Try Try Try a Tricube

Winnie, February 1, 2026

Video by Amy LV

Students - We like to tell ourselves that our cat Winnie is very smart. She is an indoor/outdoor cat, and so these Days of Deep Snow when she's stuck inside make her stir crazy. A few days ago, I caught Winnie tossing knitted hearts to the ground (spreading love?) and felt it urgent to film the moment. And while you can see Winnie tossing the hearts above, you cannot see the several times I filled and refilled her heart bowl. This was a good game.

As I think about our cat's simple fun, I think about how sometimes my own writing life gets a little boring too. I let it get boring and then I avoid it. I need to throw some hearts around like Winnie did, need to try something new and see what happens. Toss some words on the page and watch them fall over and over. Well, this week I'm playing, sharing a poem in a form I've never tried before.

Last week, as I moseyed around other people's Poetry Friday posts, I learned about a new-to-me form - the tricube. This form was invented by Phillip Larrea, an American journalist, and he first shared it in 2016 at Writer's Digest. So Happy 10th Birthday, Tricube!

As you have likely noticed, this is a simple form, and you can learn more about it here at Writer's Digest. No special rhyme. No special meter. Just this:

1. Three syllables per line

2. Three lines per stanza

3. Three stanzas

I chose to give my title three syllables too!

You might enjoy playing around with this not-scary form. I enjoyed making little lists of possible phrases to include and then moving them around the page. Now I'm thinking that I could even write phrases on bits of paper and actually, physically move them around my desk. I could even be fun to invite a group people to choose a subject and each write a few three syllable phrases, each on a different slip of paper, on that subject. Then, we could take the slips and move them around to form group tricubes.

Suddenly I don't feel bored...

This week I am happy to be a part the Colorado Reading Association (CCIRA) conference in Denver, Colorado. I'll be speaking about keeping writer's notebooks and stregthening writing through poetry study. Time with teachers is time that makes me feel grateful.

Molly is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Nix the Comfort Zone with two poems after Wendell Berry's "Like Snow." Each Poetry Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Trying something new is a creative way to face moments of boredom. Go ahead and push some objects off of a desk...or maybe consider writing a new-to-you kind of poem!

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If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

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Experiment with a Short Form

Family Button Box

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Today's poem blossomed from an old family cigar box full of buttons and a chance opening to a page in Kyle Vaughn's inspiring book LIGHTNING PATHS: 75 POETRY EXERCISES.

The short form is inspired by the landay, a thousands-of-years-old, two-line poem form with nine syllables in the first line and thirteen syllables in the second line. (Go ahead...count.) Vaughn explains that such poems are "simple and deal with common, earthly concerns: love, suffering, war, nature, beauty, death." Landays often criticize elements of life, are anonymous, and are shared by and among Afghan women, shared orally as a way to express anger and grief, frustration and love. 

I am not living in Afghanistan long ago or today, composing and speaking these words with my neighbors and in-person community, but I too wish to learn to express a feeling with a certain number of syllables - twenty-two. My small lines speak to the grandmother who died before I was born, who died before my parents were even married. I believe that the button box belonged to her, Geraldine Pappier Ludwig. I wish I could bring Grandma Ludwig back to life for a day with this box of buttons on the table and a kettle of water brewing for tea we could share.

You might wish to try writing a poem inspired by the landay form. If so, draft two lines about one of these big ideas or another big idea of your choosing:

love

suffering

war

nature

beauty

death

Consider choosing a feeling or a memory or an object or a small moment of time related to the big idea to get started. And try counting syllables. Work toward nine syllables in your first line and thirteen in your second line. Writing only two lines allows us to focus on the count more easily than when we are writing four or eight or sixteen or thirty-two lines.

Thank you to Tabatha for hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup over at The Opposite of Indifference with a perfect monologue from Shakespeare's HENRY V and her ever-generous thoughts. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

Hmmmm. Perhaps each of those buttons yearns to have a poem written about it. Back to the box I go!

xo,

Amy

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Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

Lean on a Song & Welcome Guests

Sky After Poeming

Photo by Amy LV

Students - Can you believe that I took the above sky photograph just moments after writing this poem? Well, I did! This week has been so beautiful, so summery in Western New York.

