Category Archives: Poetry

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PF:#Poemtober: A haiku and a cherita

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As I drafted this post, it struck me that most of the poems I’ve written and shared recently seem to be a bit dark. Honestly, I don’t think they reflect my state of mind! With that disclaimer,  I’m sharing my #Poemtober responses  for “dizzy” and for “pattern.” As always, I’m grateful for the prompts and challenges that encourage me to write regularly. 

buffeted by daily news
dizzy with dismay
hope hides in shadows

©Molly Hogan, 2019

 

One dull thud

Three wispy red feathers
pattern the smudged windowpane

one brilliant cardinal
dims and cools on the ground
the silence reverberates

©Molly Hogan, 2019

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by the gracious and talented Irene Latham at her blog, Live Your Poem. Make sure to drop by and fill up with some poetry!

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Conference Week Infects My Poetry

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Conference Week

A bounty of PTA-donated
tempting treats
fills baskets and bowls
in the Teacher’s Room.
I pick a pack of Teddy Grahams.
Back in my classroom,
I relish biting off the heads
of each cheerful little bear.

Molly Hogan ©2019

Ok, I actually do enjoy conferences, but I truly do not enjoy the week of planning, teaching and late nights of conferencing combined. What a week! With so many late nights, I’ve fallen a bit behind on #Poemtober, but here are a few of my recent efforts.

Ash

After the volcano
of his rage,
she picks her way
through the ash,
wary of embers
eager to ignite
a new
conflagration.

Molly Hogan ©2019

Legend

Legend tells
of a teacher
who discovered the secret
of balancing
work and home
and kept it.

I don’t believe it.

©Molly Hogan, 2019

And I revisited the prompt “build” to pair with my daughter’s illustration:

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#Inktober sketch by Adeline Schneider

Build

Let’s build a tower
above the sea
high, in the sky,
an eagle’s aerie.
We’ll live each day,
wild and free,
whilst unheeded, the surf
works her treachery.

©Molly Hogan, 2019

Oh, my! These are cheerful, aren’t they?  lol

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Karen Edmisten. Stop by to check out all the poetry goodness.

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Autumn Storm

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It’s been another hit-or-miss week working with #Inktober/#Poemtober. I’ve really liked knowing the prompts are there, but sometimes the inspiration hasn’t been. Isn’t it weird how some words can feel “dead” while others seem to brim with possibility? And those same “dead” words might easily reanimate at a different time or place, when seen through a different lens?

At any rate, this past weekend, my daughter mentioned that she’d been participating in #Inktober. Yesterday, she shared her entry for “wild” with me:

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It, together with the arrival of a fierce storm, inspired this poem.

Autumn Storm

outside the wild wind roars
leaves swirl in tornado torrents
the storm prowls like a lion
lashing the earth with mighty paws

Molly Hogan ©2019

Now that the storm has passed, there are far more leaves on the ground than in the trees, but to date, this fall has been particularly spectacular. Time and again, I’ve been stopped in my tracks by the beauty of autumn in New England.

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brilliant baubles
leaves ornament the trees
fall’s parting gift

Molly Hogan © 2019

I hope your days are also filled with beauty.

 

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Jama Rattigan at her amazing blog, Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Make sure to stop by and see what Jama’s serving up this week. It’s sure to be delicious!

 

 

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#Poemtober

downloadImage result for inktober 2019Once again, most of the writing I’ve been doing lately has been quick responses to prompts. Among other things,  I’ve been semi-participating in this month’s Poemtober. That means that I’ve tried to write to the word prompt each day, with wildly varying results. Here are my responses for the prompts “swing” and “husky.”

In October
the balance swings
from “on top of it”
to “overwhelmed”
in the blink
of an eye

©Molly Hogan, 2019

In the shadowed field
beneath glowing hunter’s moon
corn stalks rustle
a haunting, husky tune
winter’s coming…
coming soon…

©Molly Hogan, 2019

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Catherine Flynn, at her blog, Reading to the Core. Catherine reminds us of the power of gratitude and shares, among other things, a wonderful poem “Let’s Remake the World with Words.”

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Swagger Challenge: Write a Zeno

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Last month we began posing monthly challenges for our writing group, named The Sunday Night Swaggers. The plan is for a different one of us to pose a challenge each month, and for all of us to share our poems at the first Poetry Friday of the month. This month Margaret Simon (Reflections on the Teche) posed our second challenge: Write a Zeno.

A quick intro to Zenos: J. Patrick Lewis created the form. In an interview with Michelle Heidenrich Barnes of Today’s Little Ditty  he explained, ” The zeno was inspired by the “hailstone  sequence” in mathematics. I define a zeno as a 10-line poem with 8,4,2,1,4,2,1,4,2,1 syllables that rhyme abcdefdghd.” (If you’d like to find out more about the “hailstone sequence”, click here. It’s actually kind of cool!)

I’ve written Zenos before, and was looking forward to writing some more. But this time around I was stymied. Flummoxed. Confounded. I wrote page after page after page. Lists of rhyming words. False starts. Half starts. I wrote about Halloween vampires, black crows, crimson maple trees, snowy egret carnage, the marsh, mornings, my cat, and more. Yikes! Nothing fell into place. The tyranny of a 1-syllable rhyme has been grossly underrated! 

It’s been one of those weeks…

Some mornings, words fall into line
gather neatly
on the
page
some days they fight,
wrangle,
rage
twist and kick, then
storm off-
stage

© Molly Hogan, 2019

The Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by Cheriee at Library Matters. She’s sharing an interview with Canadian poet Robert Heidbreder and some wonderful examples of his poems. If you’re interested in checking out some other Zenos, you can find my fellow Swaggers’ Zenos at their blogs.

Margaret Simon (Reflections on the Teche)
Heidi Mordhorst (My Juicy Universe)
Linda Mitchell (A Word Edgewise)
Catherine Flynn (Reading to the Core)

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PF: Pulse

downloadA recent Poetry Friday post by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater inspired me to revisit a moment I’d written about (here) and try to create a poem from it. I was further intrigued by her idea of  “smoosh-ing” two words together to make new ones.

Pulse

Face the ocean
Stand still
with both feet sandplanted
Close your eyes
Feel the sunwarmth brush your cheeks
Breath the fresh, salty air
In
Out
In
Out
Listen to the whisper of the breeze
the rhythmic rush of surf
In
Out
In
Out
Tune in
to your own
steady
pulse

©Molly Hogan, 2019

Carol Varsalona is hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at her blog, Beyond Literacy Link. She’s sharing a fabulous travel log celebrating summer adventures. Be sure to stop by and check it out!

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PF: To Prepare for Winter…

downloadIt’s that time of the year when finding time for writing is harder than ever. The demands of school leak into other parts of the day, and my reserved writing time can easily slip slide away before I even notice. These days I am especially grateful when a prompt or challenge sparks a response. I wrote this one to Laura Purdie Salas’s prompt for her “Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle!” give-away. I didn’t win the give-away, but having written something was a welcome consolation prize. 🙂

To prepare for winter…

I snap some photos
of blazing maples,
then sweep the leaves
from my mind,
wipe away dew-laden webs,
prepare to focus on lacy frost,
misty clouds of breath,
the glory of the first
snowfall.

©Molly Hogan, 2019

The Poetry Friday Roundup this week is hosted by the ever-gracious Linda B. at her blog, Teacher Dance. She’s revealing the cover of a new book by Irene Latham and Charles Waters that will be coming out in February. Take a peek! It looks wonderful!