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Posts Tagged ‘Inklings challenge’

Poetry Friday: The Sport of Mindfulness

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Inklings challenge, sports poems, Susan Grain, yoga on August 5, 2022| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Inkling Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone.

Today is the first Friday in August and my first day of school, but it’s also time for an Inkling challenge. This month Catherine wanted to give us something easy to write. She thought about sports. I am not all that sporty, but I do have a poem in the anthology Rhyme & Rhythm: poems for student-athletes (Archer Books. 2021). It’s a duplex poem about swimming.

As I contemplated this challenge, I turned to my weekly yoga class. I am going to miss this class during the school year. I love the instructor and the way she speaks to us. I’ve always thought it was like poetry. So on Wednesday, I recorded the class. This poem is a transcription with poetic license. I decided to play with having no punctuation and using space and line breaks to pause. Does this work?

The Sport of Mindfulness

Breathing is healing
relaxation
brings the body together
all cells communicate together
Breathe and communicate
into one focus. breath

Notice if your thoughts move
into a pattern bring yourself back
to your anchor
your breath

Back and forth a tennis match with yourself
building a new skill purposeful
intentional thinking

Lean into the stretch spread your fingers
press into the palm open your muscles

Stay with the breath
Challenge yourself
Focus ride the waves
of discomfort Then it starts to feel good

Exhale pose
thank you colon
thank you liver
thank you spleen
gallbladder pancreas
Thank you for all your hard work
Toxins moving out release

Come back to the breath
The sound of the wind sound of the music
Sensation of being in the room among friends
No responsibilities

Nature is abundant
Bring awareness to your abundance
You are abundant thriving We are all thriving

We all meet at the center
Namaste.
For Susan Grain
Margaret Simon, draft

See how other Inklings met this challenge:
Linda Mitchell
Molly Hogan
Catherine Flynn
Heidi Mordhorst
MaryLee Hahn

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Poetry Friday: Joy

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Covid, George Bilgere, Inklings challenge, joy, The Writer's Almanac on June 3, 2022| 15 Comments »

Image by Linda Mitchell
Round up this week is with Karen Edmisten.

Today is the first Friday of June, so that means Inkling Challenge! My writing group rotates a challenge for each month, and we post on the first Friday of the month as a group, The Inklings! This month Molly Hogan challenged us to write about a domestic task.

Truth be told, I did not read the mentor poem or write about spring cleaning because the truth is I’ve been very ill. I got Covid on a family trip to Seattle and had to stay alone in a hotel room for five days. My husband’s brother, who is a doctor, was nearby and on call for me, but there wasn’t much he could do. I just had to get through it, so I could fly home. I made it home on Saturday night. I’m still recovering, but I no longer have the virus. On Sunday morning, I read The Writer’s Almanac and used the poem “Joy” by George Bilgere as a mentor text. His poem was about recovering from the flu. I borrowed a few lines. The form helped me write again which brought me Joy.

Joy
after George Bilgere
Today I sit in the kitchen
with a glass of Gatorade, on ice,
my daily cocktail.
The door is open
to let in cool morning air.
I sit with my body, just the two of us
for a change. Covid has left us
and moved on to someone else,
with its knife well-sharpened
to gut and leave behind
loose limp skin.
I am sitting in amazement
that I am able to be here breathing.
Amazed at a body’s will to survive
even in the deepest dark cave of fear.
For a while I thought I would never get better.
That I would dissolve into dust in a hotel room alone,
not discovered for days.
But every day there are miracles.
We wake up. We taste and smell the air.
Tiny eggs in a nest hatch into finches that will fly.
Today I sit watching a prothonotary flutter at the window,
make a mental note to refill the feeders.
The desert rose at my front door
welcomes me home with a fireworks show.
The tomb is empty.
Margaret Simon, 2022

National Poetry Month #1: The Thing Is…

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged 2022 Kidlit Progressive Poem, Ellen Bass, Inklings challenge, National Poetry Month on April 1, 2022| 20 Comments »

Official Poster from Academy of American Poets

Today is Poetry Friday and April 1st and the first day of National Poetry Month. My Sunday writing critique group, the Inklings, take on a challenge each first Friday of the month. This month’s challenge comes from Mary Lee Hahn. She suggested that we write a poem like Ellen Bass The Thing Is. Another Inkling, Heidi has the round up this week.

My One Little Word 2022 is Enough. It surprises me how often enough appears in the poems I write. It’s happened again.

The Thing Is
after Ellen Bass
to become yourself, become you more fully
even if you don’t like what you see.
Even as the river dries, revealing cracks
in the surface, displaying a dump
of glass bottles as the only thing
binding you to this place.
You are who you are.
You have this one wild life
to live, no matter the manifest;
That face in the mirror is yours,
hold it with affection,
send it a kiss like the dew
on the womb of the morning*,
praising This is Good.
This self is enough.
You will love her more
and more every day.
* Psalm 110:3
Margaret Simon, draft