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
Mary Lee Hahn lives in Columbus, OH where she is enjoying retired life after 37 years of teaching fourth and fifth graders. She currently teaches embroidery and fiber arts at Sew to Speak and Craft Raccoon and co-coordinates the Ohio Casting for Recovery program. She blogs at A(nother) Year of Reading with Franki Sibberson, and her poetry is archived at Poetrepository, where there are twelve years of National Poetry Month projects and more. Mary Lee believes in the power of process, whether it is applied to teaching, learning, writing, or crafting. She spends her free time in the garden, on her bike, and with her husband and their big orange cat.
Inspiration
Sometimes all you need in order to start writing a poem is a single word.
Process
To create an acrostic poem, write the word you’ve chosen vertically down the page. I’ll call that your anchor word. Begin each line of your poem with the letters of your anchor word. I always told my students, “Your acrostic should SAY something,” because kids had a tendency to simply create a list of random words starting with those letters, or a list of words describing their anchor word starting with those letters.
You can use enjambment, which means that a thought can continue on two or more lines. Try not to use your anchor word in the poem. Your poem can elaborate on the anchor word, or shine new meaning on it.
For my 2025 National Poetry Month project, I found inspiration in the Pen America list of words banned by the current administration, using those as my anchor words. I occasionally used other forms in conjunction with my acrostics – a three-letter anchor word became a haiku (5-7-5 syllables in each line), and a six-letter anchor word could become a shadorma (3/5/3/3/7/5 syllables in each line). Here are two examples:
Mary Lee’s Poems
Belong
Botany teaches us that
Every plant
Lives within an ecosystem, each
Offering what they can give, each accepting what they
Need.
Generosity is their way of life.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2025
Biases (a shadorma)
Before you
Infer false notions
About me,
Stop and think.
Examine your impressions.
See MY truth, not yours.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2025
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.
Thank you, Mary Lee, for this prompt. I enjoyed considering ways to combine other forms into the acrostic poem. Although I didn’t go that route.
Childhood fun, falls and
Healthy activity
Inadvertently leads to some
Rough grownup issues —
Ongoing twinges
Pinching nerves
Rolling ankles.
Active movement and
Channeling healing vibes
Travel through the spine.
Introducing
Chiropractic care — start it early!
Keeping anonymous on this one.
Really nice people live here, honest, conservative, relatable.
Educated, earnest, entertaining,
Determined, and devout . . .
Sucumbing to populism
Toasting with grape Kool-Aid
Adamently believing in right
Telemetry tunneled by pundits of rage
Exploited denizens of demagogues.
Thanks, Mary Lee, for leading us today with your meaningful and powerful acrostic poems. I am currently holding my newest grandson, only 6 weeks old. His scent is intoxicating and a wonderful elixir for my grief.
Bonding close, skin to skin
A scent of
Baby perfume
You soothe my sad soul.
I am opening my first teaching days this year with origami. So I wrote about that 🙂
Our time is p
Recious. We are folded
Into time, to
Gether for 180 x 44 minutes
Against all odds–
Meet me
In this precious space.
Wow. Starting with origami. That will certainly set the pace and intention for the year! I’d love to be a fly on the wall!
Your poem is brilliant. I lovelovelove the way you folded words across the ends of lines — p/recious and to/gether. It slowed me down as a reader and added deeper meanings. Well played!
Allison, congratulations on starting your year! So much to love about this poem. Love the clever splitting of “precious.” Love “we are folded/into time.” For some reasons, I loved the use of the numbers — they stood out. And a beautiful directive to your students at the end. Beautiful!
I love doing origami with students. They are always so eager. I love “precious space.” It shows how your classroom is a special and safe place.
Mary Lee, thanks for this great prompt. I haven’t written any poetry in months, but I’m on a short vacation with my kids and felt inspired by this. Thanks for getting me writing again.
Even with gutters
Littered with trash, this
Evening, Manhattan demands our
Veneration, lights glittering like the jewels in an
Ethiope’s ear, skyscrapers alight like Greek ruins in an Athenian
Night sky:
How has it come to this – painfully beautiful humans,
Odes to time, impossible in their loveliness? Humanity teems,
Winding around us,
Artless and artful, while
Ruined civilization breathes
Death above and around.
Wow, Wendy. Welcome back. Writing is always waiting for us, isn’t it? I loved the R&J allusion. <3
Here’s another wow. This poem doesn’t even need the ruse of the acrostic. It is whole all on its own. To anchor it in Manhattan and then more specifically your hotel (I assume that’s the anchor words?) and then more broadly in Greek ruins…it’s very cinematic!
Yes — we’re staying at 11 Howard. 🙂
Mary Lee, thank you for a wonderful August prompt and your poems. I like how you tell your students “to say something” not just put the words together. Beginning with one word is what I needed today.
I got caught up in work, but couldn’t miss sharing with you this
SMILE
Sunshine flickers in your eyes,
Magic blooms like a surprise.
It can chase the gloom away,
Lift a friend and light the day,
Easy gift we all can share.
Your last line is wonderful, Leilya. Smiling is such a simple gift, indeed.
