Poetry Friday: "It Was All My Fault" (September Poetry Challenge)

Tanita Davis shared the Poetry Pals' Challenge for September: 

We deal with some ADHD here in Edmisten World. Knowing and accepting that ADHD is a genuine cognitive difference is really helpful. (Correction: it's vital.) And consider this, from ADDitudemag.com: 

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a confusing, contradictory, inconsistent, and frustrating condition. It is overwhelming to people who live with it every day.

Part of the overwhelm comes from blaming yourself for things that may not fully be in your control. ("I feel like a failure" is a common refrain.) 

So my poem this week is an affectionate nod to everyone who has ADHD, and to all who live with ADHDers. And to everyone who has ever thought that everything is their fault ... I'm willing to bet it's not. 

It Was All My Fault 

Karen Edmisten

I lost my phone,

it was all my fault. 

Sigh. Now I’m gonna eat. 

I’ll get the salt. 

I forgot the salt. 

That was all my fault. 

My meal was bland. 

Now I want a malt. 

Can I DoorDash the malt?

No, again I’m at fault. 

Cuz my phone is lost. 

ADHD assault. 

Did I order this brain? 

Indeed I did not. 

I’d have ordered a vault. 

So who’s really at fault? 

My preference would be

for some brain gestalt, 

hold it all in my mind. 

It’s not really my fault. (Is it?)

Stop, said my family, 

my friends, my beloved. 

The self-assault must 

come to a halt. 

It’s not your fault. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect has the Poetry Friday round-up this week. 

I look forward to seeing who played along with the September challenge, 

and if they're taking the blame or lobbing it. 😊

Poetry Friday: We're doing haiku sonnets!

 Last month, Tanita Davis shared the details: 

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to join our August poetry challenge!

Here’s the scoop: this month, we’re doing haiku…sonnets. If your response is a baffled “What?” no worries. Basically four 3-line haiku plus a couplet of either 5 or 7 syllables equals the traditional 14 lines you’ll find in a sonnet. If you haven’t written a sonnet, or “little song” in a minute, Folger has a Shakespearean guide, while the Poetry Foundation has the deets on other forms. Are you in? Good! Start today so you can be ready to share August 28th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. See you then!

__________________________________________________________________________

So, as usual, I got to work right away. 

Oh, wait, no. 

I didn't. 

I checked my planner yesterday and found the note I'd made: "Tanita's August Poetry Challenge — post on Aug. 28th." 

Ummm ... okay. So, this morning I got to work. 

I don't know if this is haiku, or if it's a haiku sonnet, or if I should've tried to nail down some iambic pentameter (I guess not? Because ... haiku?) Anyway, I just started in on something I've been thinking about a lot lately — the way that, when your kids grow up, they begin drifting in and out of your house in varying patterns. (College, staying with friends, traveling to see the long-distance boyfriend, moving to a new town after getting married, coming home and sleeping under your roof again for a holiday gathering...) As a mom, I have never stopped waking up and asking myself, "Where are my daughters today?" 

Here's the haiku sonnet I came up with. 

Counting heads

Karen Edmisten 

Being a mother, 

someone said, is counting heads.

Where is everyone? 

Easy when they’re five.

They are all at home, of course.

Yard, kitchen, their room. 

Adult kids, new phase. 

I wake up, reorient 

to each day’s difference. 

Who’s under my roof?

Is anyone traveling?

Is everyone safe? 

Counting their heads never ends. 

I count each head in my heart. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marvelous Mona Voelkel has the Poetry Friday round-up today. 

Poetry Friday: "End of Summer"

Do you mind a rerun? (It's been that kind of week, and this little poem is appropriate for the moment.) 

While out walking yesterday, I was positively pelted by small, leaping demons. Some might call them "grasshoppers" but this week — when they're in the middle of their annual August hysteria — I'm calling them "the things that torture me on my walk and make me startle a greater number of times than I did when I watched The Shining." 

I don't like flicking them off my face. 

(Thankfully, they only hit the face target once.) 

Happy August! 

Summer's End
by Karen Edmisten

August, morning walk.
The grasshoppers' pole vaulting, 
a season shifting.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by the charming and wonderful Denise Krebs at Dare to Care. 

Photo courtesy of Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: “Impressions” — An Ekphrastic

Last month, Tanita Davis shared the latest challenge from the Poetry Pals: 

Here’s the scoop: we’re writing ekphrastic poems, which might pair beautifully with your plans for National Poetry Month (I’m attempting poetry comics). Ekphrasis is a Greek word which means “description,” and you’re invited to choose your own image from anywhere – personal pictures or otherwise. Are you in? Good! You’ll have the month to craft your creation and share it April 24th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll play along!

