Tag: challenge

I love writing from an image. I love short form poetry. So this month’s Poetry Sisters challenge was right up my alley: ekphrastic dodoitsus. When we dug into the definition of dodoitsus, however, we learned that they are more complicated than a simple 7-7-7-5 syllable count. “The dodoitsu often focuses on love or work with a comical twist.” I’m not sure how well I satisfied all of the requirements, but it was lots of fun.

This first picture is at the historic Open Air School here in Columbus. They have completed renovations and one of our new favorite restaurants, Emmett’s, is located there.

After so many courses
laid with rhythmic precision
I can’t stand it anymore.
Time for a jazz riff.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2022

In this one, the poem only matches the photo on the theme of careless quality control. It’s based on a story Molly Hogan told, and so I’m sorry to tell you that it is as true as that unsliced apple in the picture. But a LOT more gross.

In the pickle factory,
he left the frogs on the belt.
Quality control loophole:
squeamish inspector.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2022

This last one stretches all the rules about love, work, and comical twist, but I had fun working backward from the last line — a five-syllable word!

When you’re blessed with a surfeit
of citrus deliciousness
what matters not the least is
uniformity.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2022

Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters came up with:
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Kelly @ Kelly Ramsdell
Andi @ A Wrung Sponge

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

If you want to join the Poetry Sisters’ challenge for next month, we’re going to write in the style of Taylor Mali, which is to say there might be metaphor dice involved, and perhaps some eloquently long-winded spoken-word poetry which may or may not be recorded in videos. Mali’s mentor poems are not always appropriate for children/students, but that doesn’t mean we can’t borrow his style if not all of his subject matter and/or word and gesture choices.

I’m sure you know Mali’s “What Teachers Make,” (look at who he’s on stage with in this version) and if you don’t know “When I Miss Teaching,” it’s time to do something about that. Especially that ending. So true. You should read “The Impotence of Proofreading,” rather than watching it, but in either case, make sure you don’t have food or drink in your mouth. (if you watch, the other guy on stage has warmed up a bit…)

Next week begins the zaniness known as Poetry Month, in which I write AND PUT OUT IN THE WORLD a poem a day. According to Poetrepository, this will be my 9th year of this madness. However, there are three more years of poems at A Year of Reading that I need to move over to Poetrepository. So it’s actually my 12th year. Wow. I’ve got my 2022 theme, but not my cute graphic made on Canva, so you’ll have to stay tuned. I’ll be posting on Poetrepository, but will round up the highlights here on Fridays.

Margaret gave the Inklings their challenge for this month: “Choose a quote that speaks to you. Write a poem that responds to the quote. The words can be used as a golden shovel or throughout the poem or as an epigraph.”

I cheated just a little. I found a poem that I wrote back in June of 2021, just after retirement, and then went looking for a quote that fit with it as an epigraph.

Here’s how the rest of the Inklings interpreted Margaret’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

Kat has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Kathryn Apel.

The photo for today’s post is via Unsplash.

This month, poetry met parlor game as the Poetry Sisters collaborated to create an Exquisite Corpse poem. Unlike the “rules,” we did not use an agreed-upon structure and we constructed the poem one line at a time rather than one word at a time. Liz started us off, sending Tanita her line. Based on Liz’s line, Tanita wrote a line and then send just her line to Kelly. From Kelly, a line went to Sara. Andi was next, then Laura, Tricia, and finally me. Here’s what we wrote:

This month, odd one out, running short on days and sleep,
This month, past meets pride, roots ripped from native soil still somehow grow.
The once-bright future dims. Shadows grow
But there, near canyon  rim, in  broken light
the yearling hawk shrieked in futile fury
and the steel-edged clouds looked away
trees bow and bend on a blustery day
that rattles old oak leaves down the street.

In creating our final drafts from this rich loam of raw material, we agreed that it was fair game to use as much or little of the original as we saw fit. Here’s the best of my many drafts.

Poetry Sister Tricia has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters came up with:
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Kelly @ Kelly Ramsdell
Andi @ A Wrung Sponge

 Next month we are writing ekphrastic Doditsu. You can learn about this poetic from Robert Lee Brewer at Writer’s Digest. They are a little more complicated than a simple syllable count, as I once believed! The Dodoitsu often focuses on love or work with a comical twist. We are sharing images in our group, but you can write to anything you like. If you want to be inspired by my image, here’s what I shared. 

The oak leaf photo above is via Unsplash.

Early this month, I had the good fortune to attend a Zoom session hosted by Georgia Heard, with George Ella Lyon as the special guest. I jotted PAGES of “George Ella Gems,” then typed them up and cut them apart. I had a draft I liked, but then this morning, I didn’t like it. Easy enough to create a new draft! An unspoken sub-challenge this month was to put your poem into Canva. Here’s my draft for now:

Here’s what the rest of the Poetry Sisters came up with:
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Kelly @ Kelly Ramsdell
Andi @ A Wrung Sponge

Irene has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Live Your Poem, where you can “overhear” lots of poetry talk!

In February, the Poetry Sisters are going to try one or more Exquisite Corpse poems. We’re not sure exactly how we’re going to do them, and there’s a lot of wiggle room. Read about them, and then figure out how YOU’D like to use or be inspired by the game. We’ll share our poems on Feb. 25th, and you can, too! If you share on social media, use the hashtag #PoetryPals. We can’t wait to see what you (and we?) do with this! Have fun!

