This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We are here every month. Today, tomorrow, and Monday, our friends Jessica Wiley and Erica Johnson will invite us to celebrate the place they call home (and our own places) with this series: Homage to Arkansas, the “Natural State”. Our next Open Write will be June 20-22.
Our Host
Jessica lives in Conway, Arkansas, “The City of Roundabouts,” with her husband, daughter, and son. She has been an educator for 16 years, teaching special education and alternative education. Currently, she works in a school district in Morrilton, Arkansas. She serves as a board member with Arkansas Hands & Voices and as a Parent Ambassador with Arkansas Community Connections. She is a fresh author, an avid reader, a poetry lover, and a dedicated Burn Bootcamp member.
Inspiration
Possum Grape, Fifty Six, Greasy Corner, Oil Trough, and Toad Suck are all towns, communities, and well-hidden places sprinkled throughout Arkansas. Since spending countless minutes in my elementary school Social Studies classes completing mind-stumping activities like this: Cities of Arkansas Crossword, some of Arkansas’s city and town names have always intrigued me. I’ve only been through one: Toad Suck. Recently, some of these places have made the local news because of tornadic activity. I don’t want the only memory of these places to be because of catastrophic circumstances. So, here is my Ode to Arkansas places: What’s in a Name.
Process
Look to Google or your local history buff and research unfamiliar communities or towns in your state. The more iconic, the better. Focus on the backstory as to why it was given its name. Was it named after a founding member, an iconic landmark, or was it an afterthought or a joke? Discover the history behind its name and create a poem about it. If you are feeling extra confident, choose several names to create a presentation of history. Here is the information behind the Ode poem. Based on this information, you have a little flexibility in your design process. You can create a sonnet or ghazal on what is loved about these places, or an elegy mourning these places. Better yet, open your contemporary box and develop a free verse poem. The choice is yours. This can be a great activity to incorporate into your social studies/geography classes.
Jessica’s Poem
Ode to Arkansas Names by Jessica Wiley
What’s in a name in Arkansas?
I passed through Possum Grape-
twice. Does it count if I didn’t exit?
Rumor has it that it got its name because the people
couldn’t pick possum or grape,
So to compromise, they used both.
A more accurate and believable version
was that it was named after a wild grape.
I like the first story better.
My only round-trip memories,
Passing through was heading to and from Jonesboro.
To, with my graduation garb
and from, with my diploma (cover).
What’s in a name in Arkansas?
Toad Suck…A film was shot there in 1976,
well after local drunks would love the bottle extra hard,
sucking on the lips, looking like toads.
But upon further research,
the real reason for the name
is that in the 1800s, water levels would get really low
and create a “suck” where toads loved to live
and steamboats loved to get stuck.
Once again, I like the first story better.
Toad Suck doesn’t really suck.
It’s a place I stayed too long,
making lasting, valuable friendships.
My best memories are of former coworkers–The Golden Girls.
With our “water bugs” blocking out the sun
and our bathing suits on display at Wild River Country (RIP)
(which made the news that year).
And the infamous “exploding sodas”
left in a hot vehicle during a summer retreat at Winrock.
What’s in a name in Arkansas?
Fifty-Six, a second-choice name after Newcomb was rejected
by the postal service. Power trip much?
Fifty-Six represented the number (at the time) of the community’s school district.
Never been ‘round there,
but it made national news.
Devastated by an EF4 tornado on March 14, 2025,
they are slowly rebuilding.
No other outlandish story,
but a resilient community built strong.
What’s in a name in Arkansas?
History
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.
You can get Mickey’s here!
I was already back in my car
from the quick pee break–
everything’s a trek out here
in Central Pennsylvania,
so the things that used to take
Five minutes take 40,
and that’s just what it is,
So pee breaks are strategic,
and I was already pulling out
when I peeped the advertisement
on the ice cooler–
Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor–
so I threw it in park and headed
back inside, the Nittany MiniMart
promising the holy grail
of white trash delicasies,
the wide mouthed, grenade-shaped
malt liquor of my youth,
And as I passed the 4Loco
and florescent-colored Mad Dog 20/20
and banana flavored Boone’s Farm wine
in the wine display
I chastised myself for not recognizing
that this was exactly the place where
I could find a 6-pack or 40 oz Mickey’s.
This hick hood enclave that I had written off
as a pee stop was so much more than that–
and as I brought my 6 pack (no need for more,
I’d be back!) to the checkout, I felt more in touch
with myself than I had since I had uprooted for
this strangely distant place. We’re not that different,
I thought, despite the “Don’t Tread on Me” bumper stickers
in the merry-go-round display behind me, and maybe
this silly, superfluous connection is what just what I needed,
so thank you Lewistown, I’m cracking this wide-mouth
Mickey’s open for you.
Dave, so funny! You have captured the nostalgia of finding something from our past. You’ve also given us quite an image of the place around Lewistown and Central Pennsylvania.
