Unexpected Intersections

 Welcome to Poetry Friday! Our host this week is Mary Lee. She's shared a wonderful poem of her own, one by Sandra Cisneros, a video and more in her post. You can find all that poetic goodness and links to the other participating poets over here on her blog. My Story Cubes poetry prompt this week had me a little stumped at first. In addition to trying to write fast, I'm also challenging myself to keep the order of the dice in my poem. So if the cauldron comes first, I'm trying to make it first thing I mention. Either I like multi-dimensional chess, or I like making things challenging for myself. Or maybe both! Here are this week's prompts: And here is my poem. Plot Problems First I drew a cauldron Bubbling full of poisoned brew. Then I drew a hungry hero Now I don’t know what to do. hmmm . . . .  I know how to fix this! Draw one big foot, then two. Run fast, my big foot hero! Go find some barbecue. © 2025, Elisabeth Norton, all rights reserved What about you? Have you

 Happy Friday! Thank you for all the comments , well wishes (I'm feeling much better now, thank goodness!) and poems (it's so fun to see what other poets do with the same prompts!) in response to last week's post. Here are the Story Cubes prompts that I rolled for this week's poem: As part of this Story Cubes poem project, I'm not only challenging myself to write poems based on the dice prompts, but also to write the poems quickly. The goal is to jumpstart the creative process and not overthink my ideas. So, without further ado, here is my poem based on this prompt. Adventure Awaits There isn’t a hare. This isn’t a race. It’s true that we’re slow as a tortoise. But … We’re in agreement. We’ve chosen a path. In the landscape adventure awaits! We’ll set our own pace One step at a time. And the first step? We walk through the gate. © 2024, Elisabeth Norton What about you? What would you do with this inspiration? I'd love to read your poems based on this prompt i

Two weeks into 2024, and I can say I've been sick for more than half of the year ... I hope your year is off to a healthier start! My 2023 was filled with lots of teaching and many writing deadlines, all of which left me no time for blogging about poetry and the writing life. But the good news is ... I have good news  about some of those writing projects that I should be able to share here in the months to come. As I come out of blogging hibernation, I was wondering how I wanted to approach my Poetry Friday posts this year. I love prompts, including Taylor Mali 's metaphor dice , and I was wondering how I could find some similar inspiration that was more kid-focused. That's when I remembered my Story Cubes !  These dice with images can be used to play games, or to roll up some inspiration on demand, and I've decided to use them as prompts for my Poetry Friday poems this year. So, without further ado, here is the first of my Story Cube poems, inspired by these dice: X Ma

There is so much happening in our world right now, it can be hard to take it all in. In these times, more than ever, I am grateful for poetry.  Sometimes I write it.  Sometimes I have no words of my own, so I read and reflect on the poetic words of others.  Either way, poetry helps me process my thoughts and feelings about the world and my experiences in it. My poetic offering today is a poem I wrote earlier this spring, on a rare day when my husband had to go to the office for an in-person meeting and I took our usual lunchtime walk alone.  I am a creature of habit, but on that day I challenged myself to break routine and change direction, and this poem was the result. Today I go against the grain, turn left  Instead of right, Let the path take me away from home Instead of towards it. Today I go against the grain, go up the slope I usually walk down. Climbing uses different muscles Than descent. Today I go with the grain, walk downstream Instead of up, Walk with the flow, Instead of a

We are surrounded by snails. We see snails of all sizes on the paths after the rain. We see large land snails, brought to Switzerland by the Romans, who liked to eat them (they're protected by law now). This one's shell is about 2 inches in diameter, and his foot is about 3 inches long. And we see snails in the pond on our daily walks.  This poem is the result of my musings as I watched the pond snails like the one above. Our host for Poetry Friday this week is Jan at Bookseed Studio . Mosey on over to find lots of wonderful poetry to linger over this week. Thank you Jan for hosting us! Next week the round up party is here! The post will go live and ready for posting links at midnight UTC+1 time. I can't wait to see what poetic goodies you'll bring to the party!

This week Monday (June 20th) was World Refugee Day, an international day designated by the United Nations to honour refugees around the globe.  Our poem for that day in the poetry anthology that we read from every night after dinner was this poem by Brian Bilston .  The poem and his masterful use of poetic technique to powerful effect is best appreciated without excerpting, so I encourage you to check it out on his website. On our lunchtime walks, we pass a low wall near a cul-de-sac. For months now, someone has been clearing out things and giving them away, so we are used to walking past the wall and seeing books, DVDs, dishes and more with signs saying they are free to take home.  But today we saw something different. Today we saw a note, weighted in place with a rock. Here is a translation of the note (with names and places redacted for privacy, and some corrections to capture the actual meaning of the words): I came with children from the Ukraine. From the first of July we've