Poetry Friday is Here!

Hello poetry friends! I am happy to host the round-up on this last Friday of the month and on a day when my poetry sisters and I have written to another challenge. This month, we wrote "In The Style Of..." the triptych "August" by Louise Ireland, but with the general theme of diving into summer. 

Here's my poem.

On the Edge of Summer, a Triptych

I.

The lilacs
have already finished,

but the maples
keep uncurling
into green,

as if they know

summer
arrives
slowly.

II.

The porch holds
an empty chair.

The hammock remembers
the shape of a body
not yet there.

III.

Bees trust
what tomato
blossoms promise.

I am learning
to wait.

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2026. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below.

• Tanita Davis
  
  
• Mary Lee Hahn
  
  
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? We're writing in the form of the pantoum. Pádraig Ó Tuama-offers pantoum challenges on his Substack. We will be writing to his January prompt. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on July 31st in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems! 

I'm rounding up old-school style this month. Please join the party by leaving your link in the comments. Happy poetry Friday, friends!

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• Michelle Kogan played along with our triptych prompt and is sharing a poem entitled Thoughts on the World and Beyond. She also shares a lovely watercolor print she created.
  
  
• Karen Edmisten is sharing the poem "A Dangerous Adventure" by James Tate. She's also sharing a serendipitous find that is pure Poetry Friday magic.
  
  
• Patricia Franz is sharing a review of the book In the World of Whales (Neal Porter Books, 2025) by Michelle Cusolito and illustrated by Jessica Lanan. It looks amazing!
  
  
• Alan Wright shares a poem from the other side of the world, writing about winter weather down under in a piece entitled Umbrellas Are Pluviophiles. I learned a new word today and yes, I am one!
  
  
• Linda Mitchell of Another Word Edgewise shares a haibun and tanka written in response to a piece of art in her poem Girl at Night by Howard Hodgkin. Hodgkin is new to me, and now I need to know more.
  
  
• Marcie Flinchum Atkins is back after some time away and is sharing news about her spring book events, as well as tales of musicals, a trip, and a lovely little haiku.
  
  
• Catherine Flynn of Reading to the Core is catching up and is sharing her response to the Inklings June prompt to "use a recent comment on one of your posts as a line in a poem." Her poem is entitled Hope Will Win.
  
  
• Irene Latham of Live Your Poem is contemplating waiting. She shares her writing (thinking?) process and a poem entitled Everything I Need to Know About Waiting I Learned in the Garden.
  
  
• Linda Baie of Teacher Dance was treated to some much-needed rain and has written a poem about it entitled Gifting.
  
  
• Mandy Robek is reconnecting to the poem "Now" by Reggie Routman and reflecting on how she hopes to hang on to the message beyond summer. 
  
  
• Margaret Simon of Reflections on the Teche shares a bit about her travels to the Pacific Northwest and the poetry written and found there. 
  
  
• Susan Thomsen of Chicken Spaghetti shares a coffee poem she wrote titled "Sweetie."
  
  
• Jone MacCulloch is sharing a review of the new poetry book Farmku: Haiku Poems from the Heart of the Land.
  
  
• Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town is sharing the joys and sorrows of Haiti with some lovely Haitian poems.
  
  
• Jan Godown Annino of Bookseedstudio teaches us a bit about the Florida Giant Red Hermit Crab and crab behavior while sharing her original poem "Hermits." 
  
  
• Mona Voelkel offers up a writing prompt and a poem about the solstice.
  
  
• Diane Davis played along with our triptych prompt and shares her frustrations over US politics in her poem "45/47."
  
  
• Tabatha Yeatts of The Opposite of Indifference shares the poem that was the Rattle Poetry 2025 Prize Winner. That poem is "An Ordinary Childhood" by Morri Creech. We also get a bonus poem that Tabatha found after hearing about it in a Morri Creech interview. Good stuff.
  
  
• Carol Varsolona of Beyond LiteracyLink played along with our triptych prompt and wrote a poem full of memories entitled Summer Love Connections.

