Tag Archives: Poetry Friday

by

PF: Moon Poems

This week Irene Latham is hosting with a “Moon in June”-themed Poetry Friday to celebrate the upcoming release of her newest book, The Museum on the Moon: The Curious Objects on the Lunar Surface. She invited people to join in the fun by sharing “a favorite moon poem (yours or someone else’s), a moon story, a moon memory, a moon dream…or whatever your moon-heart desires!” Who can resist an opportunity to wax poetic about the moon? Not I!

A quick search of my blog revealed several moon poems, including this one:

The Moon

Bright skeins of moonbeams at her feet
She weaves a lacy night replete
with shadows deep and paths aglow
and nimbly crafts a lustrous flow
a gleaming throw o’er sleeping land
moon magic streaming from her hand

©Molly Hogan

I’ve been playing around with Sudoku poems recently and decided that form might be an interesting fit for a moon poem. The idea is that each column and each row forms a small haiku-ish poem. This was …fun? Well, it’s a bit of a tangled process. I definitely have a couple of columns and rows that need tweaking, but overall I ended up with two versions that felt shareable. Then I decided to figure out how to put a picture behind the Sudoku frame. It was surprisingly easy! Yay for a tech win!

Here is one of my two drafts:

Be sure to visit Irene’s blog, Live Your Poem, and check out all the moon-inspired posts!

Congratulations, Irene, and thanks so much for the invitation to share in your glorious moon celebration.

A winter morning memory:
Moon paints herself on old wooden floors
by

PF: Just laughin’, not singin’, in the rain

I’ve become a huge admirer of the cherita, especially in Mary Lee Hahn’s capable hands (see a wonderful example here). I love the story nature of it and its overall flexibility. And, have you noticed? No titles!? In my book that’s always a win! Anyway, a small damp adventure at a recent summer festival seemed to beg for its own cherita.

After grey skies all day,

sudden torrents of drenching rain.
People huddled in doorways. Under umbrellas.

We hurried onward, steadily more sodden,
our clothes plastered to us,
our laughter mingling with the rain.

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Linda Mitchell at her blog, A Word Edgewise. She’s sharing her fabulous annual clunker exchange! Check it out here!

by

PF: For Sue

Another Reason to Love the Birds at My Feeder
for Sue

I didn’t speak to you today
or any day for the past almost year.
That tears at me
even while I smile
at the plethora of finches
bursting purple at my feeders. 

I yearn to remind you
how you were the one
who taught me about black oil sunflower seeds–
among so many other things.
How you enriched the view outside my window.
How each bird’s arrival still feels
like a gift from you.
How much I miss you 
every 
single
day. 

©Molly Hogan

Buffy Silverman is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup with some lovely poems and photographs celebrating the nature she finds around her home. Check out all the goodness here.

by

PF: Inkling Challenge: Color Poem

What a difference a few months makes! (move the slider back and forth to see each picture in its entirety.

This year I was especially struck by how drastically the palette has changed from winter’s whites, greys and blues to spring’s jewel tones. It seems almost surreal. Sitting in my many-windowed family room these days, I feel saturated in green. Outside, the intensity of green feels fluid, as if the air is filled with chlorophyll. And then there are the flowers, bursting forth hither and yon in bold and breathtaking hues. It amazes me how the same views can change so dramatically from one season to the next. So, when my turn to choose the challenge for the Inklings came around, naturally I suggested a color poem.

After many, many, many false starts, I opted to use Eleen Spinelli’s “If You Want to Find Golden” as a mentor.

If you want to find purple,
step outside and close your eyes.
Feel the breath of blooming lilacs
pulse against your skin.
Listen for the cauldron simmering
at the heart of iris,
where satiny petals amass,
eager to fly amethyst flags.

Open your eyes
to step into spring meadows 
where rising stalks of lupine,
undulate in a riot of purple
across verdant green.
Peer into the heart of shadows
beneath leaf-laden trees
where violet secrets gather.
Linger as day cedes to night,
watercoloring sky and clouds,
if you want to find purple.

©Molly Hogan, draft

If you’d like to see what the other Inklings did with this challenge, click on their names to check out their poems:

Linda Mitchell
Margaret Simon
Heidi Mordhorst
MaryLee Hahn
Catherine Flynn

Tricia is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

by

NPM: PF: On the perils of misunderstanding idioms

It’s funny how the mind works, isn’t it? My mind was on quite a ramble this morning. I was thinking about PF and how I haven’t participated in weeks. I figured this week wouldn’t be much different, as I haven’t been writing much. Then, I was remembering a comment I made to my writing group about trying to write something “light and sprightly” after I’d shared yet another pair of somber, dark poems. I like the word “sprightly” and the sound of it, so I jotted down a bunch of “ight” words in my notebook.

