Landscapes of Our Lives
Every April, VerseLove becomes a landscape—thirty days of poems written across classrooms, kitchen tables, notebooks, and glowing screens around the world. I am Sarah Donovan, founding collaborator of Ethical ELA and Verselove, and we’ve been writing poetry every April since 2017. Learn more here.
We begin this year with a simple idea: our lives are landscapes.
Inspiration
(Note: Each day, we will offer you a topic, which we call “Inspiration,” followed by a suggested “Process,” which is like a mini-lesson plan you can use in your classrooms. It is intended to support your writing as a point of access, not to be restrictive, so feel free to reject it or innovate the prompt or process into something different altogether. We also include a mentor text, a poem written by the host that day, intended to offer you a visual example to imitate or borrow from, in form or idea, if that feels good to you. It is just something to get you started and to show we are writing with you.)
Some landscapes are visible—rivers, cities, deserts, fields. Others live inside us: memory, language, family stories, migration, grief, joy, survival. Teachers carry landscapes of students’ voices, classrooms, histories we teach, and histories we are still learning.
Poetry lets us walk these terrains with care.
For this opening day, we write toward the places that live within us. Not a map exactly, but a beginning. A noticing. A first step into the month’s shared ground. This is a great way to introduce ourselves to each other, too.
Process
You only need 10–20 minutes today.
- Take a moment to think about the landscapes that shape you. These might be physical places, emotional terrains, or cultural inheritances.
- Make a quick list in your notebook:
- places you have lived
- places that changed you
- places you carry in memory
- places you long for or return to in thought
- where you are right now
- Choose one place from your list.
- Write a poem that begins with the phrase: “Inside me there is…”
- Let the poem explore that place through image or sensation.
What can we see there? Hear? Smell? What memories live there? - Keep the poem short—8–12 lines is perfect.
Remember: VerseLove is not about perfection. It’s about showing up, writing honestly, and witnessing one another’s words.
If you have time and the capacity today, explore these place-based poems from Poetry International:
- Plans by K. Eltinae, a Sudanese poet of Nubian descent
- How We Will Live: A Manifesto by Yulia Fintiktikova from Mairupol, Ukraine| Translated by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky
- To Vermin by Lêdo Ivo, Brazilian | Translated by Andrew Gebhardt
- Poems from Ligia by Rosabetty Muñoz from Chile | Translated by Elena Barcia
- Names by Fatemeh Shams | Translated by Armen Davoudian
Mentor Text from Sarah
Landscape
Inside me there is a river
that still remembers
how cold the water was
that morning we crossed.
Inside me there is a notebook
full of voices
trying their first brave sentences
into my hand.
Inside me there are staircases
I did not choose
and bougainvillea shade
where I stopped to breathe.
Poetry is how I witness them again.
Your Turn
Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers today.
Welcome to VerseLove.
Also, note that if you are writing to this prompt after the day it was published, you may not receive a response. With the pace of the month, we tend to read and write the day of the prompt.
Happy April Verselove! Sarah, as always, thank you for creating the space to welcome and inspire us.🩵
inside me there is a cavern
spaces to collect
sensory souvenirs
of places i’ve witnessed
inside me there is a hook
pulling in the wander
lust for exploration
travel flowing in my dna
Sarah, what a lovely way to begin this month of VerseLove, getting to know our histories and our heartbeats. I love the way you build community and sustain it. You inspired me to think also of my favorite books, especially the blank ones. I love your nod to being shaped by the page. Thank you for this space and for hosting us today!
the page and the pen
inside me there is a boxcar
bent fork and family
there is a farm
radiant web overhead
there is Golden
Fedder Fountain and Verbivore
there is River Heights
old clock and mystery
there is Mitford Village
Barnabas and covered dish
there is a mountain
Swiss cabin, goats, grandpa
Inside me there are pages
some filled, some blank
where the reader writes the story
but I
I hold the pen
I admit to starting your poem quickly, almost on autopilot as a sleepy breakfaster. But
stopped me in my tracks as I just finished that book a few days ago. It, too, lives in me. Such a lovely tribute to some of the books that have shaped you, and others.
Good morning Kim, I am loving this twist of the reader to writer–we hold the pen to our lives. Thank you for sharing.
Sarah, what a beautiful beginning, a way to introduce ourselves to one another through words and our “first brave sentences.” Can’t wait to meet everyone for the first time or again through new poems.
Aprils
Inside me there is tapestry,
a quilted landscape
of seeds,
sewn furrows planted,
rows expanding into fields,
rolling over hillocks
and settling into swales.
Each seeded letter
becomes a word
becomes a verse
becomes a poem
becomes community,
speaking of yesterdays
and growing into tomorrows.
Good morning and happy poetry month! Thank you for starting us off this morning. I want to take your last two lines and have it be a poetry prompt and starting lines.