Poetry Friday - Holiday Poetry Swap and a Poem

For years, Tabatha Yeatts, who blogs at The Opposite of Indifference, has coordinated both a summer and winter (holiday) poetry swap. I appreciate what a labor of love this is and am always happy to participate. This year my swap partner was Linda Mitchell of A Word Edgewise, who just happens to be hosting Poetry Friday at her blog today! Linda lives only about 90 minutes from me, but we haven't crossed paths here in Virginia. Here's hoping we do one day.

Linda sent me the most wonderful swap package. It contained a beautiful bag (a teacher can NEVER have too many totes), a gorgeous handmade card that was collaged and stitched, a cool pencil holder that was folded and handmade (I love papercraft), and, of course, an original poem.

I was thrilled to see that Linda wrote a poem in the 4×4 form. Denise Krebs at Dare to Care invented this form. Here are the rules.

• 4 syllables in each line
• 4 lines in each stanza
• 4 stanzas
• 4 times repeating a refrain line–line 1 in the first stanza, line 2 in the second stanza, line 3 in the third stanza, and line 4 in the fourth stanza.
• Bonus: 4 syllables in the title
• No restrictions on subject, rhyme, or meter.

Here is the poem Linda sent me.

And here's a closeup of the beautiful card she made.

Thanks, Linda! And thanks to Tabatha for arranging the swap.

Today, I'm sharing a favorite poem by Ted Kooser, which feels like a lovely companion for this poetry swap goodness.

Christmas Mail

by Ted Kooser

Cards in each mailbox,

angel, manger, star and lamb,

as the rural carrier,

driving the snowy roads,

hears from her bundles

Read the poem in its entirety.

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the poetic things Linda is sharing today at A Word Edgewise. Happy Poetry Friday, friends! 

Poetry Sisters Write to Jane Hirshfield's Two Versions

I missed our Zoom this week, so I went into this challenge blind. Mary Lee set this back in January when she was enamored of a new-ish poem by Jane Hirshfield. If you have access to The Threepenny Review, you can find it in the Summer 2023 edition.

I used Hirshfield's poem as a mentor text and followed her structure very closely. I tried writing about several different topics, but I've been a bit melancholy lately, so when every poem came back to the same subject, I ran with it. 

Two Versions 
(after Jane Hirshfield's Two Versions)

In the first version, I held my mother’s hand.

Hospital staff traveled in and out of her room.

One no-nonsense nurse nodded after checking her respiration.
Another patted my shoulder with empathy after wetting her lips.

What was my hand doing, I now wonder
gripping hers so tightly
as it once did in childhood while crossing the street?

Was it disbelieving? fearful?

And why, when I conjure a lifetime of whispered moments,
over Scrabble boards, in the kitchen, on the phone,
do I think, after all our glorious days together, of this?

In the second version, there is only guilt,
of which I know everything.

Except to have been there in her final days.

So much time, so many tears. In darkness
and in light, I am still begging pardon.

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2024. All rights reserved.

You can find the poems shared by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes 
• Kelly Ramsdell
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? In December we are writing Haibun (prose + haiku) or Haiga (art + haiku). Are you with us? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on December 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

This week, my poetry sister Tanita Davis is hosting Poetry Friday. I hope you'll take some time to check out all the poetic things being shared today. Happy Poetry Friday, friends! 

Poetry Sisters and Seven Ways of Looking

This month's challenge was to write in the style of Wallace Stevens' poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. Since 13 stanzas is a lot, we gave ourselves some grace and decided to go for only seven ways of looking at something. 

A small group of us met on Zoom Sunday to write and discuss the prompt. I left that session thoroughly confused about what my topic should be. I tried writing poems on the Statue of Liberty, sunflowers, the color blue, and clouds. None of those got me more than a few stanzas, and they weren't pretty. I wondered if following the mentor poem more closely might set me on the right track. I chose the bird I regularly see on my walk to work as my subject and ultimately found my way through the poem. I will return to this one because I may just have six more stanzas in me to get this poem to the magic number of thirteen.