Thank you Dave for participating! Although I’m not a drinker, I have fond memories of a hometown minimart with the stale smell of cigarette smoke and bathroom cleaner. This line was my favorite: “promising the holy grail
of white trash delicasies”. Sounds pretty popular. I’m glad it’s no longer a “pee break” but a place with fonder memories and the infamous Mickey’s Malt Liquor. How nostalgic!
Home is a habitat
A place where I can lay my hat
And look a pictures from all around
In five states we called home town
Anna, with a sweet short verse and the specific detail of looking at pictures, you have captured the way that home is where your heart is, even when there have been lots of places where you lived.
”Home is a habitat”- one I love to reserve. Thank you Anna of the sweet reminder of home; a place to be comfortable and comforted.
Love this line, Anna:
Jessica, I loved your poem! And thanks for the fun, reflective prompt. I loved how ripe your poem was, bursting with place-based details. I learned a lot about new places, which is always fun, and your ruminations were vivid!
I’m from a little town in Western New York, and this is my ode to it.
“Cheektowaga – a Ghazal”
Ji-ik-do-wah-gah, from the start of this place.
Difficult to see, now. your beating heart in this place.
Though many consider development
to be the art of this place,
Little remains of who were originally
part of this place:
Neutrals, they were named and peace
kept them apart in this place:
As war between Huron and Haudenosaunee
Comparted this place.
Attawandaron, indigenous peoples,
Small part of this place.
Now dubbed Cheektowaga, no trace of
the stout beating hearts in this place.
The name still remains, the crabapple land,
forepart of this place:
Yet how do I know so little of this
after departing this place?
.Wendy,
Your poem reminds of much that we need to keep in mind as our nation celebrates its 250 years, include apologies and acknowledgments of how we adjusted as a nation. Couldn’t have done it without copying the Iroquois Nations, who happen to be my husband’s heritage nation.
Wendy,
This poem reminds me of how intentional our forgetting is. I really appreciate your care in naming and honoring origins, even as our forgetting is so intentional. Your last couplet speaks to that unknowing. So much has been hidden from us.
Wendy, wow, a ghazal on a Saturday at the end of the year, and some research about your home town, it seems. I’m so impressed! This is my favorite stanza:
The stout beating hearts, wow!
Wendy, “this place” should remain in our hearts because of history dooming to repeat itself and people indulging greed. It makes my heart sad.“Yet how do I know so little of this
after departing this place?” Oh to keep the memories alive of our past.
Thank you for sharing.
Jessica, this was fun. I enjoyed reading some of the history of these uniquely named places in your poem. This prompt has a myriad of interpretations, so thanks for that. It will get lots of mileage. Thank you for hosting today. I looked up a list of street names in my town of Yucca Valley. Here are 20 of them. I started with my street.
From the Happy One
On La Contenta,
in the Desert Sky,
Coyote, Rabbit, Eagle,
Road Runner–each Grand and Lazy
species Saddle and Mound
the Desert Gold Sunsets,
the Moonstone of Rainbow,
Joshua Tree and Yucca Blossom,
Cactus Canyon filled with Songbird
and Sandsong. Encantado to be here.
Wow, Denise, one can really see the Spanish/cowboy outdoors in these names. I would love to be under the Desert sky right now.
Denise,
Love the southwestern imagery in here — imagistic and beautiful!
Denise,
I love how you’ve created a found poem in these street names and, furthermore, how the street names are so descriptive and specific to the space.
Denise, these names are full of wonder and mystery, nature’s sweet products. I feel like these are the makings of a song. Beautiful!
Denise,
Did you just write a cento of street names? Fantastic new form!
Your poem has such a strong sense of place. Thank you for bringing me out West, to the desert.
Especially love your ending:
Jessica, I first read your prompt more than 12 hours ago and have been thinking about it all day! You have really masterfully constructed a framework for students both as a historical framework and from a personal stance. Thank you for your words that have inspired me.
I am going to write about Stormville, NY, named after the Storm family, where a mountaintop location means endless power failures and snow squalls that close the interstate regularly! While I no longer call it my home, it will always be in my heart.
Supposedly, the Storm brothers settled in 1730
Crops and houses at the base, hunting and fishing
At the top of the fertile mountain
With the population growing slowly.
Enough to open a post office/general store
The only business from 1826 to 1980,
When the interstate cut through the mountain,
A barbed wire encased State Prison came to town.
Then, there were a whole bunch of baby boomers
Willing to homestead at the bottom and even
The top of that snowy mountain at the end of the
Power grid, more home for your dollar they said.
That’s when I landed in town, blown away when
Freshly caught deer appeared in front yards,
While endless hikers on the Appalachian Trail,
Traipsed through back yards!
It’s known still for its storms that close the
Interstate, epic power outages,
Its flea markets that attract people
From afar, and its rural charm,.
