challenge – Page 3 – A(nother) Year of Reading

Poetry Friday: Raccontino

The Poetry Sisters’ challenge this month was to write a raccontino, a poem that tells a story starting in the title and continuing in the end words of the odd-numbered lines of couplets that contain even-line rhymes. Not at all complicated. Oh, no. Not at all.

Did you try one? Did you start with the story and the rhyme-scheme (that was my method), or did you just write from your heart and knead that dough until it fit the form?

As with any challenge, after the gnashing of the teeth and the tearing of the hair, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Then I remembered our year-long sub-challenge of writing “in conversation.” Oops.

And yet, the unwritten text of the poem is steeped in human conversation — vetting two companies before we chose one, using Google Translate to communicate with the Brazilian Portuguese-speaking crew who did all the work — as well as in figurative conversations between noise and silence, destruction and repair.

Tanita has her poem, along with this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at {fiction, instead of lies}, and the rest of the sisters’ poems are here:

Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon

Next week, on Friday, July 4, please consider joining the Inklings in writing poems of protest for our nation’s birthday. Let’s use our voices and our art to make some noise! Feel free to write in praise of democracy and patriotism if you’re so moved, or write in frustration and befuddlement over the “leadership” in the White House and/or Congress and/or the courts and/or and/or and/or. The roundup will be here!

Poetry Friday: Two Challenges, One Post

I missed the Poetry Sisters’ challenge last week because I was too deep inside the whirlwind of preparing for Ohio’s Casting for Recovery spring retreat (our first spring retreat and our first at our new “forever home”). It went REALLY well, in spite of the pouring rain on Friday. The weather cleared, lots of fish were caught and released, nature and laughter and the power of being SEEN by those who have shared like experiences gave us all a respite from The World.

To review, the Sisters were writing golden shovels using a line from Elizabeth Bishop’s “Letter to NY” and trying our best to stick to our year-long theme of conversations. For the record, my poem was written in May, in time for the challenge. It just didn’t make it here.

Fast forward to today, the Thursday before the first Friday of the month, which is when the Inklings share their responses to a member’s challenge. I came home from the retreat with piles of laundry and miscellaneous after-retreat tasks to prioritize, but also to the final full day of the replacement of siding and gutters (bam bam bam BAM BAM…then blessed silence when they finished), putting the yard and beds back in order (at least a pint of nails left behind on the ground), washing screens and windows outside (AJ) and vacuuming piles of dust that sifted in from the corners of every. single. window. (me), a blood draw and doctor’s appointment, book club, volunteer work, and teaching a clothing embellishment with embroidery class. Whew!

The Inklings challenge, was offered this month by Heidi:

Watch a few videos from the WE DO NOT CARE CLUB on Instagram or other platform.

Read some comments. Die laughing (or crying).

Write a poem that lists or explains some things that you as a woman no longer care ‘bout for whatever reason. It does not have to be because of peri/menopause. Try to replicate Melani’s deadpan delivery, if that’s possible in a poem. TWIST: include something that you DO care about, that requires you to make space by jettisoning some of the other stuff.

And now I don’t care that I didn’t manage to post my Sisters poem last week, because what a conversation that poem and today’s poem are having! What a conversation I’m hosting inside my head between my now-self and my then-self! Friends, it is beyond hard to rid yourself of the teachings you learned implicitly and explicitly from your mother and from society. We are all works in progress. It is never too late to start accepting yourself for who you are and others for who they are. Full stop.

As Tanita mentioned in her post last week, the Poetry Sisters blew right past their monthly online work/gab session. Well, so did the Inklings. I’m not sure who’s posting, so I’ll let you find them in the roundup if they make it this week. A whole bunch of Life is happening this weekend for lots of them. Have fun, ladies!

Buffy has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Buffy Silverman: Children’s Author.

It’s time to schedule roundups for July – December. Folks, we’re halfway through the year and it’s blowing my mind. Choose your week here.

Poetry Friday Roundup is HERE!

Happy end of NPM! I, for one, am not sad to leave behind spotlighting the absolutely RIDICULOUS list of words the administration wants to ban from our vocabulary, businesses, universities, grant applications, etc. All of my poems can be found at Poetrepository.

