Arthur Sze is our current — and 25th — Poet Laureate, and I couldn’t be gladder that Sara suggested we explore his work as our February prompt because I knew nothing about him, and now I do! Now, when I say “prompt,” well… this was an exceedingly loose assignment. We could take any Sze poem at all, we could mirror or echo it or be in conversation with it. We could use or not use any particular form or address any particular theme.

But Sara did share this glorious quote by Sze to get us started:“We’re not writing in competition—we’re all trying to create poems, and they’re all shining light on each other.” So, toward that end, I took the poem Downwind and played with it in two different ways.

First, I mimicked the structure of Sze’s poem. His refrain (“When the air clears after days of smoke”) made me think about what it meant to conversationally and relationally “clear the air,” so my refrain is a variation based on that idea. I also used three stanzas of seven lines each, like he did, and in the second line of each stanza I pulled from his poem the phrases “you yearn,” “you notice,” and “you believe.”

Downwind II
After Arthur Sze
By Liz Garton Scanlon

When the air clears after days of silence,
you yearn to say everything at once,
you open your mouth and let words
pool around your feet like leaves
or a loosened robe – tender, forgiving,
shot from the same canon as the silence
but landing, from this distance,
with much less force.

When the air clears after days of silence,
you notice it still has a little heat to it,
the sulfurous specter hovering under
and around the conversation like a cat,
a serpentine cat that could trip you up,
even as you forget what happened, who lit
the fuse, how things flashed and banged.

When the air clears after days of silence,
you believe words could become songs
dissolving any corrosion left behind,
but the inhale catches in your throat
and there’s no melody waiting for you,
no birdsong to mimic, so you fall
silent again, for an extra measure or two.

My take two is a golden shovel poem, using Sze’s words”when the air clears after days of smoke” as my striking line. I don’t think it needs more introduction than that.

Downwind III
After Arthur Sze
By Liz Garton Scanlon

The child learns the difference between a question (who, what, when),
a comment (oh, wow, whoa), and a connection (this is almost like the…)
Meanwhile, every emotion in the world hangs in the air
ignored, like October’s skeletal leaves. The teacher clears
his throat and his eyes well up, but he says nothing after
that, not a thing through his lips for days and days
even though the child has a question (is this me, am I of
this?) and a comment, too: I feel as see-through as smoke.

I hope you’ll have a look at what my pals have done, and also check out some more of Sze’s work yourselves.
Sara
Tanita
Tricia
Mary Lee
Laura

Margaret Simon is hosting Poetry Friday this week (thank you, Margaret!) and, if you’d like to write with us next month, we’re going to be writing Ovillejos! Wheeee!

I’ve always had mixed feelings about January being “the new year.” Partly because my head and heart seem to be forever on an academic calendar and September feels fresh and full of possibility to me, but also because January is often particularly dark and cold and locked up, and so many folks are wrung out and a little sick. Not exactly full of inspiration.

Still, I gave it my all. We plunged into Barton Springs on New Year’s Day. I hung a gorgeous new calendar. I even wrote a poem befitting the occasion. (Our prompt this month, by the way, was to write TRICUBES, this funny little form made up of three stanzas, three lines in each stanza, and three syllables in each line.)

So, back to it being January. Here was my first go:

JANUARY BY THREES
Liz Garton Scanlon

my heart beats
underground
just waiting

for some sign
promising
warmth and light

this old hope
beginning
its spring thaw

But it turns out this form is particularly addictive and fun to play with, so even though I’m a grinch about January in general, I was able to find some enthusiasm for tricubes. What about trying to write one using just a single word per line? I thought. Like this:

PARADISE FOUND
Liz Garton Scanlon

Intimate
Beloved
Wilderness:

Curious
Mystery,
Generous

Origin,
Sensitive
Paradise

And then, y’all, the truth of the human world just felt too big, too dark, too terrible and important to ignore. I can’t say I understand how or why the things that are happening are happening — I honestly don’t know how the people perpetuating violence and creating chaos and speaking in tongues of rage can sleep at night — but I do know that it is our job to witness and to raise our voices whenever and wherever we can.