Anita,
Loved this story about the history of your town put to verse! I’d never heard of Stormville and looked it up on a map: aptly named for our rough NY winters!
Anita, Stormville has such rich history. This stanza sounds like other places touched by the love of money, “Enough to open a post office/general store
The only business from 1826 to 1980,
When the interstate cut through the mountain,
A barbed wire encased State Prison came to town.”
I love the imagery and it was like I was taking my own drive through Stormville while reading each line. I’ve never been to New York and this place sounds like a place to rest. It’s on my bucket list.
Anita,
Your poem makes me think about how the presence and absence of institutions shape a town.
I’m so struck by this stanza.
The long expanse of time, the starkness of these two seemingly opposite institutions. You imply so much with this short historical context.
I’m going to have to come back to this prompt soon.
Can a poet write
Of the explosive pain of
Sinus infections?
So sorry, Mo. I hope you feel better soon. 🌺
OH MY, yes I know that one all too well. I wish you a speedy recovery and the right course of antibiotics.
Oh, yes, a poet can, but I wish you didn’t have to! Hope you are back to health soon.
Ugh! Yep, a poet can and did! I love the use of “explosive” to describe the “pain,” but I hate that it’s happening to you. I hope you feel better soon!
Oh no — feel better, Mo! Nice haiku. 🙂
May I say:
Ah! a great excuse
to cancel obligations
and take a load off.
😉
Mo, yes! I hope you feel better soon. Sending hugs, love, and relief!
Feel better, Mo.
“explosive pain” is such a strong image.
Jessica,
Thanks for this rich prompt and your powerful poem. I love the refrains and variations of
and
Powerful ending!
You prompted me to research the name attached to one of my favorite places.
Thank you!
—————————————————————
The Springs
blue dreaming of green
green dreaming of blue
swimming in the springs
named after the white man
enslaver
stealer of Comanche land
who named the springs
after his three daughters
Eliza the only one still spoken of
thanks to the endangered
the salamander
now protected
who swims beneath the humans
beneath the fish
beneath the star grass
sacred place of the Coahuitecan
sacred place of those who came before
——————————————————————
See my poem with photos of Barton Springs at my blog, Pedaling Poet.
Oh, how gorgeous! Love the opening lines and how I had no idea what to expect. Then, the mic drop:
The ending is powerful. I feel the sacred hope in my soul.
Sharon, that line, “named after the enslaver, stealer of the Comanche land” stops me in my path. I was thinking about so many of the communities in upstate NY named after the Native Americans whose land was stolen all day. I think this is a powerful way for our students to explore the vast lands taken from Native Americans. I cannot even begin to fathom the number of names we could come up with in a short search. Sigh.
Sharon, this reads like a prayer. Love the chiasmus at the beginning and the repetition throughout the ending: really beautiful!
Sharon,
This is a beautiful poem! It is also a dig into the unwritten histories of the places that we call home, but that were home to people before us. I like how you weave in the history of the salander as a metaphor for what came before and for what will come after.
Hello all! Our school year ended yesterday, and I was delighted to be able to return to this community which offers welcome and fosters creativity. Jessica, this is such a great prompt. I love your look at place names in Arkansas. My poem went in a totally different direction than I intended.
If you’re lucky enough to be from here,
Then you really ought to know
That people came from far and near
And brought both weal and woe.
But to the Osage and Arapaho
and to the Kiowa, you see,
This land of the great buffalo,
It was home, and it was free.
The Caddo and Apache
Kept a kinship with the land.
And so did the Comanche,
The brave red-earth-bound band.
The Wichita were here to see
The first white people’s faces,
But would their proud-won liberty
Include these vast wide spaces?
Katrina, I have been thinking all day about the impact of Native American’s stolen land on names even though I ended up writing about my former home town that was not! It really would be a powerful way for our students to begin to explore the gravity of stolen lands to write these poems in a mammoth collection.
Jessica, how fun is this! I can’t decide which Arkansas town name is the quirkiest, but Toad Suck is definitely up there. I immediately thought of one town in Michigan worthy of this prompt.
42.4347° N and 83.9850°
Tucked into lush rolling hills
and alongside tranquil inland lakes
lies a tiny Michigan hamlet
of seventy-two.
Blink and you’ll miss it.
It’s a blip of a place.
Or better yet,
a bleeeep of a place.
(If only it were a ghost town,
that would at least make sense)
Instead, in the week
leading up to Halloween
residents invite you
to the annual coven gathering of
wine and cackling.
You can buy plots of land
(I imagine the fun of a
cemetary plot purchase)
or become mayor for the day
(which includes a
certificate of impeachment),
send officially singed and burned postcards,
or visit the chapel of love
(marriages beginning here
have nowhere to go but up).
Anything is possible in a place
that freezes over annually.
