Take Photos! Repeat End Words!

(This is the first morning of Fall 2025 where I am writing by the heater....brrr!)

Bumblebee Bottom Sticking Out of a Dahlia

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Yes, it's true! Some bees - bumblebees certainly - do sleep in flowers! And this summer I found many adoze as I did my morning garden rounds. They are adorable all tucked into their petal beds. I have fallen in love with this image and this knowledge that bees sometimes sleep in flowers. I carry it with me every day now.

With this thought and photo in mind, today I wrote my first tritina, a new form to me - with much gratitude to "The Poetry Princesses," a group of poet friends who share different forms and ideas for writing. They shared this form last week, and I was so enchanted by their poems last week on Poetry Friday, I wanted to have a go at a tritina myself.

Here is an explanation of the tritina from Tamar Yoselff at Poetry School - The American poet Marie Ponsot invented the tritina, which she describes as the square root of the sestina. Instead of six repeated words, you choose three, which appear at the end of each line in the following sequence: 123, 312, 231; there is a final line, which acts as the envoi, which features all three words in the order they appeared in the first stanza. So the poem is structured as three tercets and one single line in conclusion.

Tritina Draft, October 3, 2025

Photo by Amy LV

You can see in my draft above how I listed words I might choose as end-line words at the top and then wrote the numbers along the left hand side of the draft to help me stay in order for this form. Forms can be very helpful to me as a writer. Rather than finding them restrictive, I find they can be freeing, helping me to find new ideas as I wrestle with word orders and syllables. I do not believe that one must always or ever write in forms, but sometimes...it does help and push me to do so.

This week, I have two different recommendations for you. The first suggestion is to take photos - either with a camera or with your mind (like Cam Jansen in the CAM JANSEN books). Use your photos to inspire your writing. Or if you prefer, write inspired by photographs taken by others. I welcome you to work with any of the photos here at The Poem Farm, for example. The second suggestion is to try playing around with the ends of your poem lines. You need not write a whole tritina, but perhaps you will choose one important word and repeat it at the ends of a couple lines of your poem. Repetition is a powerful force. When it is used well, we readers love it and are drawn to it as bees to pollen.

As for these photographs, a couple of years ago, when our children moved away, I decided I needed to take care of something and would learn to garden a little bit. These flowers are part of my learning - they are dahlias. Here is another bee - all pollen dusted - snoozing away in his own dahlia. (I am writing "him" and "his" as according to my research, it is most often the male bumblebees that sleep in flowers.)

Pollen Dusted Sleeping Bee in a Dahlia

Photo by Amy LV

And here is a ladybug resting in the day.

Little Ladybug Napping

Photo by Amy LV

Tomorrow I look so forward to reading and maybe writing with the children who visit me at Meg's Alice, Ever After Books in Buffalo, NY. This is the most delightful bookshop, and if you are ever in Western New York, I highly recommend a visit! Tomorrow I will be there from 10:30am - 11:30am and welcome you.

This week, Matt is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at Radio, Rhythm, & Rhyme with some celebratory news and two poems by two different poets from his anthology A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS: MULTICOLORED POEMS FROM A MULTICOLORED WORLD. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Sleep well, my friends, as well and as cozy as you can. I wish I could grow you each a big flower bed!

xo,

Amy

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What Reminder Do You Need?

Chubby Sunflower Bee

Photo by Amy LV

Students - On these August mornings, I often begin the day by picking blackberries and flowers. Sometimes, I see bees dozing in the zinnias and on the sunflowers, and I smile...wondering what they dream about. 

Reflecting on these bees, I found myself noticing how much I love watching them doze, how much I love their little pollen pants and fuzzy bodies. I found myself noticing how different this experience is than the experience of reading information and looking at pictures (even adorable pictures) on my phone or computer screen.

Long ago, I remember reading an article about a baby swiping at a magazine, trying to turn the page as one does on an iPad. That troubled me, and it troubles me when I find myself trying to click on one of my own thoughts (does anyone else do this?) When such a thing happens, I am reminded:

Go outdoors.

The natural world is real in ways that the technological world can never be. Trees and bees and meteors remind us of our humanity. We need them. This is my reminder to me...and perhaps to you if you also need it.

