Tag: VerseLove2026

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VerseLove Day 28: Instructions

Our host, Jessica, lives in Chicago, Illinois where she teaches English. She is currently a teacher-consultant with the Chicago Area Writing Project.

Jessica offers these words of inspiration: “This winter, I was fortunate to see the Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. ” She was inspired by the lyrics of Grapefruit, in which a poem takes the form of instructions. Today, she inspires us to write poems on how to do something. You can read her full prompt here.

Lately, I’ve returned to the interlibrary loan system I used when I was in college to get books I want to read in my rural county in middle Georgia. I log in to my account, search the shelves across all the state libraries, and place holds on the ones I want in hard copy with my Pines System Library card. One simple click brings them across the miles to me – for free – where I pick them up and return them right across the street when I’m finished. It’s a frugal way to read anytime, but especially with retirement and a more limited budget as the next chapter. Also, our library offers free state park and zoo passes and theater tickets. If I want to listen, I can log in to Libby and get audiobooks too. This is the way to live, laugh, and read.

Librarian scanning books while woman shows library card at checkout desk
A librarian helps a smiling patron check out books at the library counter.

How To Enter The Next Chapter

get a library

card ~ reserve your books online

check out locally

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VerseLove Day 27: Poem, Interrupted

Dave Wooley is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the 27th day of April, where he inspires us to write poems of interruptions. You can read his full prompt here, but I had a message for Dave this morning as I started to thank him for hosting us today:

Dave, what a prompt
~an apt and timely prompt~
with all the distractions in our world today
it’s a blustery morning, Pooh ~
windier than I’d thought
but no weather warnings and
I know because I checked
to see what shoes to wear
because if it’s cold my feet have
to be covered
and there are certain things I
can only wear with covered toes
and I’m worried, so worried
about that car under the last tree
we have because they cut all the rest down
for telephone poles
telephone poles!!! who even uses
telephone poles anymore??
well, it shocked me, I’ll tell you
but apparently our loblollies made the cut
for straight trees when they did
the tree assessment like some sort of
sorting hat for which fate the pines follow
speaking of Harry Potter, I need
to throw out the Butterbeer coffee creamer
I think it went bad
but none of my son’s friends got sick
on the way to Talladega
so maybe it’s good, I don’t know
but I do need to grocery shop
and did you see that kid???
when he won?
Carson Hocevar all the way
and I think it was okay with my son
that Number 9 came in only fourth if
a 23-year old won his first race
….AT TALLADEGA….
because as Ricky Bobby says
if you ain’t first, you’re last
and so Carson turned it up
on that last lap and Chase Elliott
can be first another time
…oops, time…..gotta go to work

thanks for hosting today, Dave!

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VerseLove Day 26: Poetic Cartography

Clayton Moon of Thomaston, Georgia is our host today for the 26th day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems as cartographers capturing the essence of place through the five senses. You can read his full prompt here.

Hands holding steaming coffee cup on porch railing with sunrise over rolling hills and mist
Enjoying a hot cup of coffee on a rustic porch overlooking a misty sunrise landscape.

Sipping Home

come sit by me

on my front porch

first light rouses, groggy

from the dark of night

into the glorious morning skies

over rolling hills

winking at morning songbirds

praising their Maker

in the misty morning breeze

even as wildfires rage

come sit beside me

raise your coffee to your lips

take the lid off

breathe deeply

in /out/ in/ out

because just like any place

you must take it all in

to experience the rich flavor ~

hear its drip

taste its roasted bean

smell its trademark aroma

feel its piping warmth

see its dark awakenings

against the light of the eastern sky

come sit with me

let’s sip home

together

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VerseLove Day 23: Lose, Loss, Lost

Our host today for the 23rd day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com is Scott McCloskey of Michigan, who inspires us to write poems of loss. You can read his full prompt here.

Enough

here you are, slumped

next to me

in our favorite

chair and a half

your warmth on my hip

resting peacefully

Gabapentin doing its work

for your pain

Thank God your

mouth is on the armrest

with one paw

protecting it

breathing the other way

with breath so bad

it might kill a buzzard

but for your human it’s

the sign of life

of your holding on

and already I know

chances are high that

your teeth and mouth ulcers

and bladder stones

may not be all that is lost

next week

I feel tears welling just

thinking about it

you, our rescue schnauzer

with no known age or past

all things uncertain except

one thing:

we are tenderly and fiercely

bonded, imprinted, paired

as forever buddies

you are here,

you are warm and safe,

and you are loved

in this moment

now

which is

enough

for this hour

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VerseLove Day 23: First Words

Denise Krebs lives in Yucca Valley, California, near Joshua Tree National Park. She is busy learning to write habeas corpus petitions and briefs to help immigrant neighbors, campaigning for a new congress person, and stocking the shelves of the best Friends of the Library bookshop in her area. She blogs at Dare to Care. I am blessed to call Denise a personal friend, with whom I’ve presented at NCTE Conventions, written with for years at ethicalela.com, and write with each month as part of a small group of writers as part of The Stafford Challenge. I’m happy to introduce you to Denise today.

