Tag: VerseLove

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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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Day 2 of #VerseLove with Bryan Ripley Crandall of Connecticut, Inspiring Magic Box Poems

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Bryan Ripley Crandall of Connecticut has quite a Magic Box process of turning out nonsense, whimsical poems that make us smile. You can read his full prompt along with the process (this one is loads of fun) and the poems of others here.

Just let words roll off the pen and see what pops up!

Turning the Tables

vintage green stamps in rose-hued sunglasses
sewing thimble, dogtag, thumbs of young lasses
Cracker Jack prizes
   trinkets and toys
     but pencils for scholarly girls and boys
crocheted tablecloth clamps
     stitched by all our Aunt Mabels
clothespinned lottery tickets turn all the tables
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Hashtag Acrostics on Day 1 of #VerseLove at www.ethicalela.com – and I’m Your Host! (Stafford Challenge Day 76)

Photo by DS stories on Pexels.com

Today, I’m hosting the kickoff of #VerseLove 2024 at http://www.ethicalela.com, the website and writing community of Dr. Sarah J. Donovan of Oklahoma State University. Each day this month, we will be writing poetry together as we rotate hosting, celebrate writing together, and encourage one another. You can read the entire prompt below, but you can also read it (and the poetry of others) here.

Inspiration 

I enjoy unlocking the puzzles of smashed-together-word hashtags and considering their power to make a statement.  Like clever license plates and bumper stickers, hashtags can issue a call to action, proclaim characteristics, and identify members of a group.  Today, let’s use them to introduce ourselves as we begin our #VerseLove journey together this month. 

Process

Write your name vertically down the left side of a page.  You can use your first name, nickname, or full name – your choice! 

Place a hashtag in front of each letter of your name.

Jot a list of your hobbies, your passions, and any other aspects that you might use to introduce yourself to someone getting to know you.  You can scroll through photos, Facebook posts, or poems you’ve written to help you think of some ideas. 

Finally, use the letters to make a hashtag acrostic to introduce yourself to your #VerseLove family! You can #smashyourwordstogether or #space them apart. 

We are your people.  We can’t wait to get to know you better as we write and grow together.  

#Cheersforthejourney!

Kim’s #HashtagAcrostic Created on Canva

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#VerseLove April 30

Sarah Donovan is our host for Day 30 of VerseLove and our host of this space each month for writers who crave togetherness each month as we come together to celebrate our words and thoughts ~to share the joy of writing. She helps meet a deep need in each of us. I adore the prompt today, and I ran for my journal from 2019 when I saw the topic. I thought back to the first year I participated in VerseLove and looked for that first prompt that changed the trajectory of my life from grief over my mother’s death to connection with others whose pain shone through their heart holes, too, who showed me how to use the sunspots to write and heal. To every writer who shares the journey, thank you for all of the inspiration you bring. This morning, my grandson writes along with me as I revise my first-ever VerseLove poem, Blackberry Winter.

Blackberry Winter, Revisited

It’s a Blackberry Winter I wrote in 2019
beginning a poem about all the good things

later this morning, my first grandson 
               will make elderberry jam toast
                         plus cheese omelettes 
                                   on the Lodge cast iron griddle
   wearing my apron 
         (he doesn’t know about the apron yet)

but first: raindrops on rooftop, fresh coffee,
wi-fi (stronger than coffee, finally), computer charged,
comfy chair, whisper-soft pajamas,

thoughts ready to materialize
three schnoodles tussling on grandson’s 
sleepover mattress as we write together
in the living room

words forming on pages: his pen, my keyboard
to the first #VerseLove prompt of 2019 from Sarah:

….the good things in our lives….

there are those who bring
more warmth than raindrops and coffee,
more comfort than chairs and pajamas,
more joy than words ~ 
   ancestors whose cast iron presence
      and apron strings linger in kitchens
       hugging us tight about the middle

and those we ancestor ~ grandchildren 
who write right next to us
about all the good things in our lives
on this elderberry toast and cheese omelette morning.

– Kim Haynes Johnson, April 2, 2019 and 4/30/2023

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#VerseLove April 29

Our host today for Day 29 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Scott McCloskey of Michigan, who inspires us to rewrite the script of a time we wish we’d given a different answer. You can read his prompt and the poems of others here. 

Kernels of Truth


ten months after

she died

four months after

he died

you asked me

what I thought

of y’all



and I told the truth



you’re nice

she’s nice

but y’all don’t fit



you thought

it was that woman thing

that I 

just didn't like her



you had it all wrong



there were those

I thought would be a

great fit for you



readers

travelers

lovers of wine

whose blood runneth blue



this one wasn’t for you



you’ve held my 

truth-telling 

against me all this time

made me the 

unaccepting one



and now after

seven years

of frustration

figuring out

discovering

you finally realize

all those reasons

y’all don’t fit



so next time I’ll

tell the only truth

you want to hear



marry her



then I’ll go 

make popcorn
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#VerseLove April 23 – with Alexis Ennis

Alexis Ennis is our host today for #VerseLove, inspring us to write poems about historical figures. You can read her full prompt here. I chose Teddy Roosevelt’s firstborn child as my figure.

