Today’s host for the final day of our September Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Glenda Funk of Idaho, who inspires us to write Barbie poems. You can read Glenda’s full prompt and her poem here. I can’t wait to see all of the poems born into the world on this topic, so please hop over to the site and take a read. I chose a reverse nonet today, crafting nine lines with each numbered line’s syllable count on each in descending order as if going back in time, seeking Fountain of Youth Barbie.
Turning Back the Years Reverse Nonet
We’d line them up like kickball players
at recess, then pick one by one,
taking turns to get the best
looking Barbies. Next, we’d
choose accessories ~
whip worlds to life
narrating
stories
dreamed.
As part of this post today, I’m sharing the remaining poems from the poetry marathon last Friday, where a poem and hour was written either by someone in my family, a friend, or me. Here they are:
12 a.m. hour – Kim Johnson – Hashtag Haiku
#meanness
Fruit of the Spirit
my tree needs fertilizer
nothing much blooming…..
1 a.m. hour – Tanka – a five line poem with a syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7
Cinnamon apples
sliced, wax-sealed in Mason jars
cane sugar syrup
for Thanksgiving dessert pies
prepped-ahead ingredients!
2 a.m. hour – Naani – a poem consisting of four lines, with twenty to twenty-five syllables on any topic
Pumpkin Harvest!
Pumpkin Spice!
Pumpkin jack-o-lanterns ~
glowing face with the slice of a knife!
3 a.m. hour – Senryu – a three line unrhymed poem similar to Haiku, about nature
Midland water snake
basking in Gibbs Gardens grass
misunderstood
4 a.m. hour – Tricubes – three stanzas of three lines with 3 syllables per line
Poetry
Wings to Fly
Words to heal
Poetry
Weatherproof
Warmth for cold
Poetry
What if prompts
Why not now?
5 a.m hour – Cinquain – a poem that has two syllables in the first line, four in the second, six in the third, eight in the fourth, and two in the fifth (it was early, and I was watching my Honey Nut Cheerios dance in my plain Greek yogurt)…..
mOrning
cOffee hOp!
cheeriO’ed yOgurt prOm
O’s d-Osi-dO with pOetry
hOedOwn!
6 a.m. hour – Kim Johnson – Ode – a poem of praise, often written directly to a person or object
Memories of Miriam
Dear Mom,
you come to me
in the missing
with tingly spots that
turn warm
in the heart,
help me exhale~ my
fingers circling my temples
bringing back
all the whens
of this Bernina
your fingers guiding
mine under the
foot, stitch by stitch
learning to sew
a lime green terrycloth
bathcover, now
sewing quilts
for your great grands
on your fine
Swiss machine
of hawks,
talons clutching wires
checking that
my seatbelt
is fastened
as I drive past,
shaking your pointing finger
if I forgot,
knowing that
whatever I’m
thinking at
that moment,
you’re there
in it
of strawberry figs,
last summer wave
just picked, my own
weakening fingers twisting
tender fruits free ~
canned this very
week, Mason jars
sealed tight
with summer’s
sweetened warmth
for coming winter
of spiced Russian tea,
the Tangy orange
and lemonade mixed
with clove, sugar
cinnamon and tea ~
a medicinal brush
of your invisible fingers
through my hair
in sore throat season
of rippled milkglass
with resurrection fern
springing to life
unfurling its brown
dry fingers
into open arms
green again
7 a.m. hour – grand finale recap poem
A coffee stir stick
started a 24-hour
poem marathon!
we stirred up writing
gave wings to what if ideas
preserved memories
called love to action
resurrected ancestors
Common Threads 