Month: December 2023

Poetry Friday: Elfchen

clouds
stereotypically blanketing
December’s morning sky
no warmth, and yet
comfort

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2023

The Poetry Sisters’ December challenge was to write Elfchen, a type of cinquain that uses word count instead of syllable count, and links together the lines with these prompts:

Line one=A thought, an object, a color, a smell or the like
Line two=What does the word from the first row do?
Line three=Where or how is the word of row 1?
Line four=What do you mean?
Line five=Conclusion: What results from all this? What is the outcome?
(This information via Wikipedia.)

Elfchen are German in origin, so for bonus points, I wrote one in German, using my limited vocabulary.

brot
warm, frisch
mit Schinken und Käse
und natürlich viele Butter:
lecker

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2023

Here’s how the other Poetry Sisters met this month’s challenge:

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

Michelle has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at MoreArt4All.

Poetry Friday: Call for Roundup Hosts

It’s that time again. Six months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.

What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.

Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape, or form (Mr. Linky, “old school” in the comments, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in, but perhaps choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.

How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you’re not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch…and learn! One thing we’re finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.

How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? You can grab the list from the sidebar here at A(nother) Year of Reading, or I’d be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address. 

Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It’s like hosting a poetry party on your blog!

Put your request in the comments (blog URL is appreciated) and I’ll update the calendar frequently. Feel free to share this post on all the various socials.

And now for the where and when:

January
5 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
12 Tracey at Tangles and Tails
19 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
26 Susan at Chicken Spaghetti

February
2 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
9 Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink
16 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
23 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

March
1 Linda at TeacherDance
8 Laura at Laura Purdie Salas
15 Tanita at {fiction, instead of lies}
22 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities
29 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect

April
5 Irene at Live Your Poem
12. Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
19 Heidi at my juicy little universe
26 Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town

May
3 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
10 Linda at A Word Edgewise
17 Patricia at Reverie
24 Michelle at MoreArt4All
31 Janice at Salt City Verse

Poetry Friday: Avoirdupois

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I usually know the Merriam-Webster word of the day that’s delivered to my inbox. But when Monday’s word came, not only did I not know the meaning of avoirdupois, I didn’t know how to pronounce it. Merriam-Webster gave me the American pronunciation ˈa-vər-də-ˌpȯiz (rhymes with boys and you sound like a hick saying it — a-ver-duh-poise), but clearly the word has French roots, so I found the British pronunciation ævwɑːdjuːˈpwɑː (rhymes with straw) and it’s not only more fun to say, but you sound so suave saying it — avwah-dyu-pwah. It’s a “pinkie out” kind of word. Next time you have to lift a heavy box, you can comment on its avoirdupois.

You’re welcome.

Patricia has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Reverie.

Hat tip to Heidi Mordhorst, inventor of the Definito form. (I broke the rules slightly by rhyming, instead of making it free verse. I felt the rhyme was necessary to help with the pronunciation.)

On another note, watch for the call for roundup hosts (Jan-June 2024) next week.

Poetry Friday: Grandmother Oak

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Molly challenged the Inklings to write luc bats in November, and it’s a good thing I started playing with the form early on, because my November kind of evaporated starting with NCTE. Not only did I write a luc bat for the burr oak across the street and her “burr oak buffet” which feeds the neighborhood deer, squirrels, and groundhogs, I wrote one in response to the news

and a stubbornly optimistic one in response to the Albert Rios poem, “A House Called Tomorrow”

It’s definitely a tricky form, but I loved the puzzle of the syllable-counting and the weaving of the rhymes.

Here’s how the other Inklings met Molly’s challenge:

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

Anastasia has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Small Poems.