GloPoWriMo Day 22 - barefoot; boots

 

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 22 Jaswinder Bolina’s poem "Mood Ring" imagines the speaker as both himself and an interior being (who happens to take the form of a small donkey). It’s quite silly . . . and not silly at the same time. A sort of “serious fun.” Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem in which the speaker is in dialogue with him or herself.

https://www.napowrimo.net/

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Barefoot; Boots

Inside me lives a doorway. No, not a frame of doorway–an arch of entrance. A green gateway, a clean dirt pathway that curves instantly just out of sight between the trees. It calls to me all the time, a dusty whisper singing “Come in,” sometimes “Come on,” sometimes “Come over,” even “Get over yourself,” which makes no sense to me. How can you climb over yourself? Does the path mean my shadow, maybe? I know that riddle. Maybe I should climb over my shadow and come in. Come on, leave what I can see before me and duck into this hole like an thin invitation at the edge of my vision? When I step through the doorway, the entrance, the gateway, I know then that I am large and adventurous, full of intrepid ideas for meeting the stitch of any wrinkled river, the blister of any bouldered rise of forest.

draft ©HM 2o26

GloPoWriMo Day 21 - place names

 

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 21 In her poem, Names and Nicknames, Monika Kumar reminisces over various nicknames she has been given, the actual name her mother gave her, and the way both names and nicknames indicate a claim and an intimacy at once. In your poem for today, we challenge you to write your own poem in which you muse on your name and nicknames you’ve been given or, if you like, the name and nicknames for an animal, plant, or place.

https://www.napowrimo.net/

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Place Names

The Bamboo Forest, of course–that’s what it is. But other places have more mysterious names: Grape Jelly Tunnel, 

Bailey’s Honeysuckle Fence, 

The Easter Sunrise Dogwoods, 

Nurse Billyfoot’s Bush. 

There are others who know one or two of the names, but only I know them all, 

labeled on the map of my mind. 

My Weeping Curtain Room. 

If we should find ourselves meeting more than once in the same place, a place we mark 

by its tree or bush, by our tongues or noses, by the time of day or the mood we bring, 

we’ll name it together: 

The Meeting Maple or 

Bushwhacker’s Wood, 

Beech Beach or 

The Golden Carpet.

draft ©HM 2026

GloPoWriMo Day 20 - front yard dogwood

 

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 20

You may not realize it at first, but the poem "Black Swan on Water" by Carl Phillips is a single sentence! The three-line stanzas mimic the “braids in water” in the penultimate line, and the way the lines get longer and longer also makes the poem as a whole look a bit like the widening wake that a swan leaves as it swims. For today, try writing your own poem that uses an animal that shows up in myths and legends as a metaphor for some aspect of a contemporary person’s life. Include one spoken phrase.



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Front Yard Dogwood

I know 

it’s growing

but I can’t see it,

watching this dogwood

in the yard every year since

third grade–it’s still too little

to climb, and I can still reach to

hang from the lowest branch; it

bends and the notched pink flowers shift

to face me, smelling like my own skin after

a bath, and I wonder How does it feel for you, this

growing with no one to mark it on the wall of the air?

draft ©HM 2026

GloPoWriMo Day 13 - the bamboo forest

 

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 13

First read Walter de la Mare’s poem “A Song of Enchantment.” Then, John Berryman’s poem “Footing Our Cabin’s Lawn, Before the Wood.” Both poems work very differently, yet leave you with a sense of the near-fantastical possibilities of the landscapes they describe. Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny strip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.

                  __________________________________________

                                              the bamboo forest

the vertical green, notched and jointed, and the damp fug of summer,

bladed leaves that we know the pandas eat– should we maybe too try,

as a way to bite through this tight tropical hidden no-one’s land unlike

woods of any have we seen here in the four-season midatlantic? poles

receding upward into air, yellowing prison bars wearing flags of sky &

never have I, always the shortest in the class, never have I been shorter,

yet here tower I through eyes raised, longering limbs lingering amid

the dim whine of bugs and the gong of alone, a little hollowed & lost in

the bamboo forest–if you too are here, we’ll only know by the reverent

calling of our names.

draft ©HM 2026

GloPoWriMo Day 11 - as tree has [man]

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 11

Write your own erasure/blackout poem. You could use a page from a favorite book, a magazine, what have you. It can be especially fun to play with a book you don’t know, particularly one that deals with an unfamiliar topic.

