Category: Poetry Friday

{pf: poetry peeps offer up the ovillejo}

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March 27, 2026

6:07 am

28 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps offer up the ovillejo}

Musings on Extemporanea, On Writing, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

Welcome to another Poetry Friday Adventure!


Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our poetry challenge for the month of MARCH.

Here’s the scoop: we’re writing ekphrastic poems, which might pair beautifully with your plans for National Poetry Month (I’m attempting poetry comics). Ekphrasis is a Greek word which means “description,” and you’re invited to choose your own image from anywhere – personal pictures or otherwise. Are you in? Good! You’ll have the month to craft your creation and share it April 24th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll play along!

From Process…

Greeting, Poetry Friends! If this form was a challenge to you – well, I can’t exactly say ‘mea culpa,’ but I will own that this month, this form is one I chose…possibly unwisely, since, once again, I based my choice on cleverness and appearance… Or, in other words, because, it looked easy. I mean, it had Rules! A clear Rhyme Scheme. There was Meter and Boundaries! Except for that bit about the quatrain written in trochaic tetrameter, it was even straightforward. What could possibly go wrong?

Well… the first issue was my assumptions. Spanish is a romance language, so surely this form, first popularized in Spain, was going to be a lyrical, dance-y walk in the park, no? Er… no.

The second issue was time – and just how much this form insisted on consuming… in terms of how long I spent thinking about trochaic tetrameter and remembering what that was.😂 It’s been a minute since grad school, and I can’t honestly say when last I spelunked into the cavernous depths of poetic meter. Perhaps as an undergraduate…? In any event, a quick search reminded me – of Blake’s Tyger, of the fairies and the witches speeches in Shakespeare’s Scottish play and in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” and of the hard syllabic pulse of Hiawatha, which Longfellow likely meant to mimic Native American drums. The skip-stumble “falling” cadence of tetrameter in lieu of the more regular pentameter might have been second nature in 16th century Spanish, which is the original language of the ovillejo, but it was afterthought enough that I decided against attempting to use it consistently, feeling that the redondilla refrain at the end was difficult enough. The final line of the quatrain wherein previous lines are recycled came with difficulty, and the Poetry Sisters discovered during the group write that if one did not give any thought to it ahead of time, it would All Go Very Badly. We all agreed on the wisdom of beginning the poems there…

…To Poetry

…so, I did. The first time. But, I admit that I’m contrary enough to have tried just writing the poem straight out – surely that’s what Cervantes did? Writing the poem straight out required a lot more piecing things together and fussing, and revising, revising, revising – but both poems had some dissonance, written from front or back. This poem was 9/10ths revision – and I’m grateful to like pieces of both, but this was not the unqualified win that I assumed. Which, given assumptions? Is my own fault. 😂

In the spirit of applying maximum rules in order to achieve some measure of success, I tried a theme-focus first. Twilight – whether civil, nautical, or astronomical – is one of those fascinating liminal periods that lend themselves well to poetry. Since our Poetry Friday hostess is already celebrating her book of the same name, I tried to lean in as much as I could to that changeable transitoriness. The other Poetry Sisters went other directions, of course. Sara’s poem leaned into answering a question. Mary Lee joined in on theme. Laura’s fierce poem is here, while Liz’s exploration is here, and Tricia’s offering is here. You’ll find Karen’s poem here, and Denise’s poem is here. Michelle K’s poem is right here, and Margaret’s ovillejo is here. Linda B’s poema is here, and Carol V’s ovillejo offering is here – and Carol L joins us here. It’s so nice to see so many participating! More Poetry Peeps may offer their own ovillejos throughout the weekend, so do pop by for the full roundup.

The next poem I tried to come to with fewer expectations. It obviously needed to be… the opposite of liminal. I wanted it to be unsubtle, blatant. High noon, no shade. I also decided to pry my grip off of the rules for this one. In spite of this, the second poem still has elements of twilight (which happens twice a day, despite many of us only acknowledging the evening one) and took a ton of revision and probably more time than I would normally give a poem that is meant to just be a challenge. …I’m still not fond of the dissonance the form created, so stubbornly, I kept polishing. Eventually I discovered that enjambment is actually a saving grace of this form, and I was able to move away from trying to make a workable rhyme scheme towards focusing on a smoother poetic arc and making more meaning. This is where I quit:

“NIGHT SONG”
for Marci Flinchum Atkins

Light slips its leash and starts to slide –
Eventide.
In slate and *mauve, dusk’s shadow grows.
Afterglow
Veils twilight, takes its light inside,
Beautified.

Day breathed its last, and night replied
A lingering note. As warm light drained,
Cool starlight rose up in refrain:
Eventide. After glows, beautified.

(Mauve here is pronounced the way I learned it – in French, so its long /o/ matches ‘stove.’ And, no, I don’t know why it matters.)

☀️MERIDIAN
Near solid, nourishing seeds, slow,
sun seeps, then glows.
Light tips. Sparks, shaken out and stirred –
The living, served.
No shade, just brightness unconfined
in “Sunshine.”

A subtle scent – soil, blade, and vine,
The warming earth and air duet
at Equinox. Its minuet
Sweeps and grows, and serves up sunshine.

Despite the second image not matching the poem (pictures of noon are …somewhat boring), this has been a fun project. An excuse to dig into snapshots from the past – that picture of Keflavik is one of my favorites – an excuse to try a new form – a good time, even when it doesn’t go as I envisioned – and an excuse to do poetry in community with my peeps and the Sisters. I’m looking forward to taking this viewpoint of the harmony between words and images into my NPM project next month. And however you plan on moving through April – in anticipation of renewal and hope, through a steady, measured practice of daily poetry, or in an exuberant exploration of simply sipping poetry from all corners, I wish you warming winds and calm skies, elegant elucidation and resonant rhymes. Happy National Poetry Month to come! Remember, you are well-loved.

©2015, David T. Macknet


{poetry friday: comfort in community}

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March 19, 2026

10:52 am

22 Comments on {poetry friday: comfort in community}

Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

You’ve Arrived! Welcome to Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to the Poetry Sisters’ challenge for the month of MARCH.