I’m in awe of folks who can write RHYMING acrostics!! That’s purely aspirational for me. 🙂
I love both this poem and the message it carries. I’ve been doing a bit of an experiment lately. As I move through any crowd, I work to catch people’s eyes and smile. Not a big toothy smile, but just enough to change the shape of my face and throw out a silent “hello…I see you.” I would say that 99% of the people who meet my eye long enough to receive the smile give me a smile back. It feels like a small win for humanity every time.
Leilya, this was so cheery — love the bouncy rhyme — just a feel-good piece!
So glad to be writing today. It’s short but it gets me back in the groove. Thanks Mary Lee.
banned word: TRIBAL
There you are, just like me
Related as people
Intertwined
Because we are human;
An aligned membersip
Long lasting
Susan, thank you for seeing the depth of the word. “Because we are human”
Susan, what a word! Like Denise, I can’t help it but point to “Because we are human.” Thank you for this.
An aligned membership is terrific, Susan!
So much would change if we all could remember the ways we are ALIKE rather than focusing on differences. “Because we are human”
Susan, I love how the word “tribal” could be taken more than one way — good and bad — but your poem went with the positive. The first line was arresting in its immediacy.
Thank you, Mary Lee, for this great prompt. I took inspiration from your small poem forms and wrote American cinquains with my two five-letter words. Of course “Solar power” would be on the ridiculously banned list. I love thinking of the plants and that “Generosity is their way of life”. I wish we could all learn from them.
Sunshine
On our rooftops
Lands kilowatt strength in
A pollution-free collection.
Resist
Prattle
Of the haters
Who contrive contention
Everywhere. Employ solar and
Resist.
I love the repetition of Resist, Denise. And the word prattle pie so strong here, too. Very effective little poem!
Denise, Thank you for focusing on the fate of solar power. As an owner and user of solar power way, way back, I fully appreciate the role of renewable energy and feel devasted with the “prattle of haters” as you so wonderfully call them.
Denise, I like your intentionality with each word and the sound effects they create, as in “A pollution-free collection,” “Everywhere. Employ solar,” and “Prattle / Of the haters.”
Your call for resisting is so much needed.
Very fun that you found a new form to combine with acrostics! And the way you use enjambment between the two stanza/poem/words is fantastic. I, too, love “prattle.” Also the alliteration of “contrive contention.” Such (sorrowful) truth in those two words.
Beautifully crafted acrostic, Denise! It is just wise to use nature’s benefits…
Denise, this was great! Loved the refrain of “Resist.”
Mary, thank you for this really great format I have not used in a long, long time. Cleary, I am sharing my personal perspective on the meeting in Alaska. I am really sad for the way the meeting came about without regard to Ukraine or Europe.
In the cold, often barren state of far away Alaska, a red carpet and fly over announced
Negotiations, which might have quieted bloodshed and ended brutal attacks,
Took place between a man known for threats, little patience for diverse
Ideas with a playbook that outlines clear strategies and punishments
Meant to promote an image of a home-grown hero determined
In a quest to solve all problems at home and in the world
Dared to think a dictator who really believes he is right
Along with pictures, handshakes on American soil
That clearly show the Intimidator and the
Oppressor’s meeting was bluster would
Resolve something?
Bluster is such a great word in your poem, Anita. Home-grown hero is good, too. Such a farce. I hope writing the poem helped you process this event.
Anita, wow. Thank you for writing this. We need poets, writers, and artists paying attention now. You have done that. I am struck by the image of “a red carpet and fly over.” Such a lot of emptiness in these negotiations. I’m impressed with the shape of your poem.
Anita, thank you for this poem. I needed it today. That meeting in Alaska was on my mind since its first mention, and I intentionally didn’t write about it because I am still too angry.
Thank you, Anita. Your concrete form reinforced the sense of diminishment.
Oh my goodness! Your concrete poem absolutely captures the air going out of the Blusterer’s balloon. All pomp and ridiculous ceremony…for what? A photo-op for Putin. And, sadly, nothing achieved that will help Ukraine.
You started with the seed of the acrostic form and you grew it into something so much more!
Anita, this was inspired! Wow! Beautiful alliterative, an admirably plaintive and tone, with an undercurrent of outrage, imo. Strong words and imagery — this just hit all the buttons for me!
Mary Lee, thanks for your inspiration and for the link to the Pen America list. It was so disheartening!
A Nation in
By Mo Daley 8/16/25
Can someone please explain this ridiculous bromance?
Real people with real problems admiring a sycophant?
I mean, take your pick- climate, health, economy-
So many issues that seem to demand blind subordinance
Indifference is not the way to combat the ignorant
Stand up, everyone, for our autonomy!
HELL YEAH! (that’s the best I got- but it fits)
Mo, yes! That title is perfect. My prayer for ten years has been that the sycophants would see through the charade. Joe Rogan is the latest. I’m still hopeful. Great poem.
Yes, yes, yes!!! 👏🏽 👏🏽 👏🏽
A nation in crisis indeed, Mo! What a great title. I tried to avoid the list suggested by Mary Lee because yesterday’s meeting in Alaska just killed my hope for a foreseeable future. I even picked up a fight yesterday with one of the blind admirers of a sycophant.
Amen, Mo! I love the call to action…stand up indeed! Crisis indeed! Thank you for your voice here! Susie
What a call to action! I agree with Kasey’s “HELL YEAH!”
