This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We gather every month and daily in April — no sign-ups, no fees, no commitments. Come and go as you please. All that we ask is that if you write, you respond to others to mirror to them your readerly experiences — beautiful lines, phrases that resonate, ideas stirred. Enjoy. (Learn more here.)
Our Host
Angie has been teaching English since 2013. She started her teaching career in Louisiana for five years, then moved overseas and taught in Bangladesh and Kuwait. She currently teaches in Mauritius. Her overseas experiences have opened her mind in ways that may have never happened if she had stayed in the states. She is grateful for this community of writers and to have monthly opportunities to write, read, and share poetry. It has influenced who she is as a teacher, and person in general, in many ways.
Inspiration
I taught Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds for the first time this year. It went as wonderful as I always heard from other teachers. Such a magical book. (Some student poetry is linked after my poem below!) I paired it with the young adult version of Just Mercy. In Long Way Down, main character Will shares 6 anagrams: a veil/alive, cool/loco, scare/cares, canoe/ocean, feel/flee, cinema/iceman and for the last he only says, “I wish I knew an anagram for POSER” (Reynolds 257).
This made me want to explore turning one of these into a poem. Will mentions the anagrams but Reynolds leaves possible meanings and interpretations up to the reader. I know of anagrams being explored in this space 3 years ago with the gracious guidance of Fran Haley after Uvalde.
Today, I invite you to focus on options that you could use with your students in the future.
Process
- If you are familiar with Long Way Down, you could try to write a poem based on one of the above anagrams in Will’s voice. You could mirror the setup of one of the poems from the novel.
- Look through a text you are teaching, currently reading, or one of your favorite texts for an important word and create an anagram poem out of that. This could be a free verse poem.
- Make an anagram poem out of an important content word based on a subject you teach (i.e. metaphor, particle, decimal, etc.) It could possibly work as a definition poem.
- Use a name as the focus for an anagram poem. It could be your own name, an author’s name, a character’s name, or a relative or friend’s name. This could be a letter poem.
- For any of these options, using this anagram generator might help you with ideas: https://ingesanagram.com (shared in Fran’s 2022 prompt)
I chose the first option and the type of poem choice was inspired by Will’s thought about an anagram for poser.
Angie’s Poem
As I met the ghosts one by one, I thought they’d just confirm the ropes I’d been shown. Crying, don’t. Snitching, don’t. Revenge, do. But when Frick said “Who?” uncertainty seeped into my pores. I realized the rules were only meant for the broken to break. After that, I had nothing left to do but start all over. Go back to the beginning and unlearn all I’d been told. Become a brand new spore. So did I go when Shawn asked, “You coming?” No, I didn’t. I rode the elevator back up and did something I’d never done before. I rewrote the rules using an anagram for poser. Prose, a more powerful tool. Prose, a place where I can finally be honest.
Cry if you need to
Choose mercy over revenge
Tell the truth, always
BONUS student poetry! Anagram or Fib Poem
Your Turn
Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers.
Angie, thank you for the prompt. I, too, offer my students to read Long way Down, and they always find it amazing. In fact, there is one of my students’ review of the novel on Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday blog under the Weekend Picks on January 16th.
Your prose poem goes well with the poser/prose/spore anagrams. The ending haiku with the new rules truly reflects Will’s growth over that minute riding in the elevator.
I chose cares/scare/acres for my short poem:
I begin with cares–
small worries of the day.
They swiftly turn into a scare
when I hold them tightly.
But given space,
they become acres
with room to breathe,
and room to stand.
Leilya, THIS is lovely and so true! You have used those anagrams to craft a powerful message and a strong reminder.
Angie,
This is such a great prompt, rooted and inspired by a book that is so very powerful.
Your haiku distills those lines from the text so perfectly.
Somehow, I never read Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Yes, I am of Irish descent, and yes, I was a teacher. Somehow, I never dug in. But because we are planning a trip to Ireland, I have been reading Irish-ish books for the past few months and I am tackling the audio of Angela’s Ashes now. What a gem to listen to as it is narrated by the author with his Irish brogue.
