Our host today for the 17th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Kratijah, who lives in Mauritius, where she teaches English Language Acquisition and Language & Literature at Le Bocage International School. She inspires us to write poems about our kitchens in free verse, and you can read her full prompt here.
Our host today for VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Erica Johnson, who offers inspiration here in a new-to-me form of poetry called a cascade. These remind me of Pantoum poems. Erika explains: It’s a form created by Udit Bhatia and asks that the poet take each line from the first stanza of a poem and makes each one the final line in the stanzas that follow. This results in the poem resembling a tumbling waterfall, which was when I knew I needed to go look through my photos of waterfalls for inspiration!
Erika shares the process with us: Read over the cascade form and write out the pattern you wish to follow: tercet or quatrain. I found that having the structure written as a reminder helped guide my writing.
My mind went straight to Gibbs Gardens, where I’d rather spend the day in flowers than at work. Here, you can check out the bloom report and see where I’d take you if you were spending the day with me. We’d have lunch at The Burger Bus and order daffodils to plant next season.
Let’s Play
I did not want to get up today I’d like to sip coffee with friends in a cafe talk books, catch up, paint daffodils, play
I’d drive to Ball Ground stroll Gibbs Gardens’ spring blooms I did not want to get up today
the tulips have opened, Monet’s pond awaits I’d load up the girls for a quick getaway I’d like to sip coffee with friends in a cafe
we’d laugh and share stories take off work for the day get a slow start, talk books, paint daffodils, play
Today is the first day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, and many of the Slice of Life writers and Stafford Challenge poets will be joining this robust group of poets who write during Open Write throughout the year and VerseLove every day in April. We’ll be joined by writers from Poetry Friday and Spiritual Journey Thursdays and those belonging to many other writing groups – from all across the continental United States and from other countries as well. I love March and April because there is a convergence of writers from different groups all coming together.
Today’s host is Sarah Donovan, creator of EthicalELA and human being extraordinare. You can read her opening prompt here, inviting us to write about the landscapes of our lives – along with the response poems of others throughout the day. By the afternoon hours throughout April, there will be an amazing collection of poems all on a theme. Come write with us. Or come read what we’ve written.
the page and the pen
inside me there is a boxcar bent fork and family there is a farm radiant web overhead there is Golden Fedder Fountain and Verbivore there is River Heights old clock and mystery there is Mitford Village Barnabas and covered dish there is a mountain Swiss cabin, goats, grandpa
Inside me there are pages some filled, some blank where the reader writes the story but I
I was transfixed on the smiling poet delivering her poem with grace and poise at the Biden inauguration. Wearing a yellow coat, with red, she beamed and took the podium. When she spoke, I was speechless, mesmerized. Her name is Amanda Gorman, and her poetry is healing. Our nation needs a spoonful – perhaps a bottle full – of Amanda Gorman right now. You can read more about Amanda Gorman here and here. I’ve composed a Cento poem using Gorman’s lines from various poems, listed beneath the poem. Her words: Pay Attention. Learn from them. are words I will carry into the day.
We Rouse Ghosts
Even as we stand stone-still
we rouse ghosts ~
A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries.
This truth, like the white-blown sky.
What endures isn’t always what escapes.
Pay attention.
Learn from them.
Taken from: The Shallows; Who We Gonna Call; The Miracle of Morning; & So; Cordage, or Atonement; Hephaestus; In the Deep
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
Mona Becker of Maryland is our host for the second day of the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. Today, she inspires us to write haiku poems. You can read her poems and those of others, along with the full prompt, here. If you have a few moments, write a poem and share it today!
Gayle Sands of Maryland is our host for the first day of the December Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. She inspires us to use photographs to inspire poems today. You can read her full prompt, along with the poems of others and their responses, here.
Gayle inspires us to walk into a photo and to be present in the photograph in some way—as a bystander, as one of the individuals in the photo, or as someone coming upon the scene. She says, “Use the photo as your starting point and open your senses. What do you see and/or hear? Is there something you can taste or smell? What sensations do you feel? Is there any movement? What thoughts come to your mind as you engage with the photo? Vintage photographs are a good source of inspiration.”
Do you love journals and pens? Are you a particular-type-of-pencil snob? Are you drawn to notepads, Post-It Notes, notecards, and writing tablets of all shapes and sizes? If you said yes to any of these questions and you’ve ever had a secret wish to write poetry but aren’t sure how to start, I might can help.
I want to provide a link to a special book that is a completely free download herein digital form or a cost-of-printing book form here. Each chapter is filled with poems that explain the type of poetry, a prompt to get you started, instructions, and a mentor poem to show a sample by another poet for inspiration.
If you’re looking to set a goal of writing, this book can launch your new healthy habit!
Mo Daley of Illinois is our host for the third and final day of the December Open Write. She inspires us to write Kennings today. Here is a part of what she shares, but you can read her full prompt here.