Seven Ways of Looking at a Heron

I
The lake hosts a gaggle of geese
a paddling of ducks
and one unmoving heron

II
I relish the empty house
Like the pond
claimed by a solitary heron

III
In the gray light of dawn, heron waits
a fixture in the daily ebb and flow

IV
Heron knows
all things are difficult before they are easy

V
A wader and the water
are one
A wader, the water, and a fish
become one

VI
Heron glides across the water
breakfast in her belly
bloodstain on her neck

VII
I prefer the quiet of the heron
Ducks quack, geese honk 
breaking the morning stillness
I understand the heron

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2024. All rights reserved.

You can find the poems shared by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes 
• Kelly Ramsdell
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? In October, we are writing to a prompt from the book The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell.

Are you with us? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on October 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

This week, Irene Latham of Live Your Poem is hosting Poetry Friday. I hope you'll take some time to check out all the poetic things being shared today. Happy Poetry Friday, friends! 

Poetry Sisters Write Ekphrastic Poems

At least once yearly, we challenge ourselves to write poems to photographs or works of art. I love writing to the shared images and rarely choose my own, but this time, I did.

In early August, I spent time at the National D-Day Memorial and was struck by the replica of the sculpture “Le Monument aux Morts.” The original stands in Trevieres, France. Erected in 1921, it was intended as a memorial to men from the town who died in WWI. In 1944, it was damaged during the battle for Normandy. The town decided not to repair it as a reminder of the damages of war and the fragility of peace.

I chose 6 words from the plaque describing the statue. Those words are: second, history, memory, soil, face, and war. I wrote the first stanza using them in the order I found them and then rearranged them to write this sestina.

Echoes of War

Standing at her feet, I think for a second
of the tragedies of modern history
hiding in our collective memory
we know horrors are buried in the soil
it’s a past we cannot face
yet we’re still a world at war

We are burdened by weapons of war
firearms the leading cause of death in youth, seconds
change lives, scars etched upon their faces
mass shootings not just history
but present on our soil
Columbine, Sandy Hook, Uvalde—names burned in our memory

Their epitaph reads “in memoriam”
we lose in peace and war
on home and foreign soil
our first sons and daughters, our second,
and third, changing family histories
sorrow written on every mourner’s face

On its face
loss becomes a memory
a blip in our history
not a game this tug of war
we have no time to lose, not one second
we must nurture our fertile soil

From this earth, this very soil,
we rise to comfort every weary face
time’s healing touch felt with each passing second
old wounds begin to fade from memory
planting hope in bodies ravaged by war
softening the edges of this cancerous history

Pages turned in the book of human history,
hold lessons learned, deeply buried in the soil
when Earth shook under the weight of war
its narrative shaping humanity’s face
we hold the lost in our memory
honor them each passing second

We make history as we face the future
fragile peace holding on our soil, the memory
of war fading for the briefest of seconds

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2024. All rights reserved.

You can find the poems shared by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes 
• Kelly Ramsdell
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? In September, we’re using Wallace Stevens Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird as a model for looking at something in different ways. We might settle on 7 or 4 or 12 ways. Looking deeply and differently are the keys here. Are you with us? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on September 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

This week, Susan Thomsen of Chicken Spaghetti is hosting Poetry Friday. I hope you'll take some time to check out all the poetic things being shared today. Happy Poetry Friday, friends! 

Poetry Sisters Write Want-Ad Haiku

The challenge this month was to write haiku in the form of classified ads. It's been a doozy of a month for me for too many reasons to recount. Suffice it to say I missed our monthly Zoom and I dashed these off early this morning before a walk with the dog. We did promise ourselves that these prompts weren't about perfection, but drafts and sharing. In that spirit, I share these little insights into my state of mind these days. I know haiku don't traditionally have titles, but I really needed those extra syllables!

Wanted
one perfect poem
ordered up like a taco
drive-thru preferred

Wanted
one more day with mom
skilled time traveler needed
no fee too great

Wanted
one doppelgänger
for household chores, work meetings
signed, desperate for sleep

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2024. All rights reserved.

You can find the poems shared by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes 
• Kelly Ramsdell
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? In August, we’re writing ekphrastic poems to photographs. Find an image that inspires you and write away. Are you with us? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on August 30th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

This week, Marcie Flinchum Atkins is hosting Poetry Friday. I hope you'll take some time to check out all the poetic things being shared today. Happy Poetry Friday, friends! 

Poetry Friday is Here!

