Category: Poetry

Open Write July 2023

Denise Krebs2 Comments
Saturday, 15 July 2023
“The Masks We Wear” with Mo Daley

In a golden shovel poem I used this striking line from Mo’s mentor poem called “Inherited Mask.”

living life hiding behind a mask
trying not to let the plaster crack

To My Mask

Living with you has made
life duller and fabricated–
hiding my depth. Who am I
behind the bluff?
A quiet, nice, wave-calmer is my
mask (that’s you). Yet I am a story of
trying on, opening, weaving through time. I’m
not quite content with me without you, but
to be honest, you can be an excuse to
let me off the hook. I can’t be hurt if
the truth hides. But once in a while the
plaster of pretense cleaves, and I rejoice in the
crack I am making in you.

Sunday, 16 July 2023
Fibonacci Poem with Mo Daley

sweet
bird
rumpus
gathering
dissonance of praise
consonance of contrasting calls
quail, jay, thrasher, finch, oriole, dove, woodpecker, wren
dozens assemble on our porch
bird feeders times four
emptied yet
again
sweet
birds

Monday, 17 July 2023
Venn Diagram Poem with Susan Ahlbrand

Tuesday, July 18, 2023
Places We Call Home with Shelby Sexton

To be home is to be in this place
With you as we finish the race
At peace, in love, holding hope,
Holy twists of life’s kaleidoscope

Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Where Were We? with Mike Dombrowski

Don’t hand me the microphone, I thought.
You’re doing fine for both of us.
When did the mom of the bride
have to start talking at
wedding receptions?
What do I say?
I should’ve thought!
Ready?
No!

Dumb
Quiet
Finally
I spewed a few
words I don’t recall
The important thing is
our precious couple’s ready
for life together. Now, let’s eat
and laugh and play and dance and dream hope.

Weeds

Denise Krebs

Weeds

Our yard is choked with
foxtails and storkbills
Superbloom year
Dried out, they prick and poke
Our solution: weed the yard

Our nation is choked with
assault rifles and handguns
Superbloom of fear
Locked and loaded, they destroy and kill
#Here4theKidsAction‘s solution:
Weed the nation of guns

Let’s start in Denver on June 5

April 12 #Verselove – A Poet Like Me

Denise Krebs

A Poet Like Me with Anna J. Small Roseboro, April 12, 2024

We chose a poet from among those born in the same month to inspire our poetry today. I chose a striking line for my golden shovel from a new-to-me poem Rita Dove’s “Ars Poetica”: “What I want is this poem to be small.”

Ars Poetica

What a poem needs
I don’t presume to know, but I
want it to brandish truth.
Is that fair to ask?
This fearful world needs a
poem to smack us alive,
to resuscitate trust, to
be a balm for large (even
small) wounds of our soul.

 

Progressive Poem 2023

Denise Krebs5 Comments

This year’s #kidlit progressive poem is in progress here. Thanks to Margaret Simon for signing us up and coordinating this project.

Each day I have been adding the next author’s progressive line to the poem.

Suddenly everything fell into place
like raindrops hitting soil and sinking in.

When morning first poked me, I’d wished it away
my mind in the mist, muddled, confused.

Was this a dream, or reality, rousing my response?
The sun surged, urging me to join in its rising

Rising like a crystal ball reflecting on morning dew.
I jumped out of bed, ready to explore the day.

My feet pull me outside and into the garden
Where lilies and bees weave…but wait! What’s that?

A bevy of bunnies jart and dart and play in the clover.
A dog barks and flash, the bunderstorm is over. 

I breathe—brave, quiet. Like a seed,
as the day, foretold in my dream, ventured upon me.

Sunbeams guided me to the gate overgrown with wisteria
where I spotted the note tied to the gate.

As I reached the gnarled gate, pollen floated like fairy dust into my face. Aaah Choo!
Enter, if you must. We’ve been waiting for you.

Not giving the curious note a thought, I pushed the gate open and ran through.
Stopped in my tracks, eyes wide in awe–can this really be true?

Huge mushrooms for tables, vines twined into chairs,
A flutter of fairies filled flowery teawares

With glazed nut cakes and apple blossom tea,
I heard soft whispers from behind a tree. Oh my! They had been “waiting for me!”