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Poetry Potluck With My Poetry Sisters

This month, we are serving up a poetry potluck, an idea shared by Tanita, since we didn't have a plan for May. Sara then chimed in and suggested we each pick a potluck dish or food item to write about. Once this was decided, there was only one thing I wanted to write about, because it is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word potluck.

My mom loved a good potluck. The dish she made nearly every week for years was due to her participation in what she called the "funeral brigade" at our church. I don't recall the official name of the group, but she and other women in the parish cooked an enormous amount of food, set tables, and received families in mourning after a funeral. Mom's funeral potatoes are my contribution to this month's challenge. I'm also including an old photo of us in the kitchen, clearly singing to my brother on his birthday. This was the room where all the good stuff happened.

Funeral Potatoes

Every Tuesday morning
my mother assembled comfort
in the form of a casserole—

frozen hash browns,
sour cream,
a can of soup,

cheddar cheese,
corn flake topping.

The recipe never changed.

She carried the dish
into the church kitchen
where women spoke in lowered voices
and folded sorrow into paper napkins.

Someone's husband.
Someone's sister.
Someone's child.

The potatoes baked
while sympathy rose and settled
like steam on the windows.

I did not understand then
how much grief weighs.

Not the coffin,
not the flowers,
not the clothes of black.

A casserole dish
warm against your palms.

A recipe memorized
because mourning is always arriving
at someone else's door.

My mother lifted that weight
week after week.

She fed people
who could not swallow their sadness,
who stood in the fellowship hall
holding paper plates
and the impossible fact
of an empty chair.

Now when I smell butter
browning at the edges,
I think of all the grief
she carried home unnoticed—

the names she never spoke,
the tears she never claimed as hers,

and how love sometimes looks like
shredded potatoes and cheese,

heavy enough
to feed a crowd,
light enough
to offer with both hands.

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2026. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? We're writing "In The Style Of..." the triptych "August" by Louise Ireland but with the general theme of diving into summer. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on June 26th 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 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading. Happy Poetry Friday all!  

Poetry Sisters Write Ekphrastic Poems

This month's challenge was to write a poem to a photograph. Simple enough, right? Usually, we share images and select from a common offering, but not this time. This means selecting an image was more difficult than writing a poem. I went through the camera roll on my phone and chose a photo I took of a painting by Jacob Lawrence. It is from the War Series and is titled War Series: Casualty - The Secretary of War Regrets. 

I had a hard time selecting an image for this challenge. The world around us is falling apart, and it's hard to make sense of it all. The war in Iran has me deeply concerned. I'm grateful to our troops serving there, but am heartbroken for the families who have lost loved ones. When I saw this image, I knew it would be my choice.

You know that I love the triolet. There's something about the repeated lines that makes such an impact. I chose this form and used the artwork's title as part of a repeating line in my poem. I love the poem, but it's dark and depressing, so I decided to have another go and wrote a sonnet. That's the poem I'm sharing today.

Casualties of War

Behind the patterned wall of vines and dark,
a figure folds, uncentered, almost gone;
the room burns red, a quiet, inward mark,
while something held has shifted, come undone.

A table keeps its small, unguarded frame,
a portrait set where hands once paused in care;
no voice intrudes to speak the absent name,
only the weight of what is missing there.

Outside, the world arranges lines and claims,
maps drawn in distance, certain in their tone;
yet here, no borders hold, no order tames
the bend of grief that will not stand alone.

So softly written, what is sent, what stays—
a nation speaks, and turns its eyes away.

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2026. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below. 

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

For National Poetry Month this year, I am writing poems generated in some playful manner. I am using metaphor dice, haikubes, Paint Chip Poetry, Mad Libs, words cut from newspapers and magazines, magnetic poetry, an online poem generator, roll-a-poem, and more.

Today's poem can be found at NPM 2026 - Day 24.

You can read the other poems I've written this month at the links below.