Here’s the scoop: we’re writing tight little bundles of poetry called Ovillejos! That’s exactly what the word means – a bundle of yarn. This Spanish form bundles together ten lines, made up of 3 rhyming couplets interspersed with three verrrry short lines, and a quatrain. The last line is a “redondilla,” a “little round” that collects all three of the short lines and casts off the poem, as it were. The Ovillejo plays with repetition in a way that will allow some cleverness and wordplay. I’m excited to dig into a new-to-me poetic form, first popularized sometime between the late fifteen hundreds by Miguel de Cervantes (he lived between 1547-1616 so it’s been a minute – may as well make it popular again) – and might even throw in a Spanish word or two, just to challenge myself. Are you in? Good! Take this week to craft your creation and share it March 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. This form looks like fun, so we hope you’ll us!

This is THE PLACE! for poetry links!

Click here to enter



The events of January, 2026 were the crucible from which formed the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church’s Singing Resistance, a Minneapolis-based, grassroots movement using song to protest the illegal federal agent activity in that state and throughout the nation. Time after time in our nation’s history, protest singing has been a tool for organizers, as a form of embodied protest – from “Yankee Doodle,” sung in protest against British imperialism in the 1700’s to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” sung by marching suffragists and labor organizers, to “We Shall Overcome” sung through the years by protestors for civil rights in the early 1900’s to “No nos moverán” sung by Dolores Huertas and the UFW movement, and more. Every major sea change in American politics and society has come with a soundtrack of people singing together.

However, in the past several decades group singing has waned outside of religious circles. Even in some religious spaces, singing has largely become a competitive reality TV type of thing where “the best” is elevated and ‘the rest’ are meant to sit in properly awed silence. In today’s atmosphere, the commonly sung American folk song had all but vanished. Dorian Lynskey, author of “33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs,” theorized in an interview that American individualism in music also has its role in this musical shift. Older songs used the word “we.” “We shall overcome.” “We shall not be moved.” Or, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” He observed that the spirit of “we” as found in community and cooperation is largely absent in modern pop music.

…but now as the old protest songs are being taught to new voices, and as new troubadours arrive, necessary change is coming with them. Now we’re reaching across aisles, across cultures and preferences, trying to anchor ourselves, our country, and each other.

A song heard at almost every singing protest, many of you are already familiar with Heidi Wilson’s “Hold On.” The words are simple, the tune adapting easily to harmony, and it has reverberated – from the U.S. to Cornwall to Wales and Ireland to Australia and beyond. A new generation of singers is carrying this song with them, and like a stone dropped into a pond, its message of quiet, almost prayerful endurance is rippling outward.

And when you learn from writer and composer Heidi Wilson the impetus behind the song she wrote in 2020 (thank you, Liz, for sharing this), you’ll understand what a gift it truly is. In the words of the Spiritual-turned Southern-ism (or vice versa), “Trouble don’t last forever.” Or, from the Christian Bible in the book of Psalms, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” So, while everything looks rough, feels rough, is indisputably rough – hold on.

Hold On

Hold on, hold on

My dear ones, here comes the dawn

– Heidi Wilson,
Plainfield, VT 2020
(Sheet music free at the link above, but please compensate and support the musician as you can.)

A song is simply a poem set to music, and this one is a direct, unrhymed lullaby that grounds us in persistence and courage. It’s a seed to pull us through the last, dark days of winter, a promise of renewal and green sprouts, baby goats and, someday, an end to this moment. This is a song that calls us to community. I am challenging myself to find other song-poems like this – and I hope you do so, too. And as you do, hold on, dear ones. Hold on to who you are, what you know to be right, and how you live – with open hands, helping your neighbor and community, and uplifting sanity and kindness. Hold on – to each other, too, to community, and to creating the world we want with our hands linked. And in doing so may we each in our own ways hold up our arms to carry the dawn as it comes.

Happy Friday, friends; you are so well-loved.

{pf: the peeps shine a light on Arthur Sze}

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February 27, 2026

3:06 am

23 Comments on {pf: the peeps shine a light on Arthur Sze}

Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

Welcome to another year of Poetry Peeps Adventures!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our poetry challenge for the month of MARCH.

Here’s the scoop: we’re writing tight little bundles of poetry called Ovillejos! That’s exactly what the word means – a bundle of yarn. This Spanish form bundles together ten lines, made up of 3 rhyming couplets interspersed with three verrrry short lines, and a quatrain. The last line is a “redondilla,” a “little round” that collects all three of the short lines and casts off the poem, as it were. The Ovillejo plays with repetition in a way that will allow some cleverness and wordplay. I’m excited to dig into a new-to-me poetic form, first popularized sometime between the late fifteen hundreds by Miguel de Cervantes (he lived between 1547-1616 so it’s been a minute – may as well make it popular again) – and might even throw in a Spanish word or two, just to challenge myself. Are you in? Good! You’ll have the month to craft your creation and share it March 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. This form looks like fun, so we hope you’ll us!

From Process…

“That’s one of the things poetry does,” Sze says. “We’re not writing in competition—we’re all trying to create poems, and they’re all shining light on each other.”

Thanks to Poetry Sister, Sara, who listened to a podcast and urged us towards this man, it has been our honor this month to learn a bit more about our newly appointed poet laureate, Arthur Sze. We all admitted to feeling a little awkward that we knew NOTHING about him. While the work of Tracy K. Smith, Joy Harjo, and Ada Limon, our previous three laureates, were already known to us, I know I came to Mr. Sze’s poetry only knowing that he is a translator whose early focus was translating classical Chinese poetry. Mr. Sze’s previous scholarship shows in his attention to words, his ability to both dial in and step back while retaining an immense focus on his subject, and his facility with using simple words to paint emotionally lush, immersive pictures. I really enjoyed reading his work. Finding a mentor poem of his wasn’t difficult – rather, narrowing his body of work down to just ONE was the issue.

Though this month was full of topics which easily lend themselves to poetry, I found that I didn’t quite know where to begin with Arthur Sze in conversation with any of these. It’s not that he doesn’t write about daily life in the world, but it’s more that he hyper-focuses on tiny bits of it that really wrest the ordinary from the daily. Subjects which reappear in his poetry come largely from the natural world – various leaves, lakes, celestial bodies – but he also has a fascination with hands. He repeatedly mentions X-rays. His poetry is stillness that moves, movement made meaning – impact and explosion, sting and spin – and always, grasping at understanding the internal through the lens of the external. Eventually I limited myself to the first few poems of his that I’d read and decided to try two forms – one, creating a Golden Shovel from an especially toothsome line, or two, trying to recreate relief and resignation using an ordinary life moment turned to metaphor and given substance as he so often does.