Oooh, I love an ekphrastic. Even so, I put this assignment off until this week because … well, because that’s how I roll. Image choice was WIDE open, so I had trouble narrowing it down. Then yesterday, out of the blue, this one — A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat — came to mind. 

I realized I’ve never thought much about the people depicted in this painting. I’ve assumed they're an ordinary assortment of urbanites enjoying a day by the water. It turns out there's other speculation about them too. I found several commentaries that remarked on this idea: 

There has been scholarly debate as to why Seurat included certain motifs in the painting, possibly alluding to prostitution that took place on the island, where clients would meet. Two notable motifs include the woman to the left with the fishing rod and the woman to the right with the monkey.

The fishing rod could be suggestive of the idea of “fishing” for a possible desirable woman or that the prostitutes fished for prospective clients. The female monkey’s name in French was singesse, which was also a term utilized for prostitutes. The woman on the right could be with a client.

                                                     — from Art in Context

Who knew? 

On the other hand, given that women are routinely misjudged, unfairly labeled, frequently stereotyped, presumed upon, lied about, and otherwise wronged and maligned, the idea/poem/twist that came to me was this:   

Impressions  

(after A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte) 

People always have their opinions. 

Some of you eye us and think,
“Ah, another Sunday in the park 

with George.” 

But also? 

Many look askance. 

They assign a seedy motive

to my sister’s fishing expedition. 

Presume my pet monkey 

means I am a woman 

of questionable character. 

But perhaps I just love animals? 

Why has no one asserted 

or assumed that 

my predominant thoughts are these: 
"This fabric does not breathe. 

I’m ready to go. 

I hate this stupid bustle. 

It's hitting the floor the minute 

my monkey and I get home.” 

    — Karen Edmisten 

~~~~~~~~~~

The Queen of Ekphrastics — visit her entire “ArtSpeak” series here —

 Irene Latham, has the Poetry Friday round up this week. 

Poetry Friday: Unraveling the Ovillejo

Poetry maven and Writer Extraordinaire Tanita Davis shared the Poetry Peeps’ March challenge here. The mission? Knit together an Ovillejo: 

Here’s the scoop: we’re writing tight little bundles of poetry called Ovillejos! That’s exactly what the word means – a bundle of yarn. This Spanish form bundles together ten lines, made up of 3 rhyming couplets interspersed with three verrrry short lines, and a quatrain. The last line is a “redondilla,” a “little round” that collects all three of the short lines and casts off the poem, as it were. 

I wrote my ovillejo about a concert we — Atticus, me, Ramona, her boyfriend — went to last weekend. My Christmas gift to Atticus was tickets for Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. We'd never seen him live before, but know this: the man is determined not to be photographed or recorded. (A few years ago he blew up at an audience over their phone use and asked if they wanted him to play or to pose. The subject of phones in public spaces is a big one and I have so many thoughts but that’s a post for another time.) Phones were locked up in Yondr pouches as soon as we entered the venue. Low lighting, a permanent perch behind his keyboard, and a hoodie pulled far down over his head (practically over his face) helped Bob keep his distance from us. 

The night before the concert I had the funniest dream: we arrived at the theater and almost no one was there. Bob looked over all the empty seats, sighed, sat down a couple of rows ahead of us, and pouted. I woke up wondering what had prompted that, but maybe it was a premonition? Because, while in real life the theater was full, Bob did seem a tad pouty. Microphone malfunctions didn’t help. Dylan kept picking the mic up and plopping it down in different positions, prompting reverberative booms every time. (Is the mic person still employed? I have my doubts.) Despite Bob’s aloof performance, we had a good time, and I think Ramona and her boyfriend did too. As we talked about him the next day, I said, “Dylan’s such a … character? Distinct ... personality?” and Ramona said, “Weirdo?” He is, indeed, all the things, daughter. 

Yes, it’s all true. I have a love/hate relationship with that weirdo-genius-pouty-bratty-talented-rebellious-creative-Nobel-prize-winner who likes his hoodies more than he likes us. 

But hey, now that I ponder it, I think the best Dylan concert I’ve ever been to was a couple of years ago in our living room. Ramona taught herself three songs (“It Ain’t Me, Babe,” “The Times They Are a-Changing,” and “Don’t Think Twice”) on the guitar she inherited from my father, then she played and sang them for Atticus on his birthday. And she didn’t even wear a hoodie or turn off the lights! What an un-aloof performer! 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, leads us to my Ovillejo, which actually came to me surprisingly quickly. 

Ovillejo for a Temperamental Legend 

Karen Edmisten 

Who is a legend named Dylan?
Bob. Thrillin’!
Who saw him sing on Saturday?
Us. Yay!
He is known for a stunning show?
(Well, um, no.)

He doesn’t like his face to show.
Sloppy hoodie hides his features.
(Fans are such annoying creatures.)
Bob! Thrillin’ us? (Well, um, both “yea" and no.)

Final take: Don’t think twice, Bob, it’s all right (not that you’re worried.) We rolled with what was blowin’ in the wind, and now we can say we’ve seen Dylan. Also, brunch the next day was excellent and I really like Ramona’s boyfriend. All in all, a great weekend and I got a new poem out of it. 

