Poetry Project — October, 2020

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The Naani is a poetic form from India consisting of 4 short lines — no more than 20 to 25 syllables total — and very few other rules. (Which always sounds freeing, but isn’t.) We added a twist, because we’re fun that way, focusing on foresight, or fall, or both.

Foresight. These days. Ha! My response was to look to the natural world because nothing about the human world seems predictable at all anymore. There are messages for us in eggs and trees and maps, though, and we can read those…

An egg uncracked,
a mystery unsolved,
what waits for us tomorrow –
one sun or two?

Inside the tree
sits a clock, ticking off days,
seasons, shades of yellow,
predicting what comes next.

Topographic lines
read like fingerprints:
Go this way. This will be steep.
This will be beautiful.

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Enjoy these other poems, friends, and stay safe and well…

Laura
Sara
Tanita
Tricia
Kelly
Andi

Poetry Friday is at Teacher Dance this week!

OH! And would you like to join us next month? Our theme is hindsight and the goal is to pick one of your old poems to revise and/or write a new poem in conversation with it… Try it!

Poetry Project — September 2020

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My poetry pals and I try to plan our prompts at the beginning of the year so when the end of each month rolls around, the inspiration is just sitting there waiting for us. Sometimes it’s a surprise — as if a rascally little muse-elf slipped into our Google doc in the dead of night just to mess with us. But in a good way. Not the way 2020 is messing with us. You know what I mean.

Anyway, that’s how it was for me when I looked at this month’s assignment:
Ponderous, or based on an image of a hippo; written in any form.

Um, what????
But ok, rascally little muse-elf. Here goes….

Stones in the River
Liz Garton Scanlon

When she was seven
and everyone had
make-believe friends
and make believe families
and make believe long hair,
my sister had hippos,
two make-believe hippos,
which is something like
make-believing elephants
right into the middle of the room
but less trunk- and tail-y,
less obvious, more
misunderstood.

The hippos (my sister’s)
were named Sugar
and Flour, ingredients
for the sweetness
you try to conjure up
when you’re seven
and don’t really understand
what’s going on around you,
when you are like a stone
in the river yourself,
not sure if the water
is making room for you
or trying to push you around.

Sometimes I wonder
if Sugar and Flour
were as territorial
as their earthly dopplegangers,
if they carved out a spot
in my sister’s heart,
if they float there still,
gray and graceful,
until their ponderous hunger
takes over and out they come
into the waiting night,
chuffing, roaring, wanting
what all of us want.

Go read the others now:
Tanita’s
Laura’s
Sara’s
Tricia’s

And Jone is hosting Poetry Friday this week!

***AND, BY THE WAY, if any of you want to join us in our efforts next month, we’ll be writing a naani poem, and theme is foresight or autumn or both. Good luck!***

Stay safe and well, friends.
Poetry is power.

Poetry Project — July, 2020

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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!

Poetry Project — June, 2020

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Well, here we are. Another month.
Looking to poetry as refuge and escape again.
Glad you’re here…

This month’s theme is susurrus, or an image of thick woods, in whatever form we wish!
What I wish is that I’d been able to actually use the word susurrus —
what a beauty! — but I hope I conjured it up.

A Little Red Re-Telling
Liz Garton Scanlon

Red hood
Eyes bright
Deep woods
Near night
Basket laden
Lonely walk
Quiet cabin
Knock knock
Bed ridden
Nana dear
Winds rush
Stir fear
Brave girl
(Axe-strong)
Raises voice
So long!
All’s well
Wolf flees
Moon settles
In trees

See the other poems here:
Sara
Tanita
Tricia
Laura
Kelly
Andi
Rebecca

And here:
POETRY FRIDAY

And if you’d like to write with us for next month, the assignment is an etheree; theme is foresight again (or summer, or both); post for the July 31 Poetry Friday edition!

Poetry Project — May 2020

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This month, my Poetry Sisters and I are taking another look back, hindsight being 20/20 and all that. I returned to March 2018, when we wrote ekphrastic poems based on this image from The Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado:

In my post at the time, I admitted that I “had in mind a formal response but it didn’t happen.” Well, that sounded like a challenge to me. So, here’s the pantoum I didn’t write a couple of years ago!

Stones to Sand
Liz Garton Scanlon

Are you balanced or are you stuck
It’s not obvious from here
What is fate and what’s mere luck
Do you succumb or do you steer?

It’s not obvious from here
I’m at arm’s length, I cannot see
Do you succumb or do you steer
The stones to sand, the sand to sea

I’m at arm’s length, I cannot see
The waking dream, the beating heart
The stones to sand, the sand to sea
The what’s-been-altered since the start

The waking dream, the beating heart
The settled world, now thunderstruck
Oh, what’s-been-altered since the start
Are you balanced, are you stuck?

Now… before you zip off to read all the others, an announcement. Or rather, an invitation. After more than a decade of writing together and several years of monthly assignments, my Poetry Sisters and I wondered if any of you might like to play along? Here’s what we propose: Once we agree to our poetic prompts and calendar, we’ll share them with you and invite you to write and share, too. We’ll remind you once a month or so (via our various social media megaphones) and you’re welcome to tag us (or not) when you post.

Now, to that end, here’s what’s cooking for June, posting on June 26th, the last Friday of the month: The theme is susurrus, or an image of thick woods, in whatever form we wish! Join us?

Until then, here are a few more poems from this month’s prompt.
Stay safe and well, friends!

Tricia’s Poem
Laura’s Poem
Sara’s Poem
Rebecca’s Poem
Tanita’s Poem
Andi’s Poem
Kelly’s Poem

And Poetry Friday is over at A Year of Reading today! (Hi, Mary Lee!)

Haiku 30 — April 30, 2020

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Hello, friends. This is it. April 30th. The close of National Poetry Month. The end of my daily haiku until next year.

I haven’t checked in much this week — except for the basic 5-7-5 — because of a heavy work week, but I want you to know that I have loved this. Even more than I usually do. The ritual has been meditative and cathartic, the connection with you all has been comforting and fun, and the poems that you’ve posted alongside mine have been inspiring. So, thank you.

And hey everybody, this has been a hard time. And it’s not over. Let’s stay in touch with poetry and with each other. Both things are pretty helpful. And in the meantime, stay safe and well, everyone. Stay safe and well.


Haiku 30
April 30

Leaves and lungs? Magic!
but we take breath for granted.
Make a show of it!

#nationalpoetrymonth #30daysofhaiku #lizsharespoems

Haiku 29 — April 29, 2020

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Happy birthday to my partner in crime, my main squeeze, my Quarantine….

Haiku 29
April 29

Celebrating you
in COVID’s echo chamber
Love you love you love….

#nationalpoetrymonth #30daysofhaiku #lizsharespoems

Haiku 28 — April 28, 2020

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Haiku 28
April 28

Each new day rises
whole and warm and promising
so don’t you give up.

#nationalpoetrymonth #30daysofhaiku #lizsharespoems

Haiku 27 — April 27, 2020

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Haiku 27
April 27

Heron camouflaged
Is he reed or rock or gift?
Why must we decide?

Haiku 26 — April 26, 2020

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Haiku 26
April 26

These round arms of oak
Soft and strong, grandmotherly
Can we miss what’s here?

#nationalpoetrymonth #30daysofhaiku #lizsharespoems