April 1 - Paint Chip Poetry - A Villanelle for Adam and Eve

April 2 - MadLib a Poem - Stamp Collectors Dream

April 3 - Roll-a-Poem - The Brewing Storm

April 4 - Metaphor Dice - Time is an Impossible Promise

April 5 - Haikubes - A dream about my childhood

April 6 - The Poetry Kit - On Being an Octopus

April 7 - Poetry Machine - After Dad Died

April 8 - Magnetic Poetry Kit - Untitled

April 9 - Poem Dice - The Fairy Dance

April 10 - Blackout Poem Generator - Untitled

April 11 - Paint Chip Poetry - In a Parallel Universe

April 12 - MadLib a Poem - Mad Lib Slam Poem

April 13 - Roll-a-Poem - Swamp Dirge

April 14 - Metaphor Poem - My Heart is a Glorified Drum
April 15 - Haikubes - A dream about our world

April 16 - The Poetry Kit - Action Poems

April 17 - Poetry Machine - Five W Poem

April 18 - Magnetic Poetry Kit - Untitled

April 19 - Poem Dice - Villanelle For An Archaeologist

April 20 - Blackout Poem Generator - Untitled

April 21 - Paint Chip Poetry - Untitled Rhyming Couplets

April 22 - MadLib a Poem - Runners Song
April 23 - Roll-a-Poem - My Imagination

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem. Happy poetry Friday! 

Poetry Sisters Unravel the Ovillejo

 Tanita set this month's challenge to write an ovillejo. Here's a bit of information about this form:

"…the “ovillejo,” an old Spanish verse form that means “tight little bundle.” “-ejo” is one of our blessed diminutives, and “ovillo” means “tangled ball of yarn.” The last line is a “redondilla,” a “little round” that collects all three of the short lines. The rhyme scheme is established, but the meter is at the poet’s discretion, although in Spanish the longer lines tend to be octosyllabic (8 syllables)."

Some sites suggest lines 1, 3, and 5 should ask a question and that lines 2, 4, and 6 answer them. Other sites suggest a pattern of a long line followed by a short line. The best description I found was at the site Astra Poetica.

I tried several of these variations, always beginning with the last line and working backwards. I'm not particularly happy with these and recognize that I need to play a bit more with them, but I do have two drafts to share. 

This first poem uses a favorite line from the poem I wrote last month. The second uses a portion of a Mary Oliver quotation.

A Whale Breaches

Far from the beaches

a whale breaches 

beauty in motion

and the ocean 

fond of sleeping late

forgets its weight

a cargo ship hauls its freight

crew on the bridge navigate by degrees

unseen by creatures beneath the seas

a whale breaches and the ocean forgets its weight

Ovillejo for a Poem

We write our truth and listen to the birds

poems are not words

they're lyrics for the choir

but fires

burn and crackle, too hot to hold 

for the cold

melts in flames of red, and blue, and gold

we speak the truth so every soul is heard

we light the dark so hidden selves are stirred—

poems are not words, but fires for the cold

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2026. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? Next month, we're writing ekphrastic poems. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on April 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 Marcie Flinchum Atkins. Happy poetry Friday! 

Poetry Sisters Write to an Arthur Sze Poem

This month's challenge was to write a poem inspired by or in conversation with one by our current U.S. Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze. I have to admit I'd never read any of his poetry, so in preparation for our Zoom meeting on Sunday, I spent quite a bit of time reading his work. Once I got deep into his work, I was then faced with the hard decision of choosing just one.

I finally selected the poem "Here." This is how it begins.

Here
by Arthur Sze

Here a snail on a wet leaf shivers and dreams of spring.
Here a green iris in December.
Here the topaz light of the sky.
Here one stops hearing a twig break and listens for deer.

Click here to read the poem in its entirety.

Instead of writing in response to the poem, I chose to use it as a mentor text. I put the lines of the poem on one side of a table, and then wrote lines in a similar style on the other side. I thought about starting my lines with the word "there," but instead went with "when."

Here's my poem, heavily inspired by Here.