Today's poem leans on the meter of the 1936 song "Dona Nobis Pacem" ("Grant Us Peace" in Latin). If you listen to the recording above, you will hear me read the poem and then sing it to the tune of the song. "Dona Nobis Pacem" lives in my mind this week as I have just joined a newly formed threshold choir (Raven's Call) here in Buffalo, NY, a small choir that will sing at the bedsides of seriously ill and dying people who wish for music. This is but one of the songs we are learning, and I am singing it to myself inside and outside.

I do like to think that this is a true equation: topic + structure + wordplay = poem. Sometimes I begin with a topic, sometimes a structure, sometimes some wordplay. Today, structure (the meter of "Dona Nobis Pacem") guided my way. This and my recent thoughts about how we speak to ourselves in our own minds. 

I've suggested this several times before, but here it is again. If you're not sure where to begin with a poem, choose a song you like and then write words that can fit in the lines perfectly (or well enough!) I like to count the syllables and then match syllables and stresses as perfectly as feels right.

HERE is a beautiful voice and piano recording of "Dona Nobis Pacem," a round that is often sung in three parts, here all sung by Julie Gaulke.

And NOW....is a happy honor to welcome Fourth Grade Teacher Cheryl Donnelly and her poets from Tioughnioga Riverside Academy in Whitney Point, NY who took on the April 24 HOURS Challenge. My goodness gracious! How this school takes poetry on. I was lucky enough to visit these writers in mid-May, and feel grateful to them and to Teacher Cheryl Donnelly and Intermediate Literacy Coordinator Dr. Kristie Miner for all of their joyful sharing.

Enjoy this joyful slideshow of poems, one poem from each poet, and know that each poet wrote many poems as part of their own 24 HOURS project, choosing a favorite for us here at The Poem Farm. Do take notice of the many different voices and poetic techniques these writers chose.

Click the three dots and ENTER FULL SCREEN to enlarge.

Thank you again to this poetic community from Tioughnioga Riverside Academy for joining us today.

Tricia is hosting this week's Poetry Friday roundup at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Each Friday, all are invited to share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship in this open and welcoming poetry community.

xo,

Amy

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Know that your comment will only appear after I approve it.

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment 

with a parent or as part of a group with your teacher.

Something Unexpected

A Handful of Color

Photo by Amy LV

Students - It is good to be back. I have missed you and hope that our time apart has been healthy and good for you and the people you love. Now that it is autumn in Western New York where I live, I will be posting poems and writing ideas here again on Fridays and perhaps on other (unexpected) days.

Today's poem is a true story poem, and it happened this week (not yesterday, but in poems you can change anything you wish). When I went to get the mail, I expected to walk back to my house with a handful of envelopes. Instead, I walked back to my house with a handful of green acorns and this pretty blue feather. I expected one thing and got another.

Has this ever happened to you? You expected one thing and got another thing instead? Maybe you thought a person would act a certain way when you first met them and later realized that the person was actually quite different from what you had imagined. Or maybe a day brought a surprise you never could have thought up - good...or not so good. These things happen to me all of the time, and now that I am thinking about it, I realize that they are strong writing ideas. I'll be paying more attention and jotting such happenings into my notebook. You might wish to try this too.

Today's poem is mostly made up of lines with eight syllables. You may count them out to check, and you'll notice that two lines have only seven syllables. Sometimes when I write, I feel a beat inside and just follow it. I recommend trying to count out syllables, just to start feeling them inside of you. You can count syllables in others' poems for practice.

Another thing you might notice how many parentheses I included in today's poem. Lines with parentheses feel like little whispered asides, as if the writer is telling special extra information to a reader.

And while I did not plan to rhyme any words in this poem, the last two lines felt like they should rhyme after all. They gave themselves to me, all wrapped in a simple rhyme.

Here's my silverboy Tuck, checking out that handful of autumn mail himself!