OUR JOB
Liz Garton Scanlon

Chronicle
Everything
Important

Everything
Inhumane
Destructive

As Gasoline,
Everything
That matters

I wrote a few others, but sharing three feels right considering the rules of the form. Here’s where you can go to see what everyone else did with it:
Tricia
Tanita
Sara
Mary Lee
Laura

And visit Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm for all that Poetry Friday has to offer!

Meanwhile, I truly do wish you all a new year full of more health, more peace, more goodness and more light. And, always, more poems.

Oh, PS — next month we’ll be getting to know the work of U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze and writing in conversation with one of his works. We’d love if you’d join us — we’ll be sharing the last Friday of the month.

I couldn’t be more grateful to be closing out the year with poetry — and people who love poetry. Our theme this month was light, hope and peace (written in any form). This one doesn’t really fall into our larger 2025 theme of conversation, except that it is me in conversation with my childhood. So. Let’s go with that. Truly wishing you all more light, hope and peace in the new year. More and more…

Stringing Popcorn
Liz Garton Scanlon

There was the year my sister and I strung popcorn –
needle and thread pushing through our little fingers
like pricks of light, half the cloud-like kernels crumbling
into our flannel-nightied laps like Christmas snow.

(The Kingston Trio spun circles around us,
skipping on our favorite song. Great deep drifts
pushed up against the picture window.)

At bedtime, we stretched out what we had –
these miniature garlands – and left them
on the kitchen counter, to surprise our parents
(to delight them!), but the dogs got every crumbly bit
“before Mom and Dad even made it home.

The next morning, I squeezed
the tender, needled pad of my finger
till it hurt, till I could be sure the snowy chains
had existed at all. To be sure we’d made them.

Go read others here!
Mary Lee
Tanita
Laura
Sara

Our own Tricia is hosting here.

And as for 2026, we’re meeting in early January to make our plans so stay tuned! We’d love for you to write with us again

Our prompt this month was to write a poem based on something overheard (as inspired by Susan Thomsen at Chicken Spaghetti). (And yay — as a bonus, it automatically fulfills our larger goal of writing about or in conversation, since we are responding to/jumping off of other people’s thoughts and words.) I almost let this one go, in between a whirlwind trip to NCTE, family stuff, and holiday whatnot. So what you’re getting is an early-morning first draft. Some months are like that…

Overheard
Liz Garton Scanlon

I heard a woman say, my heart
about fell out, and I could tell she meant
it as a good thing – good, but sad –
a way to make sense of the stuff that’s fleeting,
that knocks you sideways with beauty
and tenderness and keen, astounding pain,
the stuff that catches in your throat
with a thrum.

I think of waking from a dream about my grandmother,
a dream so real, I could feel the raised veins of her hands
as she pressed a coin into my palm.

And that drive we took to the ocean,
back when we were still new to each other,
when we were out of our minds in love and I wanted
(so desperately) to put my feet in the frothy spray
that I flew from the car and left my door wide open,
left you, just standing there.

And what about the skin of a birch tree
or those first achey notes from a cello
or turning the corner at the Uffizi and seeing
The Birth of Venus, radiant and alive,
and not knowing what to say?

My heart about fell out is right,
as my children come and go again,
as light falls too early in winter, as I sit here
with this candle burning down.
My heart. My heart.

Go visit my sisters now to read theirs:
Tanita
Mary Lee
Laura
Sara
Tricia

And Poetry Friday is at Buffy Silverman’s today!

If you want to join us next month, to close out another year of poems, we’ll be writing about the light, hope and peace. Because we all need more of all of that. Until then, be well, friends. I’m so grateful for all of you.

Burning Haibun. What were we thinking???
We don’t know. We really don’t
We can’t even remember which of us came up with the idea and now I’ve got the sickly feeling it was me.

Here’s the thing. The burning haibun (a form created by Torrin A. Greathouse) doesn’t sound that bad. (Spoiler: It is.)

You start with a prose poem (that takes us on an interior journey of sorts) and then “burn it down” (through erasure) into a free verse poem that you, in turn, “burn down” (through erasure) into a haiku.

Oh, and also there should be some real burning in the poems.
Oh, and the theme or meaning of each segment should twist or reverse or reorient or something.

Actually maybe it does sound that bad!
But y’know what? We did it. We did it anyway!
These are sloppy and probably break half the rules, but so be it!

