Tag Archives: Inklings challenge

by

PF: Inklings Challenge: Your Slip is Showing

This month Heidi had our Inklings’ challenge and she invited us to “address an item of our clothing.” I debated about an ode to socks, as I am quite a fan, but swiftly opted toward more intimate apparel.

I played around with a variety of forms, trying to do justice to slips and half-slips.

How about a little terse verse?
What do you call a slip with a bit of spandex? a hip grip

Ugh…that is not inspiring!

Maybe a limerick?

There once was a woman who tried
with a whisper of fabric to hide
any clinging or bulging
that could be divulging
her truest form to the outside.

©Molly Hogan

That one sounded more like a girdle than a slip…which reminded me of my grandmother unfolding herself from the car after a long ride from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, bemoaning the pressure of her girdle. “You’ll see what it’s like someday,” she said to me. Despite her dire prediction, I never did… and she never witnessed them becoming an outer rather than inner garment in popular culture. But I digress…

Next, I played around with a Zeno for a while. Those one syllable requirements are tricky!

Half Slip

Hidden, provocative or prim,
all anti-cling,
silken
glide.
Whispered slither,
fabrics
slide.
Modest so it’s
seldom
spied.

©Molly Hogan

Finally, I remembered that Margaret Simon had shared a prompt from Joyce Sidman: address an inanimate object and give it a compliment, ask a question, and express a wish. The final few lines of that Zeno had me thinking…

To My Half-Slip

How easily you arbitrate between fabrics,
settling disputes about chafing and cling.
Cultural change pushed you toward becoming
a fashion anachronism. How have you persevered,
doing your job behind the scenes
as a diligent defender of modesty,
enhancer of graceful drape,
and a transformer of transparent to opaque?
You’re a hidden workhorse
disguised as a whisper of silk!
And though perhaps it’s ungracious of me, 
I do have one request–
I truly wish you could resist the urge
to give in, let go,
and slip
and show
below my hem.

©Molly Hogan

If you’re interested in seeing what the rest of the Inklings did with this challenge, click on the links below:

Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Heidi @my juicy little universe

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Irene Latham at her blog, Live Your Poem, and offers more links to all sorts of poetry goodness. Be sure to stop by and check it out!

by

PF: Shadorma

This month Margaret Simon set our challenge. She invited us to write a shadorma, “a Spanish 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines respectively.” It’s a fun form to play around with, and I’m sure I’ll be revisiting it.

Illuminated Manuscript

Distant trees
inscribe the full moon
Their branches
cast shadows
as mysterious to me
as hieroglyphics

©Molly Hogan

Then I saw that there’s more snow in the forecast for next week. Sigh. So I wrote another shadorma, trying to spark some optimism.

April Patience

Flakes drift down
All is white again
Tender green
bides its time
beneath the snow, knowing soon
it will take the field.

©Molly Hogan

If you’re interested in seeing some more shadormas, check out the links below to see what the other Inklings did with the challenge:
Catherine Flynn
Mary Lee Hahn
Heidi Mordhorst
Margaret Simon
Linda Mitchell

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Matt at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme.

by

An image, a new-to-me word, and a limerick

Have you heard of the Public Domain Image Archive ? Well, if you haven’t, carve out some time and go visit. It’s amazing! Mary Lee introduced us to the site for our challenge and invited us to type a color into the search bar and write about one of the images that popped up. After a bit of playing around (and a lot of time passing!), I entered peach and was regaled with this image of a water tower in Gaffney, South Carolina.

Oh, my.

That’s what I thought, too.

So, while looking up synonyms for butts, I discovered the new-to-me word “callipygian”.

And that’s how this limerick came to be.

Down in Gaffney they sing a proud paean
to this tower that’s oddly protean.
They exclaim, “It’s a peach!”
Tourists claim that’s a reach–
it’s decidedly callipygian!

©Molly Hogan

Check out what the other Inklings did with this challenge by clicking on their links:

Linda @A Word Edgewise
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core 

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Carol Varsalona at her blog, Beyond Literacy Link.

by

Winter Light

I was the one to set this month’s challenge for the Inklings. I took part of a prompt from James Crews’s new book, “Unlocking the Heart,” and invited everyone to “begin with a specific sensory experience (of taste, sight, smell, sound or touch) and see where that leads you.”

Weeks after setting this challenge, it occurs to me that a wide-open prompt can be more difficult to enter into than a more defined one. Too many choices, maybe? I suppose it’s like the way that writing within a tightly structured form can actually free ideas. Maybe they bounce off the boundaries and meet up with each other in new and unexpected ways? At any rate, I was hoping to tap in to some evocative smell or sound or even texture (an ode to oatmeal?), but over and over I kept coming back to sight.

To me, winter is all about the interplay between dark and light. There’s such a lush generosity to the light at this time of year. It is transformative. As a photographer and a writer and a human being, I’m drawn to it over and over again. I find it quite challenging to capture both in words and in photographs, but here are a few unrelated small poems and photos attempting to do so:

within deepest snow
winter’s cold heart
blazes a brilliant blue

patient square of amber light
awaits in the dark, chill night
welcome home

late sun gilds the meadow
winter-bare oak tree
glows like an alleluia

You can check out what the other Inklings did with the challenge by clicking on the links below:

Linda @A Word Edgewise
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core (She’s opting out this week, but her blog is always worth a visit!)

Carol is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at The Apples in My Orchard.

by

PF: Persona Poems

It’s the first Friday of the month and that means our Inklings’ challenge is due. This month’s challenge was issued by Margaret Simon, who asked us to write a persona poem. In short, a persona poem “has a specific audience, conveys a message, is written in the voice of another person, place, or thing, uses direct address.” I checked out a couple of fabulous examples, including Sylvia Plath’s stunning Mirror, and Patricia Smith’s Katrina. These were both inspiring and intimidating.