Welcome to Poetry Friday! I'm so happy to be hosting you here today, especially on this last Friday of the month when my poetry sisters and I share the poems we've written to a new challenge. This month we wrote poems about wabi-sabi, with wabi-sabi as the title. In Andrew Juniper's book Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence, wabi-sabi is defined this way. 

Wabi-sabi is an aesthetic that finds beauty in things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi-sabi refers to an awareness of the transient nature of earthly things and a corresponding pleasure in the things that bear the mark of this impermanence.

In his book Wabi-Sabi Simple, Richard Powell described wabi-sabi as a philosophy that acknowledges a lifestyle that appreciates and accepts three simple truths: "Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect." 

We had a wonderful Zoom call on Sunday, during which we had a wide-ranging conversation about wabi-sabi. I really wanted to write in a form, so I decided to experiment with the tritina. The tritina is composed of 3 tercets and a final line (envoi) that stands alone. Similar to a sestina, though shorter, it uses a set of 3 alternating end words instead of six. The form is: ABC / CAB / BCA / A, B, and C (final line/envoi). As I was writing, it felt like I didn't have enough room to play, so I tried a sestina. That was disastrous, so the tritina is what I stuck with.

Wabi-Sabi
art and architecture value
the golden ratio, the perfection
of divine proportion, its pleasing beauty

but what is beauty?
what do our choices say about what we value?
does the circular bell tower lack perfection

because it leans? is perfection
solid, straight, and tall? beauty
lives in a cracked bell—liberty has value

why value perfection when there is beauty in what is broken?

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2024. All rights reserved.

You can find the poems shared by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? In July we’re writing haiku that resemble classified ads or Buy Nothing group posts. Are you in? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on July 26th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

Please join the Poetry Friday party by leaving your link below, and don't forget to leave a comment to let us know you're here. Happy poetry Friday, friends!  

**NOTE** 
Denise Krebs was kind enough to point out that Inlinkz doesn't work for everyone. If you click on a link and Inlinkz won't connect, go to the upper right-hand corner of the "refused to connect" page and click on the X. That should take you to the site. If that doesn't work, leave me a comment and I'll link those pages here.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Poetry Sisters in Homage to Body Parts and Lucille Clifton

This month's challenge was to write in the style of Lucille Clifton while paying homage to a body part, as she does in the poem homage to my hips. Our Zoom call was a week early this month, allowing for time off for Memorial Day weekend. We all bumped up against body image and body weariness (a much better word than age) issues. Considering our bodies in this way was deeply humbling.

After many stops and starts on poems about various body parts (feet, calves, ears), I have two drafts to share. I haven't mastered Clifton's tone, but it was fun to try.

homage to my brain

this brain is a big brain
not genius big, but
packed with Jeopardy categories'
useless facts big.
this brain is a science brain
a nerdy brain
that muses on temperature and pressure
and the solubility of carbon dioxide in water
when soda goes flat.
this brain is a pessimistic brain
sometimes apocalyptic brain
filled with existential what-ifs
prompted by social media
and doom scrolling.
this brain is a noisy brain
a disobedient brain
refusing to quiet
standing in the way of
a good night’s sleep.

homage to my feet

these feet are powerful feet
they have marched
in formation and run
hilly miles. these feet
are expressive feet
oozing with joy in
going barefoot in the grass
dipping into tepid pools
soaking in a warm, salty tub.
these feet are pilgrim’s feet
climbing mountains in Tibet
or walking the serpentine
path of a labyrinth
every step a meditation
and prayer. these feet are
political feet, walking miles
in communion, standing
up for people and
the planet.

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2024. All rights reserved.

You can find the poems shared by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes (on vacation this month!)
• Kelly Ramsdell
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? In June, we’re writing poems about wabi-sabi, with Wabi-sabi as the title. In Andrew Juniper's book Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence, wabi sabi is defined this way. 

Wabi-sabi is an aesthetic that finds beauty in things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi-sabi refers to an awareness of the transient nature of earthly things and a corresponding pleasure in the things that bear the mark of this impermanence.

In his book Wabi-Sabi Simple, Richard Powell described wabi-sabi as a philosophy that acknowledges a lifestyle that appreciates and accepts three simple truths: "Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect." Will you write with us? Good! You have a month to craft your creation and share it on May 31st in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

This week, Janice Scully at Salt City Verse is hosting Poetry Friday. I hope you'll take some time to check out all the poetic things being shared today. Happy Poetry Friday, friends!