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Chant of the June Garden
Boneset
hummingbird
Bowman’s Root
bee
zinnia sprout
hollyhocks
Cardinal Flower
weeds
coral bells
baby dill
fennel fronds
tree
clematis
foxglove
primrose
me
(c) Mary Lee Hahn, 2025
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Ruth has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.
Thanks to all for filling the July-December calendar of roundup hosts in record time!
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.
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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.
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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.
It’s that time again. Six-ish months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.
What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.
Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape, or form (Mr. Linky, “old school” in the comments, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in, but perhaps choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.
How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you’re not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch…and learn! One thing we’re finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.
How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? You can grab the list from the sidebar here at A(nother) Year of Reading, or I’d be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address.
Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It’s like hosting a poetry party on your blog!
Put your request in the comments (blog URL is appreciated) and I’ll update the calendar frequently. Feel free to share this post on all the various socials. And if WordPress is not playing nice, feel free to email me: marylee.hahn at gmail dot com.
And now for the where and when:
July
4 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading THEME: Poems of Protest
11 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
18 Jan at Bookseedstudio
25 Marci at Marci Flinchum Atkins
August
1 Jane at Raincity Librarian
8 Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone
15 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
22 Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink
29 Karen at Karen Edmisten*
September
5 Heidi at my juicy little universe
12 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities
19 Jama at Jama’s Alphabet Soup
26 Amy at The Poem Farm
October
3 Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
10 Linda at TeacherDance
17 Sarah at Sarah Grace Tuttle
24 Patricia at Reverie
31 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
November
7 Laura at Laura Purdie Salas
14 Carol at The Apples in My Orchard
21 Janice at Salt City Verse
28 Buffy at Buffy Silverman: Children’s Author
December
5 Irene at Live Your Poem
12 Linda at A Word Edgewise
19 Michelle at MoreArt4All
26 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
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You think you’re just going for a bike ride, and then The Universe gives you a Big Message for the day.
Michelle has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at More Art 4 All, and one of my favorites — a Red-winged Blackbird!
(image via Unsplash)
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In between writing this poem and today, the iris HAVE bloomed and I have spent time each day with my face buried in their generous blooms, breathing in their delicious once-a-year scent: fuel.
With what fuel are you stoking your heart these days? I’m guessing poetry might be one way.
Sarah Grace Tuttle has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup. Not only is she sharing a digital chapbook of her Poetry Month protest poetry, she has some questions for you, too.
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:
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
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
April 11 Identity
April 12 Promote
April 13 Female
April 14 Belong
April 15 Minority
April 16 Activism
Jone has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Jone Rush MacCulloch.
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.
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.
A(nother) Year of Reading 