~~~~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by Marcie Flinchum Atkins, who is celebrating the beauty of twilight and her newest, soon-to-be-released book, When Twilight Comes. 

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Poetry Friday: I’m hosting! (and a new poem)

Welcome to the Poetry Friday round-up! 

Last week, the Poetry Peeps shared pieces inspired by the work of U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze. The challenge was flexible. (Read: “Pick a poem, any poem! Write in his style, or don’t! Focus on a line, a stanza, a theme, the ghost of an idea. Whatever you want!”) I love a wide-open challenge … until I don’t. But the fault, dear reader, was with me, not with the peeps posing the challenge. As I’m wont to do, I allowed procrastination and choice-paralysis to defeat me. I wrote nothing for last weeks’s round-up, so I decided to tackle it this week. Here’s how it unfolded:

I tinkered with one of my favorite Sze poems, "The Shapes of Leaves.” I played around with the shapes of houses, I experimented with the shapes of hands (as the objects that "our emotions resemble”) but I wasn’t satisfied with what was flowing. (Because it wasn’t flowing.) I still liked those ideas, but set them aside.

Then I bumped up against another of Sze’s poems, one that, serendipitously and in that lovely, winding way of poetry, happens to reference “The Shapes of Leaves.” Eureka! 

In “Residence on Earth,” Sze recounts a gathering of poets and a reading of his work. I did a little digging and it seems he’s referring to the Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín. (Here's a video of his reading.) 

“Residence on Earth” ends with:  

I understood how poets from all over the world

had come for peace, solidarity, justice—
and when my host, and reader of my poems

in Spanish, invited me into his home, I saw
one way to live during our residencia en la tierra.

I took the words “one way to live” and ran with them. Here’s my draft: 

One Way to Live
(after “Residence on Earth” by Arthur Sue)

One way to live on this earth

is in stunned observation. 

You see chaos before you,
but are paralyzed, inert,
a terrified deer.

One way to live on this earth

is in constant bellicosity. 

You howl at the lunacy 
until your throat 

is raw and torn.  

One way to live on this earth

is in quiet service. 

You see gaping needs; 

you fill one, meet another, 

walk toward the next. 

One way to live on this earth 

is in the 

shimmering 

rainfall 

of 

words. 

You shine light,

reflect truths:

chaos, lunacy, 

desperate need, yes,

but also beauty, tenderness, 

the shape of a leaf.  

 

A band of poets become 

one voice, create one home, 

fashion a refuge.  

Together, 

while in residence on earth, 

they have found 

one way to live. 

~ Karen Edmisten 

~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Linky awaits your contributions. Drop them here! 

Poetry Friday: "I Stop Somewhere Waiting For You" (A Walt Whitman/Susan Thomsen/Chicken Spaghetti-inspired poem)

A few weeks ago, Susan Thomsen, at Chicken Spaghetti, posted a prompt: begin a poem with the last line (I stop somewhere waiting for you) of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." 

Susan's take on the prompt is here, and her "Flurries of Winter" is an enchanting take, full of joy and verve and love and snow. 

I went a different route, being the INFJ/Melancholic Eeyore that I am. 😏

I might've composed my response sooner if I hadn't tripped myself up by turning the prompt upside down. I'd gotten it fixed in my head that I should end the poem with the suggested line. I tried a number of different openings and approaches but none of them were working. Page after page of garbage. I decided to go reread Susan's post/prompt, thinking maybe I'd pick up some new inspiration. 

"Oh!" I said to my upside-downed self. "I'm going to START the poem with that line." Well. Okay then. Let's try that. 