When
When a snail grips the cold lip of a leaf and remembers warmth.
When a purple crocus insists on opening in January.
When the sky tilts and spills a thin copper light.
When you stop identifying sounds and listen for what moves between them.
When the craft of the ventriloquist lets silence speak.
When a pocket fills with stolen paper clips.
When the half-truth of an alibi almost believes itself.
When you step into an abandoned church and hear the whispers of a hymn.
When a dream of teeth and fur stills a body.
When a whale breaks the surface and the ocean forgets its weight.
When a motor dies and one oar and persistence are enough.
When tears flow on stage instead of lines.
When prayer becomes a posture rather than a plea.
When a palm holds feathers, shells, pebbles, seeds.
When fear sharpens everything it touches.
When you long for omniscience but find clarity and stillness.
When you live fully in the world.

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2026. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? We're tackling the poetic form of the ovillejo. You can learn more about this form at Writer's Digest. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on March 27th 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 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche. Happy poetry Friday! 

Poetry Sisters Write TriCubes

Phillip Larrea is an American poet and syndicated columnist. He invented a poetic form he calls TriCubes. Tricubes are poems composed of three stanzas, each containing three lines of three syllables. This was the form my poetry sisters and I took on as this month's challenge.

This year, we have no theme to hang our poems on, so we are free to write on any topic. I began by drafting poems related to the lunar new year. Then I turned to the snow, my dog, and baking. The biggest hurdle in writing these poems was making them sound and feel poetic. Three-syllable lines are a challenge. I liked what some of the drafts were trying to do, but they felt choppy and unfinished. I finally turned to writing a series of three-syllable lines on related topics and tried to rearrange them into coherent poems. That approach didn't really work. In the end, I found the first poems I wrote to be the best of the bunch.

Tricube for the Year of the Horse

New year dawns
doors open
luck enters

kin gather
to honor
ancestors

lanterns rise
wishes fly
like horses

Tricube for the Lunar New Year

two moons past

the winter

solstice eve

the new year 

welcomes spring

and the horse

hooves thunder

hearts gallop

luck runs wild

Block Printing Tricube

printmaker

sees art in

black and white 

lines and curves

gouged and cut

inked and rolled

paper smoothed

breathe and lift

image blooms

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2026. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? We're writing poems in response to a poem (any poem, you choose!) written by the current U.S. Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on February 27th 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 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm. Happy poetry Friday! 

Poetry Friday is Here!

No matter which holiday you are celebrating this season, I wish you peace and light.

I am happy to host this last Poetry Friday of the year on a day when my poetry sisters and I have written to another challenge. This month, we were not locked into form, but theme, writing on the theme of peace, light, or hope.

I've been thinking of my mom lately, and all moms who deal with the chaos of the season. I wanted to write about finding peace in the midst of that chaos. I settled on the form of a sonnet. I had trouble choosing my favorite couplet to end it, so I'm sharing both.

Untitled Sonnet

When Christmas comes with drums and clanging cheer
the house becomes a stage for wild delight
the bells, the lists, the shouts of “Mom, come here!”
begin at dawn and echo through the night

The children shout, the playlist never ends
the oven groans beneath a sugared load
each hour invents three tasks it swiftly sends
to me alone, patrol of hearth and road

I crave sweet peace—a chair, a steaming cup
a door that stays untouched for sixty beats
I’d trade one present just to drink it up
in silence all alone and off my feet 

Yet when night falls and all the clamor ends
I laugh—this noise is love, my loudest friend

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

Here is the second couplet I wrote to end the sonnet. Which do you like better? 

Yet when night falls and all the sounds depart
I miss the noise that fills my tired heart

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below.

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

We will be writing to 12 new challenges next year. We meet in early January to make our poetry plan. As soon as we have a January challenge, we'll share it with you so you can join in the fun.

I will be hitting the road before the sun comes up tomorrow to drive to western NY to visit family. That means I won't be around to visit your blogs and read your poems until late in the day or over the weekend. Rest assured that I will stop by!

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!  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Poetry Sisters Tackle the Burning Haibun

This month, the poetry sisters faced the challenge of the burning haibun. A burning haibun is composed of at least three parts—a prose poem, an erasure of that prose poem, and a haiku derived from an erasure of the previous erasure. PHEW! What I found most difficult about this form is the requirement that each erasure represents something different from the section that came before. 