(Oh, and I almost forgot our overarching 2025 theme of “conversation”. What does this have to do with that? Heck if I know! I guess the three segments are talking to each other. And we complained to each other a lot while writing. That counts, right? Anyway… onward!)

And now, for my slightly easier-to-read versions:

I Forget: A Burning Haibun
By Liz Garton Scanlon

I

I forget to put the car in park, watch it careen down a steep hill without logic or care, rattling and veering, I am running after it, picking up speed till my cheeks blaze and lungs burn. By the time I reach the bottom, only the license plates are left. I feel relieved, honestly – strangely ok with this hot, hulking loss of my own making. I turn and walk away. That thing, I say to the night, was the source of all my suffering. I say it even though I don’t believe it. I’m not sure it was the source of much, that car. Unless pain is things lurching out of control and the speed of darkness this time of year and the great grave injustices of the world. Unless it is the fact that I miss so many people all of the time. And that there’s the never-ending chase, riddled with regrets and worries, gasping for breath. And the things I should’ve said but didn’t. The things I wish I hadn’t said. How should I know the root cause of anything or why I’m in this state or what really hurts and why? Can’t a car veering out of control be to blame for my own small humanness? Can’t walking away be the cure?

II

I forget to watch.

Without logic,
I pick up speed,
blaze and burn
the plates.

My turn to suffer.
(The pain is grave.)

I miss the time, the chase,
and the things I didn’t cause.

What really hurts:
Veering out of control.
Blame. Humanness. Walking away.

III

I forget logic,
pick up things I hurt
out of humanness

OK, I’m exhausted. Here, go read the others!!
Tanita
Tricia
Sara
Laura
Mary Lee

And Jone is hosting Poetry Friday today — thanks, Jone!

By the way, next month we’re trying “overheard” poems. Eavesdropping’s easy compared to burning haibun! Join us!

I’m in under the wire this month, with a draft of a tritina.

My goal was to write around our theme of the year (conversation) and, in particular, conversation with the planet, which we seem to be forgetting how to do at the moment.

But here’s why it’s a draft. I wanted all three repeating words to be homographs that I could use in different ways as different parts of speech. Land and sound — check. Listen — not so much. I’d like to try this with a different third word. Also, it’s such a heavy lift to make a tritina read naturally and this isn’t there yet.

But it’s mid-morning on Poetry Friday so here goes. Thanks for reading.

We Are
Liz Garton Scanlon

untethered birds, frantic and spinning, looking to land
in the tender cups of trees, to roost safe and sound.
But there’s noise and fire everywhere now: listen.

We are broken rivers, craning our necks to listen
for the distant sea, dragging ourselves over land,
too drained to rush headlong, to babble, to sound

out the way. We are forests and calved ice, the sound
of bats and bees. Why not lean into the wind and listen
to the whole wild song of us as we lift and as we land.

Watch that your boots land soundlessly. Shh. Listen.

You can read my pals’ poems here:
Tanita
Tricia
Mary Lee
Sara
Laura

And the wonderful Amy at The Poem Farm is hosting Poetry Friday today.

That’s all for now. Take care, friends.

Hey friends — I don’t know what happened to summer, but whoosh! I got so turned around I missed last month’s prompt, which means I missed you too! So. As a reminder, my poetry sisters and I are working with an overarching theme of conversation this year, and this month we’re being especially overt about it. We read Talk to Me, Poem. I Think I Got the Blues. by Nikki Giovanni, and decided to talk right back at it!

Nikki’s poem starts off:
Talk to me, Poem
I’m all alone
Nobody understands what I’m saying

As the kids would say, hashtag relatable.
So, here goes, Nikki!

I Hear You, Nikki. Nobody Understands Me, Either.
After Nikki Giovanni’s Talk to Me, Poem
By Liz Garton Scanlon

Um, hey… Nikki? It’s me, Poem
Man, it’s good to hear your voice

I got myself off track there for a while
Got mixed up with the wrong sort of folk
Who wrote papers with footnotes about me
And gave lectures about me
And earned degrees and money off of me
But I swear, Nikki, they didn’t sing
Or dance or cry with me
They didn’t love me, not even a little

So I’ve actually been back around here
I’ve been incognito, if you know what I mean
I’ve been wearing a hat
That’s why you haven’t seen me
That’s why you thought
I’d gotten myself lost
Or locked up

But I’ve been here, I’ve been around
Especially early, walking, before most anyone is up
‘Cept the birds and the street sweeper
And that guy who looks like he never went to bed
He’s up still, with me and the sun
Do you hear that, Nikki?
He’s humming

Read the others here:
Tricia
Tanita
Laura
Mary Lee
Sara

Poetry Friday is being graciously hosted by Karen Edmisten this month.

