VerseLove Closing Invitation

Congratulations!

Look what we’ve made together.

This month’s writing has been held in generous company. We are deeply grateful to the hosts who offered their time, creativity, and care—opening space for us to think, write, and listen together. These are humble people who ask for nothing in return, and yet this space would not exist without the steady generosity of their time, care, and presence. Our writing is possible because of them, and they have tended to our hearts and minds with such care that their attentive reading has brought joy, steadied us in hard moments, and, in many cases, made space for the poems we needed most to finally come through or never imagined possible. A special thanks to Denise Krebs who has been instrumental in supporting this space during my sabbatical. Thank you to all our hosts:

Leilya Pitre · Melissa · Kim Johnson · Jennifer Guyor Jowett · Wendy Everard · Luke Bensing · Linda Mitchell · Bryan Ripley Crandall · Susan Ahlbrand · Kate Sjostrom · Rita DiCarne · Ann · Mo Daley · Erica Johnson · Stacey Joy · Kratijah · Angie · Stefani Boutlier · Corinne · Sharon Roy · Margaret Simon · Denise Krebs · Scott McCloskey · Ashley Valencia-Pate · Clayton Moon · Dave Wooley · Jessica Sherburn · Barbara Edler · Glenda Funk

Their full introductions and stories can be found here:
https://www.ethicalela.com/before-we-begin-the-people-holding-verselove/

Witnessing the Landscape

Sarah Donovan is a teacher educator and co-founder of Ethical ELA.

Inspiration

Thirty days ago we stepped into this shared landscape with a simple invitation: write. Since then, poems have grown here—thousands of lines written across time zones, classrooms, homes, and quiet corners of the day. Each poem is a small act of courage. Writing does something to us. It slows us down. It asks us to notice, to remember, to question what we thought we knew. Teachers especially carry the weight of stories—our own and those entrusted to us. Today, on the final day of VerseLove, we write not about beginning, but about witness: what we saw, what changed, and what we carry forward from this month of poems.

Process

Take 5-10 minutes to reflect on your VerseLove journey.

1. Look back at your poems from this month, or simply think about the experience of writing and reading here. See all 30 prompts here.
2. Make a short list:
   • something you noticed this month
   • something that surprised you
   • something you learned about yourself as a writer
   • a poem from someone else that stayed with you
   • a comment/response from someone else that stayed with you
3. Write a poem that begins with the phrase: “After thirty poems…” or whatever number or no number at all (After we stop counting, The last poem is not last,  What the month left in me, What keeps humming now, After all the poeming, Nothing ended here).
4. Let the poem speak honestly.
   It may celebrate, question, grieve, or wonder.
5. Keep it short—8–12 lines. (Mine is a bit longer.)

Poetry is not about finishing perfectly. It is about noticing how the landscape of our thinking has shifted.

Continue your poetry journey with some verse novels! Our very own Glenda Funk serves on the NCTE Children’s Poetry Awards Committee. Here are a few from the 2026 list (see here for the full list).

• A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez by María Dolores Águila (Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan)
• Green Promises: Girls Who Loved the Earth by Jeannine Atkins (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster)
• The Trouble with Heroes by Kate Messner (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
• The Burning Season by Caroline Starr Rose (Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House)
• The Poetry of Car Mechanics by Heidi E.Y. Stemple (Wordsong, an imprint of Astra Publishing House)
• Radiant by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (Dutton Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House)
• And if you have favorite poetry books, add them in a note after your poem today so that we can have an abundance of poetry to carry with us.

Sarah’s Poem

What Keeps Humming Now

After we stop counting,
in the quiet, in the watching, the mind keeps composing:
sound in my bones, mindful reservoirs, language as life’s fluid (Jonathon; Melissa; Stacey)
inside this soft world, between breath and bone, being exposed,
I carry our porch-sound in my bones. (Anita; Maureen; Melanie; Melanie)

After all the poeming,
my heart has been tilled, old dead ideas plowed under, (Carrie)
teen identity coagulating, still fluent in Tagalog; (Wendy; Cayetana)
original lands merge gently into a sea of islands to
gather, bead, and become this (Joel; Leilya; Jonathon; Tammi)
present goodness, a watery treasure trove. Can’t wait your return! (Kasey; Kim J.; Kim D.)

After nothing ended here,
darting flies of a writer’s unknown,
looking for the earth’s edge only to return home— (Clayton; Jennifer)
someday I’ll read them all:
the Sneem River roils, a lesson found in crackers, (Sarah F.; Mo; Brenna)
dogwood blossoms heralding spring, dangerous cliffs watching your children,
blossoming these hum-animals on the bridge where the building doubled (Stefani; Rita; Kelley; Kevin)
from the parking lot no one living knows, painted in time. (Sheila; Fran; Susan O.)

After we made this together,
painting another story is who we were, (Bryan)
the one who could hold contradictions with me, rounding edges, a kind of care work (Kate; Dave)
to risk an act of love: she gathers me, I am held here; (Julie; Tracei)
yes, we’re fighting wars; yes, I’m ever so tired—still, the pleasure (Gayle; Cheri; Debbie)
our spirits take flight across a pristine lake, we watch them grow away. (Barb; Rita K.)

After the last poem is not last,
and if this poem speaks, I simply want to write (Stacey; Gavriel)
the wind rustles a golden river in the sky glory green (Darshna; Glenda; Jamie)
clouded like a vanilla swirl labored long over her weary eyes; (Amber; Luke; Allison)
it doesn’t fit the monochrome palette, flood myth gloom we sink; (Scott; Angie; Anna)
so run with the coyotes in bonding games; (Shaun; Susan A.)
there are poems in this day, and more poems tomorrow. (Denise)

what keeps humming is not ending—
but this:
a field of voices becoming and returning, still here,
whispering a spring poem. (LKT)

Note: I realize, as the person who thought this was a reasonable idea, that gathering lines from thousands of poems into one is mildly unhinged. This took hours and hours, and still, I know I’ve missed things—people, lines, entire moments that mattered, and that’s on me. And I have borrowed your words to make something new, hoping I have done them justice and honored you. What’s here is simply what I could carry, what stayed with me, what kept echoing, what my nourished, overfull brain could hold onto long enough to place on the page. And what I couldn’t hold isn’t gone; it’s just diffused, folded into me in ways I can’t always name. This month was an abundance I don’t have language for yet, but I can feel it when I type, when I pause, when something surfaces unexpectedly—it’s in my fingers now, in my thinking, in my dreaming. So if your exact words aren’t here, please know they are still here, somewhere in me, somewhere in the white space that has shaped this making.

Your Turn

Write your poem and share it in the comments if you wish.

As VerseLove closes, remember that the landscape of writing does not disappear. It travels with us into classrooms, conversations, and the small notebooks where we keep noticing the world.

Thank you for writing, reading, and witnessing together.

Do you want to get more involved with Ethical ELA?

Sign up to host a day in VerseLove 2027 here. We also write monthly in our Open Write, mini-monthly versions of VerseLove: May 16-18 with Jessica Wiley and Erica Johnson from Arkansas. June 20-22 with Leilya Pitre from Louisiana. July 18-20 with Glenda Funk from Idaho. And August 15-17 with Denise Krebs, Patricia Franz, and Joanne Emery. If you’d like to host an Open Write day in the future, sign up here.