…To Poetry

The first mentor poem I chose was about smoke. Living in the Western U.S., this was an easy choice; having had the experience of being downwind of fires in Canada or Alaska or Washington State – or even further north in my own state. The repetition of the first line and the phrase ‘days of smoke’ reflects the multiplicity of days we’ve endured this, and the final stanza resigns itself to knowing that we can’t slide back the moves on time’s Rubik’s Cube from yesterday – today requires a new solution.

Downwind

from Into the Hush by Arthur Sze,
Copper Canyon Press, 2025; *Winner of the 2025 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry for Lifetime Achievement*

When the air clears after days of smoke,
you yearn to swim in an alpine lake
that mirrors clouds and wash the scent
of burned pines from your hair;
from the west, smoke has traveled
a thousand miles, the point of ignition
where a pine snapped a transmission line.

When the air clears after days of smoke,
you notice the serrated edges along
apple leaves, locate a point of ignition
in a word, a jab: a man chalks
a cue stick and, slamming the white ball
into a pyramid of balls, feels for a millisecond
a point of ignition and surge in the clatter.

When the air clears after days of smoke,
you believe you were simply casualty
downwind, but, as you hold
a Rubik’s Cube of time in your hands,
the orange sunrise is nowhere,
everywhere, and—damn—that the pieces
are pieces you cannot flip back.

To find my own place with this poem, using Arthur Sze’s style as my mentor, I needed to use his deliberate, expansive phrasing, leaving room for my immediate meaning, and other weights of meanings a reader would bring to the piece. Each stanza needed to tell a story, complete within itself, of a moment or action. …And I needed to avoid rhyme like my life depended on it. (Guess which one of those was really trying.😖) In a nod to his translations, I threw in a couple of undemanding-to-non-speakers Spanish words.

At present, I find fire and its environmental impacts too grief-inducing, so I tried for a lighter direction. I chose a positive moment – small and internal – and then tried to use a less heavy hand in describing regret and resignation.

Updraft

When the sky clears after days of clouds,
you yearn down steep staircases
once known but long left unexplored
as whetted, curiosity bustles back up again –
And pausing, with winter no less present,
el clima’s daughter gestures to her brother.
el niño y la niña’s salsa spins scour the floor.

When the sky clears after days of clouds,
you notice that viridian is Gaia’s favorite shade,
followed familiarly by fern, or maybe sage.
exclamations of dun birds – sparrows? – are lime limned,
though faintly heard by the slow-sap forest;
evergreen rising, a point of departure,
draping the hills, a softening, moss-fuzzed mantilla.

When the sky clears after days of clouds,
you believe you feel potentiality’s
updraft, but as the acetic
wind curdles the clouds, vernal promises
of equinox diminish –
while hollow bellied thunder growls,
a ‘not yet’ that can’t be unheard.

I liked the word ‘updraft’ because, like ‘downwind,’ it is a minor thing that speaks to something huge. An updraft is a small, rapid, upward current of air, caused by wind rising from warmed ground, or forced over topography – and it’s the engine behind clouds, moisture formation, hail, and thunderstorms. It gently sends regrets as I think of spring, and plunges us back into yet another tormenta.

My final poem I wasn’t going to share, but I really found far too many neat turns of phrase in Sze’s work NOT to mess with my Shovel idea. “Winter Wishes” borrows from the poem, “X-Ray,” the first line of which reads In my mind, a lilac begins to leaf. I went again with a lighthearted approach, sticking to my theme of kind of not complaining about rain (nobody with any sense who lives in a drought-prone place does that), but merely suggesting that I’m really ready to start (very sloooowly) digging out the hillside for my garden if we could have a few days pause early next month? Yes, Dr. Nimbus, thank you.

Winter Wishes

on the store front, signs smile, “welcome In,”
while bagged soils, stacked, find my
fingers fidgeting. It’s TIME – past time, to my mind
though mind over matter can’t leave the land less a
lake. yesterday the first lilac
hyacinths raised bowed heads. Crowing, “Now it begins!”
I scrambled to the garden center, anxious to
find the finest fertilizer to fortify my be-leaf.

My Poetry Sisters are scintillating on the poetry of Arthur Sze from wildly different directions this month. Liz’s poem is here. Laura’s poem is here, Cousin Mary Lee’s is here, and Sara’s poem is here. Tricia’s poem is here, and Susan’s poem is here. Michelle K’s poem is here. More Peeps may show up throughout the weekend, so don’t forget to check back to see their links rounded up here.

Our lovely hostess this Poetry Friday is Ms. Margaret, at Reflections on the Teche, so don’t miss stopping by for more poetry! Thanks for hosting.

Book Giveaway! You have 31 days to win copies of BERRY PARKER DOESN’T CATCH CRUSHES. A book club, school library, or home school group is eligible to receive ten copies, which was published by Harper Collins in September of 2025, and is all about a young woman growing up and learning that love is not pie, and that sharing it out doesn’t require it to diminish. It’s a book about love and growing into change and compromise, through the lens of middle school. If you’re a book club host, or know a teacher or librarian who could use a boost this very long winter, don’t hesitate to sign up. Continental U.S. only, please, with apologies and acknowledgment of the murky tariff situation – may it clear soon.

We’re finally seeing the calendar and astronomical end of winter in a few weeks, though meteorological winter has yet to give way. In month two of this year, it seems we are already we’re in the stutter stop of weeks that extend years long, followed by days that just blink past. This was somehow the shortest Olympics, EVER, and yet, it’s been another endless month of this national moment. It’s so strange how time both shrinks and stretches, warps and morphs, all inchworms and seven-league boots. I longed as a child to be the magical ages of both seventeen and thirty-six (?? no idea), and then – life leapfrogged a decade and some, and now neither of those is even visible in my rear view anymore. Psychologists suggest that the more information the brain processes, the slower time seems to move, and as we age, much less seems like new information. When we’re kids, time moves like those deposit cans they used to send along through pneumatic tubes at the bank; a whoosh and the packet of our days is delivered elsewhere – grades and birthdays brought forward in a flash.