Still brave, but cautious, I waited for them.
Forested friends filled the glade. “You’ve arrived! Let the reverie begin!”

I laughed as my bare feet danced across the dew-soaked grass.
matching the beat of paws, claws, and wings—around me, above me.
Tea cakes and hugs, twice all around, then silly games and races ’til the sun slid down
Moon shared a warm wink, and showered moon-seeds over earth’s precious ground.

 

April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading
April 2 Heidi Mordhorst, My Juicy Little Universe
April 3 Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference
April 4 Buffy Silverman
April 5 Rose Cappelli, Imagine the Possibilities
April 6 Donna Smith, Mainely Write
April 7 Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche
April 8 Leigh Anne, A Day in the Life
April 9 Linda Mitchell, A Word Edgewise
April 10 Denise Krebs, Dare to Care
April 11 Emma Roller, Penguins and Poems
April 12 Dave Roller, Leap Of Dave
April 13 Irene Latham Live Your Poem
April 14 Janice Scully, Salt City Verse
April 15 Jone Rush MacCulloch
April 16 Linda Baie TeacherDance
April 17 Carol Varsalona, Beyond Literacy Link
April 18 Marcie Atkins
April 19 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in My Orchard
April 20 Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes
April 21 Sarah Grace Tuttle at Sarah Grace Tuttle’s Blog
April 22 Marilyn Garcia
April 23 Catherine at Reading to the Core
April 24 Janet Fagal, hosted by Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference
April 25 Ruth, There is no Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town
April 26 Patricia J. Franz, Reverie
April 27 Theresa Gaughan,Theresa’s Teaching Tidbits
April 28 Karin Fisher-Golton, Still in Awe Blog
April 29 Karen Eastlund, Karen’s Got a Blog
April 30 Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, and Writing

 

April 7 – #Verselove Death in a Poem

Denise Krebs7 Comments
Death in a Poem with Denise Krebs, April 7, 2024

Today’s Poetry Friday roundup and progress on the Progressive Poem and a Fibonacci poem can be found at Margaret Simon’s Reflections on the Teche blog.

 

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”

― Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories

Today is Good Friday and Poetry Friday. Over at #Verselove today, I have shared a prompt about writing a poem that includes some aspect of death.

I wanted to share with you all the two powerful mentor poems I used:

Mary Oliver ties her “When Death Comes” poem to living life fully.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

Read Oliver’s full poem here.

Nikki Giovanni, in her poem “Rosa Parks,” ties the horrific death of Emmett Till with the Pullman Porters who helped him on his way to Mississippi and how, later that same year, Rosa Parks “sat back down.” Please take time to read this powerful poem. It begins:

This is for the Pullman Porters who organized when people said they couldn’t. And carried the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender to the Black Americans in the South so they would know they were not alone.

Read the rest of Giovanni’s poem here.

April 6 – #Verselove Sijo

Denise Krebs2 Comments

Sijo with Barb Elder, April 2024

 

A grotesque menagerie

guards Notre Dame from vile villains.

Once almost decayed and lost,

Hugo’s novel renewed this church.

Now I gargoyle in the desert,

defended and protected.

The Organ

Who can play? Perplexing task,

bellows, wind chest, pipes pitched by length

old-fashioned, complicated;

with age we grasp, mastery reached.

Come to my organ recital:

Now, about my gall bladder.

April 3 – #Verselove Word

Denise Krebs

What a Wonderful World of Words with Stacey Joy, April 3, 2024

Today I found a new word–apricity–in this rabbit hole of unique and beautiful words, as Stacey described it. When I saw that apricity means “the warm rays of sun in the winter” it brought me back to a homesick day during my first winter in frosty Iowa. I sat in the dining room in a beautiful ray of sunshine and may have felt warm for the first time in months. It was that moment I tried to capture.

Sprung into my soul, this apricity

Reminded me of hope in the cold

Brilliant snow reflected felicity

Sprung into my soul, this apricity

Here, frigid and warm duplicity

Image for lavish life takes hold

Sprung into my soul, this apricity

Reminded me of hope in the cold