This month’s challenge was to write a Definito — a term coined (and form defined) by the brilliant Heidi Mordhorst! (Yikes — our poems aren’t usually read by the inventor of the form!) The basic parameters of the Definito are to write an 8-12 line poem geared toward 8-12 year-olds that “demonstrates the meaning” of a word, which serves as both the title and the ending of the poem.

For me, there was something about writing for this particular audience that suggested a narrative right away, so I’ve written two related poems that could lead me to even more. Here goes (and with apologies to Ms. Mordhorst!):

Broken

Pieces of sidewalk chalk

My monkey-bar arm

Grampa’s voice

when he says goodbye

Mom’s car-in-the-shop

and the vacuum cleaner

and the little window

over the kitchen sink

Things that are in pieces,

like my heart or my family

all broken

Promise

Something sure

Something lasting

Something hopeful

Something spoken

Something wobbly

forgotten

left behind

and broken

A word that means something

(everything) until

it just plain doesn’t:

promise

Now, go find the other Definitos here:

Laura

Sara

Kelly

Tricia

Mary Lee

Tanita

Andi

And here’s all the rest of Poetry Friday, at The Opposite of Indifference!

As for next month, we’re writing rhyming Occitan verse poems called Dansas. We’d love for you to join us!

This month, a bop poem — three stanzas, with no proscribed rhyme or meter, 6/8/6 lines respectively. And those stanzas are meant to set up an argument, elaborate upon that argument, and… well… resolve it. PLUS, there’s a refrain in between each one. We agreed, as a group, to use the refrain: Let’s kick that can down the road. 

So. Shall we?

Kick That Can

LGS 8/22

Deadlines and appointments,

insomnia and overwhelm,

a rolling scroll of obligations…

each item in this magpie’s nest

mocking me – a pointed finger,

a dusty mirror.

Let’s kick that can down the road…

It’s not that I don’t know

what to do (lists and agendas,

schedules and sticky notes,

fresh air and meditation)

but rather that the doing

undoes me, that the nest itself

is a messy comfort,

is a fragile cup.

Let’s kick that can down the road…

I collect things to do

and places to be and promises

to keep, let’s call it mindful

miscellany, let’s call it

gathering, let’s call it

life. And

let’s kick that can down the road

Go read these now, too!

Tricia

Mary Lee

Tanita

Laura

Sara

Kelly

Andi

Oh — and look who’s hosting Poetry Friday today! Helllloooo, Tanita!!

As for next month, we’ll be writing definitos! Join us?

We tried something new this month — a phrase acrostic, wherein you run every word in a line or phrase down the left side of a poem, just the way you would with letters in a standard acrostic. (It could be considered, as our pal Laura suggested, a flipped Golden Shovel.) Our source material was to be Maya Angelou’s iconic Still I Rise and, in my case, the line “With your bitter, twisted lies.” (I actually used it three times, for good measure.)

The cool thing about a form like this is it gives you a map to follow and you don’t really know where you’re going until you get there. What a surprise, for me, to end up researching the perennial herb bitterroot, and now I know stuff I didn’t. Yay, poetry!

Rises As Bitterroot

A Phrase-Acrostic After Maya Angelou’s STILL I RISE

With each teaspoon and tincture, I dissolve

your advantage, your

bitter bearing, I unknot your

twisted bombast and your

lies.

With each drop and dollop, you forget

your(self), you swallow

bitter(ness) like soup, your tongue is

twisted, your

lies double back, eat their own tails.

With medicine like mine,

your world withers, then rises as

bitter(root), blooms petaled and bright,

twisted up from stone. Hope

lies at our feet reborn.

Now, here are the others:

Tanita

Mary Lee

Sara

Tricia

Laura

And Poetry Friday is at Marcie Atkin’s blog this time around!

Now, if you’d like to join us in August, we’re writing Bop poems (read about them here) so why not give it a whirl! Be safe and well, friends. Happy Friday.

This month, straight from Wales, Byr a Thoddaid poems. Just a quatrain or two. No big deal, right?

But wow, there are some odd, sort of dissonant rules about syllabics and rhyme and link words. A tricky proposition! (To read more about them, click here.   Or here. The basic rules are that each quatrain has a rhymed couplet with 8 syllables in each line, and another couplet with a 10 syllable line and a 6 syllable line with both ‘linked’ words and internal rhyme.)