While we’re being both stretched and stationary, remember – b r e a t h e. On this ride, may you stop and look, cramming your moments with new faces, new textures, and new experiences, expanding the river of what you think you know down through its tiniest tributaries. May your brains have to slow down so that you can step deliberately into new understanding – giving depth and new dimension to knowledge you thought you’d already learned. And as you suck down cold, fresh mouthfuls of this spring to come, may you remember that no one will experience the new season just like you – so celebrate your original self because you are so well-loved.

{poetry friday: poetry peeps try the tricube}

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January 29, 2026

10:05 pm

21 Comments on {poetry friday: poetry peeps try the tricube}

Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters, What We Do, Who We Are

Welcome to another year of Poetry Peeps Adventures!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our poetry challenge for the month of FEBRUARY.

Here’s the scoop: we’re composing poetry in response to a poem of Arthur Sze, former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and current United States Poet Laureate. Arthur Sze is very much interested in poetry in translation, and during his term hopes to bring more opportunities for both reading and writing it to the American public. I’m excited to dig into a new-to-me voice in Asian American poetry, and look forward to meeting this challenge. Are you in? Good! You’ll have the month to craft your creation and share it on February 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the fun!

This was such a great poetry form to kick off the year. It’s …kind of a joy to stride into our shared poetry space without my usual whinge of, “Oh, deary me, I thought this would be easy, and it turns out…” Haha, let no one deceive you: tricubes are dead easy. No, seriously. They’re easy and I love them. Of course, easy doesn’t necessarily mean simple. Those three syllables per line take simplicity right off the table. Making sense in a tight space, and saying something that isn’t choppy or trite… is a challenge. Aaand, it didn’t always happen for me, but a tricube’s saving grace is that it’s so short that one can write twenty or thirty and pick the ones that come out the best. At least one of my poetry sisters simply wrote a bunch of trisyllabic lines on a theme and picked and choose from among them to compose a whole. That sounds so easy that it feels like cheating. I found myself breaking the world into those three syllable phrases – I even wrote a tricube with my fingertip on a phone notepad at 4AM sans glasses (and as nearsighted as I am, that was quite a feat). All this to say: tricubes are addictive. If you’ve never before, try one today.

From Process…

2026 is lining itself up to be a poem-SUFFUSED year. Living through fascism isn’t something we always notice (we have always lived in the castle, friends, don’t mistake it), but the times when we are forced to acknowledge it unequivocally require… more time to process. Poetry helps me regulate mentally and my journaling usually turns into some kind of couplets, at minimum, so the ease of writing for a tricube really helped me to lean into that. Of course, I don’t always like to use my Poetry Peeps time for …like, a reality play-by-play so I made a deliberate effort to use our shared space in a kinder way this month. We can’t escape entirely from negative feelings, but I am sharing this space with some of you who need a flipping break. (I see you, friend.) I made conscious choices not to use certain names or words or concepts in what I shared today, and to lean in the direction of simply using the first stanza of my three stanza poem to explore an idea in a vague and general way, and then to intensify it by the end but to still keep it universal. And, I tried to keep the first three syllable line… simple-ish. (Again: didn’t say easy.) The very first tricube I wrote was on January 7, and the first three syllable line was “A cannon.” That object spoke well enough to my feelings that the rest of the poem could fall into that line. So my plan for all of them became a.) Focus on an object/statement topically. b.) Add intensifier or clarifying lines, and then, c.) a succinct Fin. And then I wrote. And wrote. And wrote. Seventeen tricubes later…

…to Poetry

…I have a few to share.

CATENIGMA
Matter’s states:
Solid, gas,
or liquid,

Yet the cat’s
puddled sleep
doesn’t match.

Solid sound:
Contentment’s
liquid purr.

Pear – Shaped
Lovely pear:
Round-bottomed,
Pale, sweet, mild.

British slang
notes ‘pear-shaped’
means awry.

Distortion:
one round world
falling flat.

This was a definition poem. I idly wondered why things that were ‘pear shaped’ were so bad when a pear is half the social ideal for a good figure in modern society (the whole is an hourglass, of course. Or a violin? So hard to keep track of what random shape we’re supposed to be today). And then I read that it was a phrase coined during WWII when Royal Air Force pilots were making loops… if you came out of your loop and the vapor trail behind your plane wasn’t circular, but pear-shaped? You needed to course correct, or you were going to hit the ground…

Lift, Every Voice
When singing,
buoyant breaths
lift our hearts.

Metaphor?
This truth is
literal:

Keep breathing.
Let your soul
elevate.

To sing we have have to inhale before we begin. A deep breath expands the diaphragm, and the heart, which rests directly atop the diaphragm, connected by the pericardium, rises. Literally. Lift every voice, indeed.

My Poetry Sisters tried out tricubing as well this month. Liz’s post is here. Sara’s trio of tricubes is here, and Cousin Mary Lee’s is here. Tricia’s poem is here, and Michelle K’s tricube is here. Margaret Simon’s tricube is here, and Carol V’s are here, and Rose’s tricube is here. More Peeps may show up throughout the weekend, so don’t forget to check back to see their links rounded up here.

Our lovely hostess this Poetry Friday is Amy VanDerwater at the Poem Farm, so don’t miss stopping by for more poetry! Thanks for hosting, Amy.

What a month. As it limps to a close, I’ll reiterate the Encouragement³ tricube I posted on Instagram:

A small thing
can change worlds.
One small change.

One small spark
ignites fire.
One heart warms.

“There are things
I can do.”
Repeat it.

Believe it.

No matter what the weekend brings, no matter the next loss or shadow that steals your breath, no matter the Sturm und Drang, be anchored. Be held. Be sure: You are so well-loved.

{final pf of ’25: a poetry peeps wish of light, hope & peace}

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December 25, 2025

9:38 pm

6 Comments on {final pf of ’25: a poetry peeps wish of light, hope & peace}

General Coolness, On Writing, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

Welcome to Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! We did it! A very long year, but it’s nearly done, done, done. Thank you for being with us this year as we wrote poetry in conversation with each other and with the world. We don’t know yet what’s ahead thematically, but we’ll let you know the 2026 deets after January 4th when the Poetry Sisters put their heads together and figure out the next twelve month’s themes and challenges. Stay tuned!

Friends, I would have been writing this to you from other shores, except better sense intervened and kept us close to home this year. I’ll be happy to see friends abroad in June, but until then, I’m glad for the rain, and settling in to gratefully be a bit quiet and cozy at home.

