NPM 2026 - Day 5

Welcome to my National Poetry Month project for 2026, where I am playing with poetry by generating poems in playful ways. Today's poem was inspired by Haikubes.

Haikubes is a set of 63 word cubes. Two red cubes have phrases that are used to set the theme of the haiku. Blank faces on the cubes are “free” and can be used as any word. To play you roll all 63 dice, select word cubes, and arrange them to form a haiku appropriate to the theme.

Here are the cubes I rolled and arranged into a haiku.

The theme of my roll was "A dream about my childhood."

Here's my poem.

thunder sang to me

in melodic wild whispers

I ran like the wind

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

I hope you come back tomorrow to read the new poem I have to share. To see what others are offering up this month, check out  Jama Rattigan's 2026 National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup.

You can check out previous poems in 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

NPM 2026 - Day 4

Welcome to my National Poetry Month project for 2026, where I am playing with poetry by generating poems in playful ways. Today's poem was inspired by Metaphor dice.

Metaphor dice contain red, white, and blue dice. Red are filled with CONCEPTS, usually abstract nouns or big ideas. Blue are filled with OBJECTS, or smaller nouns or humbler things. White are filled with ADJECTIVES or short descriptive phrases. To play, you roll the dice, make a metaphor, and write a poem inspired by it.

Here are the dice I selected. I used the metaphor as a title and wrote a cinquain.

Time is an Impossible Promise

clocks lie

seconds fall loose

we hold what cannot hold

future flickers beyond our reach

untold

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

I hope you come back tomorrow to read the new poem I have to share. To see what others are offering up this month, check out  Jama Rattigan's 2026 National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup.

You can check out previous poems in 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

NPM 2026 - Day 3

Welcome Poetry Friday friends.

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.

You can read my first two poems at the links below.

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

April 2 - MadLib a Poem - Stamp Collecting Dream

Today's poem was generated using a Roll-a-Poem grid created by MissAllenApple. 

Rolling a die directed me to write a poem about the weather that was mysterious, used rhyming couplets, and ended with a question. Here's what I came up with.

Dramatic Cloudy Sky — StockCake

The Brewing Storm

The wind disturbs the silence of the trees,

and whispers names it carries on the breeze.

A low, uncertain thunder haunts the sky,

as if some secret stirs but won’t reply.

The clouds like tattered sails in drifting sway,

hang torn and trembling in the ashen gray.

The air grows still, as if it strains to hear

a voice that lingers just beyond the ear.

Now in this hush before the rain is cast—

what sign foretells how long the storm will last?

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

I hope you come back tomorrow to read the new poem I have to share. To see what others are offering up this month, check out  Jama Rattigan's 2026 National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup.

Please take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, & Rhyme. Happy poetry Friday!

NPM 2026 - Day 2

Welcome to my National Poetry Month project for 2026, where I am playing with poetry by generating poems in playful ways. Today's poem was inspired by MadLibs.

To "MadLib" a poem you take an existing poem and swap out the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs with your own words, while saving its syntax and punctuation, to create a new poem.

The poem I used was Black Marsh Eclogue by Sam Hamill. My reinvention is a poem about stamp collecting.

Stamp Collecting Dream

Although it’s rare, this canceled stamp

holds faintest history in its careful margins,

those ink-fading-into-brown impressions

spreading across it like rain soaking into dry ground.

It rests in a leather album

more relic than paper, a seasoned traveler

returned from a vanished circulation.

It remembers the paths of letters

and does not shift or speak. But when

at last it’s traded, its fine edges

cross the widening page, and slowly,

as though drifting, slides, almost weightless,

as it draws the collector near.

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

As a kid who collected stamps, I desperately wanted a set of the 1930 Graf Zeppelins, especially the blue one. 

1930 Graf Zeppelins Image from Mystic Stamp Company. 

Today, a used set will cost you a pretty penny. My mom always did say I had "champagne taste on a beer budget." 

I hope you come back tomorrow to read the new poem I have to share. To see what others are offering up this month, check out  Jama Rattigan's 2026 National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup.

You can check out previous poems in the links below.

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

NPM 2026 - Day 1

Welcome to my National Poetry Month project for 2026, where I am playing with poetry by generating poems in playful ways. Today's poem was inspired by Paint Chip Poetry.

The directions say to pull a dozen paint chips and flip over a prompt card. Here's what I ended up with.

With the topic of "forever friends," I read through the 12 paint chips and decided to let the words inspire the poem. When I saw Garden of Eden, I immediately wondered if Adam and Eve would have remained friends after the incident in the garden. That's what I wrote about, and because I'm overly ambitious, I wrote a villanelle.

A Villanelle for Adam and Eve

They called each other friends in Eden’s shade
where nothing hid and every fruit was free
there was no hint their trust would ever fade

They laughed at all the easy choices made
till one sly snake said, “Taste and you will see”
they called each other friends in Eden’s shade

One bite, and suddenly the truth would wade
through blame — “Not me, not me! It must be thee!”
there was no hint their trust would ever fade

Their easy bond at once began to jade
their pointing fingers no one could foresee
they called each other friends in Eden’s shade

The garden watched as fault lines were displayed
as laughter soured to brittle irony
there was no hint their trust would ever fade

Expelled, they trudged where once they’d idly played
now less as friends than awkward company
they called each other friends in Eden’s shade
there was no hint their trust would ever fade

The gorgeous tapestry above, called The Garden of Eden, can be found at The Met.

