Poetry Friday is Here!

I'm thrilled to be hosting Poetry Friday on a day when my poetry sisters and I are sharing the results of a monthly challenge. This month we played a game called Exquisite Corpse. Here's a bit about it:

Exquisite Corpse is a game developed by surrealist writers in the 1920s. The game lets you randomly create combinations of words which your own intelligence often finds meaning in. (The name of the game is one of the first images the inventors created by playing it.)

You can read more about it at Exquisite Corpse: An Imagery Imagination Game.

We began with Liz, who sent one line of poetry to Tanita. Tanita wrote one line of poetry and sent ONLY her line to Kelly. It continued in this fashion, with each poet sending a single line to the next. We met on Zoom Sunday and read our lines aloud. Here's what we ended up with.

This month, odd one out, running short on days and sleep, (Liz)

This month, past meets pride, roots ripped from native soil still somehow grow. (Tanita)

The once-bright future dims. Shadows grow (Kelly)

But there, near canyon  rim, in  broken light (Sara)

the yearling hawk shrieked in futile fury (Andi)

and the steel-edged clouds looked away (Laura)

trees bow and bend on a blustery day (Tricia)

that rattles old oak leaves down the street. (Mary Lee)

Once we had these lines, it was up to each poet to take (or leave) the words and revise in their own way. Because I like rules, I gave myself a few. I had to use the words or portions of words that were written, and I could not add more than 5 new words. Here's what I came up with.

Post-Pandemic Life

This day …

  No one sleeps

  Hawk meets steel-edged clouds

  near canyon rim 

  In broken light

  shadows grow

This month …

  Running short on days 

  the once-bright future dims

  Odd, the past

  that rattles down the street

  in futile fury

This year …

  Old oak trees bow and bend

  unbreaking

     Don’t look away

  Roots ripped from native soil 

  still somehow grow

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2022. All rights reserved.

After we met, I spent some time working on a creative journal entry for the #100dayproject I'm working on. You can see a bit of my writing process in it.

You can read the pieces written by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. (Please note I'm posting Thursday evening for you early birds, so some of these links may not be live until Friday.)

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

Would you like to try the next challenge? Next month we are writing ekphrastic doditsu. You can learn about this poetic from Robert Lee Brewer at Writer's Digest. We are sharing images in our group, but you can write to anything you like. If you want to be inspired by my image, here's what I shared. 

That's my dad when he was stationed in Hawaii during WWII. He loved dogs and took quite a shine to a stray and somehow managed to keep him on base. They named him "Puddles, the transportation dog." Since the "dodoitsu often focuses on love or work with a comical twist," I thought this image would be fun to write about. Feel free to use it if you like.

We hope you'll join us in our next challenge. Are you in? Good! You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on March 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems! 

*****

I'm rounding things up old school today, so leave your link in the comments and I'll add you to the post. Happy Poetry Friday all!

Original Works (Poems, Videos, Photos, etc.)
If you didn't see the links above, you can check out the Exquisite Corpse poems written by my poetry sisters here:

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn shares a poem entitled This Month.
• Sara Lewis Holmes shares a poem entitled Odd One Out.
• Kelly Ramsdell shares a poem entitled This Month.
• Laura Purdie Salas shares a poem entitled One Egg.
• Liz Garton Scanlon shares a poem entitled Passing the Torch.
• Andi Sibley shares a poem entitled Maintaining.

Linda Mitchell of A Word Edgewise shares her poem related to the sense of smell.

Linda Kulp Trout shares an original video poem entitled True Love.

Karen Eastlund takes a stab at one of my favorite forms and shares two triolets.

Michelle Kogan shares all kinds of kinds of Exquisite Corpse goodness with a video AND poems!

Linda Baie of Teacher Dance shares poem written to the prompt of the Sphinx entitled Rarely Mutable.

Denise Krebs shares a golden shovel entitled My Heart Sings.

Janice Scully shares a lovely elegy to the recently departed Dr. Paul Farmer.

Elisabeth Norton of Unexpected Intersections shares several original poems on Chernobyl and Ukraine.

Bridget Magee of wee words for wee ones shares some cornea humor. Thank you for making me snarf my tea this morning.

Marcie Flinchum Atkins returns to Poetry Friday (welcome  back!) and shares a photo haiku.

Molly Hogan of Nix the comfort zone is sharing a number of poems inspired by bread.

Irene Latham is sharing an ArtSpeak poem entitled Hope Has Long Legs. (I love herons!)

Matt Forrest Esenwine of Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme shares a poem entitled Hummingbird.

Rose Capelli of Imagine the Possibilities shares a poem entitled Annabel Angelou Catherine Blake.

Margaret Simon of Reflections on the Teche shares a poem entitled Beautiful things start with just one.

Buffy Silverman shares a poem entitled February's Fake News.

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater has a new book coming out. Hurray! Check out the book trailer and her poem entitled Outfit.

Jone MacCulloch shares two exquisite corpse poems and a video of some New Year postcards.

Patricia Franz shares a poem entitled Old Catfish.

Renee LaTulippe's debut poem picture book comes out soon. Hurray! Check out her book trailer and art from the book.

Catherine Flynn of Reading to the Core shares a beautifully illustrated found poem.

Karin Fisher-Golton shares that celebrates 2-22-22. It's entitled Twosday.

Carol Varsalona of Beyond Literacy Link shares an exquisite corpse poem entitled Love.

Carol LaBuzzetta of The Apples in My Orchard shares a poem entitled Cardinal Story: A Poetic Version.

Ruth Bowen Hersey of There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town shares a poem entitled Esta Falda.

Poems of Others

Robyn Hood Black of Life on the Deckle Edge shares some Scottish Nursery Rhymes.

Jama Rattigan of Jama's Alphabet Soup muses on toast and toasters and shares the poem Ode to My Toaster by by Allan Chochinov.

Heidi Mordhorst of my juicy little universe shares the poem Midnight Air in Louisville by Afaa Michael Weaver.

Tabatha Yeatts of The Opposite of Indifference shares an excerpt from ‘Ulysses’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Karen Edmisten shares the poem Wild Gratitude by Edward Hirsch.