Tag Archives: Poetry Friday

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PF: Autumn Zeno

The past few weeks have been very busy for me and for autumn. I’m continually stopped in my tracks by the beauty around me. When I don’t have much time to write, I often use a photo for inspiration and mess around with a form. Limiting the options can be helpful. This time around I wrote a Zeno (8, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1 syllable count and the one syllable words rhyme) inspired by autumn’s ongoing show. Because I don’t want to give a false impression of autumn’s pace in my neck of the woods, I should note that this photo was from a few weeks ago. The trees are now bare along this stretch. They offer their own beauty, but no longer of the golden-lit variety.

Transmutation

late day light transforms the driveway
to cathedral’s
amber
glow
worship-worthy
autumn
show
ripe reminder
to go
slow

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Tracey at Tangles and Tales. (For some reason my computer is refusing to post a link to text right now, so here it is: https://traceykj.com/joomla/index.php/its-like-what)

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Blame Autumn

I’m late today, but that seems to be the case with more frequency lately. I blame Autumn. Time and again, her drama stops me in my tracks. Case in point: along the river on my commute yesterday morning:

I mean, how can you not stop for that!?

Or the day before, in the same spot, when sunrise was just licking the tops of the trees and the river mist was doing its thing:

At any rate, I’ve been having loads of fun filling up my cup with autumn’s bounty. Then, I have the additional joy of creating image poems. Here are a few recent ones:

perched on live wires
a hawk surveys autumn fields
telegraphs intent

©Molly Hogan

Garden Drama

sunflowers’ autumn show
augmented by zinnia cameos
and sporadic cosmos applause

©Molly Hogan

Cosmetics

a basin of geraniums
atop the steps
of the old farmhouse

a splash of lipstick
on a wrinkled facade

©Molly Hogan

Here’s hoping that your autumn is also filled with blessings! This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Jama Rattigan at Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Be sure to stop by and fill your bucket with some poetry!

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PF: October Inklings Challenge: In Autumn

I’ve given up on finding a migrating geese photo after looking for much too long through my archives! I know they’re there…somewhere. Instead here’s autumn showing its glory alongside my driveway.

This month Linda had our Inklings challenge. Sharing a prompt from redroompoetry on Instagram, she invited us to “Find a poem you like, or one you don’t like. Write the first 6 lines of the poem. Under each line write your own response. Delete the original lines, use what you have as a beginning for your poem.”

This was a fabulous and productive prompt, and I found the process a bit addictive. I played around with a number of poems, thoroughly enjoying myself. Once removed from the original poem I found the responding lines to be fertile ground for tinkering. Here’s one I wrote in response to Rachel Field’s poem, which is a perennial favorite of mine.

Something Told the Wild Geese

by Rachel Field 

Something told the wild geese
It was time to go,
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered, “Snow.”

Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,…

My response (which went in a different direction than I had anticipated):

In Autumn

As if a far-off warning bell had rung
arrowed masses depart in arcs across the sky
shot from summer’s bow
The orchard trees hang heavy with the harvest
Their leaves quiver in the chill-tendrilled breezes
holding autumn gold but briefly
before the release, the spiral downward
Meanwhile, the sweetness of berries
turns pungent on the vine
and the wild, keening call of the geese fades
Fog twists and rises amongst the tombstones

©Molly Hogan

Thanks so much, Linda, for a rewarding prompt. If you’re interested in seeing what the other Inklings did with it, check out the links below. Margaret also is hosting Poetry Friday this week.

Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche  (Click on this one to access Poetry Friday!)
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core

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PF: Kenning

This month Margaret Simon posed our Inklings challenge. She asked us to write a kenning poem, and directed us to the Poetry Foundation’s explanation of kennings: “A figurative compound word that takes the place of an ordinary noun. Many kennings rely on myths or legends to make meaning and are found in Old Germanic, Norse, and English poetry, including The Seafarer, in which the ocean is called a “whale-path.” (See Ezra Pound’s translation). “The Oven Bird” by Robert Frost also includes examples such as “mid-wood” and “petal-fall.””

Here’s what I came up with:

In Praise of the August Bee

As light shifts
and lingering blossoms blaze
in heat-scorched fields,
you, thrumming honey-maker,
continue your work
undaunted.

Oh, blossom-diver, 
your advance is marked
by the dip and bend of stalks
and their speckled shadowdance
over thirsty ground.

You, benevolent thief, 
collect your autumn-gold 
leaving no trace,
merely the echo of your buzz,
and the soft petal-drop
of blossoms in your wake,
along with the promise
of future sweetness.