Jennifer, I love it! You kept me guessing throughout with lines like “It’s a blip of a place./ Or better yet, /a bleeeep of a place.” What fun!
Thanks Jennifer, I just spent 10 minutes finding your location through Google Maps! VERY clever! I am still laughing out loud at your line, “a bleeep of a place,” as this is such a strong image along with the mayor who gets a “certificate of impeachment!”
The Shadows on the Teche
The road that leads into town
is paved and littered, houses losing hinges,
planters of dead dried flowers.
Turn left at the plantation home
its picket fence freshly painted
draping oaks alter the light, so we see
a time long gone, where enslaved workers
sculpted a garden, wandered a beaten path.
Here history hurts your eyes, take off your shades
and live in that hot moment of sacrifice,
sever admiration of colonial architecture
and reveal hidden memories.
(The Shadows in my home town, New Iberia, LA have changed their narrative and house the African American Historical Society. There is more truth and less admiration of the opulent plantation home.)
Margaret, I often wonder about those plantation homes and the decisions to market them. I’m glad to hear the narrative of The Shadows has changed and embraces a truth. I love your lead into the poem, as it lures us amidst the contrasting details.
Margaret, those markers of history are tellers of truth and plantation homes proclaim their own guilt of the reasons for their stately lavishness. This is a great word to use – shadows. I feel the darkness of the secrets.
Margaret, when I saw your name here, I wondered what your words would reveal to us about your Louisiana home. Your poem takes a hard look between the lines of history, “Here history hurts your eyes.” I love the way you juxtapose the beauty of a place and “its picket fence freshly painted/ draping oaks alter the light” with the inherited trauma of its “hidden memories.”
Margaret, your poem is striking in its references to the enslaved people that so many in our society would like to forget. I lived in Mississippi and Alabama in the late 60’s and the memories of the “shanties” on stilts just outside of town long after slavery had been abolished still haunt me.
Cali Places
Centuries ago native Americans and Spanish ruled this land
as they traveled around they gave places names
in Spanish and native languages I don’t understand.
In Atascadero – a place where one got stuck in the mud
then rested in Alameda under a grove of shade trees.
Sadly, Arroyo Seco is only a dry creek except in a flood
but Palo Alto has a tall tree.
In La Brea there’s tar where dinosaurs sank
into pits as they drank.
How could that be?
In Calaveras, one wonders what happened
in a place of skulls on the map and
in Canada Verruca the valley of warts.
Places in Cali with many sorts
of Native American names of villages that confuse.
Azusa, Jamacha and Temecula speak of ancient views
that are lost today with busy freeways
and rising buildings under haze,
with a scurry of people
not knowing the history they came from.
A really good prompt today, Jessica. I learned so much!
Sue, I have been to La Brea and found it fascinating, especially surrounded by the city, as it is. You write of the busy freeways and people scurrying, who give little thought to where they are. This makes those names so much more necessary, if only for the tiny reminder of what used to be.
Susan, love the way you responded to the prompt. As a native Cali girl, you nailed it on the naming and the confusion. I hope one day students can return to learning our state’s history because now they don’t even know what continent it’s on.
Happy Summer! I’m jealous because your year ends so early compared to mine. 17 more days for me.
Happy birthday, poet who create art with your words and challenges us to understand what you have learned over the decades being a native of CA who has experienced so much we’ve only read about..
Susan, fun poem! I love the research you did today. So many interesting native American and Spanish names. We do scurry and not learn our history! We really should. Your poem is a good reminder.
Hi Jessica, it’s so great to see you back here to host us into May! I adore your poem and the prompt spoke to my heart. As I am approaching retirement in June, I’ve been thinking of all the places (near and far) I hope to visit. Your prompt gave me a perfect chance to explore the nearby places I can add to my list.
Places To Visit in My State of California When I Retire
I’ve never been to
Salvation Mountain
or Pioneertown
I’ve never enjoyed
Pappy’s and Harriet’s BBQ
or Tunnel Log in Sequoia National Park
I’ve never seen
Phantom Falls
or Trona Pinnacles
I’ve never walked on
Glass Beach
or relaxed at Wild Willy’s Hot Springs
I’ve never gone
Wine Tasting in Los Alamos
or horseback riding in Paso Robles
I’ve never explored
Fern Canyon
or touched the Dragon Sculptures at Galleta Meadows
I’ve never visited
The Victoria Beach Pirate Tower
or Lassen Volcanic National Park
I’ve never walked through
The Hidden Pools in Laguna Beach
or The Mosaic Tile House in Venice Beach
©Stacey L. Joy, 05/16/26
Stacey, Congratulations on your upcoming retirement! I retired last June, and my husband is retiring July 1. It’s a whole new world. I love how your poem explores places to visit as a retiree – what a great “opportunity list” for you! This first year of retirement has flown by, and I still have many places I want to visit as well!
I appreciate how you approached the poem-naming the places you haven’t been. It reads like the best kind of wish list. Congrats on retirement!
