Hello, friends. This month, our assignment was to write an etheree on the theme of foresight or summer or both. Did you write along with us? If so, share on social media with the #poetrypals hashtag!
Meanwhile, for those of you new to this form, it’s a ten-line poem with each line being one syllable longer than the last. It was invented by Etheree Taylor Armstrong in the middle of the last century and if I had a name that pretty, I’d want an eponymous form, too.
I LOVE etherees. I don’t know what it is about them — the building block simplicity, the shape on the page, the increasingly weighty and meaningful lines — but I find them rather addictive. That said, I wrote just one this month as I’m feeling, in general, a need for less. (And isn’t it sort of weird and eerie that we decided to keep coming back to the idea of foresight this year — this particular year when looking ahead becomes sometimes overwhelming, sometimes almost meaningless?)
Annnnyway….
Here goes…
Each
open
calendar
square, ravenous
and lying in wait –
gaping, hungry, quiet –
a long dark alley of days.
Don’t be afraid, I say aloud
(my words echoing like a kicked can).
Waiting at the other end is just space.
For more etherees, visit:
Laura Purdie Salas
Tanita Davis
Tricia Stohr-Hunt
And Poetry Friday is at Reading To The Core!