And, for those interested in joining us next month, we’ll be writing tritinas. Invented by poet Marie Ponsot, this less restrictive sibling of the sestina uses three repeated words to end three tercets, in the order of 123, 312, 231, with a final line, which acts as the envoi, and features all three words in the order they appeared in the first stanza. (And, continuing with our theme, we’re writing poetry in conversation, whatever that means to you!)

The prompt: A Raccontino (this form is essentially Golden Shovel meets rhymed verse)
The theme of the year: Conversation
The admission: This is very very very last minute and I’m squeaking in under the wire. But ok! I’m here! Read on!

Can you Listen
“Can you listen without interpreting, without your prejudices interfering –
listen as you may listen to the song of a bird?” – Krishnamurti, Beyond Violence 

Each day I go without
noise and bluster and seismic news,
my heart does its own interpreting,
my lungs take air in like a bruise 

Each day I go without
the noise and rather choose
to cut an orange, pick up your
call, and listen for the muse 

 I feel something slip away, the prejudices
love subdues
and in their place, only poems interfering
with clover, birdsong, morning dew 

Read the others here:
Tanita (who is also this week’s gracious Poetry Friday host!)
Tricia
Sara
Mary Lee
Laura

Whoa, boy. If there is a form of poetry that takes your hand and leads you off the garden path completely, it’s the Golden Shovel. In case you need a refresher, here’s how one works:

First, you choose a line from a poem you admire or want to tip your hat to. In this case, my poetry sisters and I agreed to pluck something from Elizabeth Bishop’s Letter to NY, which is such a fine, fine poem that basically begs to be read aloud. The line I chose was “and the meter glares like a moral owl” because of the owl, yes, but in particular the moral owl, because what a beautiful, curious, steamy little phrase to tuck into this conversational list of city comings and goings.

OK, next, you use each word in the borrowed line as the endpoints for the lines that will make up a new poem of your own. Practically, this just means writing the Elizabeth Bishop line vertically, one word at a time, down the right hand side of the paper, and writing to those words.

Now, see my note above regarding the garden path! There is something about having to write to what feel like random floating words on the outside edge of the paper that just removes control completely. It’s kind of a trip. Thanks for reading along to see where I landed.

Oh, PS — I used another partial line from Bishop’s poem as my title. Just for kicks.

Loud but Somehow Dim
A Golden Shovel after Elizabeth Bishop’s Letter to NY
Liz Garton Scanlon

I tick off my worst qualities, start with “lack of confidence” and
“wasting time”. (The list capitalizes on both of these.) The
list measures me against myself, operates as a meter

keeping count without context or clemency. The list glares
at me with ballpointed fury, like I should do better, like
my lack of imagination is the problem. Like a list (a

list like this) should have footnotes and moral
arguments, like I should play badger. Or snake. Or owl.

Read all the others here:
Sara
Laura
Tricia
Tanita
Mary Lee

And enjoy Poetry Friday at Karen Edmisten’s blog today!

And just like that, April’s a wrap. Thanks for joining me, friends, whether you read along or wrote a few haiku yourselves. Each year, even as I have to scratch my lines out last minute at bedtime, even as I press enter on a real clunker or two, I’m grateful for the practice, and for the reminder that magic is everywhere I’m willing to notice it.

I have to admit that this year there were days that magic felt like quite a stretch. There is so much noise and cruelty and recklessness at play. So much dismantling of what we know is good and right and true. So much that feels disheartening and disempowering.

So. We resist that. We try ever harder. We listen, we reach out, we stand up, we insist, we promise, we embrace, we witness, we write. It’s what we do.

Haiku 30
April 30, 2025

Please pay attention
to this most expressive plant:
She talks with her hands

#lizsharespoems
#30daysofhaiku
#NationalPoetryMonth