Stacey, I hope you are able to travel far and wide in your retirement. What a wonderful gift of time after so much energy expended teaching. How fun to compile a list (California has a vast selection to keep you busy!). I’ve been to a couple on your list and envy your future plans.
Stacey, you name so many great places that I hope you get to see one day. I have lived in LA/San Diego for so many years and have seem most on your list but not all. The highlight for me was Salvation Mountian.
Stacey, congratulations on your upcoming retirement! It will be here before you know it. You are going to have a busy retirement.
You can come out and stay with me while you do the first three on your list!! Please do! We have a spare room.
Jessica – this was a fun prompt, thank you! It gave me a chance to think about a place nearby that shares my name, and although I’ve never been there, I got to reflect on what it was like growing up in similar spaces.
To the town with my name.
Alongside a finger lake sits the town with my name.
Fleming, New York.
I’ve never really been there, but I remember –
I did pass the sign once, when I was a little girl.
It’s a small place.
2745 souls in its bounds.
(So says Google.)
But as I too grew up in another small upstate town,
I can imagine.
The one main road, and the dusty turn-offs.
A barn, a shed, a garage, a field.
A few houses with porches that pull up to the country route,
Old trees leaning out and dragging their limbs on the shoulder.
Some paint is peeling, others’ scaffolding speaks to repair
A stretch that has seen generations of upkeep and hand-offs.
I wonder at the people inside those houses.
The children.
Are they growing up like I did?
Do they still play outside, hiding among the trees along that main route?
Do they creep down to the lake
(even when they’re not supposed to)
And feel the stinging cold of the water on their bare feet?
Do they revel in the day, or do they wish for a time when they can
Leave for somewhere else?
Someday again I’ll drive through this place
And think of all the other places from whence I’ve come
And I’ll ask myself,
Which part of me came from here? From there?
To where do I owe my gratitude?
Sarah, This is so fun. And a great prompt in and of itself to learn about a namesake place you’ve never been. I love the questions, the curiosities here in the hiding among the trees and the creep down to the lake and the parenthetical knowings. And the questions at the end really bring this together in the way that questions of place only can; which part of me came from here, from there. The there is a lovely question.
Sarah
This is lovely Sarah ~ I felt myself actually traveling those upstate roads with you, wondering at the people inside…who stays and who leaves, and what do we take with us when we do?
I love the idea of writing about a place that bears your name and also, in many ways, a story you know well though you’ve never been there. This idea is fascinating. “Which part of me came from here? From there?/To where do I owe my gratitude?” Those lines cause me to pause and think the same about my own origins. Thank you!
Sarah! I love this so much! There is a Kittrell, TN (maiden name) and I love that there is a Fleming, NY. Your descriptions and questions were so clever and well done. I liked the way you connected with the place and your own life. Fantastic!
Sarah, I love how the language in this poem underscored the nostalgic mood. The rhetorical questions at the end contribute to this, as well. A pretty and evocative piece.
There’s a small
sign I pass
when traveling
up the expressway
toward doctors’
appointments with
their good news
and bad, toward
Ikea, toward Best Buy,
toward Big Boy, toward,
inevitably, traffic, and
this sign says, simply,
The Village of Waltz,
and I’ve never stopped
in all the times I’ve passed
and I’ve never researched
the name nor will I because
I like to imagine that, there,
all the people move In rhythm
and all the crosswalks are filled
with pirouettes, villagers all dressed
in beautiful clothes dancing and
dancing and dancing all
in time with one another.
_________________________________________
Thank you, Jessica, for your mentor poem and your prompt today! And I’m with you, I liked the first “origin” stories for the names of Possum Grape and Toad Suck.
This is great, Scott. I wonder about people naming a town and how that goes. Is it like naming a poem, in the way it stands separate from or part of? And does a place become a name or a name become a place, much like our own. I like this imagining you do here that you have invited me to do with you, okay a little differently, but still really lovely. The dancing imagery is the best for me, so beautiful to think about, wish, imagine, dream that this town is full of villagers dancing all the time. It would be a great picture book!
I love picturing exactly what you describe! It would be great to have villages like the Village of Waltz all over the world.
Yes! The Village of Waltz – may it live forever in your imagination and now in mine as well.
Ooh! I love this image you gave me of all the people moving in rhythm.
I like the idea of imagining the story behind a town’s name! I loved how you imagined and described the dancing. Lovely!
Scott, it is so refreshing to dive into your tongue in cheek poetry. Keep up the magical thinking with “crosswalks…filled with pirouettes.”
Thanks for the rich prompt, Jessica…and the early morning inspiration whose last line joggled my memory of a place I’ve never been but which I think about and return to often.
I will be back later today to post additional comments.
The Red Forest
When I traveled the world listening
to the language of trees, jotting down
lessons I thought I could share,
I lingered in the forest surrounding
Chornobyl, now known as the Red Forest
for the pine trees whose precious
needles turned red from leaked radiation.