Next, my thoughts turned to my after school Writing Club. This past Monday we started talking about favorite Shel Silverstein poems. Someone mentioned the one about the person who lost their head and ended up giving up looking for it and sitting on it. Another student looked horrified: She clearly was not familiar with the poem. So, of course, we had to dig out “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and share that poem with her, along with a few select others. And I was thinking about how joyful that was and how timeless Shel Silverstein is.

My thoughts wandered along and perhaps “Someone Ate the Baby” (another epic Silverstein poem) was percolating in there somewhere (though we hadn’t shared it), because the phrase “I want to eat you all up!” and potential misunderstandings popped into my head. Somehow it combined with some of those “ight” words and suddenly there was a limerick in my head. It isn’t light and sprightful, but writing it made me giggle. I hope you enjoy it as well.

On the perils of misunderstanding idioms

There once was a baby delightful.
Everyone said they wanted a biteful.
As they cuddled and oohed,
I snuck in and chewed.
And now they all think I am frightful.

©Molly Hogan

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. Make sure to stop by to enjoy some poetry as National Poetry Month winds down.

by

NPM: Inkling Challenge

I’m dabbling in NPM with a sort of free form project that Margaret Simon and I created. It’s a “calendar-non calendar” grid of various poetic forms with a couple of Free Choice options thrown in. The idea is to try to get to all of them, but in any order you want and with free rein to alter/adapt to make it work. After posting for 31 days in March for the Slice of Life Challenge, I never can commit myself to 30 more days of writing. I consider this an invitation rather than a commitment. If you’re interested in checking out our plan, or playing along, here it is:

One thing Margaret and I knew we had to include was our monthly Inklings challenge. This month Mary Lee Hahn had the prompt, and she invited us to write a poem including these four words: knuckle, denial, turn, cautious. While writing this post, I went back to check the wording of the prompt and realized that Mary Lee had actually said to use “three or more” of these words. Clearly, I hadn’t been reading carefully. Dang it. At any rate, my efforts, which went all over the place, all endeavored to include all four words. I found myself mostly focused on knuckles. I learned about tree knuckles from pollarding, thought about knuckle idioms and considered fists and protective stances. Ultimately, a conversation during our last Inkling meeting led me to consider flowers, and I took the liberty of changing denial to its verb form. I’m not loving the title

Harbinger 

Within willow’s tender catkins
tight-knuckled blossoms swell
denying the cold winds
with cautious optimism 
and a bold turn toward spring

©Molly Hogan, draft

If you’d like to check out what the other Inklings did with this prompt, click on the links below:

Linda Mitchell
Catherine Flynn
Heidi Mordhorst
MaryLee Hahn

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Margaret Simon, my NPM co-conspirator, who is sharing her response to our Inkling prompt and her contributed line to the Progressive Poem. You’ll find links to all sorts of poetic projects there. Set aside some time and enjoy!

by

SOLC Day 31:A Messy Pile of Gratitude

March 2023 SOLC–Day 31
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

This post is also a Poetry Friday post.

Whew! Well, here it is. The last post in this year’s challenge. Success! I won’t say it’s been easy. In fact, this year it’s been more difficult for me than it has in most of my previous years (all 8 or 9 of them–I can never remember).  In short, while part of me will miss the daily posting, a big part is heaving a huge sigh of relief.

I struggled with sleep again last night and composed an awesome acrostic from the word “Slice”. I thought it would be a great ending post, and perhaps that’s why I was finally able to drift back off into sleep. But when I woke this morning it had disappeared into the mist. I sat down to write one again, hoping to retrieve some fragments, but the remnants were well and truly scattered.

I sat for a long time, debating what to stay. What to write. Finally, I realized that I really want to end this month and begin this new day with gratitude. I once met a beautiful, wise soul who said, “All my prayer is praise.” I’m not much of a prayer person, but her words sparked something within me. I love the idea of rooting myself in a practice of giving thanks, of praising. I am far from successful at this, but still I persevere.

Next my thoughts turned to a recent ELA prompt to write a “Pile Poem”. Amy Kay, the mentor poet shared there, was apparently inspired by this quote:

“So, what if, instead of thinking about solving our whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.“

A Pile of Gratitude

Choosing 
the first one
is probably the hardest.
My husband? My three children?
The blessing of my sisters? Living in Maine?
Maybe the Carolina wren who sings the day awake
or the fox sparrow scrabbling beneath the birch? I can't
forget the marsh, the beach, the deep green of pine and steely grey granite.
Each day's sunrise. The ever-present chickadee. The bold swagger of a crow on
glittering snow. The laughter of children. Soon, I suspect, my lines will be overflowing, 
overrunning the page, the margins, and rewinding onto the next line, pooling, puddling 
like the extra fabric of curtains in old homes, and I think what a wonder it is to live a life that is 
so full of beauty, friends, family, community, that I have to worry about not having enough room to 
write it all on the page. It simply won't fit within the margins. And isn't that just grand?