Tuck and the Mail

Photo by Amy LV

Carol is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup at Beyond LiteracyLink with a summer cento, or poem made from the lines of other poems. Please know that all are welcome each Friday as folks share poems, poem books, poetry ideas, and friendship.

I wish you something good and unexpected this week...and perhaps even a poem to go with it.

Please share a comment below if you wish. 

If you are under 13 years old, please only comment with a parent

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

Y is for YET

Y is for YET

Photo by Amy LV

Cali in 2009

Photo by ?

We're pet lovers here at Heart Rock Farm. With 2 dogs, 5 cats, a rabbit, 7 sheep, 14ish chickens, and a fish, (and two class pet guinea pigs spending the weekend), there is always a creature to love. I'm a great believer in pets making people kinder and more responsible too. So when I sat to write a poem using the word YET, I thought of NOT YET, and then I thought about things that parents might say NOT YET about.

Our family is trying to learn to say NO MORE when it comes to pets!

Students - This short and simple poem is written in rhyming couplets - each pair of two lines rhymes at the ends of the lines.  I do not write often in couplets, but this poem felt so simple and sad that I wanted the meter to match. What do you notice about the syllables?  Do you notice anything else about this poem?  (Hint - look at the ending.)

If you are new to The Poem Farm, welcome! This month I have been walking, letter-by-letter, through the dictionary (closed-eyed), pointing to a letter each day, and writing from it. You can read poems A-X by checking the sidebar, and you can visit Lisa Vihos and read her accompanying daily haiku at, Lisa's Poem of the Week. In today's comments, watch for Lisa's Haiku and also Christophe's haiku. It's a lot of fun to meet new friends in the poetry forest.

Over at my other blog, Sharing Our Notebooks, there are two new peekable notebooks. So if you are a notebook-keeper, a notebook-keeper-hopeful, or a teacher who uses notebooks in your classroom, please don't miss Suz Blackaby's post about her process and word tickets or Allan Wolf's post about wall writing and butt books.

Monday is the first chalking celebration over at Teaching Young Writers. Join organizer-Betsy, Linda from TeacherDance, many others, and me as we chalk, photograph, and share poems. April 30!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

Like The Poem Farm on Facebook for more poems, articles, and poemquotes!

Poetry Friday & Patience

Oh No!

by Amy LV

Students - Strange to say, but I've always loved the rhyming sounds of alligator and elevator. I think they're just funny words, each with four syllables, each with the stress on the first syllable. This pair has kicked around in my head for quite a while and even made a cameo in a poem once. Well, today they're back in center stage!

Today's poem is what I might call a "fake advice" poem. It's a how-to poem of sorts (I know that many of you have written how-to books and articles) only this time, it's got a splash of imagination too. You might want to try this twist on procedural writing. Make up a fake set of directions, and set them to a poem beat!

As for word play, here's something to try. Choose a word with two or three syllables. Take the word brother for example. Now, write that word on the top of a page, and try to think of other words that have the same stresses, the same beats, the same emphasis on the same syllables. Don't even think about rhyme for now.

Let's look at the word brother together.

BROther has the same stresses as WEEKend and PRAIrie. When we read the words, we naturally lean heavily on that first syllable. Can you hear what I mean? Say those words aloud.  Can you think of some other two syllable words with the stress on the first syllable?  Make a list!

BROther has different stresses than forGET, rePLY, and exCUSE. Those three words have the accent on the second syllable, and our voices press down more heavily on that second syllable. Say these words out loud to hear those stresses. Can you think of some more two-syllable words with the second syllable accented?

Fun, isn't it? You might even want to keep lists in your notebook or charts in your classroom of such stresses; sometimes I do.

If you find some great words or would like to share something you discover, please do so in the comments or by e-mailing me at amy at amylv dot com.

Elaine is hosting today's Poetry Friday over at Wild Rose Reader! I'm so happy to be back into more frequent blog reading and writing (partially thanks to the 2012 Comment Challenge), and can't wait for the weekend when I can truly dive into this Poetry Friday Extravaganza!

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