tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-237385022023-07-12T07:13:39.235-04:00<i>there's a poet let loose in the library...</i>Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.comBlogger1395125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-69813235783095056912022-04-29T10:45:00.001-04:002022-04-29T10:45:58.047-04:00

 This month my Poetry Sisters are writing Poems in the style of Taylor Mali, the spoken word poet. I enjoy his work so much, but I didn't think I could do anything like it. I normally write pretty short poems with just a few images. But then I saw Liz wrote something in response to a prompt on Mali's blog, where he suggests writing a poem in the style of Nikki Giovanni. He says, "write a short

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-53675412617205840682022-03-25T06:00:00.117-04:002022-03-25T13:45:58.343-04:00

This month we are working on learning a new-to-me poetic form from 19th c. Japan. It is called "dodoitsu", and consists of four lines with a syllable count of 7,7,7,5. They say it is reminiscent of haiku with a limerick flavor. Dodoitsu often speak of love, family, or work and can have a comical twist. We decided to combine these short poems with images we shared, to make ekphrasitc

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-80208276140571840332022-02-25T06:00:00.008-05:002022-02-25T07:37:53.810-05:00

 Our challenge this month is to write an Exquisite Corpse Poem. This form is a game played in a group, like the way we used to pass around slips of paper with lines in a made-up story in junior high; each person in the group adding one line and laughing at the way these outrageous novella developed. Only this is a bunch of poets passing a line around the circle, everyone adding one line without

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-69932077210655131022022-01-28T06:00:00.048-05:002022-01-28T08:31:55.849-05:00

 This month the Poetry Sisters have been listening for poetry in the air. We agreed to create "found" poems from something overheard. It's harder than you might think in these pandemic days! I am afraid the most important thing I heard this past month was at the memorial service for my brother John, who sadly passed away at the end of the year. I couldn't get anything else out of my head,

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-46438735865656710722021-10-29T05:00:00.003-04:002021-10-29T07:44:26.765-04:00

 This month we are doing Word Play poems. Laura shared this form with us after she enjoyed it on Today's Little Ditty last spring. Check out Nikki Grimes' description here.    The idea is to explore a word: what it sounds like, what it means to you, what it implies. This was a fun one for me once I started thinking about my kitchen.   Kitchen is a  Choppy WordKitchen is a choppy word.Hard “K” to

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-54507505408340636302021-09-24T14:53:00.001-04:002021-09-24T14:53:14.112-04:00

 It sounded fun when we first discussed it; find a poem published previously in one of our poetry challenges, and write a tanka in response. Tanka, you will remember, is a Japanese poetry form consisting of seven lines. In Japanese the syllable counts are in the pattern 5/7/5/7/7. It's like an extended haiku where the last two lines dig a little deeper or extend the emotional impact of the images

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-74294426130376780932021-06-25T06:00:00.023-04:002021-06-25T06:11:30.207-04:00

This month the Poetry Sisters are messing around with found poems and Zentangle doodles. I discovered Zentangle after a workshop at my local nature center a couple years ago, and I am delighted to combine it with the fun of found poems, which in this style are sometimes called "blackout poems" or "erasure poems". Check out Kat Apel for her description of this combo of poem and Zentangle. For my

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-6501506982578665332021-04-30T06:00:00.013-04:002021-04-30T07:52:28.898-04:00

My Poetry Sisters and I are working on writing poems in the style of another poet whose work we love. It's a fun challenge to take a serious look at the structure and elements of something lovely to try and figure out what makes it so. We chose to look at and work from Linda Hogan's poem "Innocence', found here at the Poetry Foundation.After studying it and talking it over, we noticed the three

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-52560857438099421142021-01-29T05:00:00.005-05:002021-01-29T19:17:39.816-05:00

2021 and a fresh start to Friday Poetry with my Poetry Sisters! This year we are going to be doing monthly challenges and invite you to join in, if you would like. Here’s our plan for next month: To post on Feb 26 (and to share on Twitter as #PoetryPals): roll a set of metaphor dice and write a poem inspired by your metaphor. If you don’t have them, try the online one: https://perchance.org/

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-47992583871244074202020-04-24T05:00:00.000-04:002020-04-24T09:07:04.233-04:00

Spending so much time in my upper room, staring out the window musing over what work can be done from a distance, I have noticed a pair of crows hanging out in my weeping cherry tree. They are large, black birds, anyway, and I looked up all the different types of large black birds to try to distinguish between them. Pretty sure these are American Crows. My Poetry Sisters and I are tackling

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-79383169048470315492020-01-31T10:33:00.003-05:002020-02-01T11:37:08.457-05:00

I've been writing monthly poetry with my Poetry Sisters for over ten years now. Missed quite a few monthly posts, it's true, but I'm not giving up yet. Every year we look ahead to make plans for the year, and this year we have all agreed to take some time to look back and revise some of those older poems that still could use some work. I'm glad of that because I have to admit I have often

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-68432260017587574002019-10-04T09:19:00.000-04:002019-10-04T13:28:06.259-04:00

The Poetry Sisters have been challenged by Sara's daughter Rebecca to write a Pastoral poem this month. Pastoral poetry focuses on the joys and delights of country life and nature's bounty, while at the same time contrasting human endeavors and occupations, or the harmony and disharmony of humans in nature. Serendipitously, I have been studying William Blake lately, and found a wealth of

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-78835944502566661332019-09-06T05:30:00.000-04:002019-09-06T08:16:18.686-04:00