You can read more about the form at Writing from the Ashes: On the Burning Haibun and Writing Prompt: Burning Haibun.

I have written haiku and blackout poems, but I have never written a prose poem. That's where this needed to start. I also tried to keep our theme of "in conversation" in mind, but I'm not sure the use of the word voices manages to get me there. Either way, this was a tough challenge, so I am happy to have a draft to share. The image shows the erasure that created the second poem. Below the image you can read the poem without the blackout. I like both forms, but for different reasons. There's something startling about seeing the earasure as part of this burning down of poetry.

On Resilience: A Burning Haibun

The ninth month burns at both ends. Morning arrives too soon, light spilling like fever across the asphalt. I run because not running feels heavier. The ground hums beneath me, a living pulse of heat and dust. I think of orbit, of repetition—how the earth returns to the same place and calls it new.
The body remembers what the mind resists. Each mile a small defiance, each footfall a kind of prayer. Autumn waits behind the curtain, still painting her leaves. The air burns, clings to summer’s breath, unwilling to let go.
Voices crescendo and pass me—strangers, certain, unbroken. I am neither fast nor sure. I am only moving, carrying the weight of my own doubt. The finish line is not a place but a threshold—thin, invisible, already inside me.
The sun watches everything. I keep running toward the part of myself that does not quit.

Morning arrives
the pulse of repetition
the earth remembers
resists defiance
each prayer clings to me
certain, unbroken
carrying the doubt 
inside me

The sun watches everything
that does not quit

morning remembers

each prayer, certain, unbroken

the sun does not quit

Burning Haibun ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? We're writing poems inspired by something overheard. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on November 28th 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 Jone Rush MacCulloch. Happy poetry Friday all! And Happy Halloween!

Poetry Sisters Write Tritina

This month's challenge was to write in the form of 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: 123 / 312 / 231 / 1, 2, 3 (final line/envoi).

Our theme for the year is "in conversation." The last time we wrote to this form (May 2016 if you want to check them out), we generated a list of words and selected our end words from the communal list. We didn't do that this time around, and I found not having words to work with made the challenge a lot harder.

Given our charged political times, I wanted to write about political conversations, but that didn't go well. I wrote a lot of really terrible poems before finally settling on the subject of secrets and whispering. After some thought and numerous revisions, I have two drafts. I wrote at least 10 different envois for version 1, and didn't like any of them. I tried some new end words and found that I like version 2 much better.

Image from: https://theosophical.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/telephone-game.jpg

The Telephone Game - Version 1
The message starts with just a whisper
children gather close to listen
as words twist and spark a laugh

The meaning bends and others laugh
as words are passed along in a whisper
each eager ear strains to listen

The end of the line waits to listen
excitement growing with every laugh—
but the truth slips by, lost in a whisper

Children at play whisper, listen, laugh—making indelible memories

The Telephone Game - Version 2
A secret phrase shared in a whisper
from lips to ear, heads bend
together in the telephone game

Truth unravels in the game
laughs punctuate every whisper
meaning shifts as words bend

Children in the circle wait to bend
their neighbor's ear in a game
carried forward whisper by whisper

In every whisper, truth bends to shape the game

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below. A few folks are traveling this month, but they may pop up later with a poem.

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

Would you like to try the next challenge? We're writing burning haibun. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on October 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 Amy VanDerwater at The Poem Farm. Happy poetry Friday all!

Poetry Sisters Talk Back to a Poem

This month, our challenge was to talk back to a poem, specifically the poem "Talk to Me Poem, I Think I Got the Blues" by Nikki Giovanni. (Note that this link is to the only written version I could find, and it is incomplete and has a few errors.) Since this poem was performed at a Def Poetry Jam, you really must hear it, not just read it.

There's so much I love about this poem and this performance. I love how poem is a metaphor that stands in for a person, or a people. I love how sassy Giovanni is in her writing and delivery. That's the cue I took in thinking about my own poem. I'm not sure I've talked back to this poem as much as modeled mine on its form, but I had fun trying.

