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Poetry Friday: Pantoum

The photo is the small town swimming pool where I was a lifeguard through high school and some of college, but the fancy slide wasn’t there during my time. You only get a hint of the amount of sky that was visible from up on the lifeguard stands, but if you could climb up the one just to your left that overlooks the 4′ end of the pool, you could look out across the tennis courts and I-70 to the fields and the feedlot beyond. Storms usually came in from the west (to your right), and we kept an equal eye on the swimmers and the thunderheads as they grew and darkened.

The Poetry Sisters’ challenge this month is to use Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound challenge from way back in January. His eight prompts were what we were supposed to use to produce eight lines with which we could create a Midyear Pantoum. I wrote one following his prompts and it was…awful. So I broke a few rules and followed others slantwise to come up with this moody summer memory.

I’m not sure which of the Poetry Sisters are in this month, but here they all are, just in case:

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

Tabatha has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at The Opposite of Indifference.

The Inklings are meeting In Real Life this weekend! YAY! I’ll look forward to commenting on your posts next week.

Poetry Friday: Yesterday

I’m in a bit of a writing slump, so thank goodness for Audrey Gidman’s Poetry Prompt Calendars! Here is the prompt for 3/11, which was the ninth anniversary of our mom’s death. Today, 3/12, is the 32-year anniversary of our dad’s death.

Write two short, separate, unrelated poems, 4-5 lines each. One describing a body of water you’re standing beside. One about a relative—a parent, a sibling, a child, or another relative (alternately, a person very dear to you—a lover, chosen family etc.) Once complete, stack the poems so the first line of one of the poems is first on the page, then the first line of the second poem is next. Weave them together in this way until you have one poem that contains two poems. You may consider weaving the poems again, so the second begins first. Notice what happens. Adjust as needed. It’s okay if the poem isn’t a success, it’s not about that, but you might be surprised by what “success” looks like.

Here are my two short, separate, unrelated poems:

Here is how the wove together, with a few necessary adjustments:

Linda has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at TeacherDance.