I love the way you used enjambment to lead the reader from your title to your anchor word. Brilliant.
Ah, Mary Lee…Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if generosity were every thing’s way of life!
An evening with my beloved 3 yr old grand-niece has inspired my acrostic/tanka:
fairy
Forest magic comes
Alive, animates night sky
Iridescent swirls
Render whispered curls, spark a
Young child’s joy, make-believe
Patricia, I love the way your words dance across the page much like a fairy, in my imagination, would do. The world of little ones where fairies are real-to-them and brighten days of learning and growing is a world to settle into these days!
Ah, Patricia, what a lovely fairy poem. Such fairy-like word choice throughout–magic, iridescent swirls, curls, spark, joy! Yay! Precious.
Patricia, I really needed this sweet poem tonight. Ah, those iridescent swirls!
Patricia, this is a delightful and refreshing poem that took me away from all the adult ugliness.
And here’s the versatility of the acrostic. We come from Mo’s megaphoned call to action to this sweet gentle moment of make-believe and play. Be sure you save this poem to give to your grand-niece when she’s older! What a gift!
Hello, Mary Lee, and thank you for the perfect launch into August Open Write. I wanted to try the shadorma because I love a syllable-count form, but my poem took its own path. Your shadorma ends with exactly what my heart keeps feeling when I hear the nonsense coming from the world we live in today.
I hope for the ending of my poem to play out soon.
Why Not YOU?
democrats believe in
inclusion, acceptance, and equity. But the
villains in wretched red follow the
egregious tankle taco meatball and
refuse to realize how they, too, will ultimately suffer from his
systems of corruption and abuse.
in due time
they will all ask, “Why me?” We will reply, “Why not
you?”
©Stacey L. Joy, 8/16/2025
Stacey, your “egregious tankle taco meatball” made me snort! What a great combination of educated vocabulary and current slang! Well played! I agree that when the bad finally gets to be the worst and those who thought it would never be them are the ones predominantly being affected, it’s going to be a rude awakening!
Snorting along with Mary Lee! Tankle taco meatball! I await that same day!
Stacey, I must admit to be smiling right now as your image of “egregious tankle tack meatball” is seared into my brain. It really is a line you need to offer Saturday Night Live for parody!!
Stacey,
I love when our poems nuzzle up to one another. I have tried to understand why that guy has so much support. The reasons are ugly, so definitely why not them. I just wish they were the only ones who experience the consequences of his actions.
Yes, yes, yes, Stacey! I have a hard time believing they aren’t already suffering “from his / systems of corruption and abuse” Thank you. Like the others said, that description in line 4 is hilarious!
Thanks for this wish, Stacey. I see a glimmer of an answer to your last line when I stand on the corner with the protest groups. More people are giving us encouraging “honks” than when we started. People are starting to become more aware of the wretched red’s deviousness.
Yes, Stacey — I here you! I need your voice, I love your voice, I appreciate your voice. Tell it! Love, Susie
Stacey, oh all capital letters for YOU. Yes. That means me. That phrase “tankle taco meatball”–whoa. I feel this impending doom in my state and want to bury my head but know I must return for at least one more year. Why not me?
Thank you for today’s interesting prompt, Mary Lee. I love the message of your acrostic “Belong” – the way you present generosity as a natural attribute found in all things is reassuring. I decided to use the “Banned Words List” for inspiration, and I was shocked! It makes me sick to my stomach that people would intentionally remove such language from government communications.
Vulnerable
Venture into the darkest corners of the concrete jungle,
Under the neglected freeway underpass,
Littered with broken glass and discarded clothing,
Next to the abandoned warehouse with shattered windows, and look. Really look.
Endure the stifling waves of heat
Rising from the dry, cracked pavement,
And you will see a community of the forgotten;
Break the cycle of unawareness.
Lament the practice of ignorance.
Enlighten the powerful and elicit change.
That list is indeed shocking and sickening. Pair that with the removal and revision of history at the Smithsonian and other places…sigh…so much repair to be done after we vote them all out.
As for your poem, what a vivid call to action and what a powerful example of an acrostic — when you read the best ones, like yours, you forget they are an acrostic because they clearly express their message.
Thank you, Shaun, for bringing light to the margins. The images are stark and shocking –as they should be.
Shaun, your poem is a shocking reminder of the MANY people in every city, small town, and rural roadside area who find themselves without a roof overhead in a era of ever increasing hosing costs, ever increasing job losses, and ever decreasing access to physical and mental health resources.
Shaun, such beautiful language you have chosen to describe the vulnerable. Thank you for the respect and gentleness in your words, and the for call to action with those powerful verbs beginning some of the lines–Venture, endure, break, lament, enlighten…Beautiful.
REFLECTION
Reason, when partnered with
Emotion, elucidation, ethics can create
Flux as we navigate our
Leanings, as we elect to open
Eyes with a
Certainty
That the world
IS bigger than our
Own tiny perceptions and with the surety that
Now we are better for having looked long in the mirror.
by Susie Morice, August 16, 2025©
Yes! We must “navigate our / leanings” and look “long in the mirror.” I love the way you used two meanings of reflection!