Since then, I often return to the forest
to wonder at the resiliency of Nature:
the return of the wild horse and boar,
the elk, the deer and feral dogs,
the vole, field mice, warbler and nightengale.
Birch, aspen and oak have replaced
the ancient pines and, though altered,
dandelions, clover and sunflowers
grace the forest floor—
in the shadow of a rusted ferris wheel,
Nature reclaims land poisoned by man.
Hi Ann, thank you so much for your poem. I reveled in the colors of your lines and images, and I loved that it ended as it did in celebration of the power and resiliency of nature. Thank you!
These lines are so haunting and hopeful at the same time – the altered dandelions, the “shadow of the ferris wheel…” Beautiful!
The richness of the nature imagery is astounding…the last line packed quite a punch. I read it aloud and loved how it flowed.
The Naming of Things
They’re little nowhere towns—Kite, Wadley, Wrightsville—
ghost towns scattered off winding state roads
where the stories last longer than the businesses.
Grandma said Old Man Kight got himself a whole town named after him
but didn’t see no reason to waste letters on it.
“Folks got enough trouble spellin’ already,” he’d say,
rocking slow on the porch,
laughing like practicality was its own kind of wisdom.
So Kite stayed small.
One syllable.
Easy to paint on a sign.
Easy to write on an envelope.
Easy to lose while driving too fast down Highway 1.
Wrightsville got named for some politician—
one of those men who shook hands in rolled-up sleeves
and promised roads, mills, progress.
Grandpa said even politicians sometimes did good
before they learned how much easier it was
to take from regular folks than help them.
You can still drive through there and feel both things at once—
the wanting and the taking.
Wadley used to be called Shake Rag
back before the railroad came through
dragging iron tracks and progress behind it.
Then some railroad man named Wadley
decided the town ought to wear his name instead.
It was old-money country even then—
cotton money, land money, family money—
the kind that sat stiff-backed on deep porches
believing ownership and righteousness
were near about the same thing.
Grandma said towns rename themselves
the way people do after hard years—
hoping a different name might loosen
the grip of what came before.
The County Line sits just over the county border,
floorboards soaked through with two hundred years of stories.
Back when dry counties still held tight to righteousness,
folks crossed that line quiet as confession
to drink bourbon and moonshine from cloudy glasses
and jaw about weather, crops, women, war, and God.
Grandpa said the floor remembered every boot that crossed it.
Said old bars hold history almost better than churches do
because nobody lies much after midnight.
Across from Harrison’s Funeral Home
sits Ruby Dell’s Curl Up and Dye,
and nobody in town—not one soul—
ever seemed to notice the joke of it.
Hair set high as heaven on one side of the street,
caskets lined quiet as Sunday on the other.
Just life facing death plain as daylight.
And down Main,
Aunt Cookie’s Bless Your Tart bakery
sits beside Julie Beth’s Our Daily Bread café,
because in small towns
food and religion always did share a table and a wall.
The whole county smells like butter some mornings—
hot biscuits, sugar crust, coffee strong enough
to wake the dead over at Harrison’s.
These places stay with me.
Not because they were grand
but because they knew how to hold story.
The rumble of sound and story
still lives in me—
in porch-rocking rhythms,
in names painted crooked on old brick buildings,
in roads that lead nowhere
unless you know the people and history buried there.
I absolutely love this line: “because they knew how to hold story.” I can see this place, smell and feel its detail, and it reminds me of home. Thank you for your beautiful words and ode to these special spaces!
I really enjoyed this, Melanie! You have a number of lines that I love: “believing ownership and righteousness / were near about the same thing” and “folks crossed that line quiet as confession.” And the names of those old family businesses — “Ruby Dell’s Curl Up and Dye” and “Aunt Cookie’s Bless Your Tart bakery” and “Julie Beth’s Our Daily Bread café” — are great! Thank you for crafting and sharing this!
What a beautiful capture of the places that surrounded you. I especially love the ideas, images, and rhythm of this stanza:
I love this Melanie! So many lines that pulled at me…how grandma says town rename themselves, hoping a new name could loosen the grip of what came before…the floorboards soaked through with two hundred years of stories ~ I think that’s my favorite line! Really, Melanie this is wonderful!
Melanie, this blew me away! I was spellbound by Grandpa’s and Grandma’s words of wisdom, and the names of the businesses (outlived by their lore) were absolutely priceless. Just reading it made me feel as if I’d been there. A county that smells like butter in the morning – what place on earth could be any better?! Thank you!
Your poem has all the setting flavors of the best reading! Poem, novel, short story – I want to know these people. Here is a real favorite: Hair set high as heaven on one side of the street,
caskets lined quiet as Sunday on the other.
Just life facing death plain as daylight.
