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[15 words or less poems] Lifeboats

    Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines are here)! I’m on hiatus for a month or so, but I’m posting pictures on Thursdays so you all can still participate if you want to:>) Here’s what?this picture?makes me think of: 1)?Bumper boats 2)?Titanic 3) Buttons And

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[15 words or less poems] To the Sky Light

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I’m on hiatus for a month or so, but I’m posting pictures on Thursdays so you all can still participate if you want to:>) Here’s what?this picture?makes me think of: 1)?The incredibly strong weeds in my yard! 2)?Medusa’s hair

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[15 words or less poems] Foamy

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I’m on hiatus, but I’m posting pictures on Thursdays so you all can still participate if you want to:>) Here’s what?this picture?makes me think of: 1)?A log cabin 2) The ball pit at McDonald’s (I don’t know why) 3)

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[15 words or less poems] Wispy

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I’m on hiatus for a month or so, but I’m posting pictures on Thursdays so you all can still participate if you want to:>) Here’s what?this picture?makes me think of: 1)?A cloud that fell to Earth somehow 2) Baby

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[15 words or less poems] Spidey?

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I was downtown (Minneapolis) for a food truck lunch with Randy recently, and these window cleaners were hard at work. Here’s what they made me think of: 1)?Those circular swing rides at amusement parks 2)?Spies/thieves 3) Rescuers going to

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[poetry friday] “Fire” (by Laura Purdie Salas)

Check out the cool printable that the Poetry Friday Anthology folks created for my cinquain poem, “Fire!” As we?already know, and as sad national news is proving more than ever this week, firefighters are truly heroes who risk their lives for our safety. (This printable was created before that news broke.) . They have a

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[15 words or less poems] Blue Mood

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Happy 4th of July! I don’t know if anyone will stop by today, but I’m posting just in case:>) Isn’t this pretty??Here’s what?this picture?makes me think of: 1)?A blue-jay feather 2) A snow wake from someone skiing 3) A

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[15 words or less poems] Swan

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I did a young authors conference in Winona, MN, recently, and snapped this pic there. Here’s what it makes me think of. 1)?You are what you eat 2) A swan with feathers made of leaves 3) Taxidermied animals–ick And

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[15 words or less poems] Hay there!

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I was driving home from a school visit in outstate Minnesota when this hay-filled truck passed by. Took a few pix without looking, and this one came out ok.?Here’s what?this picture?makes me think of: 1)?A little critter who was

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[my writing life] Waiting for Water

Water Can Be… (Millbrook, 2014) doesn’t come out for eight more months, but it’s been front and center for this past couple of weeks. First, I got to see the fantastic finished art by Violeta Dabija (I hope to get to share a sneak peek soon). Then, I wrote the dedication (to my parents–both nature

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[15 words or less poems] Eeek!

  Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Oh, my funny brother-in-law and sister-in-law. When we went to their house for games shortly after Easter, they stashed this Easter decoration in the tub so that I almost had a heart attack when I went into the

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[15 words or less poems] Hard-Headed

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! I love this sculpture?inside a building in downtown Minneapolis. I don’t usually like art of people, but abstractions like this are fun. It makes me think of: 1) Decorated skulls and bones in Europe 2) The framework of a

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[My Writing Life] A Poetry Gift!

Aw, look at the cute shirt poet Joy Acey sent me! Joy and I (and Mary Lee Hahn and Charles Waters, too!) both have poems on a Poem in Your Pocket handout that Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong put together). So Joy made the handout into a t‑shirt and sent me one. How sweet is

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[poem starter audio] You’d Better Be Scared (by me)

I’m trying something new today, inspired by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s post at Author Amok during Laura Shovan’s Techno-Verse celebration.?I recorded a poem starter audio using SoundCloud, which I’d never tried before. Thanks, Amy and Laura, for showing me this tool. It took me a while to figure out some tech details, and I’m not sure

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[15 words or less poems] Juliet?

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Last week’s photo: That was a set of plastic Easter eggs, opened, and placed on top of my open laptop. We recently went to a Gordon Lightfoot concert at the State Theatre in downtown Minneapolis. Each time we go

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