I imagined being caught in a wretched kind of limbo with a friend or significant other or spouse — really anyone you're trying to have an authentic relationship with when you aren't getting anything in return. (I mean, truly ... we've all been there.) And then the poem wrote itself in twenty minutes.

The lesson here is to listen to Susan more closely the first time. But I think, in general, it's just good advice to listen to Susan. 

Okay, here we go: 

"I Stop Somewhere Waiting For You" 

         ~ Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" 

I stop somewhere waiting for you. 

Somewhere.
Waiting.
For you.

It’s exhausting, being mired 

in this bog, slogging through
a swamp of unearned, unreturned 

hope and promise. 

I don’t really even know where I am.

“Somewhere”?
Who chooses to live there?

It feels like Wonderland,
and every bit as absurd.
You make me believe
six impossible things before breakfast
but by dinner time, I’m famished.

So I've decided.
I’m moving to a new anywhere.
I will learn its borders and boundaries as I go.
The plan is still fuzzy.

 
But I stop, somehow, waiting for you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Susan has the entire Poetry Friday round-up this week.

Visit her at Chicken Spaghetti and enjoy lots of poetic goodness. 

Poetry Friday: A Meme Poem

Susan, at Chicken Spaghetti, invited us to join her in a meme poem, ala Donika Kelly. Kelly’s inspiration was a meme from 2017, so I went back to see what else made the rounds that year. Remember this grand entrance? As Professor Robert Kelly conducted an interview with the BBC, his daughter marched into the room, her baby brother rollered in behind her, and then his wife rocketed in to retrieve the uninvited interview guests. 

Here’s the video that went viral: 

And here’s my poem: 

Life Interrupted 

Oh, sweetheart, 

March! 

Burst on the scene, 

exultant. 

Jubilant. 

Lead the parade. 

Insert yourself. 

Settle in, take up space. 

Suck the marrow of life. 

Act like you own it, baby.  

Because you do. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Carol at The Apples in My Orchard has the Poetry Friday round-up this week. 

Poetry Friday: Writing tritinas

Tanita Davis* shared the latest Poetry Peeps challenge: 

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of September! Here’s the scoop: We’re going to take up the challenge of tritina. Invented by poet Marie Ponsot, this less restrictive younger sibling of the sestina uses three repeated words to end three tercets. The order of word-endings for the tercets are 123, 312, 231, with a final line acting as the envoi, featuring all three words in the 1-2-3 order used in the first stanza. Additionally, we’re continuing with our theme of poetry in conversation, in whatever way that is individually defined. Sound a little tricky? Maybe? Are you still in? 

I'm in! 

I'd never written a tritina, and had no idea what I wanted to focus on. I sat down with my notes (123, 312, 231...) and thought, "But what kind of conversation?" 

An image of a young student and teacher came to mind, so I rolled with the idea of a literal conversation about poetry. Here's the draft I came up with this week: 

Making Room 

“I do not like this stuff — poetry!” said
the boy in the back of the room.
“It’s stupid, so I don’t read it.”

The teacher nodded. “But if you never read it,
how do you… know?” she said. 
Reticence in the room.

Then shifting. Glancing. A crackling room.
“I read a poem once, okay? And I hated it.
But, I could, I guess…try again?” he said.

“I mean, maybe,” he said softly, “there’s room for it.”

I played around with a variety of line-ending words and tinkered for a while with room/nodded/know, but I couldn't stick the landing on that draft. (Why am I using a gymnastics metaphor? I was never even good at somersaults.) I liked where that draft was going, but there's still something too wispy about it. I'll get back to you if I stick the landing on it, or nail the dismount, or figure out where these metaphors are coming from. 

