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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Look for Messages & Make Meaning

One Feather

Photo by Amy LV

Students - A big question that people often ask out loud or wonder to themselves is, What is the meaning of life? I wonder this too, and lately I have decided to believe that the meaning of life is the meaning we give our lives. We can choose what matters to us and live our lives according to these beliefs. So, looking for small messages and giving them meaning is giving me joy.

It is summer here in Western New York, and a hot summer indeed. To get exercise and experience more of the elements, I am striving to walk in water for one hour each day. This might be at the YMCA pool or in a creek with a friend or on very special days, in Lake Erie. The feather I found last week was on one of those Lake Erie days. It called to me, and I find myself thinking about the seagull who left it behind.

Today's eight lines are written in a form called a triolet. I very much enjoy writing triolets, and you will find several of them here at The Poem Farm. You will notice that lines 1, 4, and 7 are exactly the same, as are lines 2 and 8.  If you look carefully, you will also notice that the rhyme scheme is: ABaAabAB. If you read it aloud and listen verrrry closely, you may notice that the poem is written in iambic pentameter, ten syllables per line with the accents reading daDUM, daDUM, daDUM, daDUM, daDUM. 

This week, consider looking for messages. Know that a message counts as a message if you believe it to be a message...anything counts! Make meaning of your life. Give meaning to feathers and sweet snowflakes and the smell of maple syrup and a song that plays on the radio at the very perfect time. Decide what the message means to you, and maybe write about it. (Yes, I still do need to decide what the feather-message is for me.)

If you wish to try a bit of a triolet, try repeating a line or two...or choose two rhyming words to thread through a poem, or write something with eight lines. One need not follow every form rule to try something new.

Jan is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Bookseedstudio with a focus on resilience. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Life can be tough sometimes. And so, this week, I wish you magical messages big and small, in every sense from sight to smell to taste to touch to hearing.

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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Repetition in a Summer Mystery

Hello Friends!

If you are just back to school, welcome back to school! I wish you and your new teacher and new friends a joyful and meaningful year ahead, and I look forward to writing together and perhaps meeting some of you and reading your work.

You will notice that The Poem Farm has a new search feature. Thank you so much to Marisa Saelzler who helped me so perfectly with this. You may search by topic, poetic technique, or type of poem. To learn more about this, click the FIND A POEM tab above.

A Visit from the Tomato Fairy
Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem is about a small, surprise event that happened just this week at The Poem Farm. I went to get my mail from the big blue mailbox, and the small newspaper box next to it held one big tomato, two small cherry tomatoes, and a few flowers. It seemed they may have been left the day before, and the whole scene in my newspaper box made me so happy. Right away I knew that I would write about the generosity of this mystery-giver.

As you write this week, you might wish to look out for kindnesses - surprise or not - or to remember past kindnesses you have given or received. Somehow just thinking and writing about such memories makes our todays better.

One thing you may notice about this poem is that I repeat a lot of words. This repetetion just seemed to happen on its own at first, but then, I so enjoyed the feeling of the poem's words rolling over on themselves that I just kept at it, repeating words on purpose. Which repeated words do you find?

If you want to try this with your own writing, just begin writing with an ear for repetition. You might begin a line with the last word of the line before. You might repeat a whole line or thread up words from earlier in your poem. There are many ways to repeat, and repetition adds a song-like quality to your poem. 

September 19, 2024 Update - My talented friend, English Professor and Musican Gart Westerhout is once again back with a song version of a poem. Please enjoy "Summer Mystery," sung by Gart. Thank you, friend!

Buffy is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at Buffy Silverman with an early book celebration for her forthcoming beautiful STARLIGHT SYMPHONY and a poem about a walking stick. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Happy Septembering!

xo,

Amy

ps - Yes...I did find out who the mystery tomato-giver was. It was two wonderful girls who live on our road...so many thank yous to them. The tomatoes were deee-licious!

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