©Molly Hogan

If you want to see what the other Inklings did with this challenge, click on their links. Catherine won’t be participating this month and Heidi may not be either. You can still enjoy their most recent posts :).

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

I also went down an apian rabbit hole and discovered an ancient Anglo Saxon Bee Charm used to prevent swarming. I was charmed by it and delighted to notice that it used a kenning!

Sitte ge, sīgewīf,   sīgað tō eorðan,
næfre ge wilde   tō wuda fleogan,
beō ge swā gemindige,   mīnes gōdes,
swā bið manna gehwilc,   metes and ēðeles.

Settle down, victory-women, sink to earth,
never be wild and fly to the woods.
Be as mindful of my welfare,
as is each man of border and of home.

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Patricia J. Franz at her blog, Reverie. Be sure to stop by and gather up some poetry treasure!

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PF: August on my mind

Something’s coming…

The sense of time passing is never keener than in mid-August. Well, at least not for me, and I assume, for other teachers who are not yet back in the classroom. The days are bittersweet as we seek to squeeze every juicy moment out of them, even as they pass too swiftly. You can smell change in the air.

I’ve been writing a lot about time and August in my journal, and it’s nice to know I’m in good company with Sylvia Plath and Mary Oliver.

Ah, August…

For Tuesday’s Slice of Life, I wrote about my fascination with the hay bales in the fields, and shared some musings from my notebook:
“As fall speeds toward me, I feel a bit like that about my summer. It’s like I’m bundling up all my experiences, those bright sweet spots of summer, and neatly tucking them away. As if I’m counting on them to sustain me and nourish me through the coming months.” (Click here to see the full post.)

Here are some other notebook musings:

In August

Cicadas thrum
like a metronome
marking
time’s passing

And then I turned toward my beloved limerick form to try for something a bit more light-hearted:

In August there once was a teach
who pushed thoughts of school out of reach.
Looming tasks she eschewed
and as e-mails accrued,
she took herself off to the beach!

©Molly Hogan

Wishing you the best of Augusts and plenty of time to go enjoy this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup, hosted by Denise Krebs at Dare to Care.

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Poetry Friday is here!

Welcome to Poetry Friday! I’m so glad you’re stopping by, and I’m looking forward to enjoying the bounty of posts and poetry over the weekend. Don’t forget to add your link at the end of the post!

Last night I was lucky enough to attend “Words that Sing and Soar: The Joy of Words in Poetry,” a workshop with Georgia Heard and Irene Latham. What a wonderful evening! I came away high on words, with all sorts of tips and prompts and creative buzzings. During the workshop both Georgia and Irene mentioned Nikki Grimes and her word play exercise. As I’ve been wallowing in the summertime joy of procrastinating without serious ramifications, I had an opportunistic eye out for a possible Poetry Friday post (because yes, I had not written anything yet). Revisiting wordplay poems and sharing the draft I’d created sounded perfect. (Phew!)

The first time I became aware of this wordplay exercise was when I read Michelle Barnes’ interview with Nikki Grimes on This Little Ditty. The prompt was to choose a concrete word (ball, pumpkin, pen, etc.) and sit with it for a while, really thinking about it. As Nikki Grimes wrote, “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. ” While I didn’t submit anything to Michelle’s challenge at the time, the Poetry Pals later used this prompt and that inspired me to play around with an Inktober word “splat” in a word play poem (here).

Last night Georgia referred back to Nikki Grimes’ exercise. She asked us to choose a word from a short list of words, and to complete the wordplay exercise with that chosen word. To put a spin on the original prompt, the words she provided were not concrete items but small words with many meanings. I chose the word “still,” which is one that know I use a lot in my poetry. So, it felt right to sit and spend some more thoughtful time with “still”.

Still

Still is a hidden-depths word
a quiet wind-bereft word
a word of absence 
and potential

A generous word,
still slows my beating heart,
lets the leaves rest
and paints reflections on the lake
It is the space between the ripples

Still is a word that perseveres
pushing up and through
a steadfast word
a stick-to-it word

Still purifies and distills
It’s a word of change
with notes of optimism
an “and-yet-maybe…” word
Hope flows
from still

©Molly Hogan, draft

To be honest, I wish I were still able to work on this poem, as it is still evolving. There are so many facets to “still”!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party. Click here to enter.

PS On a side note, speaking of Georgia Heard, if you haven’t yet subscribed to her monthly Heartbeats, I strongly encourage you to do so! It’s fabulous!

