Category: poetry

Falling toward fall

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
Tom Fisk/Pexels

Are you a take it easy in the summer and jump back in when it’s over? Or are you an everything-else-slows-down-so-I-revel-in-summertime kind of person?

Personally, I always get antsy for a refresh when autumn gets close. I guess my rhythms are still tied to the school year. I want new books and new pencils and new calendars. And I want to think about new stories, which makes it hard to focus on the fixes I need in my work-in-progress.

This year, I’ll be on the road for my refresh-month. Instead of staring at my keyboard, watching words stretch across the screen, I’ll be squinting at my GPS and trying to get on the road early until I reach my destination–wherever that may be.

I am looking forward to the time at the end of the road, visiting family and friends. But I still hope to squeeze in some time on my writing. I hope that doesn’t sound too selfish. But I have been waiting all my life to put stories to words, to polish my prose until it resembles poetry.

I’m inspired by stands of corn turning yellow, and by leaves, curling and crimson. By vivid red sumac leaves. And those first days of rime on the marigolds.

I want a pinch of purple prose in my life. But a pinch every day.

When I retired–and I’ve said this before–I was so used to being busy I volunteered for a dozen or more “small jobs” for groups I belong to or thought I could help. It took most of my time for four years. (I can hardly believe I’ve been retired for going on five years. They’ve flown.) But last fall the inkling of “spare time” glimmered on my personal horizons. I’ve gone back to the beginning. (See my February and March posts for details, if you’re curious.) I’ve replanned the novel I decided to focus on at Bouchercon in New Orleans last September. And I’ve been inching toward a much revised draft since then.

Inching because I’ve still let a few “small jobs” slip into my life. One has had me looking for free (or reduced price) illustrations since last spring. I am reworking some small booklets, but even though I have words on the new templates, I have yet to find appropriate new illustrations. That’s the biggest new job I’ve taken on. And when it’s done, it’s done.

Another new task (Note to IRS: one with a small paycheck) is a feature story for a trade publication. That could go on indefinitely, but it’s not too time consuming so far, and I enjoy doing it.

But none of that sates my annual urge to curl up with a good book–even if I’m “curling” at my computer and writing my own book. And this year, as I gear up in my usual way, I will be putting the brakes on my progress.

I’ve talked with some of my writing buddies. They are supportive, encouraging me to try to write at least one sentence every day while I’m gone. We’ll see how that works. I’m hopeful. And my fingers would be crossed, but it’s hard to type that way.

À bientôt!

Beyond iambic pentameter

~ sharon ~ 2 Comments

Celebrate Poetry Month

Every year in April the Academy of American Poets (AAP) celebrate their literary form for the whole month. As a sometime poet, I love to think about verses, scrawl them in random notebooks, and sometimes try to have them published.

The first poems I ever wrote are lost to me now. My youngest sisters–twins–needed to find a poem to take to school the next morning. I must have been in high school and they must have been in second or third grade. I was the most prolific reader of us four sisters, so they came to me for help.

We looked for a poem in one of the books in the house, but it wasn’t something our parents had. We might have found examples in our World Book encyclopedias, but I don’t think it occurred to us. Or if we did check, there were no poems for kids.

Continue reading “Beyond iambic pentameter” →

Farewell and hello

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood: on pexels

December has flown by in my life. I didn’t get as much writing done as I’d hoped, although this week I started a wonderful adventure at the Winter Writing Sanctuary, offered by British woman named Beth Kempton. My friend Sharon Michalove, a writer I see nearly every day in online writing groups, spent a week last winter with Beth and told several of us about it Monday.

It’s only Wednesday (yes, New Year’s Eve), and I’ve already made some critical discoveries about the main character in a novel I’ve been trying to revise for several years now. I don’t think Sharon M. knew just how serendipitous her suggestion would be for me.

For example, the novel’s working title is Lovely, Dark and Deep. I took it from Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Amazingly (to me), that poem opened the welcome message for this year’s sanctuary.

The main character, after a few trial names, is now called Beth. That decision I made long before I ever heard of Beth Kempton.

The exercises–really suggestions for things a writer might try this week–have focused on the palette of winter, greens, greys, golds and more. And each day’s inspiration has taken me down a path, when I journey as my character, has helped me really understand my MC much better than I have. I wrote the first draft of this novel for National Novel Writing Month (a now defunct event) in 2020. Other things have gotten in the way of my finishing–including wonderful family distractions this month. But just a couple of hours these past few days have really helped me get back into the revisions.

