A(nother) Year of Reading

Poetry Friday and Poetry Every Day

Happy National Poetry Month! My daily poems are at Poetrepository here and on Substack here and in IG stories here if you want to follow along. Or just check in here on Fridays for my weekly roundup!

March 31  “That’s a Bridge Too Far”
April 1  Supreme Court Birthright Citizenship Case
April 2  Making a Difference in a Distracted and Divided World

Today is also Inklings Challenge Day. Linda challenged us to write an ars poetica poem, “A poem that explains the ‘art of poetry,’ or a meditation on poetry using the form and techniques of a poem.” I think mine fits best in the second category.

A few phrases in my poem were borrowed from Pádrig Ó Tuama’s 3/29 Poetry Unbound Substack “Belief and Wonder.”

Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met this month’s challenge:

Catherine @Reading to the Core
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda @A Word Edgewise

Matt has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.

Poetry Friday: Celebrating Twilight

This is a double-duty poem. First, it celebrates the Book Birthday of Marcie Flinchum Atkins’ new release, WHEN TWILIGHT COMES. Congratulations, Marcie!

Second, it’s a Poetry Sister challenge poem. This month we tried our hands at Ovillejos. According to Writer’s Digest, “The ovillejo is an old Spanish form popularized by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616). This 10-line poem is comprised of 3 rhyming couplets (or 2-line stanzas) and a quatrain (or 4-line stanza).” Easy, right? Oh…there’s more: “The first line of each couplet is 8 syllables long and presents a question to which the second line responds in 3 to 4 syllables–either as an answer or an echo.” (I think we mostly ignored that part…but there’s still more!) “The quatrain is also referred to as a redondilla (which is usually a quatrain written in trochaic tetrameter) with an abba rhyme pattern. The final line of the quatrain also combines lines 2, 4, and 6 together.” WHEW!

I pretty quickly discovered that in order to have a final line that made sense, I would need to start there and reverse engineer the whole poem. It felt like part puzzle, part fill-in-the-blanks. But I’m not sad about how mine turned out in the end!

Marcie has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Marcie Flinchum Atkins, and I can’t wait to see all the ways the community is lighting up the twilight skies in honor of her new book!

Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters came up with this month:

Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect

Poetry Friday: The News in Poetry

I’ve found my way back into a regular poetry writing routine and simultaneously I might have found my NPM project. As I read the NYT or other assorted news sources, I borrow bits and pieces and write a tricube.

I’ve also been playing with haiku-comics.

There’s room during NPM for both, right?

Tanita has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at {fiction, instead of lies}

Poetry Friday: Yesterday

I’m in a bit of a writing slump, so thank goodness for Audrey Gidman’s Poetry Prompt Calendars! Here is the prompt for 3/11, which was the ninth anniversary of our mom’s death. Today, 3/12, is the 32-year anniversary of our dad’s death.

Write two short, separate, unrelated poems, 4-5 lines each. One describing a body of water you’re standing beside. One about a relative—a parent, a sibling, a child, or another relative (alternately, a person very dear to you—a lover, chosen family etc.) Once complete, stack the poems so the first line of one of the poems is first on the page, then the first line of the second poem is next. Weave them together in this way until you have one poem that contains two poems. You may consider weaving the poems again, so the second begins first. Notice what happens. Adjust as needed. It’s okay if the poem isn’t a success, it’s not about that, but you might be surprised by what “success” looks like.

Here are my two short, separate, unrelated poems:

Here is how the wove together, with a few necessary adjustments:

Linda has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at TeacherDance.

Poetry Friday: Becoming

Ever since Sara Teasdale’s poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” was the Poem of the Day this past week on Poets.org, I’ve been going back to it over and over again, working to memorize it. Sara T. and I go way back. My fourth graders and I memorized “Barter” my first year of teaching. I wish I had memorized a poem a year with every class. Just think of the library of words and images I’d have at my beck and call.

The turn in the middle of “There Will Come Soft Rains” comes as a gut punch. Especially now. I know that Nature wouldn’t miss humankind, but I desperately want her to know that I am mourning all that humans have destroyed, all that the current administration is determined to destroy. I want to bear witness to her ordinary miracles (cue Sarah McLachlan) and celebrate the life force that makes and heals our planet.

Margaret gave the Inklings this month’s challenge to write a poem using the word “becoming” somewhere in it. You might be able to feel the influence of Sara T. in my writing.

Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met this month’s challenge:

Catherine @Reading to the Core
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda @A Word Edgewise

Karen has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Karen Edmisten*.

Poetry Friday: After Arthur Sze

Without actually meaning to, the Poetry Sisters have done great service to the Poetry Friday community by shining a spotlight on our current Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze. Were you, like us, not very (or at all) familiar with Sze’s poetry? We were delighted to dive in and discover his distinctive style of close focus on minute details in combination with big expansive ideas. We hope, if you joined us in the challenge, you were similarly delighted. And if you are just along for the ride and reading all the various takes on this challenge, again, we hope you are treated to a sense of delight.