Susie!!! Hi, friend! There’s so much to gain in the art of reflection. Your poem speaks to what my work family says that our previous principal needed. She missed the mark so often and it could have been so much better if she’d only spent time looking at herself. I digress!
Thank you for your heart and your poetry!
Susie,
I love this. Yes, “we are better for having looked long in the mirror.” I don’t understand those who don’t reflect, who don’t acknowledge what they can and should do differently. I’m so glad you’re here today.
Susan, this is such a great word to use as your anchor as it is the essence of understanding and changing our actions as well as understanding others. Well done
Oh, Susie, “the world IS bigger than our own tiny perceptions” speaks volumes. Would that we could all know that. Looking in the mirror to take a searching and fearless moral inventory is for everyone.
I love this, Susie! It’s all frame of reference, isn’t it? Perspective is everything. “[T]he world / IS bigger than our / Own tiny perceptions.” Yes! Thanks for writing and sharing this!
Susan, thanks for the reminder that reason often is influenced by our emotions and past exper.
Don’t tell me
It’s better to be asleep. Blissfully ignorant
Very woke is bad? You don’t think being awake and aware are good things?
Every new day brings
Rhetoric regressing retreating rehurting reharming
Shaming all types of different people under your big thumb.
It is a power play, or a power grab, or gasping tantrums. or … what? what is it exactly?
To tell those who you oppress that they are the real oppressors
You continue to tell me that I shouldn’t want to hear all perspectives?
Eggregiously insinuating I’m making YOU feel unrepresented?!? Hmm…
Quite upside down.
Under a gag order, Orwellian. “War is peace. Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength”.
Tear down the walls. you say. Drain the swamp. you say.
Yet reality shows you love it. you build it higher. you write the new history in your beloved
Images. Infuriatingly I
Nod in disbelief.
Can’t. I
Literally can not
Understand. I still do not
See how D, E, or I could be bad things. You’d rather I go back to sleep?
I better not be woke. Indignation simmers, though it should probably boil
Over
Now, as much as ever.
Hello again, beautiful, welcoming, encouraging, inspiring, brilliant, community! Thank you Mary Lee for your prompt and your beautiful examples and sharing the list of banned words.
Not the best attempt. Needs some workshopping, but I like the idea anyway.
Only three days into the new school year for me, getting to know my new 9th graders. Hopes and prayers to all for a great year doing what we do on the daily in this crazy world around us.
Thank you, Luke, for taking time to write even during this busiest of seasons! And thanks to you and all the current and, like me, former teachers for keeping alive the ART of teaching as you mold the next generations.
You went all out with DEI! Preach! It is definitely better to be awake/”woke” than willfully ignorant!
Oh, Luke, great work! During this first week of school, you still hammered this out–full of passion and amazing questions! I agree. The opposite of DEI must be homogeneity, inequity, and exclusion. What in the heck? Who thinks we should value those things?
I love this line: “Rhetoric regressing retreating rehurting reharming”
Here is another masterful acrostic section that shows so clearly your disbelief…
Shaun, I agree with you that D, E, and I, cannot possibly represent bad initiatives. Recognizing the breadth and depth of the human experience is what I have spent my life doing. I too am boiling over.
Luke!
Preach! This is a wonderful representation of the current state of affairs. I love the allusions and rhetorical questions. Have a wonderful year with your 9th graders. I have a gaggle of 10th graders this year. We had a great week!
Thank you, Mary Lee, for a fun start to this month’s poetry!
Platitudes and Ageing
Polite smiles and nods of our head,
Laughing at the right time, though we may not ‘feel’ it
Acting against our instinctive nature
Time has a way of ripping apart
Insincere words
Taking pleasure in tearing out our verbal filters
Ultimately revealing the truth of us
Duct tape giving way to
Emotional candidness
Such is the aging process . . . I love it
Judi Opager
Judi — So much honesty in these lines. I like that ageing has “duct tape”…made me grin, and I loved the “truth of us”… As an old gal pretty “long in the tooth,” I feel this poem. Thank you. Susie
YES! I, too, am enjoying the “Emotional candidness” that comes with the grey hairs and wrinkles!!
Judi, this is especially poignant as I watch my aging parents speak their minds — even when inappropriate (lol). Truly emotional candidness –and I, too, love it.
Judi,
Boy howdy does age curr of us the platitude habit. Brilliant!
Woohoo! Yes, “Emotional candidness” I’m here for it, a great part of aging.
Judi, your words speak to those of us who have aged to the point where we just say what we believe!
Mary Lee, thank you for the prompt today. I have always struggled with assigning acrostics in the past due to exactly what you mentioned, so your instructions will be valuable for the classroom!
My inspiration comes from our first day of apple-picking in our new home state of Vermont.
A tiny white blossom holds
Purpose; petals filled with the
Propensity to nourish generations, each branch weighted,
Letting little hands grab, twist, crunch for
Evermore.
Jordan, now you have a mentor poem to show your students what an acrostic can be! If you’ve never seen Steven Schnur’s four seasonal acrostic poetry books or Avis Harley’s AFRICAN ACROSTICS those are also excellent mentor texts.
Ah, Jordan, so sweet. “propensity to nourish generations” and “evermore” just seem so grand and beautiful. Like your new home state will be for you. Lovely.