I used this handy tool I found at Tricia Stohr-Hunt's April daily poem project and it presented me with--rather perfectly--a text from "Accepting the Universe" by John Burroughs As you'll see, I disagree!

https://fouuund.it/blackout/

"I do not see that Nature is any more solicitous about the well-being of man than she is, say, about the well-being of trees. She is solicitous about the well-being of all life, so far as the conditions of life favor its development and continuance — men and trees alike. But all have to run the gantlet of some form of hostile forces — the trees one kind, man another. What I mean is that evil in some form waits upon all hindrances, accidents, defeat, failure, death. The trees and the forests have their enemies and accidents and setbacks, and men and communities of men have analogous evils. Trees are attacked by worms, blight, tornadoes, lightning, and men are attacked by pestilence, famine, wars, and all manner of diseases. Every tree struggles to stand upright; it is the easiest and only normal position. Men aspire to uprightness of thought and conduct, but a thousand accidental conditions prevent most of them from attaining it. One tree in falling is likely to bring down, or to mutilate, other trees, as the moral or business downfall of a strong man in a community is quite sure to bring evil to many others around him. Trees struggle with one another for moisture and sustenance from the soil, and for a place in the sun, as men do in the community, and the luckiest, or the most fit, survive. Nature plans for a perfect tree as she plans for a perfect man, but both tree and man have to take their chances with hostile forces and conditions amid which their lot falls, so that an absolutely perfect oak or elm or pine is about as rare as a perfect man. Nature has endowed man with mental and spiritual powers which she has not bestowed upon trees."

Here's my redacted version, with a lot of manliness marked so we don't forget there are more than one kind of hu[man]!

As tree has [man]

Do not see any more

[man] than trees. 

All favor, all form, forces all:

trees and [men] analogous.

all manner stand upright;

one tree to other trees as

a strong community.

With moisture and sustenance,

a place in the sun, do

most survive—a perfect plan

for both tree and [man].

So absolutely oak or elm or pine,

as [man], has powers bestowed.

draft ©HM 2026

One more day to catch up!

GloPoWriMo Day 10 - goodbye

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 10

In his poem, “Goodbye,” Geoffrey Brock describes grief in three short stanzas, the second of which is entirely made up of a rhetorical dialogue. Write your own meditation on grief. Try using Brock’s form as the “container” for your poem: a few short stanzas, with a middle section in which a question is repeated with different answers given.

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Goodbye

Some things I can’t come back to. Your trunk is gone, your stump is all that’s left. If I hadn’t known you whole, your stump would be enough.

How did this happen? With noise and careless sawdust in the air? How did this happen? Like a murder meditated in the night?

Your stump still speaks for you. And I can bring all five senses, let my own trunk and both hands topple in a pile of life on your ringed plinth.

draft ©HM 2026

GloPoWriMo Day 9 - encyclical from the cardinal

 

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 9

Marianne Moore wrote on many themes… many poems about – or in the voice of – animals, such as “The Fish,” “Dock Rats,” “The Pangolin,” and “No Swan so Fine.” Today, try writing your own poem in the voice of an animal or plant, or a poem that describes a specific animal or plant with references to historical events or scientific facts.

This one is not at all in the style of Marianne Moore--I'll come back to that--and it's not springy, but my book will be all seasons, so here it is, a pantoum.

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Encyclical from the Cardinal



I rebel, my red against the gray:

All winter I surprise your eye again

While the planet’s ills around you weigh

While the air is chill and branches bare




All winter I surprise your eye again

My mate and I remind you, flashing cheer

While the air is chill and branches bare

We swoop and wing our joy: another day!



My mate and I remind you, calling cheer

However dread the news, my red rebels

We swoop and wing our joy: another day!

We do not leave; we weather it, we stay



However dread the news, my red rebels

While the planet’s ills around you weigh

We do not leave; we weather it, we stay

I remain the red against the gray.

GloPoWriMo Day 8 + poetry friday - not a being

Happy 2nd Friday of National Poetry Month! I'm plugging away at a little project using the daily prompts from the folks at NaPoWriMo. I'm aiming my drafts at a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. I'm loving the wide variety of poets featured, especially the international names we don't see otherwise!