TR’s diary entry Valentine’s Day when both his mother and wife died, one upstairs, one downstairs. 
 As a preacher's kid (we seem to have a reputation to live down to, and I've always done my best to keep the trouble going), I was a reader drawn to the troublemakers like Queenie Peavy by Robert Burch in children's literature and Alice Roosevelt in biographies.  So that favorite interview question about whom I'd bring back if I could go to lunch with anyone?  Yeah, mine was always Alice Roosevelt, with footnotes about how she and I would have surely landed in jail together, cellmates somewhere for some crazy idea we hatched.  She had her own eye color named for her (and the US Navy uses this color named for her on its insignia).  So much more to tell about her, but here's the seed-starter packet:  



Eyes of Alice Blue



not under MY roof

her father TR told her

of smoking her cigs



she puffed on the roof

her snake Emily Spinach

there too, in her purse



no Taft supporter~

a murrain on him! she raged

blue eyes her namesake



what a character!

completely out of control

she fascinates me!



come sit by me if

you don’t have something nice to

say about someone!



born two days before

mom died upstairs, grandma down

under the same roof



death clouded her birth,

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

lived in those shadows



For Alice Roosevelt Longworth 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/from-a-white-house-wedding-to-a-pet-snake-alice-roosevelts-escapades-captivated-america-180981139/
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#VerseLove April 22 – with Emily

Emily is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 22 of #VerseLove.

Today is Earth Day, and Emily encourages us to write about an island of our choice. I grew up on two islands – one in Georgia, one in South Carolina. I love today’s topic, because I’m back on St. Simons today spiffing up our rental unit here, remembering my youth softball league playing in the ballpark across the street, walking the village where I crabbed on the pier with my mother. It’s a perfect day to enjoy the island vibe with three out of control schnoodles who can’t get enough of all the salty sea smells.

St. Simons Island, Georgia

Childhood
Memories splash
Time-faded photographs
Redigitized to present-day
Beach walks

sea smells
salty schnoodles
savoring Saturday
still snoozing, sunrise sand dune soon
spoiled sons
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#VerseLove April 21 – with Darius Phelps

Darius Phelps of New York is our host today for Day 21 of #VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems of grief or disillusionment. You can read more about Darius and read his full prompt here. He mentions that the ancient Chinese believed that by burning the house down when relatives died, it would send the house to the place where they were so they could have their homes beyond this life. I reflected for a while on that idea this morning, even chuckling about the Calgon laundry whitener that I remember commercials for as a child – – an Asian actor would come into the frame holding a box, saying, “Ancient Chinese Secret” when someone wondered about how the clothes got so clean. I think the ancient Chinese had a lot of things right. Come join us and read today’s poems. 

Up in Flames ^ Choose One: House or Legacy? ^


those ancient Chinese

had it right: burn the house down!

strike up the torch flame!



better the house go 

up in smoke than the siblings

killing each other



who gets the dwelling?

who gets the crystal timepiece?

who "gets" anything?



executor’s call:

who gets to make decisions?

who denies morphine?



which one plans all meals?

oh, but NO SUGAR, stage 4

cancer patient fat?!?



what is this fresh hell??

give Mom a damn M&M!

stop controlling LIFE!



inheritance sucks

some get fortunes, some get F(ORK$#)

who "gets" anything??!



those ancient Chinese

had it right: strike the match and

walk in peace from fire
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#VerseLove April 19 – with Stefani Boutelier

Our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 19 of #VerseLove is Dr. Stefani Boutelier of Michigan, who invites us to write a poem without a title and invite others to give the poem a title. You can read her full prompt, along with the poems of others, here. 

Today, I've written a riddle-type poem (Haiku two lines short of a Haiku sonnet), open-ended, to invite readers to title this poem AND to add two seven-syllable lines to the end to make it a true Haiku sonnet if you wish.  I'll add my title after the photo at the bottom so you can see what my initial title was.  It's subject to change :). 



never have I met

anyone who on first taste 

liked its bitterness



sipping piping hot

aromatic wakefulness

swallowing its truth



ah, but sip by sip

its addiction is for real~



can’t live without it!
A lavender latte from my local coffee shop, where I’ll be reading poetry tonight – YAAAY!
A book of poetry

The title I initially landed on was Coffee and Poetry – original, I know! Perhaps you can figure out a better title for this poem! Leave ideas in the comments, please.