©Molly Hogan

After writing this, I previewed to see how the poem looked when published. I realized I was right–when constricted to the blog format, my lines took on a life of their own. No longer does my poem have the ever increasing lines of my draft. To capture that, I’d have to play a bit more with technology, and I decided not to do that. It feels right to let my overflow of gratitude take over the form and make it its own. A teetering messy pile of sorts, one I might need to reconstruct now and again if it tilts or threatens to topple. That feels just about right.

Every day this month the SOL icon has been centered at the top of my post with a thank you to Two Writing Teachers, but that’s so easy to overlook. So here it is again: A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow. A huge additional thank you to everyone who took the time to read and comment on my blog during the month. I only wish I’d had more time to meander, read and comment along the way.

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Mary Lee Hahn at her blog, A(nother) Year of Reading. Yet another thing to add to my pile of gratitude.


by

PF: A Few Short Poems for a Long Month

In the mad days of March, it helps to slow down once in a while and write some short poems.

snow falls
I watch
drifting

©Molly Hogan

When I don’t find inspiration outside my window, I enjoy starting my days with Alex Price’s daily #CinquainPrompt.

prompt: paddle

above
water’s surface
the mallard floats serene
no sign of the mad paddling
beneath

©Molly Hogan

prompt: sense

Spring pauses
offstage, out of sight.
You can sense her presence,
even through new-fallen snow.
Soon…soon…

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Laura Purdie Salas at her blog. She’s sharing an invitation to join her in April with a creative poetry project. Be sure to stop by and enjoy poems of all lengths and forms!

by

SOLC Day 4 and PF: The Yielding

March 2023 SOLC–Day 4
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

My post today is serving as both a Poetry Friday post (posted late!) and a Slice of Life.

This month Margaret Simon posed the monthly challenge in our Inklings writing group. She invited us to, “Explore the use of anaphora in a poem, how the repetition of a line or phrase can add depth to the theme.” I had initial thoughts of writing a triolet or something nuanced and lovely, but February disappeared. Then, in the weird way of the world of writing, I woke yesterday morning with some oddly melding thoughts, including Edgar Allen Poe’s “Raven”, in mind. I dove right in, but unfortunately, I had to stop writing to go to school. So, here’s a story in drafty poetic form, posted a bit late for the Poetry Friday Roundup. (After trying to use Poe’s work as a mentor, I am immensely impressed by his skills! Wow! )

The Yielding

Once upon a long week’s ending, teaching, planning, e-mail sending,
last ditch cleaning of the classroom, tote bags hefted, out the door
While I drove home, nearly sleeping, suddenly there came a peeping
sudden thoughts bestirred and cheeping, cheeping as they’ve done before
“Just some thoughts,” I muttered crossly, “peeping as they’ve done before.
Nothing that I need explore.”

But the thoughts were still compelling, never shrinking, always swelling
as I drove along the back roads, thoughts kept drifting to the store, 
Then the wheel was swiftly turning, as my mind was deeply burning
with the thought that still was churning, churning at resolve’s frail shore
White flag flying, I conceded, burning at resolve’s frail shore
“Just one bag and not one more!”

Once I’d yielded to the luring, gave up thoughts of craving-curing,
I slunk to the candy aisle, treading paths I’d walked before
Bright display was quite eye-catching, soon the plan began a’hatching, 
and my hand was quickly snatching, snatching, paying, out the door!
“Robin’s eggs!” my breath was hitching, catching with the treat in store
“Just one piece and not one more!”

But that feeble vow unraveled, mounds of candy quickly traveled
past my lips and down my gullet, there to lie on stomach’s floor 
As the mounting candies tumbled, suddenly my stomach grumbled
“Should I stop”, I barely mumbled, mumbled as my gut implored
But the seismic heavings heightened, grumbled as my gut implored
Quoth my stomach, “Nevermore!”

©Molly Hogan, draft

Yum!

If you’d like to see what the other Inklings did with this challenge, click on their names to check out their poems:

Linda Mitchell
Margaret Simon
Heidi Mordhorst
MaryLee Hahn
Catherine Flynn

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Tanita at her blog. Be sure to stop by to enjoy some poetry goodness!

by

A Gift of Tulips

A Gift 

An enchantment of tulips
graces the ceramic vase.
Over the flow of days
their petals curl and fade,
stems weaken and bow,
elegant in their curved descent.
Then in a final cascading rush,
each flower splays into full blossom,
casting petals upon the table.
A last tender offering.

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Tabatha Yeatts at her blog, The Opposite of Indifference. Be sure to stop by! Tabatha’s posts always leave you with something new to ponder and there are links to other poetic offerings as well.