Linda M. gave the Inklings their May challenge:

Whitney Hanson is a young poet who has caught my interest. She shares primarily on TikTok. Hanson offers poems that begin with, “in poetry we say…” In these poems, Hanson takes a common phrase we know in English and translates it poetically. Her newest book, In Poetry We Say…(self-published March 2025) is a writer’s journal full of invitations to respond to, “in poetry we say…”

I see an invitation to write in a few ways:

Find a poem that you love to show how poetry translates English in a new way
Or,

Write poetry in a way that responds to the phrase, “in poetry we say…”

Go rogue and respond to Hanson’s poetry in any way that makes you happy

In a way, I met this challenge all month long in April, with the striking word of each acrostic the “in English we say” part of the invitation, and the actual acrostic the “in poetry we say” part. Looking back in my notebook, I found this draft from Laura S.’s February challenge, which seems like a fine companion to my April project AND an adequate response to Linda’s challenge.

In typography, the small space inside letters is called a counter.

A Count. Account. Counter.

I’m
mapping
all the words
for what I’ll say
twenty years from now.
I consider their shapes,
their volume, their urgency,
even the nearly hidden space
in each letter, known as the counter.

(c)Mary Lee Hahn, draft 2025

Here’s what the rest of the Inklings came up with, if life gave them the elbow room this month to write:

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

Add your link to the Poetry Friday roundup here:

Poetry Friday: Historically

This NPM, I am writing acrostic poems using words from the Banned Words List at the Pen America Website. You can find my poems each day on Poetrepository, IG stories, and BlueSky.

But today is special. This is a Poetry Sister Challenge Day, and this month we are writing in conversation with a vintage photograph. I chose to have a conversation with my father as a young man, and ponder everything that happened in his life after that moment was captured, up to and including my very own now.

Every single one of the “banned” words on the Pen America list is ridiculous. The whole list is ridiculous. You can’t erase words; you can’t erase history. We ARE our history. We exist. And we will keep talking about all of it. We will keep making art about and with all of it. Here’s mine so far:

April 1 Diversity
April 2 Climate Crisis
April 3 Transgender
April 4 Biases
April 5 Activism
April 6 Community
April 7 Pronouns
April 8 Gay
April 9 Hate
April 10 Elderly
April 11 Identity
April 12 Promote
April 13 Female
April 14 Belong
April 15 Minority
April 16 Activism
April 17 Measles
April 18 Victim
April 19 Accessible
April 20 Autism
April 21 Barrier
April 22 Equity
April 23 DEI
April 24 Definition

Heidi has this final Poetry Month Poetry Friday Roundup at my juicy little universe.

Here are the conversations the rest of the Poetry Sisters had with the vintage photo of their choice:

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

Poetry Friday: Measles

This NPM, I am writing acrostic poems using words from the Banned Words List at the Pen America Website. You can find my poems each day on Poetrepository, IG stories, and BlueSky.

Jone has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Jone Rush MacCulloch.

Poetry Friday: Identity

This NPM, I am writing acrostic poems using words from the Banned Words List at the Pen America Website. You can find my poems each day on Poetrepository, IG stories, and BlueSky.

April 1 Diversity
April 2 Climate Crisis
April 3 Transgender
April 4 Biases
April 5 Activism
April 6 Community
April 7 Pronouns
April 8 Gay
April 9 Hate
April 10 Elderly

Irene has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Live Your Poem.

Poetry Friday: Biases

This NPM, I am writing acrostic poems using words from the Banned Words List at the Pen America Website. You can find my poems each day on Poetrepository, IG stories, and BlueSky.

April 1 — Diversity
April 2 — Climate Crisis
April 3 — Transgender

Today, April 4, is an Inklings challenge day. Margaret invited us to try a Shadorma, a Spanish 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines respectively. So today’s poem, “Biases,” is a Shadorm-acrostic!

Here’s what the rest of the Inklings came up with, if life gave them the elbow room this month to write:

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

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

Poetry Friday: Clark Kent Writes Back

It’s time again for the Poetry Sisters’ Challenge! Here’s the scoop, via Tanita’s blog: “We’re writing back to four Lucille Clifton poems, in her notes to clark kent series: “if i should;” “further note to clark;” “final note to clark;” and “note passed to superman.” We’ll be ‘in conversation’ with Ms. Lucille’s poems – talking to them, talking back to them, or talking about them, whether that’s all of them, or any of them, either in form or in substance.”

I got really really REALLY stuck on this one. Exactly nothing useful showed up in my notebook during our 25 minute work session on Zoom last Sunday. But the magic of a shower to wash away the chlorine from my swim also unlocked the idea box. I think these responses work without reading Lucille’s poems, but just in case, take a minute to read what she said to Clark before you read what Clark wrote back.

