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Gizmo [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  Thanks for making time to join our community during what is a very busy holiday week for many! One last photo from Houston. This is a gizmo over

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Never Say No

Never Say No (to a Philly Cheesesteak) [Poetry Friday]

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) I’m back with my fourth and final poem from The Poetry of US, J. Patrick Lewis’ newest anthology with National Geographic. (You can find the other three here, here, and here.) In this poem, I celebrated the famed Philly cheesesteak–yum! I’ll take mine

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Shrouded Plants [15 Words or Less]

Welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  One brisk morning at NCTE in Houston, I was walking to the convention center when I saw that this big hotel had all their huge potted plants wrapped up. It

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Pinwheels

Pinwheels [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  Here are some pinwheels that “grow” in a lovely garden near the Houston Convention Center. This image makes me think of several things:

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Cleaning Out My Locker [Poetry Friday]

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) This month, we needed a last minute change to our plans, and someone (I think Liz? It’s usually Liz who keeps us blessedly on track) suggested a list poem that had to use two of the following words: paper, stars, messages, promises, dirt,

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Houston Convention Center

Convention Center [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  This past few weeks have been full of highs and lows. I would prefer more highs and fewer lows, but I guess we don’t get to choose.  I’m

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Houston Convention Center

Wings Rising [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  I hope you all had a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend. Ours was lovely, and fun, and busy. We celebrated great news (the marriage of a nephew) and sat with

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Give Thanks [15 Words or Less]

Happy Thanksgiving, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  Our younger daughter lives overseas doing volunteer work. She lives on practically nothing and works to make the world better. Here’s the holiday decoration she made for

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Gold Statue [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  Randy and I went on a wonderful tour of the Minnesota State Capitol building (a couple of blocks from our home) a couple of weeks ago. Here’s Quadriga,

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Infinity [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  There’s a state office building near our place that has number sculptures out front. Many are on their side or wonky in some way–kind of funny since I

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A spread from The Poetry of US

Water, Water Everywhere [Poetry Friday]

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) I’m back with a third poem from The Poetry of US, J. Patrick Lewis’ newest anthology with National Geographic. I originally wrote this poem for one of my books for teachers, Wacky, Wild, and Wonderful: 50 State Poems. Other than family, the only

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World Tour (After a Lucia Micarelli Concert) [Poetry Friday]

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) This month, our Poetry Princess challenge was to write a poem with an anaphora–a repeated, open-ended phrase.  Recently, Randy and I attended a concert by Lucia Micarelli, a wonderful violinist. (We saw her years ago performing with Jethro Tull.) Although I played violin

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Car with Eyelashes

Car with Eyelashes [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here.  I’m not a car person, but I saw this cutie parked in our neighborhood recently. This image makes me think of several things:

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Revenge (of the Bonneville Salt Flats) [Poetry Friday]

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) As promised, here’s another poem from The Poetry of US, J. Patrick Lewis’ newest anthology with National Geographic. I was looking back to see a bit of my writing process. I knew right away I wanted to right about the salt flats in

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Atlatl [15 Words or Less]

Hello, and welcome! This is 15 Words or Less Poems, a low-pressure way to wake up your poetry brain (guidelines here), and I’m very glad you’re here. If you tried to visit last week, or did visit in the brief window that the post was live, I apologize! My technology world came crashing down last

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