Jordan, consider taking your poem to the classroom, too. It reminds us that over time, too, can blossom and help nourish others. Collaborative in class activities often grow to this with nurturing environments Ee, teachers can help establish and strive to maintain.
Mary Lee, thank you for this invitation to write this morning. In each of your poems I’m drawn to your closing words. Generosity is their way of life. These words remind me of reciprocity and Braiding Sweetgrass. And in your second poem you get to the cause of biases in these words – See MY truth, not yours.
Lucky
Little brown eyes surrounded by wisps of brown hair look
up to watch us and
capture sounds and shifting light. She
knows her space and people.
You’re home.
Jaime — This image…those “little brown eyes” captivated me immediately. It made me think of the darling little Sofia, my neighbor’s granddaughter. Made me all warm a fuzzy. Susie
Braiding Sweetgrass is one of my absolute core books. I even stitched “All flourishing is mutual” on the front of my jean jacket.
Your poem is one that reads so smoothly you don’t realize it’s an acrostic! The best kind!
Jamie, what a sweet little Lucky you write about. “She knows her space and people.”
Good morning, poets! So good to be back writing with you.
Thinking of those of you who are preparing to go back to school–wishing everyone a great start to community building and teaching and learning.
Thank you, Mary Lee, for hosting and easing us in with acrostics.
Mary Lee, love the lessons you shine on botany and am thinking about how they can apply to my life.
I’ve just retired so that was a fun and obvious word to play with.
Then I used the form to think more about and spend more time with the lovely characters from Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a beautifully written and compassionate novel about friendships and family, both born and found. Love these characters and their caring relationships. It echoes your poem about belonging, Mary Lee.
———————————————————
Rambling and reading
Everywhere
Taking myself on field trips
Independently exploring museums and trails
Rediscovering cooking and practicing piano
Eating lunch when it’s not 12:20
Dawdling at the springs after my swim
_________________________________________
after Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness
Grown lonely
Raised her son and daughter
Absent from her life
Zany time loops trouble
Invites Hai to help her
Nurturing, with carrots, his will to live
Aricept returning her from the war in Lithuania
Heartsick and willing to help
Addicted and asking for help and an ending
Inventing a med school lie
Soldiering at the HomeMarket
Obsessed with the Confederacy
Needs to free his jailed Mom
Young and loyal, tenderly writing okay on his cousin’s cheek
Boss to a struggling and steadfast work family
Judgment withheld
Sharon, Ocean Vuong’s book is on my TBR and I’m moving it up closer to the top thanks to your poem/review!
But it’s your RETIRED poem that resonates the most. I’m starting my fifth year of retirement and my oh my is it ever delightful for all the reasons you listed AND going to the grocery story in the middle of the week in the middle of the day! ENJOY!!
Sharon, first, congratulations on your retirement. Your acrostic makes me happy for you, and all the adventures you are taking time for now. I just put a hold on The Emperor of Gladness, something I often do when someone mentions a good book. In 19 weeks though, I will have forgotten that it was you that recommended it, so thank you now for that!
Thanks, Mary Lee, for offering us an efficient way to get started today. You give what I’m writing about – CHOICE!
Why Choice?
Choice is a valuable choice.
Helps to give students a voice
Opens their minds to thinking,
Inspires them to stop shrinking.
Collaboration enhances cooperation
Each student works with more elation.
Checking on what they know today
Helping us measure what we taught yesterday.
Opening our eyes so we can see
Informing us gently, formatively.
Coaching us as much as our students
Enabling us to become what we should be.
Collaboration has consequences for teaching.
Heightens the number of students we’re reaching.
Obviously! We can hear what they have to say.
Information comes more easily, which helps us in this way.
Collaboration inspires learning,
Engages and keeps our minds churning..
Anna,
Love this inspiring pedagogy lesson.
It makes me happy to picture this in your classroom:
Your scholars are fortunate to have you!
Wow, Anna! Not just one stanza, but THREE! Not just an acrostic, but RHYMING! I agree with Sharon — this is a very creative pedagogy lesson!!!
Anna, You are spot on! Choice is so so important for “[c]ollaboration,” “cooperation,” “[c]oaching,” “[c]hecking on,” and “consequences.” And I love your use of “minds churning” at the end!
Nice repetition of a very important word in education! Choice, choice, choice! Yes.
Privileges
Pretending the word doesn’t
Really exist is pretty
Ironic, don’t you think? pretty
Vile to say the least, like that word
Itself, hiding in plain sight,
Letting
Everyone know just what it means to
Gobble up all the advantages, opportunities,
Everything before any other
Soul can get a chance
__________________________________________________
Thank you, Mary Lee, for your mentor poems and your prompt today! And thank you for the link to the Pen America site. Once I chose my word, privileges, it opened up and revealed its vile secret to me, tucked right there in the middle, previously unbeknownst to me. So, thank you, again, for giving me space to realize this!
Scott,
Preach! Privilege is a parasite. Love everything about this poem, particularly the personification.
Love the use of Soul as the final letter and line, so much deeper than person or human, so much more real and impactful. Really really good
Your words keep me linked to the ideas of privileges. In conversations I’ve been surprised at what people don’t realize. I continue to wonder what causes them to miss it. “hiding in plain sight”
Oh I love it Scott, thanks for your contribution. That word Vile stick out to me as well right in the middle of reading this.