Since the form is British Isles-born, I was inspired to write about my recent trip to Scotland and how absolutely right my husband’s name sounded when I heard it spoken with a brogue, how comforting it was seeing it (and one of my daughter’s names too) on headstones and shop shingles, how at home these names (that are technically Irish, not Scottish, but close) were in this green, green place. So, here goes. Enjoy!

A Scanlon Byr a Thoddaid

Liz Garton Scanlon

Your name feels right at home, right here

– the rolling hill of it so clear –

each syllable a song, each note a green

the ground repeats by rote.

I recognize this dry-stacked stone,

the moss, the gorse – I’m not alone.

You’re here, reflected in the cold, deep loch,

a key that’s mine to hold.

To read the others, go here:

Sarah

Tanita

Mary Lee

Tricia

Laura

And Catherine is hosting Poetry Friday at Reading to the Core.

Stay safe and well, friends.

Our Poetry Sisters Prompt this month was to write “In the Style of…” Taylor Mali. Originally (mostly, I think) a spoken word poet, Mali tends toward longer form stuff, which (after a full month of haiku) felt a little daunting.

But then I found the section of his website where he offers prompts of his own, and in one of them, he appears to have written “In the Style of …” Nikki Giovanni! And I thought, how very meta! Plus, nice and short!

So, here goes, in the style of Nikki Giovanni’s Winter Poem and Taylor Mali’s This All Once Was Field. You might want to go here to read those first.

(Oh, also, I’ve based today’s haiku on this slightly longer poem because, two birds, etc. etc. And interestingly, both poem-versions are about a really big, dramatic experience in our family’s lives that happened more than 20 years ago but that I’ve never really dug into in writing. So, no time like the present, right?)

The Flood
In the Style of Nikki Giovanni and Taylor Mali

Once, the creek rose,
slipped inside like a shadow,
changed the shape of everything
and stretched out time till it just stood still.
I held up my hands and couldn’t see them
except for what they did, lifting the baby,
holding her above what was lapping at our ankles,
and I was a tree then, these were our roots
and we grew from there.

The Flood, As Haiku

The creek came inside
and my arms became branches,
lifting baby high

#lizsharespoems
#30daysofhaiku
#NationalPoetryMonth
#PoetryPals

To read the other Mali-inspired poems, go here:
Laura
Tanita
Mary Lee
Tricia
Sara
Kelly
Andi

Thanks to Jone for hosting Poetry Friday this week!

And, in case you’re interested in joining us next month, we will be writing poems around the words string, thread, rope, or chain. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on May 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!

Y’know how once you see something, you can’t unsee it?

This morning, on a run with a friend, we came upon a night heron hunkering near a kind of half-full swimming hole on our drought-thirsty greenbelt. And y’all, I swear to you, he looked EXACTLY like Statler from the Muppets.

Night Heron

Hunched as a Muppet
night heron looks skeptical,
demands the last word

#lizsharespoems
#30daysofhaiku
#nationalpoetrymonth

After complaining about poison ivy, I thought it only right that I celebrate the beauty winding all over every fence and trellis in town right now.

Star Jasmine

Each bright vine of stars
a heady constellation
Generous Jasmine

#lizsharespoems
#30daysofhaiku
#NationalPoetryMonth

I love the neon green pop of spring every year but I am very, very, very allergic to poison ivy and it makes its presence known in a big way here, lining the edges of every trail, reaching for my ankles, leaping onto the dog’s coat. Ugh. No, thank you.

Poison Ivy

Spring’s marquee trumpets
poison ivy’s arrival –
creepy headliner

#lizsharespoems
#30daysofhaiku
#NationalPoetryMonth

What’s the living thing in this poem? Well, honestly, when it’s been this long since it’s rained, the rain itself feels alive. And instantly, instantly, everything else comes alive too.

Thirst-quenching nectar
We open like birds or buds
Rain during a drought

#lizsharespoems
#30daysofhaiku
#NationalPoetryMonth

For this final week of April, a slightly looser set of prompts than colors or days of the week or planets: to each day write about any living thing. Or, in this case, living things. Sort of.

Dog

Like a wrecking ball
first one on the trail at dawn
slaying spider webs

#lizsharespoems
#30daysofhaiku
#nationalpoetrymonth