What might you need to be reminded of? Perhaps make a list...and then choose one or more of the items from your list to write about. Maybe a poem, maybe not. When we write about our goals and struggles, it helps us to think about them in new ways. And sometimes, when others' read our reminders, they find themselves reminded of something too. In this way, writing helps us and others at the same time.

Teachers - It is a new school year. Please allow me to recommend more time outdoors. The best book I can recommend about combining curriculum with time outdoors is one of my favorite professor's books - LITERACY MOVES OUTDOORS by Valerie Bang-Jensen. Wise, practical, and beautiful. I cannot recommend this book more!

Available through Heinemann

This week, Heidi is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup over at my juicy little universe with good news and a sudoko poem. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

May your brain encourage you and also push you where you need to be pushed...

xo,

Amy

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What is a Weird Thing About You?

A Few Peonies

Photo by Amy LV

(I will post a recording when the recoder is not giving me difficulty!)

Students - The other day as I walked by the peonies on the table, I looked at the petals falling from my peony bouquet and again I heard/imagined hearing the sound of piano notes. This made me wonder if everyone hears piano notes when they see many flower petals fall at once. Perhaps this is something I heard in a cartoon once, or perhaps my brain just thought of it, but either way, my brain hears it now.

Yesterday my friend Karen shared this Albert Einstein quote with me, "Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought." So this week let me recommend that you fall in love with paying attention to the very special and individual way that you see the world. What is something weirdly wonderful about the way you see things? Watch for it. Then, express this wonderfulness in some way. Spending time on human thought and human art makes us more thoughtful, and it makes us more artful. 

Today's poem is short, but I spent a lot of time playing with the words to find just-the-right-ones and also to arrange them just so. Originally, the lines were longer and the poem looked like this:

Then, after playing with the words for a long time, I decided that the poem should have more of a falling feeling, so by adding more line breaks, I created more falling from line to line. Do remember that when you write a poem, the line breaks (where you choose to go from line to line) and white space (space where there is no text) play an active part in the life of the poem. So feel free to play with them! Move the lines one way. Then another. 

Thank you to my friend Mary Lee for reminding me this week of the importance of making every day.

Tanita is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at{fiction, instead of lies}, sharing some different poetic forms and new poems too. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

I wish you glorious and wonderful weird moments inside and outside of your own head!

xo,

Amy

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Unplug and Listen

A Garden After Rain, June 6, 2025

Photo by Amy LV

Students - It rained all last night here, and oh did I love it! The sound of rain is one of my favorite sounds (along with crunching leaves and the bump of a rock kicked down the road). Right before dinner yesterday, I planted a few more plants, hoping that Mother Rain would swoop in overnight...tucking each basil and pea and nasturtium plant into their big earthen bed. And she did! In fact, it is still raining now in the morning as I write on the front porch. It sounds just like a lullaby.

Today's poem is a small one, yet I wrote many notebook pages about rain before I arrived here. Somehow the simplicity of the rain, the purity of the water droplets, the gentle drumming felt so...so...so...opposite of much of the online world. This opposite place is important for my humanity. For all of our humanity.

The few lines above are a list poem, beginning with a list of the things NOT happening, and twisting at the end to the one thing that IS happening. List poems are not difficult to write, and they can allow us to contrast two things.

This week - this summer - this life - I encourage you to unplug from everything and allow thoughts to arrive in your mind in the quiet. Allow non-tech sounds to tap on your heart. Write with no devices nearby. If you make this a practice, such times will become a good, solid friend to you. This is one of my own summer goals, and should you join me, I would love to hear about it.

I would like to extend my respect and gratitude to the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade members of the TRA (Tioughnioga Riverside Academy) Writing Club in Whitney Point, NY for our time together this week. I so appreciated joining your club virtually for one day and admire how you meet weekly and explore different writing topics and techniques in community. I wish you all a beautiful writing summer. Thank you, too, to your teacher leaders including Laura Farwell who connected us, who have built this important place for thinking and creation.

Buffy is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Buffy Silverman with a spotlight on two new lyrical STEM picture books. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

May you be soothed by raindrops and other nature goodnesses.

xo,

Amy

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