I woke this morning to the news of an unexpected snow day as well as news of the expected defeat of changing the filibuster rules in the Senate to allow the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to become law. My immediate reaction was to begin doom-scrolling through Twitter. I soon stumbled upon a tweet about this prompt from Stacy L. Joy on Ethical ELA:

Write a monotetra (or try any form of poetry) that can serve as resolutions for 2022, reminders to pursue peace, hope, and change, or perhaps write one that can bury the hurts and losses of 2020-2021.

A monotetra consists of mono-rhymed quatrains with 8 syllables per line. There is no set number of quatrains. The final line of each stanza should contain a repeating refrain.

Writing a monotetra seemed like a better way to spend my day, so I got to work. For the most part, I was able to achieve 8 syllables per line, but the repeating refrain eluded me.

Be kind to others. Help. Assist.
Raise your voice. Demand. Insist.
When Justice fails, step up. Resist.
Don’t give up. Carry on. Persist.

These empty-sounding platitudes
remind us that our attitude
relies on strength and fortitude.
Ideals aren’t reached in solitude.     

We haven’t any time to waste.
Each day our values are erased.
Our country’s hope has been defaced.
We can’t forget the dreams we’ve chased.

I’m still debating if the poem should end here or if the following stanza should be included:

Each day feels like an uphill climb.
We are running out of time
To strike a chord, make our lives chime.
We cannot stop; we’re out of time.

Either way, this is still very much a draft. It did help strengthen my resolve, though, and not give in to despair. At least for today.

Please be sure to visit Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Happy New Year! The Inklings are kicking off the 2022 with a challenge from Heidi. She suggested that we use the “The Lost Lagoon” by Mohawk poet, Emily Pauline Johnson (d. 1913) “to build your own poem FOR CHILDREN about a treasured place that you return to again and again (geographical or metaphorical).”

I really didn’t have to think too long about what to write about. There is a pond in the woods behind our house where my family and I have hiked, fished, searched for tadpoles, and skated since we moved here 35 years ago. Johnson included people in her memories of the lost lagoon, but I decided to leave the pond to itself in my poem.

This form was definitely a challenge. Coming up with two rhyming lines per stanza that make sense was hard enough, but THREE? Even though I wrote and rewrote each stanza several times, I’m still not sure everything works, but here is my response to Heidi’s very challenging challenge.

The Forest Pond

It’s spring time at the forest pond.
Geese return, led by a starry map,
turtles emerge from their winter nap,
red-budded maples ooze with sap
as nature waves her magic wand.

It’s summer at the forest pond.
In mama’s wake, fat goslings trail,
while tadpoles lose their legs and tails,
over glossy water dragonflies sail,
then nature waves her magic wand.

It’s autumn at the forest pond
and honking geese fly overhead,
beneath the pond, critters make their bed,
soon trees are bare and all seems dead,
then nature waves her magic wand.

It’s winter at the forest pond.
Noisy geese have taken flight,
white ice has water tucked in tight,
but days grow longer, there is more light
as nature waves her magic wand.

Draft, © 2022, by Catherine Flynn

Please be sure to visit my fellow Inklings to read their responses to Heidi’s prompt.

Heidi @ My Juicy Little Universe
Linda @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret @ Reflections on the Teche
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Then head over to Carol Varsalona’s blog for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

The days are beginning to lengthen, but the gloom of this Covid Christmas is hard to ignore. As always, I turn to favorite authors and nature to escape. This week, on her re-christened website, The Marginalia, (formerly Brainpickings) Maria Papova shared excerpts and insights from Antonio Damasio’s book, Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious. Papova’s essay delves into Damasio’s fascinating theories about the interplay between consciousness and feelings. I was struck by this quote:

What is more impressive than the entire universe is life, as matter and process,
life as inspirer of thinking and creation.
Antonio Damasio

I decided that the last few words made a good strike line for a Golden Shovel to ring in the new year.

I wish you all peace, health, and joy and many opportunities to celebrate the vibrant hum of creation in the coming year. Please be sure to visit Carol at Carol’s Corner for the final Poetry Friday Roundup of 2021.

