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Sacred Land [Poetry Friday]

Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) I’m thrilled to be hosting today, as it’s almost my birthday, and I’m awaiting the arrival of The Poetry of US, J. Patrick Lewis’ newest anthology with National Geographic. It features poems about or set in diverse spaces around our country, and I

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Dragonfly Captured! [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 is a close-up of a dragonfly on one of the herons in La Crosse, WI. This image makes me think of several things:

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Little Free Library 3.0

So excited! We got our Little Free Library installed last week and stocked it up on Sunday. Our daughter Annabelle painted two nice sets of READ letters for it, featuring characters from awesome children’s books. Recognize them?

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Double Vision [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 took this pic over the summer when Randy and I were getting new glasses. The optometrist was measuring…something to do with Randy’s eyes:>) This image makes me

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Madelyn Barten with A Horse Can Be...

Hooray for Young Authors

Over the past two weeks, I did three storytimes at libraries in the East Central Region of Minnesota. It was great to meet families and celebrate kids as readers, as (mostly) preschoolers and toddlers swooped like bats, bloomed like flowers, made monkey noises, did toothpaste art, and echo read  my books and poems. But a

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Is This Just Fantasy? [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.  Okay, I try not to be too repetitive with images, but everyone had such fun with the chalk art photo a couple of weeks ago that I wanted

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Vacuum Sphere

Wind Tunnel [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’s Randy in front of a dome near our old home. It’s used to create a wind tunnel for fluid dynamics testing. We drove by it for a

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Chalk Art Toys

Toys Rise Up! [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.    We went to the Maple Grove Chalk Art Festival again this summer, and we were amazed as usual. The art pieces getting the most attention were the

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Jeweled Fish

Jeweled Fish [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.  Happy first week of school for all your northern teachers! While visiting my older daughter in La Crosse, WI, over the summer, I loved looking at the various

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Paddle Boat [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.  Okay, one last (this one a rare unfiltered one) photo from Cyprus. On our first full day there, Maddie took us to Cavo Greco, a beautiful beach on

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Bicycles

Bikes at a Salt Lake [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’s another pic from our trip to Cyprus. Larnaca has a couple of salt lakes. They’re near the coast, and from the airplane, you could see how it’s

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Letters Sculpture

Foreign Letters [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.  Another pic from our trip to Cyprus. This is from some kind of sculpture or monument, and I think it was in Nicosia, the divided capital city. Going

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Fountain [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 is another pic from our Cyprus trip. Here’s a fountain by the ocean in Larnaca, in the touristy part of town. This image makes me think of

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