Thank you for sending me down the rabbit hole this morning, Jessica! While Indiana is filled with some colorful placenames like French Lick and Gnaw Bone and Floyds Knobs, I decided to zoom in on the places in the county where I was raised.
points on a map
some are cites
some are towns
some are neither
but still have identity,
community.
the bigger the font,
the redder the dot,
the more people
travel the streets and roads.
in the county of knox
in the state of indiana
vincennes
bruceville
bicknell
monroe city
decker
edwardsport
sandborn
are incorporated cities and towns
named for people
who settled there
with wheatland and
oaktown
getting their names from
notable geographical features
and
saint thomas and
decker chapel
harkening to the religious roots
of those hamlets.
you can drive through
some of these places
and miss them if you blink
but the people there
love to do their
blinking, breathing, eating,
thinking, loving, living,
and dying
there.
~Susan Ahlbrand
16 May 2026
Susan, I love learning more about Indiana, so close to my home of Illinois and yet we drive for hours and hours to reach you. Our states are huge. This is a beautiful winding road of lines to move us through the places you might blink away or into while also naming the living and dying there. Lovely.
Sarah
Love this: “the bigger the font/the redder the dot.” I miss the days of the folded map and oversized atlas. This trip through your hometown is delightful.
I absolutely love the last stanza–I read it aloud three times. The lines, the rhythm…love the ideas here. This is a beautiful poem that feels like a road trip through the state.
Jessica, What a great prompt that sent me down a rabbit hole of discovery about my own home state. I love how your poem is formatted with the question throughout and especially the humor of how you prefer one story over the other. I may have to come back to this prompt. Working through in my notebook I have not landed on something I want to share yet. But I’m here reading. Thanks!
Jessica, thank you for this prompt! Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, I often write about the little yellow house in Walkertown where I lived from the age of 2 until two months after my 12th birthday. I loved that house and that neighborhood so much; but for this prompt, I decided to write about the place we moved to when I was 12. Boone Ledge was still in the same county…but barely. I don’t think I ever gave that place a chance and didn’t miss it much when I went away to college. This prompt gave me an opportunity to mine some memories from that wild and beautiful place that deserved more than I gave it.
Boone Ledge
From the corner of Spring and Pear
(in Walkertown),
we moved to Boone Ledge.
I was 12-years-old
when I said good-bye
to the yellow house
I loved
and hello
to the two-story brick,
so close to the mountain
there was no backyard to mow
just limestone cliffs
and a big rock
with “DB” carved into
the smooth surface.
Story was
Daniel himself
took time to make his mark
while passing through.
When it rained
on Boone Ledge,
our basement filled
with groundwater,
drowning my childhood toys.
My sister did a backflip
off the trampoline
which took up the only
flat spot.
She landed, laughing,
on the hard ground.
We drove ATVs
all through the hills
where DB once
walked.
My sister swore
she saw a ghost,
crouching in a ditch,
by the side of a narrow road.
Once said,
she laughed it off,
but I couldn’t pass
that spot
without a shiver
climbing my spine.
Daddy kept
a hoe handy
for all the rattlers
and copperheads
who liked to sun themselves
on our paved driveway,
right beside the
trampoline.
On a spring day,
a stick I threw
sailed into the woods;
and our dog, Heidi,
fetched
a black snake
and chased me ’round
and ’round,
the snake dangling
from her jaws.
We were too much
in those mountains
and couldn’t tell where
Mom’s garden stopped
and the wildflowers began.
I’m afraid
I never gave
Boone’s stomping grounds
much of a chance.
Too far to walk to school,
and the buses didn’t even run
up our spiraling hill;
so Daddy or Mom
had to cart us to and from…
and when it snowed,
we had to park
at the foot of the hill
and slip and slide our way home,
laughing as we took one step
forward
and slid two steps
back.
Oh, Walkertown. I feel like that should be the name of a book or movie. I love the “our” in spiraling hill and how Daddy is dy and Mom is without the my. Something just in that resonates with me, spirals for me. I wonder of the literal and figurative slip and slide of home and how this poem has slid us two or more steps back. Lovely.
Sarah
I love the line ” we were too much in those mountains”–it was so perfect for the poem. It felt like it was such a part of the story the stanzas created. The story the poem tells is so rich in details!
Hi Lori – what beautiful storytelling! I was right back there with you, tumbling through those spaces and imagining Daniel’s ghost. It also reminds me of the so significant and often difficult rite of passage in childhood, moving from one home to another, and how formative that experience can be. It makes me want to write another poem!
This is so lovely, so sentimental, Lori. I can feel the teenage angst yet regret about not giving it a chance. The details you share really make this come alive. I hope you enjoyed mining through your thoughts to get to the gist of your time there.