In the meantime, the Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by the marvelous and inspiring Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm. 

~~~~~~~~~~

* Tanita's newest book, Berry Parker Doesn't Catch Crushes, just landed in the world! (And it's sitting on my nightstand, right now, waiting for me to start reading it tonight. Huzzah!) It's the latest in a long line of middle grade and YA goodness from Tanita, and I can't wait to dive in. 

Photo thanks to Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: I’m Hosting, and we're having conversations with poems (or in my case, with a poet)

I was out of town last week and missed Poetry Friday but I wouldn't dare duck out today — I'm your host!

Last month, the inimitable Tanita Davis shared the August challenge:

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of August! Here’s the scoop: If poetry is a love letter to readers, this month, we’re writing back. Using Nikki Giovanni’s “Talk to Me, Poem, I Think I Got The Blues” as a mentor verse, we’re writing poetry directly in conversation with a poem. Whether you talk back directly to Ms. Giovanni’s work, or choose another poems to pass notes to is up to you, as is length and form. Are you in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on August 29th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope all of you will join the fun!

I cheated a little and broadened the rubric: I'm in conversation with a poet (and a smattering of her poems) rather than addressing my plea to a single selection. I couldn't wait to talk to Emily Dickinson and ask her to reveal her secrets. Even though I'm nobody, I knew she would indulge me. She hasn't written me back, but I'm a patient correspondent. 

(The lines in italics are either taken directly from Dickinson's poems, or are a rearrangement of her words.) 

Talk to Me, Emily D.  

(with thanks to Nikki Giovanni) 

"In this short life that only lasts an hour

How much—how little—is within our power."

            ~ Emily Dickinson 

I have a few questions, Miss Dickinson. 

(May I call you Emily? I’m nobody, but 

I feel like we’re friends.) 

I have questions, Emily. 

The first is the easiest 

and also impossible. 

How do you do it? 

How much—how little—do you do?

Do you dream a poem? 

Does it waft in, fully formed, 

gorgeous in its shape and complexity? Or, 

does it hover tantalizingly near you, 

a shape-shifting cloud 

informing image and imagination? 

 

Or is it baking that inspires 

the rising of precise words? 

While your hands are kneading, 

is your inscrutable mind churning? 

Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves—

Is the secret, instead, 

in the scent of gingerbread? 

You dwell in possibility but in 

the impossibility of this world too, 

its planks of reason broken. 

Still. 

Still, you conjure 

that Stop-sensation on my Soul, 

and Thunder in the Room. 

Talk to me, Emily D.

How much—how little— do you do, 

do you know? 

Dazzle me gradually with your truth. 

~ Karen Edmisten 

References: 

• "How much—how little—" (from "In this short Life that only lasts an hour," 1292)
• "I’m Nobody" (from "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" 260) 
• "I dwell in Possibility" (466)
• "planks of reason broken" (adapted from “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," 340: "And then a Plank in Reason, broke,")
• "that Stop-sensation on my soul and thunder in the room" (from “I got so I could take his name,” 293) 
• "Dazzle me, gradually, with your truth" (adapted from “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” (1263): "The Truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind—")

Mr. Linky awaits your dazzling contributions this week. Thanks for sharing in the conversation. 

Photo courtesy of Pexels. 

Poetry Friday: The Poetry Peeps are writing Raccontinos! (And so am I!)

The challenge: 

Last month, Tanita (who also happens to be this week's Poetry Friday host) said: 

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of June! Here’s the scoop: We’ll going to write a couple of couplets and make a Raccontino. Never heard of the form? No worries. If you can count to two, you can play with this delightful form. Of course, we’re turning our faces to the winds of ‘conversation,’ as always. Are you in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on June 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the fun!

I haven't joined in on a poetry challenge for a while. (Was it last October? Really?!) When I sat down today, waffling over what to post for Poetry Friday, I remembered the month-end challenges. 

"Didn't Tanita say something about couplets last month?" I said. 

"The Raccontino sounds so easy!" I said. 

"It'll be fun!" I said. 

(It was not easy.)

But it is always — in its twisted way — fun to write, even when writing is torture. (As Thomas Mann said, "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.") 

So, the Raccontino. The poem must:

• be composed of any number of couplets 
• have even-numbered lines sharing the same end rhyme
• have the title and final words of odd-numbered lines telling a story

Because the Poetry Peeps are exploring the theme of being "in conversation," I chose conversations within marriage. The story I came up with was: 

"In Marriage, conversation is sometimes lively, sometimes sweetly silent." 

I started with that, and then had to work on the rhyming lines. Not easy, but pretty satisfyingly fun in the end. 

In Marriage

We're having another conversation
and this is how it goes. 

He, angry at the state of the world, is 

enumerating his (and my—he knows me so well) woes. 

We stop, we sigh, we know sometimes

that this is how it goes. 

We'll share the angst, trade lively 

plans for how to conquer foes. 

But other times, sometimes, 

(oftentimes, many) far more on the nose 

is the deftly perceived shared glance, the sweetly

invisible current that flows 

from him to me, me to him. Silent, 

more electric than life. This is how it goes. 

~ Karen Edmisten 

~~~~~~~~~~

Visit Tanita for the Poetry Friday round-up, including links to all the Poetry Peeps 

who joined in the challenge. 