Denise inspires us to write borrowed line poems in a new way. She shares her process: Choose a poem and write the first word of each line in a column down the side of your page. You can use the whole poem or just a stanza. You can use one of Jackson’s or choose another poem or stanza from someone else you are reading. Write a free verse poem letting the other poet’s words carry you. You might find that being held to one simple constraint, like having the first word in each line determined, can release more freedom in your poetry.

I’ve been dabbling in watercolor techniques lately, getting ready to step out into retirement and paint landscapes of the places I visit. I was inspired by Denise’s poem today when I thought of dust settling – – as if it ever really settles – – but my mind went to watercolor and stardust, and I used Lauren Camp’s poem Tonight the Sky Breathes from her collection In Old Sky as my borrowed first words. Lauren was the astronomer poet in residence at The Grand Canyon and is also a former poet laureate of New Mexico. I attended a session where she spoke last month, and I fell in love with her style and her themes of darkness and grief over the loss of her father.

White winged horse flying in a vibrant starry galaxy with moon and constellations

Pegasus Wins the Derby

wet on dry, vivid
Thunder cracks seep in
and settle in bold strokes
like horse hoof dust

Let wet on wet be
what carries racecloud churnings
night a stardust palette
washing teardrop stains into constellations

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VerseLove Day 22: Onomatopoeia Poem

Margaret Simon of New Iberia, Louisiana is our host today for Day 22 of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write Onomatopoeia poems. You can read her full prompt here as she guides us in writing poems with sound effect words.

A bird perched on a tree branch with a speech bubble saying 'CHEESEBURGER PLEASE'
A bird perched on a branch humorously ‘says’ cheeseburger please.

Sunday Surprise

Sunday morning we had more birds

than we’d had since cutting down

all our trees for the pine harvest

last year and they’d all come at once

the usual crowd~ chickadee,

woodpecker, titmouse, bluebird

but one took us by surprise~ a

Baltimore Oriole

right here in little old Pike County, Georgia

a cheeb-a-dub, a cheeb-a-dub, a cheeb-a-dee?

sharing the same tree like we’re the

Hampton Inn of traveling birds

Merlin said so, so we checked and rechecked

and crept out to see

discovering all the birds were

not only in the

same tree but the same branch

a symphony of song

all from the same set of bird lungs

cheeseburger, cheeseburger, please?

A Mockingbird – ugh!

with all his invisible friends

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VerseLove Day 21: Reading Haiku

Hop over to http://www.ethicalela.com and click on VerseLove to read Sharon Roy’s prompt for today! She’s inspiring us to write haiku poetry inspired by our reading lives – and is actually writing War and Peace in haiku. She blogs at Pedaling Poet. I’ve been spinning my wheels since February trying to get through Forth Wing, and I’m glad I did. Other than Harry Potter, fantasy is not my preferred genre, but it did stretch me. I definitely am not a fan of romantasy, especially spicy romantasy. But at least no dragons died. I would have been in the floor for days, crying over their deaths. And I finished in the name of book club because it was only fair that we each picked 2 books for all of us to share in reading together. And we do things in the name of book club that we would not do for anyone else! But now I want a t-shirt with the logo below.

Four dragons standing on a castle tower holding signs that say 'I survived Fourth Wing'
A group of dragons proudly hold signs claiming they survived Fourth Wing on a castle tower.

In the Name of Book Club

Fourth Wing fantasy~
not my genre, but I did
it for my book club!

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VerseLove Day 20: Voice and Perspective

Our host today, Corinne, lives in Detroit, Michigan where she teaches at Sampson Webber Leadership Academy in Detroit Public Schools Community District. She serves as a Transformative Engagement Lead at her site, presenting professional development for the staff. You can read her full prompt here.

Corinne inspires us to write two-voice poems, or poems in two perspectives. I have chosen a tricube for today’s two-voice poem, alternating voices in italics and unitalicized text.

Decisions

I doubt it…

I’m certain.

Let’s rethink.

I say yes.

I say wait.

Wait alone.


Cold feet stay.

Sure feet go.

Wait means no.

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VerseLove Day 18: Golden Hinge

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

language of poetry still shimmering green?

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VerseLove Day 17: The Queen of Our Kitchens

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.

Hidden Signals

on the wall by the French doors

in my kitchen hangs a

framed notebook paper drawing

of a rolling pin

its heavy wooden body

completely out of orientation

with the writing at one end

as if the artist got bored

or hungry

or murderous

in some seminar long ago

in some other language

but rolling pins and art

and French doors

speak in a

universal female tongue

so I have a hunch

why my mother

gave me this framed

picture in 1985

when I married my

first husband

she never liked him