Let's Talk, Poem

Alone? I’ve always have company—

a choir of crickets,

a half-broke heart that won’t quit singing

and every secret I've never said out loud.

Jail? I ran the cellblock.

I etched myself on the walls,

traded verses for cigarettes,

made guards hum my lines

when they thought no one was listening.

Lost? I don’t get lost.

I wander.

I slip out the back door

hide in alleys of memory,

show up on a porch swing

when the singing begins.

Neglected? Maybe, but

I don’t sulk.

I'm aging like vinyl—

a bit scratched and dusty,

but drop the needle

and I still spin fine.

Plans? I don’t do plans.

I happen.

I crash parties,

steal the spotlight,

turn silence into fireworks.

Miss home? I am home,

whenever a tongue

dares to speak me out loud, 

So don’t come crying, baby.

You got the blues? 

I taught the blues how to sway.

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below. A few folks are traveling this month, but they may pop up later with a poem.

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

Would you like to try the next challenge? We will be writing 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). We are continuing to write poems around the theme of "in conversation." You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on September 26th 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 Karen Edmisten. Happy poetry Friday all!

Poetry Sisters Write Sedoka

The challenge this month was to write sedoka. The sedoka is a Japanese poetic form that is an unrhymed poem made from a pair of katuata. A katuata is a three-line poem with the syllable count of 5 / 7 / 7. Generally, a sedoka addresses the same subject from different perspectives. Sometimes the first stanza asks a question, and the second stanza answers it. Given our theme of "in conversation," this form was a good choice for this year. 

I tried a lot of topics before I settled on fireflies (I love sitting outside on summer nights watching them) and secrets. Here are my poems.

Fireflies Version 1

Flickers in the dusk—

do they dance to call the stars

or to keep darkness at bay?

Each light holds a song

brief as breath and just as bright

meant for one who understands.

Fireflies Version 2

Why do fireflies glow

in the hush of summer fields

whispering through blades of grass?

They carry twilight—

tiny lanterns of longing

searching for a name in light.

Secrets Version 1

Where do whispers go

when they slip between closed lips

heavier than spoken words?

They sink in the dark

curling into hidden rooms

soft as breath behind a door.

Secrets Version 2

Why do secrets burn

even when they are not told

coiled quiet beneath the skin?

They are living things—

shadows that forget to sleep

feeding on the fear of light.

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below. A few folks are traveling this month, but they may pop up later with a poem.

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

Would you like to try the next challenge? We're talking back to a poem, any poem of your choosing, using Talk to Me, Poem, I Think I Got The Blues by Nikki Giovanni as a mentor poem. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on August 29th 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 Marcie Flinchum Atkins. Happy poetry Friday all!

Poetry Sisters Write Raccontinos

This month the challenge was to write a raccontino. The first time I saw this form was in the Helen Frost verse novel Spinning Through the Universe: A Novel in Poems from Room 214 (2004). This was released in an updated form in 2016 as Room 214: A Year in Poems.

A raccontino is a form that follows these rules:

• composed of couplets (any number)
• even-numbered lines share the same end rhyme
• the title and last words of the odd-numbered lines tell a story

I wrote a raccontino in April as part of my National Poetry Month project. That poem was based on a proverb. Having the end words of the story in place made it easier to write the full poem. That is the approach used this time as well. I tried a number of different storylines. These two are my favorites.

Rules

patterns and stitches were

followed with precision true

each knit and purl carefully made

as needles clicked and flew

grandma taught me to

craft love in vibrant hues

but creative license will be

an urge hard to subdue

when rules are broken

imperfections will shine through

My second poem uses a quote from Claude Monet as the story.

I Would Like to Paint

 

with colors wild as the

sea, joining in delight

 

lines and curves that bend a-way

and back again to unite

bold shapes. The finished canvas holds a

field with one red kite

in the sky like a bird

soaring in its flight.

With bold strokes it sings

praise to summer sunlight.

