The Poetry Sisters’ challenge for this month was to write a haibun. 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
Michelle has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at MoreArt4All.
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Jone has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Jone Rush MacCulloch.
Thanks to everyone who signed up to host roundups in the first half of 2025!
Emily Dickinson’s birthday was on 12/10 and this was the poem on The Writer’s Almanac. I borrowed all of Emily’s capitalized words (except the ones that begin the lines) and created this draft of a golden shovel:
Linda has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at A Word Edgewise.
Thanks to all who volunteered to host the Poetry Friday roundup Jan-June 2025. The roundup is filled!
Molly gave the Inklings our December challenge: “Begin with a specific sensory experience (of taste, sight, smell, sound or touch), and see where that leads you.” This is part of a prompt from James Crews’s new book “Unlocking the Heart.” The experience of seeing wild turkeys at Highbanks provided the perfect answer to her challenge.
Here’s what the other Inklings did with this month’s challenge:
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Heidi @my juicy little universe
(Catherine @Reading to the Core)
Carol has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at The Apples in My Orchard.
The call for hosts for the Poetry Friday roundups in Jan-June 2025 is here.
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I gave the Poetry Sisters this month’s challenge. We brainstormed our year of challenges in January, just after I began reading a poem a day from Jane Hirshfield’s newish (2023) book THE ASKING: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS. “Two Versions” is on page 9, but can’t be found in its entirety anywhere on line, making it tricky for you to discover the ways her poem inspired our writing. Lucky for you, though, I used the structure of Hirschfield’s poem for mine. So…my poem might give you some hints, in the event that you don’t own her book (which you should, so get to an independent bookstore this weekend and help that small business survive the One Big Store that would weed out all the little stores…in a poignant analogy to my very poem).
I realized, when I was combing through the blog correcting my misspelling of Hirshfield (not sch, just sh), that I also wrote about the oak seedling murders back in May. The guilt is strong enough for two poems, apparently.
I’m not sure who’s in for this month’s challenge, but here are the Poetry Sister links just in case:
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
And here’s Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies} who has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup!
Next week is December and it will be time to queue up for roundup host positions January-June 2025. Watch for the call!
In 2016, #haikuforhealing created a community of poets on Twitter. Yesterday, I finally created an account on Threads and just now I put out a call for poets writers anyone who wants to join in for another round of healing. Is that even the best home for such a community? Are you there? I hope you’ll find me and join in, or let me know what’s a better home for our creative outlet.
Here’s the post that launched the original. These are the words that inspired me:
5 Insights for Recording Artists, Performers, and Creatives
1. Make Art for Social Change
2. Channel Your Pain into Art
3. If You See It, Say It, Sing It, or Sculpt It…
4. Be Visible
5. Collaborate
Here’s the video I put together for the 2017 #watchpaintdry movement (an alternative to watching the inauguration).
They aren’t haiku, but here are the beginnings of my healing (along with the banana bread I baked and shared with our neighbors yesterday):
Here are a couple of other offerings to help you move forward:
The Joy Workout: six research-backed moves to improve your mood.
The one song that slows my breathing and centers me every time:
Cathy has today’s Poetry Friday roundup at Merely Day By Day. She shares a powerful poem that encourages us to pick ourselves up (as soon as we’re ready) and “get back to the work.”
Linda gave the Inklings a most generous and lovely prompt for this month: “Use this poem by Joy Harjo as a mentor text in any way that makes your heart happy.” Thank you, Linda. My heart is, indeed, happy!
Here’s what the other Inklings did with this month’s challenge:
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Patricia has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Reverie.
The Poetry Sisters’ challenge this month was to write “…a poem in which we literally build and/or take apart something – large or small. Our focus will be on constructing or deconstructing, taking into account technical terms, instructions, and perhaps even material sources.”
I’m not usually a fan of food that needs to be deconstructed on my plate (bone-in chicken, Maryland crabs, shrimp that still have their tails). But I’ll make an exception for fresh mussels. Yum.
Here’s what the others made of this month’s challenge:
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Carol has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Beyond LiteracyLink.
Surprises
Would you have known
to watch for
porpoises and dolphins
as your ferry crossed the Minch
between Skye and Harris?
There’s something to be said for surprises
and also for a guide
generously sharing both knowledge
and binoculars.
(c) Mary Lee Hahn, draft, 2024
Your Scotland might be cities and castles, but mine is the rugged wide open beauty of the Hebridean islands. I experienced Scotland through the soles of my boots, the pain in my knees, and the exhilaration of peaks and beaches; through wind and rain, fog and rainbows; through history, geology, and local wildlife. And, of course, through the food.
I’m back, but a bit of my heart was definitely left behind in the Outer Hebrides.
Matt has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.
Here’s my poetic contriBLUEtion to the conversation. (I have no idea why the two images won’t line up. We’ll just let a wonky poetry form have a wonky look on the page.)
Heidi has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at my juicy little universe and reminds us that small things can be enormous. Let’s carry that vibe forward.
A(nother) Year of Reading 