APR 8 (and yes, I'm a little behind! Watch this space...) In his poem, “Poet, No Thanks,” Jean D’Amérique repeats the phrase “I wasn’t a poet” multiple

times, while describing other things that he instead claims to have been. In your poem for today,

use a simple phrase repeatedly, and then make statements that invert or contradict that phrase.

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not a being

“It’s not a plant”

too tall too gray too black

too rough too hard too solid

we don’t have to water it

it stands by the curb like a sign---

that’s not a plant

except for how it roots and drinks

how it grows from the soil

how it absorbs sunlight–sunlight!--from the air

how its billion built-in factories make

green sugar for the planet

a sign of life

“It’s not a person”

no eyes no ears no mouth

no lungs no heart no moving muscle

it can't communicate

it stands in one place in silence---

that’s not a person

except for how it sees and hears

how it breathes and beats its blood of sap

how it trades messages–messages!--through the soil
how it sends and receives information

through the wood wild web of 

fungal threads

it’s okay

you didn’t know

draft ©HM 2026

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APR 9

APR 10

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Our host today is Jone Rush MacCulloch, who greets us today with a gorgeous, looping, linking ars poetica. And of course, the Progressive Poem has been progressing (so sorry that I have been missing it all week; just a few dozen things going on here) -- catch up today as I will with Line 10 from Janet Fagal!

I got excited by Donna's addition of place names and had to join in...my version of the map here:

April 1 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
April 2 Cathy Stenquist at A Little Bit of This and That
April 3 Patricia Franz at Reverie
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 6 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 7 Ruth Hersey at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town
April 8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
April 9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
April 10 Janet Clare Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
April 11 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 12 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 13 Linda Mitchell at Another Word Edgewise
April 14 Jone MacCulloch at Jone Rush MacCulloch
April 15 Joyce Uglow at Storied Ink
April 16 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
April 17 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 18 Michele Kogan at More Art for All
April 19 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 20 Buffy Silverman
April 21 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
April 22 Karen Edmisten
April 23 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 24 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 25 Tanita Davis at Fiction, instead of Lies
April 26 Sharon Roy at Pedaling Poet
​April 27 Tracey Kiff-Judson at Tangles and Tails

GloPoWriMo Day 7 - counting-in rhyme

 

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 7 In her poem, “Front Yard Rhyme,” Cecily Parks evokes the sing-songy beats that accompany girls’ clapping games, and jump-rope and skipping rhymes. Today, we challenge you to write your own poem that emulates these songs – something to snap, clap, and jump around to.

https://www.napowrimo.net/

Tree Rounds

one tree, two tree, three tree, four

follow the path that starts at your door

beech tree, maple tree, willow tree, oak

pedal your bike, spin your spokes

magnolia, laburnum, tulip, yew

leaf, twig, branch, trunk, rumpled roots

find something, take something, acorn, nut

give something, anything–you’ll know what

draft ©HM 2026

GloPoWriMo Day 6 - a conversation

 

Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month. 

APR 6

In your poem today, try writing with a breezy, conversational tone, while including at least one thing that could only happen in a dream, after Yentl van Stokkum's It’s the Warmest Summer on Record Babe.”

On the day this tree tells me its name it's not a dream

We know each other quite well now–we first met when I fell off the bus one afternoon, scraped my knee, waited for the bus to pull away and then limped over to sit and lean against it, throbbing with embarrassment. 

–I think only the bus driver noticed–said the tree, a towering southern magnolia.

--You think?--I said, catching a sob.

--Actually I know. It’s one of the powers of the Grandiflora.-- 

I had to know about the powers of this magnolia tree, I asked a dozen questions but not its name. I though it was called simply Grandiflora, that all similar trees shared this name, so a year later as I was using its untrimmed lower branches to hoist myself into the cool of its leathery leafcladding, I was surprised when it asked my name.

–What’s your name? You visit often but you’ve never introduced yourself.--

–I like to be called Sylvie,– I answered–but that’s not my real name. Is Grandiflora your real name?--

–My real name is Cerolia, and I’m not an it. I’m a we.--

–A “we”?--

–Most trees call themselves we. It’s the royal We, certainly, but also the plural we:

many branches, many leaves, many seeds, many offspring. You humans could be we too.--

–I see what you mean,-- I said, –so we are called Sylvie and you-plural are called Cerolia.--

–We are pleased to finally know your name, Sylvie.--

And Cerolia shook their waxy green, rust-lined leaves around us like laughing.