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? We're writing sedoka. You can learn more about the form at Writer's Digest. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on July 25th 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 our pal Tanita. Happy poetry Friday all!

Poetry Sisters Writen Golden Shovels

Hello Poetry Friday friends! I took the month of May off (mostly) after posting daily for National Poetry Month. If you didn't see my poems, I spent April writing poems in "different" or uncommon poetic forms on a variety of topics.. You can find all the poems written this month on the page NPM 2025 - Uncommon and Unusual Forms. 

I also shared these poems on my Instagram, which is a good place to view them all in one place. Here's a snapshot of some of the poems.

This month the challenge was to write a golden shovel using a line from the Elizabeth Bishop poem Letter to N.Y. I chose two different lines and wrote poems about Paris. 

In dreams, I wander Paris, taking

midnight strolls, watching cabs

trundle over bridges in

the city's heart. In the

café's glow, the middle

notes of an accordion sing of

romance under the

glow of streetlamps painting the night.

In Paris, residents wake on one

quiet street, whispering secrets to every side

of the Seine. Sleepy facades of

café windows reflect dawn as the

city stirs. Charming old buildings

ooze romance. The day rises

to meet new dreams, unfolding with

tenderness and hope, as the 

young and old eagerly greet the sun.

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? We're writing the raccontino, a form I was introduced to in a Helen Frost verse novel. You can find information on the form and an example in this document. You can use this raccontino worksheet from Helen Frost as a guide. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on June 27th 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 Karen Edmisten.

NPM 2025 - Poem 25

For National Poetry Month this year, I am writing poems in uncommon, unusual, or inventive poetic forms. I'm deviating a bit from that today as I join my poetry sisters in writing a poem to a vintage photograph. 

I have so many great photographs of my grandparents and great grandparents, as well as photos my father took while stationed in Hawaii during the war that I had a hard time choosing. On Sunday, when we met, I selected photos, but my writing was too messy and I wasn't happy with the free verse I'd written. When I selected a form, everything fell into place. I love triolets, so that's what I went with. A triolet is an eight-line poem with a tightly rhymed structure and repeated lines. Here is the form.

line 1 - A
line 2 - B
line 3 - A
line 4 - line 1 repeated
line 5 - A
line 6 - B
line 7 - line 1 repeated
line 8 - line 2 repeated

You can read an example and learn more about this form at Poets.org.

This first photo is of my grandfather. 

When I saw this, I wondered where my grandmother was. I imagine she was off in the kitchen cooking or cleaning, so this poem is about the two of them.

While Grampa Sleeps

In dreams, he finds his gentle rest 

while she, through toil, must bear the day 

a world where labor's lines are pressed

In dreams, he finds his gentle rest

her hands, though weary, still invest

in keeping house, the mess at bay

In dreams, he finds his gentle rest

while she, through toil, must bear the day

My second poem is written to a photograph of the art on a WWII plane. My father had an album of photographs from his time stationed in Hawaii during the war. We never knew it existed until after his death. The war was something he never discussed. The album had several pages of nose art, most sporting half-naked pin-up girls. I chose a less racy image for my poem.

A Flying Ace's Dream

On metal wings, her image stays

a pin-up dream for skies of war

she graces flights in daring ways

On metal wings, her image stays

through battles fought and skies ablaze

by his side through engine's roar

On metal wings, her image stays

a pin-up dream for skies of war

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? We are writing Golden shovels using a line from the Elizabeth Bishop poem Letter to NY. Are you in? Good! You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on May 30th 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 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe. 

I also hope you'll come back tomorrow to see what new poetic form I've chosen. You can also read the other poems I've written this month.