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PF: A Summer of Travel

This summer has been, and will continue to be, a summer of travel. Three days after school vacation began, we were off for about 2 1/2 weeks of travel in Iceland and Wales. As I write this post, I’m about an hour away from leaving for Martha’s Vineyard to spend time with my sisters. (I’m crossing my fingers that I can figure out the tech to pre-schedule publishing this and then remember to link up as well!)

I spend a lot of time taking pictures when I travel. (Sorry, travel companions! Thanks for your patience!) Once I’m home again, I love to look back through the pictures and relive the experiences. Sometimes I’m inspired to create image poems, or in this case, quasi “travelku”.

amidst the chaos
of craggy volcanic rock
lupines blaze

@Molly Hogan

Creating image poems spills over into daily life. They’re a bit addictive!

garden weather:
huge cumulous clusters drift
across a green sky

@Molly Hogan

Finally, I’ve found myself, again and again, feeling so fortunate that my travel ends with the pleasure of home.

after the journey
unpacking the gifts
of coming home

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Tanita S. Davis. Click on over to find some poetry to savor! I’ll be late to read and comment, but will swing around once I’m back home again.

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PF: Inklings Challenge

This month’s Inklings challenge was from Mary Lee. She asked us to find a comment on one of our blog posts and to fashion a poem from it. I loved this idea, and immediately began considering comments as seeds for poems. Such fertile ground! In the end, I opted to use part of a comment that Patricia Franz made on one of my posts. She wrote: “Camera in tow, I stop for moss, for light; this morning it was antelope bitterbrush, its soft, shy yellow flower.” I chose to spin off the beginning of her line.

As day breaks

I stop for moss, for light;
this morning it was plum blossoms
with petals like pale butterflies
aflutter on branches
lit by rising sun

I lean in
keen to focus
on the blossoms so clear
delicately etched
across a canvas
of tender verdant leaves

light scatters
the day cracks open
but gently
like a chrysalis
splitting
or a soft exhale
after one’s breath
has been held
just a bit
too long 

©Molly Hogan

If you’re interested in reading what the other Inklings did, check out their sites here:

Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche (I believe she’s on a family jaunt and opting out this month, but you won’t regret stopping by her site anyway!)
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Mona Voekel at her blog.

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PF: Pantoum

There aren’t many things that land in my Inbox and that I read consistently, but Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Sunday post is one of them. This week he announced it was Pantoum Sunday and invited readers to join in and write a pantoum. He offers a wonderfully accessible template, which I’ve used before. This past weekend he added prompts for each line. If you’re interested, you can read more here. I played around with the prompt and wrote two pantoums. Both are still drafty, but here’s one of them:

Pantoum

Today is all golden tree tops and turbulent clouds
and I find myself wishing it away
Although yesterday I watched storm clouds mass and spit
As I write, I try to find my way to the core

Still, I find myself wishing it away
When I was younger, I tried so hard to fly
Now I write to find my way to the core 
I didn’t realize that flight insists on a landing

When I was younger I tried so hard to fly
but my feet never left the ground
and I didn’t realize that flight insists on a landing
though once I had a dream that I soared

Anyway my feet remain grounded and
yesterday I watched storm clouds mass and spit
and remembered I once had a dream that I soared
Today is all golden tree tops and turbulent clouds

©Molly Hogan, draft

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Mary Lee Hahn at her blog, A(nother) Year of Reading.

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PF: Gossip at the fence

I never know what will catch my eye when I’m out and about, but overall, I’m much more inclined to take photographs of natural images. In fact, I typically go out of my way to avoid people, buildings, and/or man-made objects. I’ve been known to gripe about people ruining my photo opportunities. (This does not always endear me to friends and family! lol ) There are always exceptions though.

On a long ago drive, this bike and fence caught my eye, and I pulled over to take a picture. (How I’ve managed not to get into multiple car accidents while gawking out the window at birds, scenery, etc, is beyond me!) Recently, when I was rummaging through photos, to curate my gallery show, I revisited this picture. I still loved the lines and the weathered look of the fence and the bike and the way they complemented each other. Looking at the photo again inspired me to write a poem to go along with it, and ultimately, I opted to include both in the show. The show comes down this afternoon, so I’m highlighting this pairing to mark the occasion.

Gossip at the Fence

Bike leans in
shares stories
of long ago wild rides
and windblown trails
of laughter

©Molly Hogan

The Poetry Friday Roundup this week is hosted by Carol L. at her blog.