(all four Clark Kent Writes Back poems (c) Mary Lee Hahn, 2025)

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

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

Poetry Friday: Grandma Hahn’s Bread

Grandma (Clara) Hahn’s Bread

4 cakes compressed yeast
	Almost a century separates us
	and yet time compresses –
	you are here with me
	in my kitchen.

1 cup lukewarm water
	I cup my hands around the story
	that you once held infant me.

6 tablespoons sugar
	It would have sweetened our lives
	had the car wreck not happened –
	my father anchored by family
	my mother loved as a daughter
	we children connected to ancestors

1 qt. skimmed milk
	but all those possibilities were skimmed away
	like the thick, rich cream
	that rises to the top of the morning milking
	brought straight to the kitchen from the barn.

4 tablespoons shortening
	I made your bread once for Dad,
	attempting to shorten the distance
	that had formed between us.
	It was good, he said, but

about 14 ¼ cups Mother’s Best
	not the same as yours.

7 ½ teaspoons salt
	It’s not the same as yours,
	but this three-rise half-day project
	is as close as I’ll ever get
	to the flavor of your love,
	Grandma Hahn.


© Mary Lee Hahn, 2025

Molly challenged the Inklings to write Hermit Crab poems this month. Think of the form as a poem that climbs into the shell of another kind of writing. A little bit mind-bending at first, but if you find the right “shell,” you’ll be off and writing.

As for the recipe, yes, this is bread I bake every few weeks. I can’t remember the last time we bought bread in a store. And no, I do not bake in that volume! I cut the recipe in half and make two loaves. I use granular yeast, Snowville Creamery whole milk to come close to “skimmed” milk, and I’ve never been able to find Mother’s Best flour, so I make do with King Arthur.

I can’t wait to see what the others came up with this month! Thanks for the great challenge, Molly! Yes, I do realize that this is the second Inkling challenge in a row that has resulted in a bread poem. No, I’m not going for a trifecta, though you just never know…

Here’s what the rest of the Inklings came up with, if life gave them the elbow room this month to write:

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

Margaret has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Reflections on the Teche and this post does double-duty as a Slice of Life post.

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

Poetry Friday: Routine is a Word

This poem could be subtitled, “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone.”

After a childhood spent succumbing to and adapting to the routines imposed upon me, I spent the next huge chunk of my adult life creating classroom routines that attempted to balance the things that HAD TO be done, with the things we WANTED to do. Outside the classroom, adulting brought its own set of non-negotiable routines: laundry, trash day, oil changes, bills. Woven into the mandatory adult routines were the self-imposed ones: exercise, writing, reading. Oh, how I longed for retirement and a lifting of the burden of routines.

Spoiler alert…routines don’t go away when you retire. They change. There might be more wiggle room in the schedule, but the shapes of days and weeks and seasons remain.

Then there is the net of great big routines that seems so distant and inviolable that we forget to pay attention. Our democracy. Social services. The never-ending push towards civil rights. Voting. Representation.

These are the things that were on my mind as I sat down to write my ___is a Word poem. How every day seems the same…which can make me grumble even though I lean into the comfort of knowing that the one time of the day the cat loves me best is morning, when he gets his medicines and treats and grooming; if it’s Sunday, I’ll go swim some laps; if it’s summer, I’ll be looking for black swallowtail caterpillars in the fennel. It’s been almost eight years, but I remember the visceral experience of my every routine shattering the way mom’s arm and hip did when she fell, was life-flighted to Denver, wound up in the ICU, and never recovered. And yet, even within those jumbled-up days, I created what routines I could. Which brings us to now, when the net of great big routines called Life As We Know It In The United States is being demolished and we begin to see response routines emerge. I’m not buying anything today. I’m helping to jam congress’ switchboards with calls using the 5 Calls app. I’m donating every month to ACLU. All very safe and easy to add to my regular routines. I was yesterday years old when I sat for two hours in a community stitching circle and heard passionate volunteers tell about what Food Not Bombs and other mutual aid groups are doing to get good food that is headed for the landfill into the hands of those who need it. Work that is and has been being done to push back against broken systems and make an actual tangible difference in the lives of our neighbors.

It’s time for another change in my routines.

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

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

Denise has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Care to Share.

The image is via Wikimedia.