I decided to take a common response in the text . . . ’tis . . . and anagram it with what his dad does expertly . . . sit. In the pubs. The tragedy and hardship that their lives were filled with daily make me especially appreciative on this Sunday morning.
‘Tis to Sit
His job ‘tis to sit
Babies die
he plops his arse
in the pub
and drinks
pint after pint
He has no job
so he takes the dole
of nineteen shillings and sixpence
and rather than feed and clothe
his kids,
he plops his arse
in the pub
and sips on stout.
Oliver then Eugene die
so he sings
of Roddy McCorley
and tells of his woes
in the pub
and roosts his arse
and sympathy pints
are given.
The River Shannon
takes and ruins
and forces them upstairs
so he goes to the pub
and pours the pints
down and stumbles
in singing
and forces the boys awake
and makes them stand
like a soldier
and pledge to die for Ireland.
The fleas in the mattress
leave them itching and itching
and his north accent stops
him from getting a job
so he puts his arse
on the stool and
drinks bottles of stout
with the dole
while Mam takes
pills to combat the darkness.
Frank and Malachy load the furniture from the
St. Vincent de Paul Society
onto the pram and wobble it down
Roden Lane
past the lavatory they share with the
neighbors
while he sits his arse in the pub
as a champion pint drinker.
They gather coal along Dock Road
to heat the water to boiling
for cabbage and potatoes and
the shameful pig’s head
for Christmas dinner
while his arse is on the
stool in the pub
drinking stout.
The aunts and uncles
pray to Jasus, Mary, and holy Saint Joseph
for him to quit the drink
yet he sits his arse
in the pub drinking the
black stuff
and comes home reeking
and telling stories of Cuchulain
while Mam cries in the bed
next to us.
When the Angel on the Seventh Stair
brings baby Michael,
he gets a job at the cement factory
but hours after dark
he hasn’t come home with his wages
and Mam sends us to
the pub to drag his arse off the stool
to come home.
The First Communion and the Collection
and James Cagney
bring us light and shame and light
while he sits his arse in the pub
as masters use the
leather straps, canes, blackthorn sticks
and he never even raises his voice.
The neighbors call him a
feckin eejit
for sitting his arse in the pub
while we starve and die
and Mam cries.
‘Tis my life.
for him to sit
in the pub
and drown our troubles
while we deal with them.
‘Tis.
~Susan Ahlbrand
18 January 2026
Susan, thank you for introducing me to Angela’s Ashes. Your rendering of the story in this poem sounds so sad and hopeless. The saddest, for me, that I’d known people like “he,” who would try wash down every tragedy, every misfortune, and everything that went wrong with a pint or two of liquor. It makes me think whether it is weakness, inability to process grief, or is it such a dire desperation that destroys a human from within. Maybe, it’s all together. The repeating “arse in the pub” with varying verbs creates that gloomy, wretched tone throughout the poem.
Susan, I have not read this one either, despite it being everywhere for the longest time (much like the arse on the stool). I was lulled by the rhythm of your poem, with its repetition and continual drawing back to the arse in the pub – I could feel the drudgery and despair, the weight and the hopelessness. Wonderfully crafted. If you are anywhere near The Burren, I highly recommend a trip, if only for the food. Everything is organic, the location is a secret getaway, and the rose hip oil is wondrous.
Susan, I read this one long ago and remember disliking the father while trying to understand the culture of that time and the structure of families. Your poem captures so many of the sad parts of this story. While I am 25% Irish, I never knew my grandfather and barely knew my grandmother; yet, I read this book wondering about their own relationship and how they dealt with their own tragedies.
Angie, thanks for your inspiration today. Feeling a lot of damage today which inspired this poem. I could see students appreciating the word play and love that you shared their poems.
Eve’s Curse
A dame made
a dam aged game.
Now crazed men
make more dead.
Barb Edler
18 January 2026
Hi, Barb! I like how you played with anagrams here–very skillfully. These first two lines could make a fun tongue twister if not for sad reality. Why do these “crazed men” crave violence? Thank you for your words.
