Friday, February 24, 2023

Poetry Sisters Write Ekphrastic Poems

One thing we can count on as we make our annual poetry plans is that ekphrastic poems will be in the mix. We usually share photos with one another and often will write to a photo that is not our own. Since our theme for the year is transformation, I posted photos related to an exhibit at the Montclair Art Museum entitled Transformed: Objects Reimagined by American Artists. I've seen this exhibit twice now and am endlessly fascinated by it. Here is the plaque that describes it.


I love that it was inspired by this note Jasper Johns wrote in his sketchbook in 1964.
Take an object
Do something to it 
Do something else to it

The inspiration for my poem is a piece from this exhibit entitled Conversation, created by Marie Watt, a contemporary artist enrolled in the Seneca Nation of Indians. This work is made from reclaimed wool blankets, satin binding, and thread.

There is so much I love about this piece, but the mathematics of the shape has captured my attention. Here's my poem.

Möbius Magic
  impossible shape
  two sides, two edges -- transformed
  this infinite curl
  one surface, no boundaries
  where math and art collide

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2023. All rights reserved.

You can read the pieces written by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

    Would you like to try the next challenge? Next month the form we are tackling is the etheree. This is a ten-line form that begins with a one-syllable word and grows by one syllable each line until you arrive at line ten (which has ten syllables). You can learn more about this form at Poetry Magnum Opus. We are still working on the theme of transformation. We hope you'll join us. 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 31st in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

    I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference. Happy poetry Friday, friends!

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    Friday, January 27, 2023

    Poetry Sisters Write Cascade Poems

    Happy 2023. I'm thrilled to kick off another year of writing with my poetry sisters. We met at the beginning of January to plan our challenges and talked about forms, themes, and prompts for the year. The theme guiding our writing for the year is transformation. 

    The challenge this month was to write a cascade poem. You can learn more about this form in Robert Lee Brewer's column at Writer's Digest. This is a repetitive form where each line from the first stanza becomes the final line of each stanza that follows. Therefore, if the first stanza has 3 lines, the poem will have 4 stanzas. For this poem, I went with exploding stars.

    Galactic Chemical Evolution*

    Stars go supernova
    expelling elements into space
    we are made of stardust

    time passes - in billions of years 
    cascading elemental changes
    stars go supernova

    seeding future generations
    stars burn and die
    expelling elements into space

    carbon, nitrogen, oxygen
    formed, reformed, remade
    WE are made of stardust

    Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2023. All rights reserved.

    *Galactic chemical evolution is a real field of study. Here's a brief introduction.
    Stars and interstellar gas in galaxies exhibit diverse chemical element abundance patterns that are shaped by their environment and formation histories. The aim of Galactic Chemical Evolution (GCE) is to use the observed abundances to unlock earlier epochs in the Universe, probe the mechanisms of galaxy formation, and gain insight into the evolution of stellar systems. 

    The quote above came from Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia in a paper entitled Galactic Chemical Evolution. If you want to learn more about this topic, The Journal of Physics: Conference Series has a paper entitled Introduction to Galactic Chemical Evolution. 

    You can read the pieces written by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 

      Would you like to try the next challenge? In February, we are writing ekphrastic poems. You get to choose the topic, form, meter, length, etc., but your poem must be based on an image. We hope you'll join us. Are you in? Good! You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on February 24th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!  

      I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Jan Annino at Bookseed Studio. Happy poetry Friday, friends!

      Posted by at 14 comments:
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