As our overarching theme this month remains writing in conversation, and the words or ideas of ‘light,’ ‘hope,’ and ‘peace’ I thought I’d be fairly challenged with getting the words to fall together organically. I mean, granted – the December holidays, from Bodhi Day to Yalda, to Solstice to Hanukkah to Christmas are all about hope and light in one way or another, and light in the darkest part of the year is inevitably hopeful. But, peace… seems to be in a bit of short supply around any holiday that requires special foods and observances. I couldn’t figure out how to get peace as a concept to fit in organically…

From Process…

…until I started looking at these concepts from the opposite direction.

I started writing a Solstice poems a few years ago and shared a few. It’s an easy theme – the shortest day, the longest night, and facing forward to the idea that this is it, it’s Winter… but this is also the shortest day, and all days hereafter will be longer, even if by a minute, hallelujah, Amen. I even heard a brief mention of Solstice in the Advent homily as the reader said gleefully, “More light to come!” And we all cheered… but I found myself thinking, “…or, maybe we could just sit a minute with the cold and dark?” Admittedly, I was in a thinky mood and often homilies make my mind wander, but I realized that Christian religions, at least, seem only to do this ‘sit with the dark’ thing briefly, if at all. Some of us are weird about shadows and much prefer the sun and the shiny. Which, fair enough, but our insistence on only sunshine is imbalanced. We need the night, the moonlight , and the end of day. Plants don’t only need sunlight. Life doesn’t only exist by daylight. We can’t fast-forward the parts of living we don’t like, and dark exists for a reason… even if it makes us uncomfortable. Maybe especially then.

All times and seasons are part of our cycle, the turn of the wheel of days. Wherever we may be in one part of our pattern, we always know there’s more to come… The longer I live, the more I realize there’s no point in hating where we are. As my mother always said, “This, too, shall pass…”

…To Poetry

No matter how often I realize this, it always seems like… a new thought. Or, at least a thought I return to this again and again in poetry. I’ll choose to see it as a meditation instead of mere repetition. 😀

I paged through some of my poem forms because seasons – and recurring thoughts – tend to lend themselves to poems with repetitious forms. I started with a rondeau redoublé, but ended up with a villanelle (because end of year = lazy. I’ll return to the rondeau redoublé soon), a familiar friend. I leaned in to my love of alliteration as well – repeating thoughts deserve repeating sounds, after all – and just let myself ramble along until I came up with something. I’ll admit I’d forgotten how carefully one must choose the first line of the initial idea… I always start with that couplet of statements that feel solid enough to draw a poem out of, but boy, you’re really stuck with that first end word. Still, this came together quickly, and then lent itself to fiddling with for another day as the idea coalesced. This is the beauty of such a strict form – you only have so much wiggle room, so you have to make what you’ve come up with count. It’s not done, but I’m comfortable leaving it along for now.

More To Come

The deeper dark tempts spirits to succumb
As autumn urges sunset close to three,
The solstice signals, “There’s more light to come.”

Onto the scale of Mood, dark adds a thumb –
(Soul, persevere sans sunlight’s filigree
Though deeper dark tempts spirits to succumb.)

But, dark has devotees: add to its sum
in lightless hives, the avid worker bees.
The solstice signals there’s more light to come –

In sleeping soils. Both worms and fungi plumb,
And rots reveals arable amnesty.
As deeper dark tempts spirits to succumb,

All’s rising tides – there is no zero sum.
This season’s death makes life a guarantee,
And solstice signals, “There’s yet life to come.”

O, darkling world, near hidden from the sun,
Welcomed to slow repose as adoptees,
Your deeper darkness tempts some to succumb,
But solstice swears your best is yet to come.

This image was taken by Tech Boy in 2010, and it remains my favorite night sky photograph of his, clearly showing the December night sky in Iceland, where we were tooling around at some unearthly hour in zero-degree weather, chasing the aurora. We didn’t see it that night, but the Orion nebulae was a most excellent consolation.

I hope you are enjoying this most wonderful Boxing Day, are ready for Kwanzaa, and had a wondrous Chrismukkah. If you’d like to peruse more poetry, the Peeps have got you. Sara’s poem is here. Laura’s poem is here. Mary Lee’s poem is here. Liz’s poem is right here. Michelle K’s post is here. Molly’s post coincidentally joins the list here. The usual suspects may filter in throughout the weekend, so don’t forget to check back for the full round up. (NB: I’m having blog issues and there will be some updates going on, so if your commenting is more difficult than usual, apologies, and feel free to drop me a thought on my contract form or an email.)

The end of the month, the end of a year, and a recurring thought – all three things added together are a solid refrain of time keeps flowing, and we’ll keep going. How we do so is entirely up to us. We’ll continue to love and live in the light, but as the dark folds around us this season, I hope we can sit with it deliberately, explore its hidden corners and let it speak to us what stories we may need to be told. And as always, in sunlight or under the glow of the moon, you are ever so well-loved.


{poetry friday poem: after Donika Kelly}

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November 14, 2025

12:52 pm

5 Comments on {poetry friday poem: after Donika Kelly}

Mental Health, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Random Notes and Errata

Welcome to Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! Just a reminder that our challenge for the month of November is composing ‘Eavesdropped & Overheard’ poems in tribute to our pal at the long-running Chicken Spaghetti blog, Susan Thomsen. I look forward to your post or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals on NOVEMBER 28th!

And speaking of Susan, today’s poetry prompt comes her, and a poem she shared a couple of weeks back, Donika Kelly’s Poem To Remind Myself of the Natural Order of Things. In it, the poet hearkens back to that thicc and wondrous baby hippo captured our hearts during lockdown, then turns her attention back to her own heart.

From Process…

Now, I wasn’t going to do this challenge. I am truly bad with memes — some of what other people find funny or cute comes off as either sad, weird, or mean to me, and hello, welcome to my sideways brain, I guess. But then, I read Susan’s poem, and all the poems of the others taking part in the challenge, and they were so good that I thought of one meme that hasn’t left me alone.