Lori, wow! Daniel Boone’s stomping ground was your home and all the memories are so rich. I can see them!!! I can feel the pain of the trampoline land, and what in the world with that stick and snake!?! I’m glad it was a black snake and not a copperhead or rattler. Your roots are captured so clearly in these stanzas and I can feel my own early Kentucky days pulling at my heartstrings through your poem! Long live the spirit of DB crouching in the ditches!! Love this!
Thank you for hosting us today, Jessica, and inspiring us to think of the names of places. I love the way your poem asks a repeating question, and shows how a repeating line can be a good transition into a new stanza through a different lens. I’m in North Carolina visiting my brother and sister in law, who have just bought a house in Bethlehem – – what’s in a name indeed? There is a peaceful silence here that cannot be described.
In Bethlehem
I think I know
why His eye is on the sparrow
with all the other birds
far more majestic in flight
this tiny song sparrow
may not have the wingspan
of the eagle or the osprey
but it sings praises more
powerfully than all the rest
here in Bethlehem
where songbirds
know the best reason
to sing
Kim, I love this poem that not only takes me to a peaceful place, but also makes me hear the songs of birds. Have a lovely visit in NC.
What a perfect place from which to write today. I love your focus on the sparrow’s song.
Lovely. Bethlehem can be many homes. I was there, once, in Israel or maybe not that land, but the church. And I know other places are named that, too. And how in the story, it is also a place read from a page. I like to think about this sparrow you offer, “this tiny song sparrow” and how the lines compare voices and reach. Love this closing image of songbirds, poets?, knowing the best reason to sing. Because they/we can, are made to.
This is so beautiful. The peace created here is lovely, just lovely.
Jessica, I love this prompt! Toad Suck makes me giggle…Possum Grape? Oh, my. Thanks for the inspiration and your poem. There is such local flavor in your lines. I’m off to brainstorm and think of some fun verse for the crazy rural places of western NY where I grew up.
Hi Jessica
Thanks for the invitation. I enjoy place-centered poems and town names are always fascinating. I chose a small town just west of me to write about.
Kevin
Driving through Peru,
there’s not much there
to see or to do, just rivers
and forests –more than a few
dirt roads, too — but if you travel
through, be sure to shout yoo-hoo
to the 800 plus hardy folk
living in these beautiful, isolated
Western Massachusetts woods,
no doubt happy to be off the grid
in such a mixed up world, too
Kevin, I’d love to visit this Peru, where there isn’t much to see or do, but wave yoo-hoo. Thanks for such a rhyme-filled, rhythm hopping poem.
Thank you for taking us off the grid today! I really enjoyed all the rhyme!
Love how you capitalized on the sound of Peru and used rhyming words to pull these ideas together!
ode to orvieto in fiore
is a city rising from caves
a street, someone’s roof
a roof, someone’s street
is a road breaking open color
petals laid like prayers
hands painting scenes
quiet as breath
is an infiorata blooming
roses and marigolds
silence and basil green
laid into stories we can visit
before they disappear
is a history of families
rooted rivals in pistil
walled memory divisioni
lifting color together at last
is a kneeling into beauty
knowing it will not last
because that is how a city learns
from flowers
is the choosing to gather
to place what is fragile
into shared hands
is the ground made holy by attention
Note: I am learning about my borrowed-temporary home in Orvieto and the flower festival starting next week. Seems there is some centuries old rivalry or tension around this that I am trying to learn more about.
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I love the form you created with the is statements. Especially, “is the choosing to gather/ to place what is fragile/ into shared hands.” That line says so much about the people living in a sacred place.
I suspect there is more animosity between the families here than I can understand or have the language/place to ask about it, but this is my romantic view. And oh, no, I neglected to credit Lucille Clifton for her mentor text and form. It is beautiful: https://poetrysociety.org/poems/the-earth-is-a-living-thing
I love this mix of flower imagery, story, and hints at hidden conflicts. So rich. It makes me so curious to know more, to see the flowers, to hear the stories, to know the past. I love the form you have chosen and the last line just grabbed me.
I love the vibrancy of your words-“lifting color together at last.”
Sarah, stanza five is such a cool stanza: ”is a kneeling into beauty / knowing it will not last / because that is how a city learns / from flowers.” I love this lesson of community and connection, this coming together — however briefly — this lesson taught by the flowers. And I loved the “is” structure, too! And, and, lol, thank you for linking to Clifton’s poem, “the earth is a living thing.” Two cool poems from one posting. Nice!
You sure continue to immerse yourself into the wonders of your travels. And, anytime you can take ideas, thoughts, experiences and turn them into poetry, it cements those things for eternity.
Sarah, this structure of repeated stanzas beginning with is establishes so many facets of the place – and I admire your hunger to know the world and its cultures and places and people as you traverse its paths. I like how a roof can be a street and a street a roof – that gives me image of tiered homes and so much dimension. Have enjoyed seeing all the pictures and living you have done and I know you will love this festival coming up! That last line of your poem creates a deep reverence and respect for the sacredness of place.