Photo courtesy of Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: It Ain't Me, Bob (a found poem)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Poetry Friday crept up on me this week, so I jumped into my archives and pulled this one out. I wrote this (well, found it — it's a found poem made up of Bob Dylan song titles) in 2008, for Jama Rattigan, who was celebrating (as she is often wont to do) the freewheelin' Dylan. 

Have you seen A Complete Unknown? Atticus, Ramona, and I saw it earlier this month. Timothée Chalamet was marvelous as Dylan, of course, but if Edward Norton doesn't get the supporting actor Oscar for his uncanny portrayal of Pete Seeger, I'll storm out of the ceremony. (Oh, wait. I won't be there. But I'll rail like a cranky old man from the comfort of my living room because I loved Pete Seeger and I love Edward Norton for playing him.) 

Admittedly I didn't give this bit of found poetry extensive thought back in 2008 — I just strung a few titles together and hit "Publish" because I thought it would give Jama a smile. But, as I consider how many songs Dylan has written (you can find the staggering list here), I think it would be great fun to give it another go. 

It Ain't Me, Bob

Karen Edmisten 

Just like a woman,
the times they are a-changin'
and like a rolling stone
the answer's blowin'
in the wind.
A hard rain's a'gonna fall
but don't think twice,
it's alright.

It's not dark yet.
Mr. Tambourine Man

is knockin' on heaven's door. 
I've got the Highway 51 blues
but all I really wanna do 
is have
one more cup of coffee
and shelter from the storm.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by the marvelous Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference. 

Poetry Friday: Overthinking my 2025 Word of the Year

Photo by Markus Spiske

When it's time to choose a guiding/inspiring/motivational/comforting/perfect (aye, there's the rub) word to take me through the upcoming year, I do what I do with everything: Overthink it and paralyze myself.  (Do you think that little "perfect" requirement has anything to do with that? Naaaaah.) 

For 2024, I chose "Hope" but also stre-e-e-etched Hope out, seeking maximum mileage: 

Healing
Overcome
Patience
Emerge 

Hope, healing, overcoming, patience, emerging: it was good advice to myself. I needed all that and more in and from 2024. 2023 and 2024 were rough. After a couple years of intense caregiving and the deaths of both of my parents six months apart, I felt like an abandoned shell of myself. Time to reclaim ... something? I headed down that Hope road and it's been helping. (True, I have often felt derailed, especially since November 6th, but that's another subject and another post, a different kind of rough time to come.) 

For my 2025 word, I did an online quiz to see if I was inspired by the word it gave me. I took the quiz three times and every time it gave me Create. I was tempted to fight it, as I often do with that kind of thing. I'm a Gretchen Rubin Questioner/tipping-to-Rebel and I thought: 

"Why should I trust a random online quiz? Shouldn't I find my own word? Wouldn't that be more authentic? Am I lazy to use a quiz? But some quizzes are great, like the Four Tendencies. After all, 'Questioner' nails it. But this is different. Or is it?" 

And then I thought: 

"Shut up and just adopt the word, Karen. Create feels just right after the healing, the overcoming, the patience, and the emergence. JUST USE THE WORD." 

So I will. But I wasn't done (over)thinking it. 

I stre-e-e-etched the potential of Create a little further, and here's what I came up with: 

Conceive
Realize
Envision
Actualize
Truthfulness
Express

I like what it invites me to and I have all kinds of ideas about all kinds of writing I want to create going forward. 

Overthinking, apparently, isn't all bad. 🤔 I even decided it was worth writing an acrostic poem in its honor: 

On January first, I 

Veer into it, the inevitable

Everlasting, maddening 

Routine of it.

Turning to words for direction, to guide me

Hoping one little word can transform twelve months

Into a new creation. 

Nothing, though, not even an all-encompassing word, can 

Know what's to come. Still, I try. 

It's in our bones, in our blood, we can't help it. We

Try. One little word that can transform a year. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up this week. 

Poetry Friday: "How to Build a Life in Ten Steps"

Last month, Tanita Davis shared the October challenge the Poetry Pals/Sisters/Princesses (and anyone else who'd like to join in) are tackling. Tanita says: 

Here’s the scoop: We’re building! Our prompt comes from p. 139 of The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, and we’re writing a poem in which we literally build and/or take apart something – large or small. Our focus will be on constructing or deconstructing, taking into account technical terms, instructions, and perhaps even material sources. 

I didn't entirely stick to the prompt, as my building isn't literal, but, hey, no one's grading us, so here's what I came up with.  