Love it, Barb! Perfectly titled. Perfectly rendered. Hugs to you today.
Barb, WOW. You have managed to share a powerful message in just a few carefully selected words.
I can se setting here too – you put a humorous spin on the decision to bite into that fruit, and that last line has me laughing even as it is true. Well done!
Angie, I am in awe of what you did with the prose poem. Each anagram is woven so carefully to play with Reynolds’ plot. It felt as if Will had finally found his voice in prose. I will be starting a Logophilia unit soon and we play with anagrams. This prompt gives us one more way to explore. Thank you!
Thoughts –
they linger,
ghost huts harboring words,
and ideas,
hauntings from the past
hot thugs waylaying,
strangling,
the way forward,
robbing the present with past and future
but also,
a reminder that
hush, Gott is with you
Jennifer, the tone you are able to capture in this poem is inspiring. Love your word choices and especially ghost huts and hush, Gott. What a terrific last line!
Jennifer, the complexity of your anagrams is impressive. These “ghost huts harboring words” made me stop and try visualizing the image. I am also drawn to this line “robbing the present with past and future” because I find myself guilty of doing it too. I am with Barb; the final line is a show stopper.
Jennifer, this is masterful and inspiring. “hot thugs waylaying” is a image I will carry with me as I head out to shovel in just a few minutes.
Jennifer,
you capture plot so well in the verse with anagrams – it’s not easy by any means, but you make it look that way with the way your lines and meaning flow.
Angie, thank you for your wonderful poem and for sharing your students’ writing. Your poem and prompt really got me thinking. As a teacher of often reluctant beginning readers and writers for many years, I am keenly aware of the challenges spurred by words like was-saw, post-stop, who-how. Yet, I also see anagrams as funny in stressed-desserts. On this second snowy, stay-home day in a row, I am trying to embrace the forced quiet while remembering the challenge of anagrams for my readers-writers! I call this a “forced-anagram” format!
It is quite quiet,
This morn in the Northeast
Where snow has become norm.
She will decide to
Stop and read a post,
She will dare herself to look out.
Fearing the outlook is
More snow
As the newsroom said,
It’s clear, if she waits,
It will be up to her waist!
Anita, snow days are that extra gift and I so love them! We are having a cold blast here, which might bring a day off but it’s not as fun as snow. I hadn’t thought of how anagrams confuse readers – thank you for calling attention to this challenge in such a clear and clever way.
Wow, Anita, this is brilliant. I love how you created a vivid image of your current situation. Your last line has me laughing, but really that much snow is not good. Stay warm!
Anita, this is a masterfully crafted poem. I like how each anagram, and you’ve used quite a few, carries the motion in the poem. Hope the snow brings you joy and some rest. I wish we had some in Louisiana.
Angie, thank you for hosting us today! I adore Jason Reynolds’ work, and ALWD stays with me. Your haiku is beautiful and sends a ynicersal
truth! I awoke to swirling snow in the midst of a winter weather system moving through Georgia as I took the dogs out for their morning business, so this is my word for the day to knead like dough for writing.
snow
once upon this now
he won sniffing his own spot
in this cold-sown snow
ynicersal= universal.
It’s so cool to wake up in Georgia snow. The excitement in your poem reflects mine this morning!!
Kim, each anagram is a discovery so much so that I find myself reading again and again to make sure I haven’t missed any. So clever! Michigan Storm Chasers posted last night that Georgia had more counties with weather advisories/watches than Michigan (and that’s saying something). Enjoy the white stuff.
Kim, this is a wonderful example of anagrams fueling early snowy morning writing. It is day two in a row of snow here in NJ and I am not as excited about it today!
Kim, this is such a perfect poem. It sings and shows your world beautifully. Very clever poem. Bravo!
What a word play, Kim! I, too, was reading in hopes I didn’t miss any “s/now–s/own.” I am amazed how easily you may playing with words look like. Everyone is bragging about the snow, and I feel a bit jealous ))