Poetry Friday is Here!

Happy New Year, poetry people! I'm delighted to be hosting you this week.

I have been working on my cards for the New Year poetry postcard swap hosted by Jone Rush MacCulloch and pulled out my old Smith Corona. There's something magical about a typewriter.

Goofy, I know, but I love them. Sadly, my typewriter ran out of ink as I was typing my 8th postcard. My last three cards are on hold until a new ribbon is delivered.

In honor of the typewriter, I'm sharing a poem by Australian poet David Malouf.

Typewriter Music

Hinged grasshopper legs kick
back. So
quick off the mark, so
spritely. They set
the mood, the mode, the call
to light-fingered highjinks.

A meadow dance
on the keyboard,
in breathless, out-of-bounds
take-offs into
flight and giddy joyflight without
stint. The fingerpads

have it. Brailling through
études of alphabets, their chirp and clatter
grass-choppers
the morning to soundbites,
each rifleshot hammerstroke another notch
in the silence.
     © 2006, David Malouf

The Poetry Sisters met on Sunday to map out our writing prompts for the year. We have a plan and a prompt for January. Would you like to try this month's challenge? We will be writing a tanku, a poem that begins with a tanka, followed by a haiku written in response. A tanku can be any length, but each verse should be written in response to the one before. You can find an example at Rattle: Poetry. Are you with us? Good! Please share your poem on January 31st 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.

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Ruth from There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town is sharing an original poem entitled Bedtime.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Poetry Sisters Write Haibun and/or Haiga

For the last month of the year, the challenge was to write a haibun or haiga. 

The haibun is is a poetic form first created by Matsuo Basho. It is a form that combines two modes of writing—prose and verse. Here are some of the "rules" of writing haibun, as suggested by the Haiku Society of America.

Prose in Haibun

• Tells the story
• Gives information, defines the theme
• Creates a mood through tone
• Provides a background to spotlight the haiku

Haiku in Haibun

• Moves the story forward
• Takes the narrative in another direction
• Adds insight or another dimension to the prose
• Resolves the conflict in an unpredictable way, or questions the resolution of the prose.
• Prose is the narrative and haiku is the revelation or the reaction.

In a haibun, the prose can come first, last, or between any number of haiku.
Haibun also have a title, something haiku generally do not.

You can read some examples and see different haibun forms at More than the Birds, Bees, and Trees: A Closer Look at Writing Haibun.

Haiga are poems that blend an image and haiku. Here is an introduction written by Ray Rasmussen.

Haiga is a mix of image and either haiku or tanka poetry. Its origins are in Japan where poet-artists used a mix of brushstroke painting and calligraphy to compose their images and poetry.

The poetic spark of haiga has to do with four elements:

• the quality of the image and its type
• the quality of the haiku (or tanka or short poem)
• the quality, type and placement of the text
• the quality of the framing of the image

Of course, the relationship of the haiku to the image is incredibly important. Do they enhance each other, making the haiga greater than the sum of its two parts?

This is a lot of background for a tiny poem. I have been playing around with block printing this month, so I created my own image and then wrote an introduction and a haiku, so this poem is a bit of haibun and haiga, though I'm not sure I followed the rules for either with any kind of fidelity.

Longing for Winter 
In my youth, winter days were filled with endless hours outside, sledding, skating, shoveling, and building snow forts and an endless parade of snowmen. Whole families populated the yard, festooned with coal, carrot stick noses, and the scarves and hats we could sneak out of the house. Cold and lake effect snow ensured families lasted through the season, disappearing only with the blossoming spring. 

climate change no myth
blizzards lamentably rare
snowmen live in dreams

Poem and Image ©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

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

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!