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:

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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

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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.

(All three poems and the image are ©Mary Lee Hahn, 2026)

Poetry Friday: That July

Here’s another poem from the MoSt challenge. (Last week’s was, too.) This one was in response to challenge #14: Use orange, momentous, bucket, sweetheart, sweat, and longing. Mercurial was the bonus word. It was fun to write a poem that was entirely fictional!

Tabatha has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at The Opposite of Indifference, a stance we all need these days.


Poetry Friday: Murder

An award-winning poet was murdered this week.

Renee Good was, of course, a multitude of other beings as well. We all are.

But in 2020, she won one of Old Dominion’s most prestigious accolades, the American Academy of American Poets Prize. 

Rajiv Mohabir was serving as a judge for the contest in 202o and selected her poem as the winner. He said “…he never had the chance to meet or interact with Ms. Good, as he was teaching in Boston then and the contest was held remotely that year. But he said he was struck by the poem’s idea that “we have to kill something in order to know it,” and since Ms. Good’s killing, has been ruminating on its ending words:

“that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths ‘make room for wonder’ —

all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:

life is merely

to ovum and sperm

and where those two meet

and how often and how well

and what dies there.”

Read the whole poem, On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs at poets.org.

Ruth has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.

OLW/Intention for 2026

This year, I tried a new-to-me way to let the Universe help me choose my OLW/Intention for 2026. About a week ago, I wrote down 13 Wishes for Me in 2026. Next, I wrote each of the 13 on its own small slip of paper that I then folded up and placed in a small blue bowl. Each day until yesterday, 12/31/25, I burned one or two of them out on the back sidewalk, so that I was left, today, with the one that would be my main focus. Excitedly, I opened the slip this morning and found…

Outdoor Walks

What? Out of all the lofty wishes I wished, THAT was the one the Universe picked for me? Really? I have to admit that I felt a little let down.

Until I went back and looked at my list of 13 Wishes. Outdoor Walks is smack dab in the middle of the list. It is the fulcrum on which all the other wishes balance. It is the heart and soul. The core. Without it, the others won’t exist.

Also, it turns out that if I want a single word to stand in for Outdoor Walks, there are at least 12 ways to name it…

hike
ramble
trek
tramp
wander
roam
stroll
saunter
traipse
explore
amble
journey

…and there is one really good way to sum it up:

PEREGRINATE (flâner, if you want the French version).

So it will be a year for peregrination, along with the other 12 wishes for 2026.

I’ll remember that “All who wander are not lost.” (J.R.R. Tolkien) and while I peregrinate, I will “Pay attention./Be astonished./Tell about it.” (Mary Oliver).

Happy 2026!

Poetry Friday: This is January

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Catherine gave the Inklings our January challenge: Write a poem that begins “This is January” or “January.” (Inspired by my December post here.)

Wishing you as many deep breaths as it takes to get through 2026 with calmness, grace, joy, and love.

Catherine has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Reading to the Core.

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

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

Gratitudes to all who signed up to host Poetry Friday roundups in the first six months of 2026. It was a bit nip-and-tuck to fill the last few slots (thanks for the help, Irene!), but you poets always come through! The complete roundup can be found in the sidebar here, and if you’d like for me to send you the code so you can have the list on your blog, just let me know.