I’m going to be distracted yet again with an impromptu family dinner tonight, and, no doubt with some surprise that will come up tomorrow. But I think this week’s writing exercises will make the beginning of 2026 much more productive than I imagined.

So, farewell to 2025. It was a great writing year for me.

{In fact, I added a page to this website to post my short stories. Check out “Blood on the White Rose” if you haven’t read it yet.)

And hello to 2026. I’m hoping for more of the same.

À bientôt!

Winter market

~ sharon ~ 4 Comments

Farmers’ markets in my area are suimmer affairs that I rarely attend. I live on a country road and there are sale signs for eggs and honey and corn and more about a mile in any direction. But when the “season” is over, some of those signs come down.

I ventured south this month to drive a friend home to Houston and stayed for a short visit. On one of our outings, we went to a farmers’ market on a warm (only needed a sweater) winter day. I bought a few things, but I suspect my favorite will be my poem.

With her portable typewriter and tip jar, a young woman studying to be a midwife and doula was raising money to open a business to help women during pregnancy and birth. Her sign, painted on the typewriter case, drew me in immediately.

I’d heard of people who sell poems by request. I’ve even toyed with the idea of offering that kind of servicde at charity events, but never followed through.

Ziara Kýre York, however, has taken the plunge. Sitting at her small table between market stalls, she waited with a smile for someone to check out her wares. I asked for a short poem about vacation, dropped a bill into her jar, and waited a few minutes as she wound a pre-cut, thick sheet of creamy paper under the platten, thought for a few minues, and began to type.

I bought cookies and a mug warmer, all-natural snacks and a pottery pencil holder. I talked to farmers, crafters and a painter, listened to music from a lone guitarist in the midst of the fair. But at home, I’ll be buying a frame for my original poem about “vacation” to hang it on the wall near my computer. It’s nice to honor a crafter who works in the same medium that I do … words.

A bientôt!

In the waning of the year

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
pexels.com | Tom Fisk

(I wrote this for my turn on my Lake Summerset Writing Gals blog, but it’s doing double duty this month.)

Cold weather tends to put me in mind of warm fires, hot mulled wine and poetry. Sadly, I have no fireplace. (But I can always put that Netflix fireplace video on my TV.) I can manage the wine, or maybe hot chocolate, and I always have poetry.

I still remember the day I discovered Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses in the kids’ section of my hometown library. One of my favorites was “My Shadow.”

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
– Robert Louis Stevenson

At one point in my life, I memorized “My Shadow” and a few other verses in the book.

When I was in high school, John Lennon’s poem, “The Toy Boy” appeared in McCall’s Magazine. I cut out the page, memorized the poem, and took it on the road as my entry for our forensics club in the poetry category. (Back then forensics meant speech team, not CSI.) I think it’s still in my filing cabinet, but I haven’t looked for it in years. I did manage to find a post of the original image on Pinterest. I printed a copy and it’s hanging on the wall near my computer.

I just discovered “December” by Joseph D. Herron. I don’t know much about the author, but it felt right for the snowless chills we’ve had lately. The poem is included at one of my favorite websites — DiscoverPoetry.com. Another site I like is PoetryFoundation.org, which publishes Poetry Magazine. Both sites feature a poem each day; you can subscribe for free to have them emailed to you.

(Illustration by Sharon P. Lynn)

A third favorite poetry site is the Haiku Society of America. I love haiku, a traditional Japanese form of poetry. Like English sonnets, haiku has a specific format: seventeen syllables in three lines of five, seven and five. I was taught that the original haikus, before they even had that name, were supposed to be about nature. Today, at least in English, that rule has been abandoned. I’ve also seen variations on the seventeen-syllable format.

My first writing successes came in the newspaper business. But my first printed work that wasn’t nonfiction was poetry. I submitted several to my college literary magazine. A long-ish free verse took first place one year. A few of my haikus were also selected for publication there and in other small-circulation volumes.

I’ve never entirely abandoned my interest. I think my “old-year’s resolution” will be to read at least one poem a day before I start my own writing. I think it inspires me to write with all my senses. Maybe it will inspire others, too.