Back to Living

Open Write is a community meet-up to write poetry on the third Friday of every month for four days—an invitation to write, read, and reflect together. You’re welcome to write a poem each day or to come and go as you need. You can also read and leave a brief note—a line you loved, an image that stayed, a feeling a poem stirred—as a way of participating, too. We’re glad you’re here.

Our Host

Kim Johnson lives in rural Georgia and is a recently-retired educator.  Along with other Ethicalela writers, she is a contributing author of Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas Humanizing Formative Assessment for Grades 6-12 (Routledge, 2025); a contributing author of Words that Mend: The Transformative Power of Writing Poetry for Teachers, Students, and Community Wellbeing (Seela Books, 2024) and several other poetry anthologies. She blogs at www.kimhaynesjohnson.com. 

Inspiration 

My writing communities have a huge impact on my life as a consumer and creator of poetry. Each month, writers of Ethicalela and other groups encourage me with prompts and ideas. I am blessed that other writing friends freely share ekphrastic prompts (Barb), prompts from Substacker Audrey Gidman (Denise), prompts from Georgia Heard (Margaret) and prompts from Writer’s Digest (Glenda) and so many others.  This month, I’m using Robert Lee Brewer’s Wednesday Poetry prompt idea shared by Glenda to get us started on what we want to get back to.  While many are going back to school, I’m getting back to knowing myself at the pace of retirement.  What are you getting back to? 

Process

Make a list of all the possibilities of things we can get back to.  Back to the Future.  Back to Back.  Back to School.  Back to School Shopping. Back to the topic at hand.  Back to What We Were Talking About.  Back to Sleep. Then, create a poem along that line of thinking.  Glenda and I offer two short forms below. 

Glenda’s Poem 

Kim’s Poem

Getting Back to Me:  A List Poem

I’m getting back to
pressing wildflowers
sipping coffee later
writing poetry
reading books
watching sunsets
feeding hummingbirds
wearing jeans and Birkenstocks
napping with dogs
learning mahjong
mailing postcards
building campfires
painting with watercolors
stretching yoga poses
peeing on my own schedule
lingering over lunch
taking walks
driving the back roads
sewing rag quilts
getting to know myself 
….all over again

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.