Each month, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes has a poetry challenge over at her blog, Today’s Little Ditty. This month, her guest poet, Corey Rosen Schwartz, challenged readers to “Write a stanza or two about building a treehouse and challenge yourself to come up with a rhyme word that is two or more syllables. “
Well, I managed one pair of rhyming multisyllabic words in this poem inspired by my boys. And although their tree climbing days are long past, they still like to play in the woods.
When you’re feeling boisterous,
rowdy, shouty, roisterous,
go outside and find a tree
that you can call your own.
One that has a flat, wide space
between the branches that can brace
a treehouse hideout
that you can call your own.
Find a friend to help you hoist
smooth pine planks for each floor joist
plywood walls and a flat tin roof
that you can call your own.
Once you’ve built your private lair
twenty feet up in the air,
you can jump and stomp and shout
in a treehouse all your own.
Be careful as you prance about.
The ground’s a long way down!
Catherine Flynn, ©2015
Please be sure to visit Carol at Carol’s Corner for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Reading to the Core 
This is such a fun poem! You’ve created a beautiful feeling and oicture with your words! I love the repetition of “you can call your own” – it put me right into the feel of being a kid and wanting more autonomy. 😊
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Catherine, the photos and words lured me back into my children’s childhood. We did not have a treehouse. We had a miniature house fashioned after our own. The beautiful playhouse was there when we purchased the house and it became the focal point of the neighborhood fun, decorated for every occasion and holiday. Great job with your “word” and rhyme.
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Love this, Catherine! “Rowdy, shouty, roisterous” is the perfect description for enthusiastic young builders. And your personal photos make this post all the more endearing. I’ve added your poem to the treehouse wrap-up– so glad you found time to participate!
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I love your repeated line that keeps me coming back to this treehouse. Thanks for sharing your poetry. How hard was the rhyming?
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I love this poem and also the pictures of your boys as treehouse builders! Should I admit that I still long to build a “place to call my own” in one of the huge trees in my backyard? I hope you have shared this poem with your sons!
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Love that “roisterous”, clever rhyme. I just read this on Michelle’s site. You’ve managed to get all the ideas of a treehouse, but the repetition makes the most important part, a treehouse as ‘one’s own’.
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The rhyme is so fun and playful, and the repetition centers me. . The growth from boy to young man, hmm.
Julieanne
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LOVE your rhymes and repeating line!
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Roisterous – what a great word! Love the cadence of your poem, Catherine, and the photographs.
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Catherine! Your poem is great, of course, but my favorite part of this post is seeing your little and big boys playing in the woods. Perhaps you need to put those in front of you and write another poem of a different kind?
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