For fun, I also wrote a limerick.

There once were close friends, Eve and Adam,
who wandered God’s bright, blooming garden.
But one fateful bite
turned their laughter to spite—
and trust slipped away as they hardened.

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

I hope you come back tomorrow to read the new poem I have to share. To see what others are offering up this month, check out  Jama Rattigan's 2026 National Poetry Month Kidlitosphere Events Roundup.

National Poetry Month 2026 Project

It's that time of year. April begins tomorrow! I've spent the last few weeks thinking about my project for National Poetry Month. In 2025, as my NPM project overlapped with the 100 Day Project, I found myself feeling overwhelmed and pressed for time. Last year I took on the challenge of writing in a new form, an often new-to-me form, every day. This year, I'm going to give myself a bit of grace and open the door to playfulness. There is no theme this year, no specified form, no requirement other than to have fun. To that end, I give you this year's project.

Every poem I write this year will be generated in some playful manner. I'll use metaphor dice and haikubes, select paint chips, fill in a mad lib, use words cut from newspapers and magazines, try out an online poem generator, and give roll-a-poem a try.

I have no idea what the results will be, but my intention is to have fun, keep it light, and enjoy writing. I can't wait to share my poems with you.

If you want to check out my previous National Poetry Month projects, you can find them here.

That's it for now. I'll see you tomorrow for the launch of NPM 2026.

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 Friday - Summer Poems Zine

Hello friends. I participated in Tabatha Yeatts summer poetry swap again this year. I received so many lovely poems and gifts from this community. I plan to highlight them in a post later this month. 

Today I want to share the poems I wrote for others and the zine I created to collect them all in one place. Here's what it looks like (unfolded).

You can download the file if you would like to fold your own copy. 

Do you need directions on how to fold a zine? 

Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord at makingbooks.com offers numerous free resources for creating various book forms. She calls this zine format a hotdog booklet. I love her easy-to-follow directions and images. You will find written directions and a downloadable PDF for this form on her site.

For the swap this year, I made and sent "poetry wallets," which were paper wallets made from recycled (upcycled?) envelopes with poetic form cards inside. Here's a peek at what they looked like.

The poems I wrote this year reflected some of the forms on the cards (there were 12 form cards in the wallet) and were all on summer topics. I usually do a better job of personalizing poems, so I fell short of the mark this time around. I wrote a sixth poem, not in one of these funky forms, but something more traditional (a sonnet), and sent it off to my pal Tanita, who was settling in to a new place this summer. That is the poem I'm sharing today.

Goodbye to Summer

In summer's garden fading in its glow  

old blossoms with their vibrant colors dim

yet fruits now swell with autumn's promise, slow  

as daylight wanes and shadows softly skim  

The apples blush with hints of rosy red 

as pears hang golden from big branching arms 

the vines with grapes like jewels finely spread

invite a taste of fall's forthcoming charms 

Faint is the buzz where once the bees did weave  

among the blooms now yielding to the field

tired flora gently take their leave

as nature turns, her secrets slow revealed

Thus ends sweet summer with its parting song  

to herald autumn's time, both crisp and strong

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

Image by wirestock on Freepik

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup. 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 Friday - Box Triolets

It's been a long time since I've written a poem for David Harrison's Word of the Month Poetry Challenge. The word for August is box.

I'm quite fond of the triolet, so that's the form I chose to write in. A triolet is an 8-line poem that uses only two rhymes throughout. Additionally, the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines, while the second line is repeated in the final line. Because of this, only five different poetic lines are written.  The rhyme scheme for a triolet is ABaAabAB (where capital letters stand for repeated lines).

I tried several different box topcis, but finally landed on Pandora's box and cat in a box. I'm still working on a Schrödinger's cat poem, which I think would be funny, but I'm just not there yet. Here are the two poems I'm sharing today.

Pandora's Box Triolet

Pandora's box was opened wide

unleashing woes upon the land,

yet hope remained, a light inside

Pandora's box was opened wide

from its troubles we could not hide

but hope endured, our guiding hand

when Pandora's box was opened wide

unleashing woes upon the land

A cat in an empty box at rest

curled in a corner snug and tight 

where simple spaces feel the best

a cat in an empty box takes rest 

a quiet spot becomes a nest

in a cardboard world of pure delight 

a cat in an empty box at rest, 

curled in corner snug and tight. 

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

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. 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 Friday - Protest Triolet

This week, the Inklings are writing poems of protest for our nation’s birthday. The challenge was to"write in praise of democracy and patriotism if you’re so moved, or write in frustration and befuddlement over the “leadership” in the White House and/or Congress and/or the courts and/or and/or and/or." 

I'm quite fond of the triolet, so that's the form my poem takes today. A triolet is an 8-line poem that uses only two rhymes throughout. Additionally, the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines, while the second line is repeated in the final line. Because of this, only five different poetic lines are written.  The rhyme scheme for a triolet is ABaAabAB (where capital letters stand for repeated lines).

My protest triolet is untitled.

Rise up, voices strong and clear
in streets where silence echoes long
for every right we hold so dear,
rise up, voices strong and clear.
With armored courage, persevere
against the tide of all that’s wrong,
raise our voices strong and clear
in streets where silence echoes long.

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

Image: Harris & Ewing, W. (1917) Mary Winsor Penn. '17 holding Suffrage Prisoners banner. United States, Washington D.C, 1917. [Oct.-Nov] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mnwp000225/.

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading. 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.