Ooo, Scott — this has a very important bite to it, one that I sooo appreciate. Whenever “privileges” are the topic, it is immediately a chance to examine those ironies. Your line that hits perfectly for me is “gobble up all the advantages, opportunitites”… the blind greed, even if at a small level, is still central to the imbalance of the haves and have-nots. Good stuff here. Thank you! Susie
Scott, I, too, appreciate your poem and comment, that often a word includes it synonym or antonym. Having students check for those in the letters if not as straightforward as you noticed today.
Wow. To find vile in the middle of privilege is powerful. To have provided the prompt that somehow made that possible has me feeling very humble. Thank YOU!
Oh, Scott, that is vile. (I never noticed that hidden in there either.) “Gobble up all the advantages, opportunities, / Everything before any other / Soul can get a chance” Thank you for pointing it out.
Mary Lee, your prompt is perfect. I haver never used the shadorma form, but it works well to describe the new year with all new administration at our school.
Changes come
Have us all scrambling
A new year
New for all
Getting off on the right foot
Easing in
Katrina,
I can feel both the stress of the instability and the uncertainty and the optomism of a new school year and the pullting together to make it all work.
Sending best wishes for a great year and hoping the changes bring inspiration and innovation balanced with respect for tradition.
Katrina, have a great new year with all new admin! “Easing in” is smart!
Katrina, hugs for the scrambling (been there, done that) and best wishes for the easing in. Take it slowly. It will pay off later!
All the best to you, Katrina. That’s not easy to have all new administration at your school. Hope it goes well. “Easing in” is a great way to take it.
Mary Lee,
Thank you for hosting and for your sage advice about the acrostic form. I’ll return to the banned word list, but for now can’t help but poke the whatever that guy is.
TACOED—Again
The orange guy
Always says one thing—
Counter-turns
On his base.
Easily the fascist lies—
Denies he tacoed.
Glenda Funk
August 16, 2025
Poke away! I’m here for it and fuming daily!
How is it that you always manage to bring such laughter in your expressions? Tacoed. That’s a new one and I can see the cheese spilling over the top – hairlike. Very clever!!! You are a master at the metaphors and analogies, and you use it in truth a s entertainment to show reality.
Glenda, as usual, you do not disappoint in your poem! I love it and will use it as an example of brilliant poetic rhetoric! Simple yet profound – not ONE SINGLE EXTRA WORD. ‘Easily the fascist lies – Denies he tacoed.’
Way to go, Glenda. I love the strength of calling out the orange monster. I love your voice here as always. Tell it! Hugs and love, Susie
Love, love, love how you poke the “orange guy” and all the truths you tell!
Thank you, Glenda, for your powerful pokes. How long will they accept this: “Easily the fascist lies–Denies he tacoed.” I love “tacoed” as a past tense verb. Our language has grown during this frightening chapter. (Actually, I guess it is trying to be diminished too, as per the banned word list.)
Glenda, this would be wildly funny if it wasn’t so accurate! The transformation of taco into a past tense verb is amazing, BUT I think you probably should have made it TACOING!
Glenda, thank you for spotlighting ‘[t]he orange guy” and his TACO tactics! “Easily the fascist lies.” Yep, continuously. It’s like breathing to him. Although, I am looking forward to getting money back when I get my prescriptions filled: he says he’s cutting drug costs by 1500%. Um, something about that math doesn’t…math.
Hello poetry friends! Mary Lee, thank you for sharing this list, I am going to weave it into to a few of my undergrad courses this fall for discussion. I also appreciate your note about moving students/poets away from just listing in an acrostic poem–I often want to do that myself.
intentional removal can
not be ignored
combine with
love, or simply like
until humanity
social
interaction, includes ALL
vulnerable
experiences, evidence
I think the Pen list will spark lots of amazing conversations with your undergrads! The acrostic form is a great way to synthesize your thoughts around a term. There is big truth in your poem’s first two lines and the double E in your last line is powerful. We need to include both “experiences” AND “evidence.”
Stefani,
Here’s to poets writing policy!
These lines are powerful:
Thank you for your advocacy and have fun discussing with your undergrads! I’m sure you’ll have deep discussions.
You spark the history of Andrew Jackson and the current events and bring them into alignment. I love that you chose the word inclusive. It gives me the feeling of wanting to comfort those who fear their own homes and wrap my arms around them. Well done!
Stefani, I like the lines “combine with / love, or simply like” Yes! That’s all we have to do to be inclusive of “ALL vulnerable”
I am back. Thank you for the opportunity to write and share something- today, it is more than enough.
hear slow winds sing at sunrise, soft under cicada hums
orange skies piercing pink, slashing across my throat and the horizon
perhaps this poem means nothing, and much of what I have learned does too
even now as I am warming my voice, I cannot say I regret it
Kasey, we are at the height of cicada symphonies in Michigan this week. It is soothing and has reminded me to take in the last few days of summer. Thank you for sharing your words with us today–our poems always mean something.
This is all kinds of beautiful, Kasey. That last line. Oh, my. I experienced that same humming buzzing orange-pink sunrise this morning, and like you, it gave me hope. Thank you for putting my feelings into words!