Yeah, so – remember the viral ‘Paws-In Test’ from about six months back? I …disliked that so much (once again: weird brain. NO SHADE whatsoever if you thought it was cute. It a fundamental way, it is cute, because: dogs). The ‘test’ was owners putting their hands in a stack and silently requesting their dog to take part in their weird human activity. And some of the dogs, you could see the gears turning as they looked from one of their human pack to the next, trying to figure out what the ask was… trying to make sure that they were doing whatever was being asked of them “right.” And egads, that seemed way too much like the social tests of life for me, and all of my oh, noooo anxiety kicked in, just looking at those sweet liquid eyes, staring at the humans being …baffling, and waiting for…something… ❗

…To Poetry

However, the point of the whole exercise is to find more in the ephemeral memes and ‘moments’ observed in the social media stratosphere, and I love that Donika begins with the word “observe” and leans in with just that – forcing us to look back and remember the delightful chonk that is Fiona, and how the posts from the zoo lightened up our hearts in a heavy time. Hadn’t love, the poet seems to realize, once done the same for her? And thus, I found my way into writing …some kind of poem. For once, it helped that I did this last minute, so forced myself to truly lean in to the mentor text: no rhyme, no wordplay, just… thoughts. (Or, vibes, no? I mean, if we’re talking memes, we are fully USING the lingo.)

“A Poem to Reminds Myself of the Inutility of External Validation”

After Donika Kelly

Observe them, seated,
facing, arms extended,
hands stacked, awaiting:

Head tilts, calculation
a silent klaxon blaring
whatnow/whatway/what’sright
as longing takes a gamble
lifts paw: a closed circuit,
validation lights up faces.

Sweet puppies, always,
forever, the goodest good dogs.

But you –
Down, Girl. Find it!
Sniff out your OWN path.

tanita s. davis draft, 2025

It’s Carol who is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup today, so pop by for an apple from her orchard. Remember – there is no ‘right’ way to act. There is no ‘correct’ response. There is only you, and yours, and the choices you make to fulfill your needs. And, you. are. enough. of a majority to rule. Now, off to find your own way, you good being.

Happy Friday.


{pf: poetry peeps burn down a haibun}

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October 31, 2025

1:00 am

11 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps burn down a haibun}

General Coolness, Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

Welcome to Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of November! Here’s the scoop: We’re composing ‘Eavesdropped & Overheard’ poems, in tribute to our friend of the long-running Chicken Spaghetti blog, Susan Thomsen. Much has changed since last we accepted this challenge in 2022 – including the number of newspapers with accessible, paywall-free ‘Overheard’ articles. Never fear, however – here’s useful scuttlebutt from DC to points West, and from areas all over if you’re not as much of a in-real-life stickybeak as the rest of us. Are you in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on NOVEMBER 28th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. Join the fun!

We did it! The Poetry Sisters managed to all show up at a pre-write meet-up! It had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with how impossible the prompt felt this month! Nothing at all! We just missed each other!! And needed to vent about prose poems! And stuff!

Okay, so we had a brief moment of “WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS!?” and we couldn’t recall, since prompts for the year are thought up in one fell swoop, each of us nursing our potion of choice, and who even knows what we were thinking (or drinking) in January. So… here we begin with a haibun, which in itself feels challenging as they are chiefly autobiographical ‘prose poems’ with subtracted lines. We add poet Torrin A. Greathouse’s transitional step of an additional erasure poem with an added element of flame creating a ‘burning’ haibun, which then collapses into the traditional haibun concluding haiku (perhaps reflecting how, like cinders, the original poem crumbles in on itself?), and…our annual theme of ‘poems in conversation.’ Hmmm…🤔😶

From Process…

As we talked about where each of us felt we could take the poem, I had basically bupkis, until I thought about burning in the most literal, elemental way. California has had it with fire – burn scars, burn years, and burn names. The first autumn after the Tubbs fire, I hyperventilated when smelling woodsmoke from someone’s fireplace. When it has destroyed so much of what you love – the Caldor fire took out part of the thousand acre summer camp where I worked from age 16-21 and took the first steps towards adulthood – it leaves scars. I don’t think I’ll be able to happily sit around a crackling campfire ever again.

Despite the need for this to come from an autobiographical space, I felt like I needed boundaries on all of these pesky feelings, however. Historically, we all know how I feel about unrhymed and unruled poetry prompts 😖 – they become unhinged and unruly in my hands. Because I need boundaries, I had to define a prose poem first. From my extensive reading, I concluded that it is prose that utilizes the elements of poetry – notably alliteration, repetition, rhyme, literary devices, and figurative language. Except for the line breaks and traditional shaping of poetry, it’s a poem. So. I tried to toe the line between the two.

…To Poetry

Summer’s heat, it singes – and sometimes smokes. That first frosty day of fall startles, sharp with shivers and then a stench scenting of lives imploding, futures ending, and pasts unraveled to loss. Smoke lingers in its echoes – of Tubbs, named Fire Most Destructive until Campfire came along, destroying Paradise, and thieving the title. And on it glitters and razes and crackles and roars – the Mendocino, Dixie, Creek, Caldor – each demolition a diminishment, a detraction, a destruction of the northernmost luster of the shine so many take to my home state, O Golden State, O, sweet home – burnt bitter in the smoke of a thousand blazes. At the dawn of time the light of flame meant safety and home, a warning to predators, a cookfire bringing simple warmth and security. That was a human story we once knew, now the pall of smoke that first cold dusk raises a blister of woe, whispers of panicked flight and cindered ends, of crumbling foundations and never agains.

And now, we begin the burning. The second phase of the burning haibun is meant to represent a state wholly different from the first, so I went from heat to cold:

It singes – that first frosty day of fall,
Sharp with shivers, scenting futures and pasts.
Smoke lingers, destructive paradise, and it glitters –
A diminishment, a detraction, a destruction of the shine so golden –
O, sweet smoke of a thousand dawn predators,
Bringing a story that whispers
of flight.

I like how …ominous that one sounds. I tried to bring that sense of menacing portent to the haiku. (I also tried hard not to use the traditional 5-7-5 syllabic form, because Japanese haiku actually doesn’t do so slavishly, and I need to get out of the elementary school version of haiku someday.)

heat singes, smoke startles,
lingers, burnt bitter
warning of crumbling

I wasn’t entirely satisfied with this — though I think it fulfilled the requirement. But, I wanted to write a burn-book burning haibun. Why not use Shakespearean insults? (“Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after voyage.” As You Like It [Act 2, Scene 7]; “Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat.” Henry V [Act 4, Scene 4] 🐐, or what has to be one of my all-time favorites “Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter!” King Lear [Act 2, Scene 2]. Imagine being insulted as the “unnecessary” letter z!🤣) Or can you imagine a poetic “yo mama” battle? There were so many ways to ‘burn’ with this, once I was able to let go of being literal… I’ll have come back to those another day. Meanwhile, others have emerged victorious from the burning! Tricia’s poem is here. Sara’s poem is here. Laura’s poem is here. Mary Lee’s poem is here, and Liz’s poem is here. Michelle K went the second mile with two haibun, while Karen rose to beautifully meet the challenge here. Carol’s poem transformation is here. More Poetry Peeps may check in throughout the weekend, so check back later for the full roundup. And if this challenge wrecked you, no worries! We’ll catch up with you next time.