• April 1 - Quinzaine
• April 2 - Preposition poem
• April 3 - Lipogram poem
• April 4 - Venn diagram poem
• April 5 - Punnett poem
• April 6 - Bingo card poem
• April 7 - Assembly diagram poem
• April 8 - Brevette
• April 9 - Pleiades
• April 10 - Clarity Pyramid
• April 11 - Poetry Fortune Teller
• April 12 - Rictameter
• April 13 - Prisoner's constraint poem
• April 14 - Acronymic poem
• April 15 - Algol poem
• April 16 - Tetractys poem
• April 17 - Tyburn
• April 18 - Univocal poem
• April 19 - Chain verse poem
• April 20 - Vocabularyclept poem
• April 21 - AI Chat poem
• April 22 - Octelle
• April 23 - Anagram Poem
• April 24 - Haiku Sonnet

To see what others are writing this month, check out  Jama Rattigan's 2025 National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup.    

Happy poetry Friday all!

Poetry Sisters Write In the Style of Lucille Clifton

This month the challenge was to write a poem inspired by four Lucille Clifton notes to Clark Kent. Our theme for the year is "in conversation," so this was a terrific mentor poem for talking to someone. I haven't written much lately because I'm finding it hard to put pen to paper in these strange and challenging times we are living in. Because of this, I decided to take on the #100dayproject and am creating some type of small artwork each day. It's been a good way to quiet my mind and nerves. While most participants work on one project for 100 days, I follow a different creative prompt every week. You can check them out on my Instagram. 

I wasn't sure how to approach this poem or who to address my notes to. I toyed with writing to another comic book or mythological character (Thor, Spiderman, Batman, Zeus), but none of those sparked anything of interest. Since I can't seem to get politics off my mind, I thought I would try writing notes to a president. I tried writing to JFK and FDR, but finally settled on our 16th president. Here's my poem. 

four notes to abraham lincoln
     after four Lucille Clifton notes to Clark Kent

they call you honest
like it is easy to be
like the truth won’t split you
worse than an axe
but i have seen the weight of it
hunched in your shoulders

another note to lincoln
you wrote freedom down
penned it clean
sent it marching into history
but the south would not yield
your paper trembled
before the ink dried

a final note to lincoln
they had it wrong
they say you held our country together
stitched it with your hands
bled for it in words
but i see it breaking
the torn places
the ones that never healed

a note to mary todd
you prayed over his body still
your house in mourning
while a nation watched
today, i see his face on pennies
heads up
waiting for luck

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written 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? We're writing ekphrastic poems to vintage photographs. Are you in? Good! You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on April 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems! 

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Marcie Flinchum Atkins.

On another note, National Poetry Month is just around the corner. I generally tackle some themed poetry project during this time. You can learn more about all my previous projects here. Inspired by the article 20+ Different (& Wild!) Poetry Forms for Inspiration, I've decided to write to different (and unusual) forms. I can't wait to share a month of poems with you.

Happy poetry Friday, all!

Poetry Sisters Write Wordplay Poems

The challenge this month was to write a wordplay poem. This challenge is based on one offered up by Nikki Grimes in May 2015 at Today's Little Ditty. Here's an excerpt:

When I first began to write poetry at age six, it was the result of wordplay.  So try this wordplay exercise and create your own free verse poem.

When I talk about wordplay, I'm talking about studying a word from top to bottom, and inside out, considering every aspect of the word:  What it looks like, sounds like, feels like.  What it does, how it's used, etc.  The idea is to bring all of your senses into the act.  The poem you create may end up being complex and sophisticated, or very simple.  But whether you're writing a nursery rhyme, or a complex prose poem for adults, wordplay is a valuable skill in the process of creating dynamic, original, poetry, or lyrical prose.

Since our theme this year is "In conversation," we were encouraged to choose a related word. Here's my first attempt at this.

Whisper 

Whisper is a
hushed word
a shhhhhhhhhh
between the library stacks
and in church pews

Whisper is a
heart pounding word
finger pressed to lips
hold your breath
so you can't be
discovered
(but it's just an
active shooter drill)

Whisper is an
intimate word
forehead to forehead
nose to nose
lips to ear
sharing hearts and
secrets

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the pieces written 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? We're writing poems inspired by four Lucille Clifton notes to Clark Kent - 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 28th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems! 

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Denise Krebs at Dare to Care. Happy Poetry Friday, friends!

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!