Category Archives: Poetry

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In Antarctica…

74707-poetry-friday-logoHeidi Mordhorst is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at her blog, My Juicy Little Universe. Her passionate post focuses on the Youth Climate Strike and on taking steps to address our climate crisis. She lists a number of steps people can take to enact change, spread the message and pressure our governments to act. Finally, she invites participants to “use your post and your poetry as an action to address the climate crisis and create hope.”

I’m late chiming in for the week, and I’m not particularly hopeful, but I’m sharing a poem I wrote about a year ago in response to Laura Purdie Salas’s 15 Words Or Less weekly poetry photo prompt.

Penguin Cookie

Photo credit to Laura Purdie Salas

 In Antarctica…

Tens of thousands
of Adélie chicks
starve and perish
while we enjoy
our frosted cookies

M. Hogan (c) 2018

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Shifting Focus

74707-poetry-friday-logo“I didn’t sleep well,”  he said. “The rain kept me awake. It made the same sound you make each morning when you pick your glasses up off the nightstand.”

“That makes a noise?” I asked.

“Not a loud one–just distinct. A certain sound each morning.”

Now each morning when I pick up my glasses, I hear the frames lightly skitter on the wooden surface. I wonder what else I’ve missed.

Shifting Focus

How did I never notice
the changing hues
of the goldfinch
from winter to spring?
Was I blind to its drab presence
midst winter snows?
Did my eyes only open
with spring’s sweet call?
Now day by day the transition
from dull olive to lemon gold
startles me.

“Wake up!” I tell myself
“The world is full of marvels.
Pay attention!”

If I stop, sit and listen
will I hear the whisper
of the butterfly’s wings
or spy the slow unfurling
of the spiraled fern?

What other wonders
have I missed?

©2018 M. Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Catherine Flynn at her blog, Reading to the Core. She’s celebrating International Women’s Day with a beautiful original poem to honor Ellen Haring Baker.

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Poem Sketching

unnamedThe first week back after break is always a haul. Every day my alarm seems to go off earlier and earlier, but Friday seems to move progressively farther away. It’s a phenomenon that defies understanding.

Last week, when free time was abundant, I started fooling around with word group poems. Margaret Simon’s post inspired me so much that I purchased the Sandford Lyne book she mentioned. I haven’t read it all yet, but I’ve really enjoyed looking through his word combinations and toying around with them in my notebook. Lyne calls this “poem sketching.” It’s been the perfect activity to keep me writing on these bleary-eyed mornings.

Here’s one word group that took me in an unexpected direction:

flowers
memories
lonely
jar

I have few memories of flowers,
but one sister says,
“Remember how much she loved daisies?”
and another recalls planting marigolds with her
at the edges of the vegetable patch

Lonely amidst such remembrances
I surround myself with gardens and
fill the house with cut blossoms
tucked into the mason jars
my mother once filled with jams

©Molly Hogan, 2019

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Linda Baie at her wonderful blog, Teacher Dance. She’s sharing a fabulous spring poem that sprouted from a rich bed of anagrams.

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Invitation: a word collection poem

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In her Slice of Life post this past Tuesday, Margaret Simon shared some word group love poems she’d written with her students. They were inspired by a wonderful Charles Ghigna poem, some brainstorming and then a photocopied page of small word groups from Sandford Lyne’s Writing Poetry from the Inside Out. I was immediately drawn to the word collections and, in particular, I was intrigued by this list:

crane
brushstroke
iris
cloud

Here’s the resulting poem:

Invitation

you are the crane
in flight above
the purple flag
of my iris
your wings brushstroke
cloudy paths
through azure skies
as if to say
Come this way
Come this way

©M. Hogan, 2019

I’m not sure it’s a love poem, per se, but it’s what happened. Thanks to Margaret, her students, and Sandford Lyne for the inspiration!

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by children’s author, poet and artist, Robyn Hood Black at her blog, Life on the Deckle Edge.

PS–In a mixed-up moment this week, I thought Haiku Dialogue’s current theme was “a smooth coin.” I wrote a haiku, then realized I was a week late to submit it. “A smooth coin ” was last week’s theme. Oops.

how heavy the coin
worn smooth by Charon’s hand
the final payment

©M. Hogan, 2019

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Insomnia and Poetry Postcards

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Sleep doesn’t always come easily to me. To be more precise, I typically fall asleep in a heartbeat, but wake in the darkest hours of the night unable to sleep any longer. My eyes pop open and I’m alert, my mind racing with churning thoughts and worries. Ironically, one thing that can help me relax and get back to sleep is to mentally compose a story or a poem. I’ve even caught myself tapping syllables on the underside of my pillow. I’m not sure it’s a good sign that my mental writing efforts help me drift to sleep, but honestly, I’ll take it! Ironically, recently I’ve been composing insomnia poems in my mind during my wakeful hours. Here’s one of my latest:

Insomnia

In the deepest dark hours
night shifts and moon-born
silent shadows stir and stretch,
oblong on old pine floors, then
melt into inky corners, where murky
nocturnal thoughts slumber fitfully, and
invite them to fully
awaken

©Molly Hogan, 2019

I’ve also been remiss about thanking all those wonderful poets who participated in the New Year Poetry Postcard Exchange. My refrigerator is practically strutting! She’s covered with all sorts of poetic goodness and fabulous images. We’re both delighted with the make-over, and I can’t tell you how much those postcards perked me up during the darkest winter days. Thank you, thank you!!! Here they are in all their glory:

I’d like to pretend that my delayed thank you was deliberate, but it’s really just a happy coincidence that the New Year Poetry Postcard organizer, Jone, is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup. You can find more poetry at her blog, Check it Out.

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Morning Pages

 

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Morning Pages

What words will emerge
when I set pen to paper,
before the sun arises
and my eyes clear and focus?

When doorways are ajar,
what silvered light slips through
like dawn on the horizon?

In that liminal state
between sleep and sentience,
will I brush against
another world?

©M. Hogan, 2019

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Laura Purdie Salas at her blog, Writing the World for Kids. She’s celebrating the publication of her newest book, Snowman – Cold = Puddle: Spring Equations, and inviting poets to contribute equation poems on a padlet. What fun! I just contributed my idea: spider web + dew = masterpiece!

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During the Storm

After much hype, last weekend’s winter storm finally arrived and landed firmly in mediocrity. On a happy note, it was still potent enough to encourage me to linger indoors, look out the window, and write.

During the Storm

Swirling, twirling
snow-traced gusting wind
whips and worries
through the huddled garden
rustling baptisia pods
into whispered reminiscences
of spring

©M. Hogan, 2019

Tabatha Yeatts is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at her blog, The Opposite of Indifference. She’s sharing poems by Marilyn Robertson and Phillis Levin.