Wow Kasey, this poem reminds me of many other greats (I think) but don’t know which ones. I will appreciate it for being yours and amazing. i love the mix of imagery and thoughts. The alliteration at the beginning is perfect. Thank you for sharing, I’m glad I read it.
The images your words paint the feeling of hope and your final words reflect that feeling. “I cannot say I regret it” Leaves me smiling with hope.
I am reading the hope in this poem and feeling the peace it brings. The cicadas, the sunrise, the pink orange sky, and the human hum with cicadas – this is all a lovely harmony that I hear voiced in trills of contentment without regret. And that is comforting.
Kasey, there are lines here I can hear you singing those first two lines. Hope is a favorite word of mine, and I love this sweet ode to hope and not regretting it.
The list of “banned words” was fantastic inspiration, especially because my sister was told to “edit” a lot of those words from her line of work, one publication that was specifically about women was to have the word removed …. Thus my poem was born. Glad to be back writing this weekend!
Would you rather….
Obey an oppressive government,
Marry a misogynist, or
Erase yourself from history?
None of the above.
I love the opening line! Poetry like yours today makes us think and gives us new blankets of thought to snuggle up in. Were it not for women, there would have ever been only Adam. And he’d have been one lost dude.
I’m glad you went to the Pen list for inspiration. Your poem is spot on, with just the right amount of anger and outrage. (Sorry for your sister that the list was a reality in her work and not just an abstract list of nonsense…)
There is so much grief in womanhood, and I feel its undercurrent and its resistance in your words. I love the tone- succinct and thoughtful. Thank you for this.
Oh, a “would you rather” poem prompt would be a great way to bring this list into any writing activity. Thank you for sharing your words and personal connection.
Absolutely, “none of the above.” My father taught me better.
Brilliant piece! As a long-time women’s advocate I loved this poem – the opening line, ‘Would you rather . . . ” a consummate demand that we engage in your poem full force. Love it!
C.O. Thank you for this strong voice. Amen! The power of “Erase yourself from history” is the line that bites so hard and just blows me away. We need this voice out there. Keep writing boldly! Thank you, Susie
Ha! Great way to use “Would you rather…” and speak the truth!
Amen! Preach it! I can’t believe your sister was asked to edit that word from a publication about women. Beautiful poem, C.O. I’m glad you are back!
Mary Lee, your poems speak volumes today. I’ve read them several times and cannot thank you enough for hosting us this morning with such a compelling prompt. I particularly love your second one – – what a powerful reminder of perspective as truth through the lens of others. My One Little Word this year is enough. With the recent loss of my father, a collector who kept everything he ever owned and left seven storage rooms and a house full of “collectible” treasures, my brother and I (both minimalists by choice) are using this word – enough- on a daily basis. We’ve had enough! When is enough enough?? So I chose enough as my word and used a variation of one of yours from your poems – – generousity.
Enough
Even
Nothingness
Offers
Us
Generous
Harmony
I love the use of nothingness here. Rest is productive, even when you are doing the “nothing” you are doing so much. Thanks for sharing this succinct message.
Kim, a few years ago “enough” was my word for the year for all the reasons (okay many) that you share here. This word has such nuance and complexity for humans and women. I wish you and your family healing as I remember sorting my father’s belongings as a process that was at once enough and not enough to assuage my grief. That ‘nothingness’ contrasted with ‘generous’ is the paradox of enough that you’ve captured so well,
Kim, I know how you have struggled with all of the stuff. Enough was my word a few years ago, but I feel it is a word to keep with me always. I love “generous harmony”.
Kim, I’m glad the prompt resonated! Your poem absolutely EMBODIES your minimalist self! I’m sighing over the “generous / harmony” of enough.
What could be harmonious? On the surface this poem, like the word enough, is simple, but the layers of complexity you managed to gather in 6 words is stunning.
I would like to add, my initial comments on my poem about writing being enough today, came before I read your poem!
Hi Kim, I am loving the consideration of “generous harmony” in considering what is enough and how might we each interpret this for ourselves. Thank you for sharing today.
Kim,
Your poem is a balm. It’s a paradox. We are in this moment together. We share the enough mantra and are one in our outrage. I’m sure you’ve seen the “We do not care” viral videos. They are an expression of enough, and like your poem, a harmonic voice unifying women.
Wow, I love your choice here to write just one word per line. Complex, meaningful, stark yet satisfying. Thank you. and sorry for your loss Kim.
Kim – how could you say SO MUCH in just six words? ‘Even nothingness offers us generous harmony’ – simply beautiful.
I crave nothingness and all harmony it delivers me. I think that’s what I am longing for this weekend after a hectic first week back to school.
Kim, wow. such a great take on enough, in light of your job of looking through a lot of treasures. Peace to you. “Generous harmony” is a great way to describe minimalism.
Such a meaningful reflection, Kim, especially considering the context of having to clean out so much stuff after losing your dad. My family went through this when my mother-in-law passed; it was a strain, to say the least, and decisions had to be made without thinking twice. I really love all your contemplation about what is “enough” – what a powerful word, one of acceptance, one of limits, one of choice, one of …freedom. There IS a generous harmony in “nothingness”! I keep you close to my heart during these days, friend.