It’s the first Friday of the month, so it’s time for another Inkling challenge. This month, Molly challenged us to “Pick a poetry form you’ve been wanting to try and haven’t, and dive in!  Here are a few that I’ve been wanting to play around with:: Clogyrnach and Rondelet (thanks and thanks, Alan!), and Tricube (thanks, Matt!), and Magic 9 , Feel free to choose any form you’d like., or more than one.. No pressure. Just play!”

I decided to play with a Tricube. This form sounds straightforward: three stanzas with three lines, each line with three syllables. As Matt mentioned in his original post, though, the trick is getting “what you’re trying to say in that tiny space!”

After many false starts and playing with many different ideas, this is what I came up with.

How to Write a Poem

Gather thoughts.
Collect words.
Write them down.

Count, count, count.
Read aloud.
Rearrange.

Read again.
Satisfied?
Share your heart.

Draft, © Catherine Flynn, 2021

Please visit my fellow Inklings to find out what forms they decided to play with:

Linda@A Word Edgewise
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Margaret@Reflections on the Teche
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading

Then head over to Michelle Kogan’s blog for the Poetry Friday Roundup!

“What exists, exists so that it can be lost and become precious.”
~ Lisel Muller ~

Earlier this week, I found myself standing in the kitchen of my grandmother’s house. I grew up next door to her and spent countless hours with her there. When my grandmother died, her house was sold and the new owners renovated the house. What now stands on that corner is almost unrecognizable, both inside and out. It was a bit surreal to be in a place that was once so familiar but is now utterly foreign. Right after this experience, I came across the above quote on The Marginalia (formerly Brain Pickings) and this Golden Shovel basically wrote itself.

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Please be sure to visit Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

This month, Linda challenged the Inklings to write “write a poem that includes the idea of percentage./percent. Percentages are all around us in recipes, prices, assessments, statistics. Include the idea of percentage in your poem.. In some way.”

During the approximately 1% of my life that I could actually sit down and write last month, I had an idea about writing a series of pi poems–poems using the sequence of pi (3.14159…) for either the word count or syllable count per line. This idea was a bit misguided, as I thought pi was a percentage. In fact, as Mary Lee reminded me, it is a ratio. Math was never my strongest subject.

Linda also inspired me with her brilliant idea to write to the #inktober prompts using images she found on Wikiart. There were several similar prompts on Instagram last month, including #theydrawtober and #birdtober, where “Goose” was the bird listed one day. Search results on Wikiart didn’t appeal to me, so I checked Google Arts & Culture, where I found this stunning quilt:

I come from a long line of quilters. Once upon a time, I had grand ambitions of creating my own quilts. Now I write poems instead. (The similarities between the two arts are not lost on me; maybe I’ll write about that one day.) Here is the poem that emerged from this jumble of thoughts.

Fat quarters nestle,
forgotten
in a dresser drawer
hoping
to be released, snipped, stitched,
flocked, then sent off on a wild goose chase.

Draft, © 2021, Catherine Flynn

I promise it won’t be a wild goose chase if you visit my fellow Inklings to read their percentage poems:

Linda@A Word Edgewise
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Molly@Nix the Comfort Zone
Margaret@Reflections on the Teche
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading

Mary Lee is also hosting this week, so you’ll find all sorts of poetry goodness there.

To every year the trees grew without us noticing.
Hannah Marshall

In the introduction to  The Best American Poetry 2021, Tracy K. Smith states that “the best poems of 2020 reached me as offerings of desperately needed hope and endurance.” She goes on to say that “the best poetry to emerge during a bitter year sprang from whatever else was indispensable to sustenance, peace of mind, justice, and healing at the time.”

Indispensable to sustenance.

That we are still in search of “desperately needed hope and endurance” is enough to drive one to despair. And yet.

One of the poems included in this year’s collection is “This Is a Love Poem to Trees,” by Hannah Marshall. I couldn’t find Marshall’s poem online, but I encourage you to seek it out. Trees have sustained me in countless ways, not just over the past twenty months, but throughout my entire life. Here are two haiku, love songs to two of my favorite trees.

late afternoon light
leaves dappled amber and gold
sips of sustenance

crowned in green cumulus puffs,
maple bears witness
the world barrels past

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2021

Please be sure to visit Irene Latham at Live Your Poem for the Poetry Friday Roundup.