September's challenge was nothing much: simply peruse years of my dear poetry sisters' archives and write a tanka in response to one of them. (Tanka = a haiku with two added seven syllable lines. See Kelly's informative posts for a deeper explanation.)
Well. That went as well as you'd expect. I flailed in a sea of gorgeous choices. I mired in indecision. I gave up on equity and justice and fairness to all my sisters, and picked two poems. One because I'd missed commenting on it the first time it was posted (sorry, Liz!) and the other because she wrote of sunrises and birds (thanks, Laura!) and I'd just come from Kiawah Island, where I'd also communed with both.
First, here is Laura's #poemsketch. I adore her easy way with lines (both drawn and written) and her knack for evocative detail.
And here is my tanka in response:
Next, a stunning poem from Liz. She wrote it in response to our challenge to write about "Ponderous, or based on an image of a hippo; written in any form"---a challenge I LOVED, by the way, but somehow, I failed to comment upon Liz's killer poem when she posted it back in September of last year. Here's a taste:
Stones in the River
When she was sevenand everyone hadmake-believe friendsand make believe familiesand make believe long hair,my sister had hippos,two make-believe hippos,
And my tanka, in conversation:
What a poet wantswhat all of us want:salt, honey, territorya push upwards, graceseven ways to carve riversnames for the things that surface----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)
My poetry sisters' tanka can be found here:
Poetry Friday is hosted today by our own Laura Purdie Salas.