November is a month of gratitude. It’s a great time to reflect on the people, places, and things that mean so much to us. The Kenning comes from Norse myths or legends. A Kenning is a poem that uses two-word phrases as metaphors to describe something. For example, you might use tree-hugger instead of environmentalist.
Think of a person, place, animal, or thing for which you are grateful. Develop a list of attributes and actions for your subject. Think of fun and creative ways to describe your topic without saying who or what it is. Your poem can have as many or as few kennings as you’d like. Think of your poem as if it were a riddle. The hardest part for me was giving the poem a title without giving away my subject.
I’m continuing to write 6-7 poems this week, so today’s poem is 6-7-6. Fitz is one of three Schnoodles we have rescued over the past decade, and he is the star of the show today. He naps in a brown velvet chair and often throws his arm up over the arm rest as if he is a person. Sometimes I think he would look best in a a tophat with a gold chain eyepiece, smoking an old-fashioned pipe. He came to us as Henry, but we renamed him Fitz, after F. Scott Fitzgerald. The name Fitz fits, but we realize that he was aptly named Henry after Thoreau himself. He’s far more of a thinker than he ever will be a party animal.
When the high school teacher called asking if I would be willing to come write poetry alongside students, I jumped at the offer. As a District Literacy Specialist mostly wrapped up in the operational world of data and school improvement, I miss the opportunities of the classroom. That’s where we make the biggest difference.
She read to me the AP Standard on taking poetry from prose and wanted to feature blackout poetry. As we chatted, I shared with her my blog post that day and gave her a copy of 90 Ways of Community, a book on poetry written by one of my writing groups. Together, we considered the various poetry forms that we could use if we modeled the process ~ blackout and found poetry were already on the list, but we added Haiku, X Marks the Spot, Acrostic, Golden Shovel, and Zip Odes as a geographic timestamp bonus of sorts. The students have already created their own personal writing, and we’ll show them how I used a blog post to extract poetry and urge them to do the same.
We’ll model the process.
We’ll feature an overview of possibilities – – a menu of choices – – and then watch their creativity flow onto their paper like they’re mining for gems that they pull out to polish and sparkle.
I’ll remind them that poetry is a process – – not a product. In fact, I’ll probably open the class with something like, “poets and artists have a mindset of creating a lot of bad poems and a lot of bad art.” They’ll wonder who the crazy lady is, but I’ll explain what I mean: perfection is not the goal. Writing is the goal. Thinking is the goal. Not every race is a marathon, not every photo wins awards, and not every book gets 5 stars – – it’s finding the pieces of what we do well and building on those parts so that the process becomes somewhat of a habit. I’ll explain to them that I think in metaphors and syllables, and I take a lot of random pictures to come back to little things I see that will work their way into poems.
Take this, for example:
These kids are a big part of my life. Here stand five of my seven grandchildren in the very spot at the top of a mountain in Sevierville where their parents were married in May 2012. Their other grandparents own that land, and at the bottom, there is a fishing pond. Let’s take a deeper look.
Blazing a trail, tackle box and all
I see two boys (yes, they’re boys – they just have lots of hair) exploring the trail that leads to the pond, tacklebox in hand, ready to to cast a line and spend time fishing. I’ll explain to them that already, my thoughts are swirling in metaphors of adventure, seeking, a quest, a tackle box of what it takes to find, a hook for the found thing to be caught, and the patience and grit to stick with it – and the treks through the mud and the weeds to get there.
Because fishing isn’t about the fish. You can go to the grocery store and get fish. You can order fish from a restaurant – or better yet, you can Door Dash fish.
No, fishing is no more about the fish than poetry and art are about perfection. It’s about the adventure and the process, and the wait for just the right inspiration.
Beckham, who never stands still and quiet, is standing still and quiet – fishing!
It’s about engaging in what it takes to do a thing, whether writing a poem or creating art or catching fish. It’s having the stick-to-it-ness to stand still and be quiet for two hours of a morning and be determined when you’d almost always otherwise be doing something else, but you learn to love a thing and know that there is something, something, something that will bite and that you’ll reel it in and be proud of it, whether it’s big or small.
River with his fish
You’ve caught something you’re proud of, and you can’t wait to share it with the world. So you pose for the photo, holding a fish mouth open the way you’ve been taught, holding the fish a little closer to the camera to make it look bigger than it actually is, and you see the great things about your fish.
And then you release it back into the world, knowing that next time you come back, you may catch that same one again – – or something different, like that turtle your sister caught.
Noli’s shoes tell the story: she’s seizing the day!
Either way, the one thing you cannot buy, like that Door Dashed fish, is the mud on your own shoes from the lived experience.
And that is what poetry is – life, experience, thinking, waiting, casting a line and seeing what comes up on the end of the hook.
So while I may say I’m going to school today, what I’m really doing is going fishing
Common Threads 