I chose Sze’s poem “The Chance” because I loved the way the speaker ponders while they drive (as I am also wont to do). I loved the double meanings — “And as I approach thirty” can be miles per hour, or an age. As I approach my next birthday that ends in a zero, I absolutely agree that “the distances / are shorter than I guess.” I whole-heartedly agree with “I want a passion that grows and grows.” And those last two lines — swoon!

Rather than using those last two lines as the striking line for an acrostic (aligned vertically on the left), or a Golden Shovel (aligned vertically on the right), I used a new form (still under construction) that Heidi Mordhorst is calling the Fault Line Form, with my striking line through the middle of my poem.

On the topic of new forms, in March, the Poetry Sisters will be attempting to unravel the Ovillejo!

I look forward to reading what the rest of the Poetry Sisters, and all who are joining us in conversation with Arthur Sze, have written!

Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect

Margaret has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Reflections on the Teche.

Poetry Friday: The Embroidery

I know many of you get the same daily poems I do, and maybe like me, you don’t always have time to read them all. Here’s one I want to make sure you didn’t miss.

Lessons At the Legendary Institute for Yarn Spinning by Rigoberto González.

The rest of the poem is here.

Now, this poem won’t do for the kinds of lies and stories being told by the creeps and grifters in our current government, but it’s perfect for all the stories write into our poems. As the author’s grandmother advises, “If you’re going to make things up, do it well.”

Here’s to all the things you made up this week, and especially the ones you’re sharing in the Poetry Friday roundup, which is hosted this week by Susan at Chicken Spaghetti and as I type this I realize that I have not written to her challenge. Yikes! Since I’m uncharacteristically early getting this post ready, there might be time for a flash draft. Stay tuned.

Well, lookie there…

Poetry Friday: Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year!

Early on, when I learned what the animal is for this year, I misread Horse for Hose, and Year of the Fire Hose seemed somehow quite appropriate. Made me giggle. Still does.

Thanks you, Jone, for organizing the New Year postcard exchange again! I had intended to carve, print, and hand-color an image again this year, but some tendon/joint/nerve issues in my right arm caused me to take a different direction. I chose the above image from my photos of our trip to Norway in September 2025 and wrote the series of haiku I’m sharing here. Each recipient got one of the haiku, but I thought y’all might like to see all four. And for those of you who didn’t partake in the joys of the exchange…here is your virtual postcard!

Robyn has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Life on the Deckle Edge.

Poetry Friday: Like Stitching

Molly gave the Inklings our challenge this month:

I am stealing a prompt from Audrey Gidman’s advent prompts. Prompt #24 to be precise:

Write a poem after Wendell Berry’s “Like Snow”— word for word. Choose a subject: rain, a butterfly, granite, the ocean, anything. Berry’s poem is three lines long. Break down each line. In line one, replace the word “suppose” with something else: what if; in spite of; imagine etc., replace the pronoun and the verb, replace “snow” with your chosen subject. Do the same with the second and third lines. Be sure to write an epigraph that reads “after Wendell Berry”.

Like Snow
by Wendell Berry

Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.

Like Stitching
by Mary Lee Hahn
after Wendell Berry

Perhaps we’re not the needle
but rather the thread, steady, steady,
weaving in and out.

If you look closely, there’s also a hint of William Stafford in my poem:

Last Monday, I had the opportunity (along with lots of other Poetry Friday Peeps!) to learn, on a zoom organized by Georgia Heard, about making poetry comics from none other than Grant Snider, the author of POETRY COMICS! He even used the poem I submitted as one of his examples!! The title is “If Canvas Could Talk.”

Since our poetry challenge this month resulted in a poem the perfect size for a poetry comic, I couldn’t resist. I created the image at the beginning of this post during the zoom. Poetry comics are fun, they challenge your brain in a new way, and you don’t have to be too precious about the art to make something you can be proud of!

Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met this month’s challenge:

Catherine @Reading to the Core
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Linda @A Word Edgewise

And Molly has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Nix the Comfort Zone!

Poetry Friday: A Trio of Tricubes

The Poetry Sisters challenge for this month was composing tricubes — poems with three stanzas, three lines in each stanza, and three syllables in each line. At our pep talk/work session last Sunday, we wondered collectively if we would post a single tricube, or if it made sense for them to come in groups of three.

Obviously, I decided on three.

The first was written after I went for a walk about two-thirds of the way through our total snow accumulation. It was magical. So quiet, so peaceful.

The second is not meant to take away from the tragedy of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but instead as a reminder that we need to guard ourselves from compartmentalizing our outrage and make sure we don’t just mourn the deaths of those who might look like us or love like us.

The third is a memo to myself that joy is a valid form of resistance, as are creativity and self care. There is a time to march, a time to call senators and send emails, a time to sign petitions…and a time to bake bread, mend a shirt, or stitch a memory from last fall’s trip to Norway.

Here’s what the other Poetry Sisters came up with this month:

Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect

Amy has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at The Poem Farm.