Poetry Friday today is hosted today by the autumn-appropriate Jone Rush MacCulloch, whose Halloween-esque haiku and full-moon artwork I’m enjoying on the calendar she gave me. Thanks doubly, Jone. Though sometimes it feels like the world is on fire, our present suffering is no more than others have faced in other nations at other times, and it, too, shall pass. I remind myself as well as anyone else who needs to hear it: trouble is neither as special nor as unique as we might think – which means we are not alone in it, especially if we look up and reach out to those around us who are very likely feeling some kind of way, too. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum – in hoc una sumus. Remember, at this and every other time, you are so well-loved.

{the poetry peeps test tritinas}

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September 25, 2025

11:56 pm

16 Comments on {the poetry peeps test tritinas}

Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

Welcome to Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of October! Here’s the scoop: As invited by Poetry Magazine, we’re composing burning haibun. Not regular old haibun, folks. These highlight the internal landscape of memory, and within them, something somewhere must BURN. Perhaps it’s your candle at both ends. The stub of wax in your jack-o-lantern. Perhaps it’s just your heartburn, or your indignation. We cannot wait to find out. As always, these poems will continue our theme of writing in conversation. Are you still in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on OCTOBER 31st in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. THIS is gonna be LIT (see what I did there?), so we hope you’ll join the fun!

Greetings, friends, and a glorious decorative gourd season to all. I have a bale of hay in the garage, and feel I am getting right into the spirit of things (technically, the bale of hay is for the Boy’s archery targets, and then the garden, but I can pretend it’s for autumn, yes? Yes).

Science – and my very own science experiment autoimmune disorder – has recently introduced me to the joys of descriptive disorder names. Had you ever heard of Multiple Evanescent White Dot Syndrome? Well, neither had I – but what a delightfully graphical designation. Joining such monikers as Alien Hand and Restless Leg syndromes, MEWDS rather less delightfully is an inflammation of the optic nerve and can temporarily occlude one’s sight in the eye affected. That is far less than fun, but *hand waves* details, right? At least it has a fun name.

It you may have guessed, it’s been A Month around here. And if you’ve also guessed that I have yet again missed the Poetry Sisters meet-up to discuss and strategize our monthly form experiment, you’d be right. Which was disappointing. I wanted to talk about this form. The tritina has such potential. I love Tamar Yoseloff’s description of it as the sestina’s square root, and an “instrument of discovery.” The repetition is intended to pull something out of the poet, to hold it up, and allow examination from all sides.

From Process…

I was aware that the villanelle and the sestina, the more familiar repetitious poetry forms, were written to be accompanied by music – thus the repeating refrains. I don’t think I really leaned in to the musical aspect of this as much as I wanted to – let’s blame my foggy brain, shall we? – but I had a song stuck in my head when I wrote it. Billy Joel’s 1989 classic, And So It Goes. To put me in the correct frame of mind (and because I can’t listen to actual music when I work), I read the lyrics before I began.

It’s such a… resigned song. It offers the listener an unvarnished self, all poor decisions and untethered past presented with open hands. Here I am, the song seems to say. “All this could be yours – bad gambles and all. I find it rather charming, if a little sad. Written by a man who stumbled from three marriages into his current fourth, his experiences haven’t seemed to leave him confident that this whole self will be accepted, though offered whole-heart. And… so it goes. Asi es la vida. That’s life.

I brainstormed longhand to arrive at a trio of words which sturdy enough to bear repetition. Originally I believe the Poetry Sisters had thought to use all the same word, but I don’t know if that thought fell apart or not. My words I drew from what was on my mind – what I was feeling about the news, my medical life, my work. The words were… grey-shaded. Exhaustion. Weariness. Depletion. Betrayal. Grief. Carrying. Forfeit. Weight. What on earth could anyone try and ‘discover’ from that?

…To Poetry

Those words felt… disagreeable but when I pulled a few I wanted out of the morass, ‘Undone’ and ‘Diminished’ spoke to me… Remember I said that villanelle and sestina were originally composed for music? These two words are musical. There’s a thing called a “diminished chord.” It’s described as sounding tense, unstable, and dissonant, often “spooky,” “sinister,” or “eerie.” What if instead of simply disagreeable and bad, something undone is diminished because it’s unresolved? So… here’s my beginning at playing with that thought. Note that this is the DRAFTIEST of drafts – I feel like “in conversation” vanished from this entirely – yet I like the feel and the wordplay of it, trying to wrest music from madness, and a note of triumph from an unfinished chord of defeat.

it weighs on me: what lies undone
in creased and wrinkled brain diminished?
No laurels wreath the unresolved.

Opaqued, the path lies unresolved.
Roads untaken drift, and, undone
shrink; a destiny diminished.

Atlases: obscured. Undiminished:
thirst for adventure. Re-resolved:
To leap. Not done can’t be undone.

Past comes undone: presently diminished lies our future, unresolved…
And so it goes.

This felt like it ought to have the title at the end, to add weight to the envoi. All of the uncertainty and ambiguity, holding up an idea, twisting and turning it, examining it in the light. Despite the desire for different, in some parts of our lives, we’ve lost our maps, we’re drifting, and we’re looking ahead at a future that seems… diminished. Distorted. But if we want a different present, we’ll have to tell ourselves a new story, to enact a future that is different from our past.

And so it goes. That’s just life.

Part of “just life” is also having a poem you’re not sure you like, which seems to be afflicting all of the Poetry Sisters this month. Nevertheless, Tricia’s take on the tritana can be found here. Cousin Mary Lee’s poem is here. Liz’s poem is here, and Laura’s tritina is hitting next month’s theme early here. Karen’s poem is here, and Michelle K’s art and tritina are here. Carol V’s poem is here. More Poetry Peeps may post throughout the day, so make sure you circle back at some point this weekend and find the links here.

