Category: Poetry

Heidi’s December challenge for the Inklings came to us in the form of this mobile (which is hanging beside our mail table and yes that’s the Christmas tree reflecting in the lace swan’s glass). The card from which hang the “12 Days of Yuletide Poetry Prompts” details the precepts for the season and each of its days.

I wrote to all twelve of the prompts. Here are a couple that I especially liked. First, the introduction to Yuletide:

“On these dark nights we celebrate light and the power of the human spirit to brighten and warm the season of cold and dark. As the wheel of the year begins another turn, we think on the old and prepare for the new, lighting a candle for each of these human gifts:

25 generosity: the urge to share what we have with others (prompt: ask what generosity really means)

27 laughter: the singular human ability to convert the unexpected into joy (prompt: capture the sound of laughter)

Thank you, Heidi, for generously (and creatively!) sharing your family’s Yuletide traditions with us, and for twelve days of thoughtful writing prompts. I can’t wait to see what the other Inklings did with your challenge, because for once, we haven’t had the chance to share any early drafts. We haven’t an INKLING what the others have written!

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

Marcie has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Marcie Flinchum Adkins.

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.

.

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.

.

The Poetry Sisters’ challenge for November was to write in the style of Valerie Worth. Attempting to narrow my focus, I went from garden, to fennel, to the ladybug larva I found in the fennel last week. Liz commented that this could be an on-going practice — choosing small and/or ordinary things and writing without the restrictions of form or rhyme. I agree. It’s quite satisfying to find the extraordinary in the ordinary that surrounds us.

I have stumbled recently both in posting regularly and in commenting generously. Please know that I am thankful for each of you and for your words! This community is one of the bright spots in my world.

Ruth has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. Since it will be December next week, we need to start thinking about January-June roundups. Watch for signups.

Here’s how the other Poetry Sisters met our challenge:

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

.

Linda’s challenge for the Inklings this month was

Sometimes a very narrow and constrained challenge is just right, and sometimes a wide open invitation is what a writer needs. Thanks, Linda!

Here’s how the other Inklings met Linda’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

Buffy Silverman has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup.

.

What is a Bouts-Rimés poem? Part game, part puzzle, they are hard to get started, but once you do, the possibilities are myriad! Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Bouts-Rimés.

The Poetry Sisters shared rhymes…and then MORE rhymes when we figured out we didn’t have enough to satisfy the requirements of most sonnet types. Because our poems WOULD be sonnets. Sonnets are apparently the origin story of the Poetry Sisters, but at the beginning I was only there as audience, so I’m a late-comer to the sonnet game. Or a new-comer, as the case may be. I haven’t written many sonnets. This poem is a Shakespearean sonnet, but I also tried Petrarchan and Terza Rima.

For me, the process of writing a Bouts-Rimés poem was similar to writing a golden shovel. I picked my sonnet type, then loaded the right side of my notebook page with the rhymes that fit the sonnet (for Shakespearean: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG). I completely ignored the iambic pentameter syllable count requirement. (Call me cheater, or call me beginner. I’m fine with either label.) I chose my topic, and then started writing (and rewriting, and crossing out, and starting over). Like I said, part game, part puzzle!

Here’s what the rest of the crew came up with:

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

Carol has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at The Apples in My Orchard.

Next month, we’re writing in the style of Valerie Worth. You can learn more about Valerie Worth and read some of her poems at Spotlight on NCTE Poets: Valerie Worth, with Lee Bennett Hopkins, a post by Renée M. LaTulippe at No Water River. Join us if you’d like!