Welcome, friends, to another Poetry Friday Adventure!
Poetry Peeps! July’s challenge is next week.
Here’s the scoop: we’re circling back to the beginning by revisiting Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound challenge from way back in January. (Scroll to the very bottom of the post and find) His eight prompts can be used to produce eight lines with which you can create a Midyear Pantoum that gives you a sense for where you are now, and where you’re hopes will take the rest of your year. Are you in? Good! Write quickly and share July 31st in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. See you then!
Happy Fourth Friday of July! In case you’d not already started groaning theatrically, in exactly six months and a week, it will be New Year’s Eve. You’re welcome.
While any reports of my dearth have not at all been greatly exaggerated, this Friday snuck up faster than even I had anticipated. June 23 I signed with a new agent. June 25th I had an offer for two new books. July 7th, I signed the contract, aaaand… the first draft is due the first week of September, while copy editing is standing by for November 1st. So, I’m thrilled that this was already on the calendar, giving me an excuse to pop in, wave whilst reading some stunning poetry, and then drop back into the draft-revise-panic-and-repeat rabbit hole.
But while we’re all above ground, let’s add some poetry to this summer-bright moment. Thank you for being part of Poetry Friday today (if you’re early, the room opens at 5PM Pacific, 8PM Eastern)!
I thought I’d write a quick poem today – quick in that I’ve been thinking about it long enough for the words to come swiftly, but don’t mistake this for wholly unplanned. Ever since we dabbled with the Ireland Triptych poems at the beginning of the month, I’ve not quite felt like I did her actual mentor poem justice, so this is my second attempt. Like others of the Poetry Sisters, this time I’m using the words “Freedom is…” and seeing where that takes me.
Progressions
I.
Freedom is a light laid low;
sun aslant. Soft gold bars,
more benison than barrier,
hold warm breaths the day exhales,
letting it all
just go.
II.
One month on,
& midsummer’s psalm
circles final stanzas.
Earnest blue arch
cloisters in clouds –
and dry lawns drown
in drifts of leaves.
Fall’s muffled reminder
hums, siren sweet.
III.
Evolving,
time holds its own:
sweet
moments –
ripen
long ago stars formed
for such a time as this.
-©2026, triptych draft
Thinkies:
- Did you guys see the Doucette Roulette poetry form? The mind BOGGLES. 🤯
- For those of us whose love language is sarcasm, what are we laughing at?
- This left my heart on the floor. It matches my new contract: YA books 20k words shorter, MG vocab, and aimed at a generation of YA readers, some for whom information retrieval seems like someone else’s job…
The rabbit hole is calling, and I must go…
So until next time friends, water your plants, wear your sunscreen, and just 🐠 keep 🐡 swimming.🐟
🥰 Remember you are so, so loved.
P.S. – If you find yourself struggling with Inlinkz today, please leave your link in the comments. If you can’t make the comments work for you, use my contact form, which I’ll be watching for today. We’ll get this sorted!
Cousin Tanita! I like to see your freshened-up blog design, and even more I like to see a host post that starts with a prompt, because now I’ve written a poem I wasn’t expecting before even beginning to make the commenting rounds I’ve had to put off since Friday the 17th! I hope everyone will understand–we have a LOT going on. And I’ll put my new pantoum on Substack and link it above, right after I finish making the post and letting you know that
“Freedom is a light laid low;
sun aslant. Soft gold bars,
more benison than barrier”
are three of the best laid lines I’ve read in some time: the music, the mood, the metaphor a true tribute to the fence line that started you up. I’ve stopped taking my freedom for granted, even in the midst of an extended tantrum (which I did not recognize for MONTHS) over a perceived and fundamental loss of agency. Happy to say that the tide has turned now. I need my own pasture, slack-fenced; my own cell, soft-barred, or I lose myself.
Thanks for hosting, dear Tanita!
@Cousin Heidi! Aww, thank you – I really do feel like the first triptych is musical, so I’m so glad you heard it. It’s good to have you back.
First of all, thanks for hosting us and…congratulations!
Oof. That triptych. Wow. Just like Robert Macfarlane, you sent me to the dictionary. Thank you for benison (for that whole first stanza, really…it’s my favorite). Beyond the word level, that poem does everything it set out to do — it breathes, calms, and accepts the changes the season brings.
@MaryLee: Benison is such a great word – and I like it because it feels like other “bennies” – benefits, and benign, to name two. It seems to go with sunbeams. I am trying so hard to just breathe into this moment – into this summer – into whatever humidity and heat and change is here. I’m grateful my words are taking us at least halfway there!
Tanita, finally I figured out how to respond to your welcoming blog post. Thanks for being our host this weekend always seems to be a good time for me to respond. Your triptych is one that I want to read over and over again because it is lovely.