After considering a few options, The Giving Tree popped into my head– Yes, that controversial children’s story woven by the oh-so-talented Shel Silverstein. Is it a cautionary tale? A tale of unbound love or unboundaried love? A warning to a parent? A warning to a child? Selfless? Abusive? For some reason, I found myself wanting to consider the Tree’s perspective. To be honest, even though I wrote it, I find myself a little uncomfortable with the voice in this poem. But right or wrong, here’s what she had to say:

The Giving Tree Speaks

I see you cringe as you turn
each page.
You judge me, don’t you?
For giving and giving
until it seems all
is gone.
Even as my story resonates,
it leaves you uncomfortable,
doesn’t it?
“Too much…” I hear you whisper.

You don’t see that the giving 
was a choice.
My choice.
I gave actively
with love, energy, 
full-hearted generosity–
I chose not to await
time’s
slow
drain.

Don’t you see?
I’m in the same place
I would have been
ultimately
eventually
But
I shaped myself
through my giving, 
got here on my own terms.

You may see only a stump, but
my roots are secure, and
did you notice?
As our story ends
we are resting…
together.
What more could I want?

And I am happy.  

©Molly Hogan, draft

If you’d like to see what the other Inklings have done with this challenge, click on their links:
Mary Lee Hahn
Catherine Flynn
Linda Mitchell
Heidi Mordhorst
Margaret Simon

This week’s Poetry Friday challenge is hosted by Linda Baie at her blog, Teacher Dance.

by

PF: Path

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost

Mary Lee posed our intriguing Inklings challenge this month. She invited us to consider visual frameworks from this site and then to respond to one that resonated with us. My first draft from early in September was off-the-cuff, but heartfelt.

August arrives
the bell rings
We begin

©Molly Hogan

That felt a bit flippant though, and I wanted to dig in a bit more. In my own life I’ve recently been coming back again and again to the idea of paths. I’ve been noticing how often I take photos of paths–in the woods, along a river, on the beach, etc. Something about a path clearly intrigues me, so I searched the visual framework site and found the image below.

I’m not sure the image resonates with me so much here as the word does, so I kind of came at this all backward. Thinking of paths made me think of choices and reminded me of Frost’s poem, which I quoted above. His poem represents more of the crossroads and initial choice, but my thoughts and images are more centered around walking along a certain path that’s already been chosen. At any rate, here’s the end result of all these mental peregrinations. It feels unfinished and still needs a strong title (shocker!) but it’s what was there when I came up for air and realized it was Friday already.


I’m not so sure about Robert Frost
and his path less traveled
In truth
I feel a bit defensive
as I step along
the well-trod path before me
stopping to enjoy the view
taking some side trips and
navigating as best as I can

There’s much to be said
for blazing a new path
and I’d never be so bold
as to challenge Frost
but still…
Isn’t there value
in traveling a well-worn path?
In noticing
and nourishing
the wonder
nascent
within the known?

©Molly Hogan

If you’re interested in seeing what the other Inklings did with this challenge, visit the links below:

Heidi Mordhorst
Catherine Flynn
Margaret Simon
Linda Mitchell
Mary Lee Hahn

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Matt Forrest Esenwine at his blog, Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme. He’s sharing all sorts of great news, especially the release of his newest book. Make sure to check it out!

by

Poetry Friday: Enjambment

This month Margaret Simon posed our Inklings challenge. She asked us to ” Write a poem on any topic using enjambment,” and offered Poetry Foundation’s definition: “The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped.”

I’m pretty sure there’s a bit more to it than that!

I woke this morning, knowing I needed to post, and wishing I’d had more time to consider the challenge amidst the wind-up to school. Apparently my sleep-mind was pondering too, as I woke with this phrase in mind, structured just like this:

Night
falls
into
dawn as
dreams
slip
away

©Molly Hogan

Isn’t it funny how your brain keeps working on something, even while you’re sleeping!?

With a day off (Woot!), I had time to ponder enjambment a bit more, to consider its nuances, and do a bit of research. I was thinking a lot about why and how poets use enjambment. So, I read definitions, mentor poems and explanations. To sum up what I found, and what you probably already know, enjambment can increase the pace or drama of a piece, it can merge ideas, play with mood and theme, and generally pulls the reader along. It can complicate, explain or clarify. When used skillfully, it adds so many layers!

Check out the powerful use of enjambment in the first part of “Homeland Security” by Geoffrey Brock:

The four am cries
of my son worm
through the double
foam of earplugs

and diazepam.
…

I mean…wow! The first time I read this poem, my brain was constantly playing catch up in the most delightful way! And speaking of delights, while I was exploring the rabbit hole of all things enjambed, I came across Diane Mayr’s brilliant Poetry Friday from 2013 entitled “The Secret Society of Enjambment.” Such fun!

I wish I could top that one, but even though I had great fun exploring enjambment, and marveling at how poets use it to great effect, I ended up sticking with a quick response I’d written earlier in the month. It’s rooted in how enjambment impacts me when I’m reading aloud. Here it is:

Straddling the Lines

I’m not 
sure I’m a fan
of enjamb-
ment
It feels a
bit unfair leaving
the reader 
hanging
in 
the 
air
or somewhere teetering at 
the end of 
a line 
unsure whether to 
stop
or read on with
flow or to go
no
further.

©Molly Hogan

To see what the other Inklings did with this challenge, click on their links:

Heidi Mordhorst
Catherine Flynn
Margaret Simon
Linda Mitchell
Mary Lee Hahn

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Ramona at her blog, Pleasures from the Page.