Mary Lee, the acrostic is one of my favorite forms. Ancient but ever-new, as you illustrate so beautifully for us here. Your “Belong” poem, with its scientific content, could be an invitation for students to show their learning in a creative, short way (although your poem is much more than that). Your shadorma hits home – truth. Both poems pierce the heart…and peak to the power of brevity and well-chosen words.
My poem is based on a word in my mind and heart this week – one little word, and a huge celebration. Thank you for this today.
Adopted
A man adopting his stepdaughter is one of the purest examples of love chosen and love kept… it’s about a promise that says ‘I choose you, every single day, for the rest of my life.’ —read aloud by the Clerk of Superior Court
Asked the black-robed Clerk of Court:
Do you know why you’re here?
One nod of a small pony-tailed head, a sweet smile.
Prayers across years, realized at last, at last.
That August afternoon, my husband and I wept as
Earthly law finalized Heaven’s decree for our son and his
Daughter.
Oh this is powerful and sweet and tells so much story. Thank you for sharing this in this way.
Fran, I am shouting “Alleluia”!
Fran, this short acrostic does the work of a powerful story with all the elements of past, present, and future held in the white spaces around the printed text. Love the italics and bolded words to add textual relevance, punctuating the importance, echoing the judicial power of decree that formalizes what was clearly nurtured before and long after black robes decide.
Fran, CHILLS! I have chills and my eyes are welling up as I read and reread. This has happened for your sweet S. And I think of your life, too, as I read this. The love, the belonging, the family in all its ways of loving and being and belonging. Oh, my heart just sings praises for you. I can see the pony tail and the smile. God never runs out of miracles and hope. Your prayers – and hers – are answered, and I think of the description of Mary Lee’s process today, too – – prayer is also that. It’s every.single.day, never giving up, asking, praising, pleading…..and God hears. Blessings to you and your family, Fran! And S.
What a moment! What a celebration! This brought tears to my eyes!
Fran, thank you for encapsulating the joy of adoption in just a few words. We have been watching the British series TRYING. It paints such a true image of adoption. I highly recommend it.
Fran, wow, joy fills my heart! I can’t imagine the magnitude of love in this moment. Such a glorious victory!
Oh, my gosh, I’m crying here with this gorgeous poem. You are a master storyteller, Fran. I know I’ve said it before, soooo true! I love this. Especially that last word “Daughter”
Good morning, Mary Lee. Thank you for the prompt and the invitation to write.
Kevin
Maybe you can remember how we’ve become
Entangled;
Not just merely
Tempered, but enmeshed
Inside these echoes
Of
Newness and the now
Hey, Kevin! Good morning!
Your poem feels like a response to Sarah’s in a way! Your “mention” and her “buried thoughts,” your “entangled” and her “vine.” Fun!
A compelling word, Kevin – I especially love the use of “echoes” and “newness.” The entangled, beyond-tempered enmeshing could go either way, positive or negative…but, since we tend to read poems as we are vs. as they are, sometimes…my first impression was a sense of celebratory love, the growing together, always a newness in the now – which to me is profoundly beautiful.
Newness and the now is so beautiful as a last line to leave on. I really enjoyed this. Gaining meaning from the lines and the anchor word. Thanks for writing today!
Kevin,
I like how the structure is a sentences enjambed by the acrostic form, guiding readers to essential images and turns toward the now. Enmeshed. Now there is a word.
Unlike Fran I am not seeing the positive of enmeshment and entanglement. You always make me think with your poetry. Thanks.
Kevin, I love the way the old and the new come together for a whole new sense of forward and future in the newness and the now.
I love the different ‘rabbit holes’ your poem takes me down. “Inside these echoes of newness and the now’ – how beautiful is that?
I love being “enmeshed / Inside these echoes” Lovely poem, and I’m left with wonder yet satisfaction with the word Mention.
Ljubav љубав
lines burrowed
just between sea eyes
umbrella
buried thoughts
ambling toward this decision:
vine sweet second sips
Brilliant, Sarah! An acrostic shadorma right out of the gate! Your images (especially in that last line) capture the moment and the emotion perfectly. (Yes, I did have to translate ljubav!!)
That last line is beautiful
Kevin
I’ve a sense of love beginning anew, Sarah – a vision of an older man taking another chance? I adore this phrase, “sea eyes.” It paints a clear and intriguing image of the man’s face in my head.
How lovely. In imagery and in chosen words. Thank you for sharing this morning.
I love seeing you! “vine sweet second sips” is such a celebration of your new life.
Sarah, I’ve read your words a few times, each with different possibilities – relationships, sabbaticals, living itself, the “cheers”ing of life on a beach, with time to savor and taste the actual grape we are meant to experience. You have raised a glass to the sheer enjoyment of each moment today, and when I come back later in the evening and read your poem again, I see so many different pathways that I will take from it then, too. Beautiful! I’m following your journey and celebrating your every step.
I love the umbrella in the middle…thanks for teaching me another word for love ❤️ enjoying your videos 🙂
Your words allow me to travel across this face. Your spare verse provides space for me your reader. I love umbrella as a verb. And the final line – “vine sweet second sips” alliteration to lead into the future. Lovely.
Ah, what a sweet love poem. Masterful word choice with your syllable constraints. Beautiful.