“Evolving,
time holds its own:”
What a beautiful thought. I am also going to spend sometime with your links. Congratulations on your summer books!
@CVarsalona: Hello! I’m so glad it worked!! Thank you for coming by, and thank you so much for your kind words.
I didn’t get a post up this week, but I do want to make the rounds, and how fun is it to start here by congratulating you on the new agent/new book contract?! Wow, that agent is WORKING! And so are YOU! 😀 Congrats, huzzah, and hooray! I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Speaking of what comes next … your lovely triptych. It feels like an invitation to pause, reflect on summer, consider what’s to come, enjoy what is left for us in the now, and look forward to the gentle change of seasons. The siren call of autumn, but no rush.
These lines especially got me:
more benison than barrier,
One month on,
& midsummer’s psalm
circles final stanzas.
cloisters in clouds –
Fall’s muffled reminder
hums, siren sweet.
long ago stars formed
for such a time as this.
Thanks for this beauty and goodness today, Tanita!
@KarenEdmisten: Thank you so much! The “for such a time as this” has been one of my favorite phrases since I was a child. The good old KJV was so good at providing lovely turns of phrase. Using that phrase solidified this is an Esther poem for me – about hoping to meet big changes with grace and courage.
Many congrats, Tanita! So much good happening for you 🙂
And so, it is especially wonderful to be gifted your freedom triptych. Cloud cloisters and dry lawns drowning in drifts of leaves brings me sighing, to my knees, content––despite the turn toward a year’s second half.
And thank you for the links! Yes, that roulette looks crazy-fun.
@pjnunz: Honestly, it’s been such a strange summer season that seeing the leaves beginning to turn so early feels like nature rewarding the extra attention we’ve been paying it. I’m ready, too – for whatever comes, and it will be Something, I’m sure…
Let’s agree to try that Doucette next year!
Congratulations on all your successes, Tanita, and many thanks for hosting today. I read your poems several times letting your words wash over me – dreamy and comforting. Good luck wrangling the rabbit hole!
@rosecappelli: Thank you! I think the poem’s dreaminess comes from me trying to just breathe — literally deep breathing while writing the stanzas.
Tanita, thanks for hosting, and for such a sweet variety of links and things to think about. “Progressions” is a thing of beauty. That first stanza has me breathing in and out slowly, at peace. So beautiful. Thanks!
@Denise Krebs: Yay! I’m so glad the poem is calming. I love bars of sunlight on the floor, or seen through a window (or, lately, between gray clouds) and so imagined a cat lying in them, just breathing in that boneless cat way — letting go. I think I need to keep that image close so I’m not stressing!
Thanks for stopping in today.
Oh, my goodness! Considering all you are juggling at the moment, THANK YOU for hosting this weekend. Please try to enjoy the rabbit hole while also running around in it. Seriously, congrats on the new contract and work but man, oh, man. This current generation of middle school readers is baffling. I do enjoy your thinkies! Thanks for those too.
“for such a time as this….” one of my favorite lines. Beautiful.
Hey Poets,
I’ve had trouble linking to the posts via Mr. Linky. I’m not sure why. I’m pasting my link here just in case it helps others. I’d love it if others posted their link too: https://open.substack.com/pub/mitchellhubeimom/p/there-are-no-surviving-accounts-of?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
@Linda Mitchell: I had trouble even opening the room last night. Next time – when I have more time – I may revert to doing links by hand, because InLinkz gave me SUCH grief. It did successfully post your link there, though.
@Linda: Isn’t that line a treasure? I have loved it since I heard it as a child. It’s such a glorious way of simply saying “now.”
Ah Tanita, I want to bathe in your poem, it’s lovely, in sound and places it takes us, calming yet with a hint of what’s to come. Thanks for the puzzle-like Doucette, and other links too. And thanks for Hosting us this week, in the midsts of all. Congrats on all that lies ahead, wishing you undivided rabbit hole meanderings!
@Michelle Kogan: Thank you! Everyone has remarked on how calming this is, and I’m really happy about that. I wanted to choose words that were gentle and softly lead into the What’s Next dread that the changing season sometimes provokes – maybe if we see it from afar and just wait for it, change won’t hit us so hard. Here’s hoping, at least!
THANKS for hosting with your usual depth and flair, Tanita – what a summer you’ve had! Congratulations and best wishes for all the word-wrangling. Thank you for sharing a new-to-me word, benison. I wish you heaps of those! Thank you for the links, too – that Doucette Roulette is a delight!! Happy rest-of-summering….
@Robyn Hood Black: I LOVE using words in poetry that don’t get much airtime in real life. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word benison spoken aloud, but I’m on a mission to use it now. Thank you for your kind words, and I hope you really enjoy your honey’s birthday weekend.