How to Build a Life in Ten Steps
Karen Edmisten

Step 1
Be born. Cry, because that’s an appropriate response to encountering the world. (Other, more complicated, feelings will come later.)

Step 2
Grow a bit. Move forward. (You've no choice in this step, though know you will take some steps backward.)

Step 3
Look at the world around you. Marvel. Despair. Be wide-eyed. Stomp your feet. Wander down some roads not taken.

Step 4
Grow some more. Consult the manual. (Admit you’ve been ignoring it.) Be tempted to throw it in the trash because some of the hardware it mentions is missing.

Step 5
Fall in love. Laugh. Swear off falling in love. Sob. Fall in like, lust, loneliness, lackadaisy. Be a childless cat lady and shout it from the rooftops. Fall again, and now again. Write it all down in your diary.

Step 6
Learn cliches and use them recklessly:
“How time flies!”
“Where do the years go?”
“You’re all grown up!”

Nod at the truth and the lies of them.

Step 7
Consult the manual again. This isn’t going the way you planned. Things look wobbly, wonky. There aren’t enough dowels, or nails, or latches (see Figure B). Are you missing the shelf (Part C)? Where is Part D, the foundational backing that’s supposed to hold the whole structure in place?

Step 8
Persevere through the love/hate thing you have with this project. Improvise. Stick those wobbly bits together with duct tape.

Step 9
Call in a friend for a consultation. Have a beer. (“Does this look wonky to you? Be honest.”)

Step 10
Put the manual down. Drop the hammer (but not on your foot.) Stop trying to build this life. This life has been building you.

 
“It looks unique and beautiful!” your friend says.

 
Choose to believe her.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by the lovely Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink. 

Photo courtesy of Pexels. 

Poetry Friday: an unexpected encounter

Photo courtesy of Emily Hopper/Pexels

I got busy last week and didn't get a post done but today I sat down and captured this moment from a recent walk. I try to walk most mornings and one route I take goes by a protected wetland area. 

I don't usually feel the need to protect myself from the inhabitants but, hey, I was, after all, the trespasser in this scenario. 

Unvigilant

by Karen Edmisten 

An unexpected
encounter, the impact as if
a piece of sky pounced.
Thwacked from behind, 

I was startled, unmoored,
looked around.
His innocently cocked head 

fooled me not.
Red-winged blackbird thug.

~~~~~~~~~~

The lovely Michelle Kogan has the Poetry Friday round-up this week.   

Poetry Friday: "Thirty-nine Years" (wishing Atticus a happy anniversary and writing poetry again)

Last week, Atticus and I celebrated our 39th anniversary. 

(Umm, we're as shocked as you are. 

How can two people who are so incredibly young and vibrant 

have been married for thirty-nine years? It's a mystery, I know.) 

Happy anniversary, Atticus. 

Thirty-nine Years

by Karen Edmisten 

He was my first husband.
He is my now-husband,
my last husband, my only husband,
(in case you’re counting.) 

I'm counting.
Thirty-nine years and counting.
Not counting as in,
“I can’t wait for this to be over,”
but counting as in, 

I didn’t know I could count this high
in the category “Years married.”
I’m astonished and delighted by us.
We should win something on Jeopardy: 

“Alex, what is, Tom and Karen defied the odds and lasted?" 
(Now we have been married so long 

that Alex is gone.)

We married young and discovered 

what it means to weld one’s self to another.
It’s a tricky process, this welding. 
Rife with flame and light and danger
but with a distant goal in sight: 

a finished form, something sturdy and strong, 

a thing to behold. 

We have loved each other, hurt each other, 

lost each other, and found each other. 

We have died and risen again. 

We are each a Phoenix 

who learned to rise from ashes, 

discovering — this man and I —
that ashes are the stuff of life
and that new beginnings
can be shining, iridescent things,
unexpected fuel that will carry us 

on another orbit around the earth. 

Life never stops beginning.
Oh, yes, surely, it’s ending 

every moment it’s beginning 

and it’s beginning 

with each ending.
This is the beauty of the Phoenix, yes?
It keeps rising, flaming, 

swirling, changing, starting again.
It is immortal, like our marriage,
this thing that began as
an amateur piece of welding. 

We are a fusion that is somehow now 

aged and lovely in its flaws, 

sturdy as steel 

and gleaming like precious metal that is 

well-worn and well-loved.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

The lovely and delightful Laura Shovan is hosting the round-up this week. 

Poetry Friday: It's National Poetry Month and I've got the Poetry Month Blues

It happens every year. April is a busy time for me. The reasons vary, but the fact remains the same. I never ever tackle National Poetry Month with the verve I intend and desire. (Past lamentation posts here.) 

Case in point: four years ago, I wrote this poem near the end of NPM. In keeping with today's theme of "I'm too busy, I'm too busy!" I haven't even written a new poem about National Poetry Month. I'm simply re-running this old one.  🙂

But, as the poem declares, that's okay. Every week is Poetry Week (well, except last week, when I was too busy to post. Arrgh!) 

Enough. The past is the past. Onward! 

Happy National Poetry Month! And for more about what's happening with KidLit bloggers everywhere, check out Jama Rattigan's comprehensive post. Thanks, Jama! 

Poetry Month Blues 

Karen Edmisten 

Another April — Poetry Month! —

slipping through my fingers.

Failed plans, lack of sharing ...

Oh, the guilt in me lingers.

"Next year will be different!"

I shout out with conviction.

Really? Inner Me sneers,

that's a doubtful prediction. 

Who knows? Should I worry?

I think not, you see. 

Every Friday's poetry day.

That's just Weekly Me.