The poetry sisters are thinking about snakes this month, writing short poems comparing a snake to something new. Eight lines or less. Phew, that's a tough one! I don't normally like snakes, but I could right away think of a time a cute little baby garden snake surprised me on my front step. Here's my little poem - Snake resting on my step - a baked rock holding heat. Neither he nor I

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-88611522206390297852019-08-02T05:30:00.000-04:002019-08-02T13:07:08.078-04:00

Our challenge this month is to take another try at writing ekphrasitc poems of any form, this time in response to the photos taken by my friend Sara. On a trip to Israel she took this amazing photo of the Bell Caves of Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park. I've written a series of Renga poems. Renga is an old Japanese form based on Haiku, usually played by more than one person in a back and forth

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-35111829783527695942019-07-05T09:22:00.000-04:002019-07-05T09:31:04.781-04:00

This month we are working on Triolets, an 18th century English form of eight lines. The first and second line repeat, and there are only two rhymes, so it has a sing-song quality. I looked back through the blog here and found a couple other times we did triolets, and liked them better than what I have the week. I wrote "Joe's Fire" in 2015, and "Birthday Boy" in 2009 with my Poetry Sisters. Our

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-55209102183030701082019-06-07T05:30:00.000-04:002019-06-07T06:18:31.359-04:00

This month my poetry sisters and I are trying our hands at writing Skinny poems.The Skinny form was created by Truth Thomas in the Tony Medina Poetry Workshop at Howard University. The Skinny Blog explains the form this way: "A Skinny is a short poem form that consists of eleven lines. The first and eleventh lines can be any length (although shorter lines are favored). The eleventh and last

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-27558188295258519212019-04-05T05:06:00.000-04:002019-04-05T09:46:33.713-04:00

Q: What do dyslexic insomniacs think about in the middle of the night? A: Is there really a dog? Ha Ha. Now that we are on the subject of anagrams, guess what the Poetry Princesses are tangling with this month? That's right, anagram poems! And whew, they are a doozy. From our internet research we found four types of anagram poems: Word pairs made up of the same letters in different

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-81224312556105691332019-02-01T05:00:00.000-05:002019-02-02T05:57:53.255-05:00

This month I am writing with my Poetry Sisters. We are all writing prose poems in the style of Marilyn Nelson’s “Minor Miracle,” about a small, miraculous thing you have seen or know. Click the link in the poem's title to read Nelson's poem so you know where we are headed. The Poetry Sisters have been writing together for over ten years now, which is hard to believe. This year we are excited to

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-62090137782664705162018-12-07T08:45:00.000-05:002018-12-07T13:02:03.332-05:00

This month my poetry sisters writing group and I are creating list poems. It seems like a good choice for December, what with checking all the lists for gifts, and books, and end of the year things. I have been toying with list poems in my head all month. Here's one of mine, somewhat based on possible reality (any resemblance to real people's laundry is purely coincidence, I'm sure).  The Poetry

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-54256398785930269452018-11-02T05:00:00.000-04:002018-11-05T13:44:16.665-05:00

Every month for the past several years I have been challenged by my online writing group to take on a form or a style of poetry and create an original to share. (Mine are linked here.) I haven't been able to keep up this year, but last month and this I have been back in the game. This month we are challenged to write something using the poetic technique of anaphora. Our theme is gratitude and

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-39534353088137301282018-10-05T11:53:00.001-04:002018-10-05T11:54:13.589-04:00

I'm joining in with my Poetry Sisters once again, to post small poems (six lines or less) about animals. The challenge is to include the three words spike, roof, and shadow. I've done a couple drafts, and am sharing this one about my dog Jax. He's been such a joy to me in the past two years. Fur Therapy Across snowfields my puppy Jax gambols biting my snowballs into

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-34625881711928106122017-09-01T08:39:00.002-04:002017-09-01T09:46:14.570-04:00

It's September and I am pulling myself together to get back in the saddle for Poetry Friday. My poetry sisters have been publishing poems every first Friday while I took a break, but this month's prompt was just too enticing for me to pass up. Sara shared a photo she took while working at the Highlights Retreat Center in Honesdale, PA, and it really inspired me. We are writing ekphrastic poems,

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-66109156894042514412016-12-02T11:15:00.003-05:002019-08-02T13:13:00.239-04:00

  This month, in our year of writing poetry together, my Poetry Sisters have called on me to supply the art for our ekphrasic poems. I've chosen to share my photos of the cloisters of Glencairn Museum, a place I love to visit. You can read about the cloister here. The mansion was built as a family home for Raymond Pitcairn and his family in the 1930s, and later turned into a museum for

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-64648981290880280052016-09-02T06:44:00.000-04:002016-09-02T06:44:10.981-04:00

My Poetry Sisters and I are trying out a new-to-me form this month, something I have found quite tricky. I only just pulled something out that I am willing to share. I need to work on this one a bit more; it's a challenge! Trisha had posted about the Clogyrnach form on her Monday Poetry Challenge last year, explaining it this way: Clogyrnach is a Welsh poetic meter that falls under the

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23738502.post-74710773176526688682016-08-05T05:00:00.000-04:002016-08-05T10:33:30.503-04:00

  You know how much I love house plants and greenery of all kinds. I don't have a green thumb, and my plants don't always do well, but I am stubborn and don't give up easily. My office is full of plants. sometimes they get those really annoying fungus gnats, so I am continually in a battle of control.  There was an outbreak the same week that my Poetry Sister Sara shared her photos of the art

Andromeda Jazmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12355192738014962965noreply@blogger.com7