Where to begin?

There are my favorite bells in music, “The Bells of St. Geneviève”…

…and my favorite bells in film…

…and my favorite classic bell poem which contains my favorite bell word: tintinnabulation. (I so wanted to include that word in my own bell poem, but it was not to be.)

I was all over the place trying to write my bell poem this month, but my drafts kept getting closer and closer to my heart, until this memory emerged:

Carol Wilcox, at Carol’s Corner, has this week’s final Poetry Friday roundup. Let’s hold her, and all of those in the Denver area who are reeling from the recent wildfires, close in our hearts.

There are bound to be lots of bell poems around the roundup, ringing in the New Year. I can’t wait to read them all! Check out what the other Poetry Sisters came up with:

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

Autumn Cento 

Little grey dreams
holding up the hawk:
a blur in the periphery.
I’ve little time left.
Everything’s been said.
My heart is so giant this evening
following old
migratory patterns that would have been better left alone.
Someone raised a camera to capture us both in a moment;
the only gift I have to give.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

SOURCES:

1. Little Grey Dreams by Angelina Weld Grimké
2. In Gratitude by Abigail Carroll
3. The Hummingbird by Blas Falconer
4. Elegy for Estrogen by V. Penelope Pelizzon
5.  Rabbits and Fire by Albert Rios
6.  First by Carrie Fountain
7-8.  anti-immigration by Evie Shockley
9.  The Vine by Laura Kasischke
10. Offering by Albert Garcia

Molly’s challenge for the Inklings this month was to try a poetry form that was new to us. I tried a tricube, a rondelet, and this cento. The definition of a cento (from poets.org) is “From the Latin word for “patchwork,” the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form composed entirely of lines from poems by other poets.”

I was downstairs in my “studio,” doing some stitching and catching up on episodes of The Slowdown podcast. Rather than using a concrete/old school approach (poring over books of poetry, copying down lines by hand, cutting them apart, and rearranging them into a poem), I used a digital approach (listening to the poem, copy/pasting the line I liked, and hyperlinking the poem in my list of sources).

Here’s how the rest of the Inklings met Molly’s challenge:

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

Michelle has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at her blog, Michelle Kogan. She’s celebrating holidays and happy poetry news along with some of her gorgeous cards and several poems!

Take note…next week I’ll put up the signup for Poetry Friday Roundup Hosts for January-June 2022! Get ready to claim your spot!

Yesterday’s Ode to Thanksgiving is perhaps a more proper ode (even though it starts off angry and critical) in that it directly addresses Autumn, and focuses narrowly on a single autumnal event: Thanksgiving.

This Ode to Autumn, on the other hand, is really only an ode because I say so in the title. Poet’s prerogative.

Here’s how the rest of the Poetry Sisters met the challenge of writing an Ode to Autumn:

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

In December, we’ll be writing poems that feature bells. Join us! Ruth has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. Join us!

The Poetry Sisters’ challenge for this month was to write Word Play poems, introduced to the Poetry Friday community in 2015 by Nikki Grimes as one of Michelle H. Barnes’ (Today’s Little Ditty) Ditty of the Month challenges. Laura Purdie Salas showed how the form might work in a classroom.

I have two poems this month. The first came about because of this conversation on FaceBook with Poetry Sister Kelly:

This second poem was written more in the style of Poetry Sister Laura’s “Freedom is a Word” (one of my all-time favorite poems of hers).

Linda has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at TeacherDance, and check out how all the rest of the Poetry Sisters met this month’s challenge:

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

You’re invited to join the Poetry Sisters’ challenge for the month of November! We’re writing an Ode to Autumn. An ode is a lyrical poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often meant to be sung. Whether you choose an irregular ode with no set pattern or rhyme, or the ten-line, three-to-five stanza famed by Homer himself, we hope you’ll join us! You can share your offering with the rest of us on November 26th (the Friday after Thanksgiving, so plan ahead) in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals.

The Inklings’ challenge this month was mine. I was quite taken with the idea of this book: a book about poetry forms and techniques…written in poems. So I challenged the group to write their own poems about forms or techniques. The more we dug into the book, the more we realized that the author doesn’t always explain a form in that form. For instance, her poem about the sestina follows the form but does not explain it. And one of the flaws of the book is that nowhere is there clear definitions of the techniques and forms. Still and all, I recommend the book, and we all had fun playing around with form and techniques. Here are three of mine.

Enjambment

Writing teachers especially hate
run-ons. Close the gate
so the end of the line can have the pause
that finishes a thought or completes a clause.

.

Haiku

small observation
perhaps elaboration
wry commentary

.

Personification Limerick

I once was a limerick named Sue.
My rhythm was fine. Rhyme was, too.
There was just this one thing
caused my heart not to sing:
my longing to be a haiku.

.

All three poems are ©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021. (I’m not sure what’s up with me sharing multiple poems per Poetry Friday post…this is the third week in a row…)

Catherine has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Reading to the Core. Check out the other Inklings’ responses to the challenge here:

Heidi @ My Juicy Little Universe
Linda @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret @ Reflections on the Teche
Molly @ Nix the Comfort Zone