~~~~~~~~~~

Janice has the roundup this week at Salt City Verse. 

Poetry Friday: I'm in Bridget Magee's new poetry anthology

 

It's the book birthday of Bridget Magee's first poetry anthology! Happy birthday to:

10*10 Poetry Anthology: Celebrating 10 in 10 Different Ways! 

Bridget's clever idea was to feature poems in ten categories based on "TEN": 

TENtative

TENderness

TENacity

TEN More Minutes

TENsion

I Wouldn't Touch That With a TEN-Foot Pole

TEN Little Fingers / TEN Little Toes

Take TEN

TENth _____

I TENd To  

She called for submissions and chose poems from 58 poets, including: 

LINDA BAIE • MICHELLE HEIDENRICH BARNES • ROBYN HOOD BLACK • JAY BRAZEAU • SUSAN BRUCK • ELENORE BYRNE • CATHY CHESTER • KELLY CONROY • LINDA M. CRATE • MARY E. CRONIN • ANGELA DE GROOT • MEENAKSHI DWIVEDI • KAREN EASTLUND • DAVID EDGE • KAREN EDMISTEN • JANET FAGAL • DANIEL J. FLORE III • MARILYN GARCIA • DAVE GOODALE • MARY LEE HAHN • RUTH BOWEN HERSEY • CORINNE HERTEL • REBEKAH HOEFT • MOLLY HOGAN • MICHELLE KOGAN • MARTY LAPOINTE-MALCHIK • IRENE LATHAM • BRIDGET MAGEE • HELEN MAGEE • MAUREEN MAGEE-UHLIK • CARMELA A. MARTINO • KATHLEEN MAZUROWSKI • KAY JERNIGAN MCGRIFF • CHRISTY MIHALY • LINDA MITCHELL • COLLEEN OWEN MURPHY • ELISABETH NORTON • AIXA PEREZ-PRADO • LISA VARCHOL PERRON • MOE PHILLIPS • JENNIFER RAUDENBUSH • LAURA PURDIE SALAS • SHANAH SALTER • JANICE SCULLY • LAURA SHOVAN • BUFFY SILVERMAN • DONNA JT SMITH • EILEEN SPINELLI • LIZ STEINGLASS • STEPHAN STUECKLIN • SUSAN JOHNSTON TAYLOR • LINDA J. THOMAS • LINDA KULP TROUT • GERALDINE TYLER • CAROL VARSALONA • JANET WONG • ALAN j WRIGHT • TABATHA YEATTS

Why, yes, you did see my name nestled in among the others! I'm thrilled and honored that Bridget deemed my little offering worthy of inclusion. What a delight to be in such stellar company. 

My contribution for the category TENth__ was an etheree (a 10-line poem in which each line follows a syllable count that matches the line number: line one has one syllable, line two has two, etc.) from the point of view of a child who conquered a fear: 

Winning at Tenth

(an etheree for young poets everywhere)

I

came in

tenth place when

I entered that

contest at my school.

Some might say that I lost.

Not me. I was terrified

but I saw it through to the end.

I shook the fear, took the risk, and won:

I let them read my poetry out loud. 

Where to find the book? Visit Bridget here to find out more. 

She's also hosting Poetry Friday this week. 

Head over to Wee Words for Wee Ones to see the round-up 

and help Bridget celebrate her book birthday!