Poetry Friday today is hosted at the delightful Poem Farm of Amy Ludwig VanDerwater. Thanks, Amy. It’s been a long, strange trip this month, but as always, there’s life on the other side of your screen. Please go outside. Don’t forget to appreciate the things that you have – beauty and peace, the signs of the changing season, favorite foods, decorative gourds. Touch grass. Hydrate. Reach out to friends. And remember, you are well-loved.

{pf: poetry peeps are pen-pals with poetry}

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August 28, 2025

11:04 pm

8 Comments on {pf: poetry peeps are pen-pals with poetry}

Musings on Extemporanea, Part and Poetry, Poetry Friday, Seven Sisters

Welcome to Poetry Friday!

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of September! Here’s the scoop: We’re going to take up the challenge of tritina. Invented by poet Marie Ponsot, this less restrictive younger sibling of the sestina uses three repeated words to end three tercets. The order of word-endings for the tercets are 123, 312, 231, with a final line acting as the envoi, featuring all three words in the 1-2-3 order used in the first stanza. Additionally, we’ll continuing with our theme of poetry in conversation, in whatever way that is individually defined. Sound a little tricky? Maybe? Are you still in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on September 26th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope all of you will join the fun!

It hardly seems possible that the harvest season is here and that summer is slouching towards completion. The choral season has kicked off, and we were greeted the first night of rehearsal with bushels of cherry tomatoes from someone’s out-of-control indeterminate plant. From our own wildly out of control mini-orchard, we have picked two tree’s worth of pears, and three tree’s worth of apples, most of the mulberries and we’re just getting started on the table grapes that are turning a deep purple. We’re feeling particularly grateful to family and friends and have not yet stooped to midnight produce deliveries to strangers… but we’re getting close. (THIS is why we don’t grow zucchini anymore…) I feel my Depression-Era grandma’s memory peering over my shoulder as I chop out the wormy bits and bag apples for the freezer. (Ninety-six cups and counting. 🫣) To be honest, I am grateful for both the bounty and for the distraction – it widens my focus from the continuing heaviness of grief in the world, and helps me gain a little bit of perspective. Seedtime and harvest persists, in spite of the destruction of so many other reliable cycles.

From Process…

Processes continuing was on my mind this month. Having missed yet another gathering of the Poetry Princesses, I was determined to make up for the loss of writing in community by really leaning in to the poet herself. I read a few Giovanni poems before circling back to this one, more to hear her voice than anything else. Then, I listened to the poet read this poem aloud – from a video of the first season of HBO’s Def Comedy Jam from 2001.

Writing in conversation with a narrative poem is tricky. I found I wanted to imitate the poem more have a discussion with it, or with the poet. After reading the questions in the poem, I realized that Giovanni’s interrogation asked questions only human beings could answer. In essence, where are we taking poetry? Where has it been seen? Is it lost, and useless, as many people suspect (I admit to still being annoyed that the NPR Books newsletter a few weeks ago asked, “Whatever happened to poetry?” with apparently no irony intended)? Have we forgotten what gifts the arts have given us which have carried us through to this current moment? Was what carried us poetry? Does it have a place, in this blues-making world? What will allow poetry, stories, art in general – emotion expressed in imagery, allegory, rhyme, or meter – to persist?

…To Poetry

I’m not generally a person who likes to write poems about poetry, but that seemed to be the assignment. Though there are many other things Giovanni could be talking about or addressing her words to, I chose to take her words literally and look at poetry across the table. I dislike talking about poetry in general because I try to avoid making direct and sweeping statements about arts. I have Opinions – so many – about what I like in poetry, what I think is overdone, and what is definitively not to my taste, nor ever will be. Nikki Giovanni seems to have had opinions throughout her career, too – but here, she works to subvert both readers’ expectations and possibly her own by writing to poetry as if it is both audience and speaker, confessor and consort, both the discarded art and the callous deserter. I attempted to mimic the poet’s confiding tone and close, fron-porch-conversational vibe:

Sing With Me, Poem

After Nikki Giovanni’s “Talk to Me, Poem. I Think I Got the Blues.”

Sing with me, Poem.
A solo just now
feels like spotlight
and stage fright.

Have you crooned loss and lament, Poem?
A lot of poems serenade on setbacks,
hum the hundred thousand hymns
of ‘alone’ and being left,
of the broken and bereft.

Hear how melody marks your trail –
constructing cairns rife with rhythm.
Stanza beckons scansion,
Employing unexpected enjambment, as
Pas-de-deux, couplets kiss,
Alliterating the way to bliss.

I know: blank verse is more respected.
Too much rhyme’s mostly rejected
(Think Dickinson and “Yellow Rose -”
Some only stan a poet who loves prose.)
But… who sings the tune without a beat?
Meter sans rhyme seems incomplete.

So, what’s next for you, Poem?
You’ve done American idyll,
Been burnished on plinths,
brayed from pulpits, and
laureled by laureates. Even my socials
Sing your songs on Instagrammed posts
passed along.

…can we sing with you, Poem?
Even if we don’t have the words?
What makes a song enough to be heard?

Despite what all else Giovanni’s poem asks, I find the real question is, what will make poetry persist? I think the answer is… WE WILL. And we’re already doing it, right here in this community. Liz’s persistence is here. Tricia’s poem is here, and Michelle poem is here. More Poetry Peeps might swing by with their creative conversations with Nikki Giovanni’s poem, and I’ll round ’em up here by the end of the weekend. Meanwhile, coffee aficionado and all-round lovely person Karen Edmisten – sharing her own delightful poetic conversation – is our Poetry Friday hostess today. “>Thanks, Karen!

There’s a lot of moving parts in this world, and a lot of feelings and thoughts about that to process. As long as there’s emotion in need of expression, there will be poetry. As long as there are people, there will be emotions, and words. As long as there are circumstances which delight, confuse, infuriate, grieve, and annoy us (with things like too many apples), there will be a poem to illuminate, celebrate, or merely to elucidate. In the meantime, don’t forget to wash your hands – the creeping crud is surging yet again. Hydrate. Dress your bed with gorgeous sheets. Call your youngest family member and horrify them with your use of ‘stan.’ Live a little. Love a lot. And remember, your current circumstances won’t last forever. In this and every moment, you are well-loved.