexels.com

Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 3 of the 5-day January Open Write is Dave Wooley of Connecticut, who inspires us to write WHY poems in list form, choosing a list of purpose and then explaining it in 10 because reasons. Hop on over and read his prompt and the poems that are born into the world today. I’ve chosen a prose poem to combine with the list poem just because I got rambling a little bit on the bird soapbox……

Why I Watch Birds

Because Eastern Phoebe, see, she’s the forest drunk and she hiccups and calls her own name like she’s forgotten who she is and where she’s supposed to be, and she makes me laugh first and then cry later like that time at the Atlanta Braves game when that lost woman looking for her seat stumbled down to the front of an entire section and yelled up to ask if ANYBODY recognized her

Because Brown-Headed Nuthatch, see, she’s always in the middle of a domestic dispute telling somebody how it’s gonna be, telling her man he ain’t got a lick of sense and he ain’t coming all up in her tree stirring up no trouble, better carry his ass on out there and find another nest to be a deadbeat dad, and she makes me cheer her strength

Because White-Headed Nuthatch, see, she’s the Social Media Gossip, laughing like an evil circus clown at all the crap she stirs up in the woods, revealing her own true self in the mirror, projecting her sins through the rough-bared face of the forest trees, and she helps me see the weakness and insecurity of people who laugh at others like this

Because Great Horned Owl, see, he’s an all-nighter with all this early morning coffee shop talk across the farm, like he’s an old man sharing some great wisdom when all it is, is a ploy because let’s face it — the man sleeps all day and sheds no light on anything pertinent to school, so why they ever put a cap and gown on him baffles me, and he reminds me not to let his kind fool me

Because Wood Thrush, see, he’s a bird that blends into the scenery, yet his song is the most beautiful of all, kind of like those normal-looking people who step behind a microphone and belt out a song that’ll bring you to tears and give you chills and wonder to yourself, where did that come from? And who else am I underestimating? 

Because Eastern Wood-Pewee, see, he’s always answering roll call, saying his name like he’s entered the building and the party can start, like a kid with a bad case of Senioritis who is perpetually late and wants to be sure he’s marked present so he’s not caught skipping

Because Northern Cardinal, see, he’s a woman-whistler, cat-calling at every woman who walks by, calling her pretty, pretty, pretty, just like some will do – some with good intentions, some with not-so-good intentions, but still giving me the gumption to tilt my chin up and carry on with the day

Because Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, see, she will ask for her food and thank me for it, then hover directly a foot from my face and look into my eyes like she’s blessing me with good vibes of peace and joy to feel like I can make a thumbprint-size difference, reminding me that all hope springs forth and wells up from a tug the size of a tiny thimble into a cascading waterfall

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September 2023 Poetry Marathon – Day 3 of 5

The host for September’s Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com today is Barb Edler of Iowa. She inspires us to write poems about favorite childhood books or poems. You can read her full prompt here. I chose to write about my favorite childhood book – Childcraft Volume 1: Poems and Rhymes.

By The Light of the Moon

back in the 70s, the

World Book Encyclopedia

and Childcraft salesmen came

door to door

selling sets

ecru-colored hardbacks

gold-embossed lettering

the only one that

mattered to me

had a pink-banded

spine ~ Volume 1

Poems and Rhymes

that I read so much

I’m surprised I didn’t

read the ink clean off

the pages

I had a closet-and-flashlight

fixation with Volume 1

I’d crawl in and read for hours

staring at the illustrations,

memorizing the words

Overheard on a Salt Marsh

my favorite of all time

but Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee

and The Purple Cow

and The Raggedy Man

and every.other.page

were my best friends

so much that today,

I have a framed copy

of Harold Monro’s

masterpiece

by my bed, draped

with green glass beads

to remind me

I was steeped

in reading

by the light

of

the

moon

Last Friday, I had a poetry writing marathon, where I invited family and some friends to write poems that I would feature on the blog this week. Each hour, a new poem was born. I began sharing these on Saturday, and today is Day 3 of 5 days of our shared poems, continued below.

6 p.m. hour – Kim Johnson – List poem – – a poem that contains a list or inventory of things, people, places, or ideas

Signs Seen on a Drive Between Counties in Rural Georgia

Do not be lukewarm

Be the light!

Slower traffic keep right

Speed checked by detection devices

The compassion of the Lord never fails

Sad to see summer go. NOT.

Where will you spend eternity?

Don’t be the dealer…..be the difference!

Wrong Way

Don’t scroll. Stay in control.

Everything is hotter in the south!

Fall: When God displays his finest artistry. 

7 p.m. hour – Kim Johnson – Etheree – A ten line poem in which each numbered line contains that number of syllables, written in ascending or descending order. 

Norris’s Fine Foods

catfish, hush puppies, coleslaw and crawfish

green beans, cabbage, and corn on the cob

fried shrimp, baked cod, barbecue beans

shrimp scampi, rice and cornbread

peach and apple cobblers

Norris’s Fine Foods

chocolate cake

banana

pudding

…..full!

8 p.m. hour – my grandson Aidan – Concrete Poem – a poem in the shape of an object of the poem, or where the arrangement of words looks like the poem’s subject.  These are also called shape poems.  

My grandson writes about a covered bridge by the bridge

9 p.m. hour – Ken Haynes and Jennifer Butler – Renga Poem – a poem in which the first poet writes the first three lines in seventeen syllables, then the second poet writes two lines containing seven syllables. 

Gracie and JoJo are mine

Kasa is his

We are one family

    loving our dogs

    please love yours! 

10 p.m. hour – Kim Johnson – Nonet – poem with nine lines, with each numbered line containing that many syllables and can be written in ascending or descending order

Cemetery Slap Fight

they got in a slap fight, those 3, right

in the cemetery over 

their mother’s grave ~ she’d once said, 

“over my dead body”

turns out she was right

……believing truth

was never

her strong

suit

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A List to Listen By

I can’t think of a more powerful way to begin the 2022 Open Write than with poetry written by Stacey Joy and Kwame Alexander – two of my favorite poets to read! Stacey challenges us to write list poems to start the year. The link to her prompt is below. Beginning 2022 with a list poem reminds us that poetry can be free of rules and forms – it’s breath and thought and heart all blended in expression.

My one not so little word for 2022 is listen, so I made a starter kit of some ways I’ve discovered I can listen without using the word hear.

A Starter Kit of Ways to Listen 

  1. Pray
  2. Meditate
  3. Observe 
  4. Watch 
  5. Read
  6. Write 
  7. Tune in 
  8. Think 
  9. Reason
  10. Heed
  11. Feel 
  12. Look
  13. Worship
  14. Mind
  15. Consider
  16. Pause
  17. Follow
  18. Sense 
  19. Play
  20. Concentrate
  21. Anticipate 
  22. Dream 
  23. Hug 
  24. Reflect
  25. Notice
  26. Ponder
  27. Plan
  28. Embrace 
  29. Teach
  30. Learn
  31. Change
  32. Travel
  33. Obey
  34. Care
  35. Empathize
  36. Believe
  37. Seek 
  38. Attend
  39. Consider
  40. Accept 
  41. Reach  
  42. Wonder
  43. Imagine
  44. Reimagine

Today’s Open Write link:

For the Love of Lists