Poetry Sisters and Friends Write Etherees

This month's assignment was to write an etheree with the theme of foresight or summer or both! An etheree is a poem of ten lines in which each line contains one more syllable than the last. Beginning with one syllable and ending with ten, this unrhymed form is named for its creator, 20th century American poet Etheree Taylor Armstrong.

I haven't been able to get the events that have unfolded since Memorial Day out of my mind, so my poem is really about current events.

A Pair of Etherees for Our Summer of Protest

blind

we were

unaware

so unprepared

for 2020

we rang in the new year

with exaltation, high hopes

but life spiraled out of control

we masked up, marched for George and black lives

determined to meet tomorrow with hope

hope

for change

for justice

for peace, we stand

united by loss

by incredulity

and unfathomable love

John Lewis led, so we follow

in his mighty footsteps we step out

to make good and necessary trouble

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2020. All rights reserved.

You can read the pieces written by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. As usual, life has gotten in the way for some folks, but they'll be back for other challenges. 

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

If you’d like to write with us next month, the theme is hindsight and the challenge is to pick one of your old poems to revise and/or write a new poem in conversation with it. You may use any form you like. We will be posting on the last Friday of the month (August 28) and would love to have you join us.

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core. Happy poetry Friday friends!