Tag: Rainbow Warrior

But who Remembers Her?

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Homage to a favorite poet!

What a wonderful day in National Poetry Month when a poet gets to revisit a favorite poet in responding to the daily prompt of Napowrimo (National Poetry Writing Month) or as we now call it Na/Glopowrimo (National/Global Poetry Writing Month). You can write on your own sweet time or you can write along with Maureen Thorsen at napowrimo.net, Stafford Challenge (and write a poem everyday for a year!) at this link: https://staffordchallenge.com/ or many others as you choose.

What’s important is to express yourself! In our case, in the form of poetry!

So today, on Day Seventeen, Maureen challenged us to use a poem by a favorite poet as a springboard for our own. Be sure to visit that link to get all the details.

So, I selected a modern American poet I’ve long adored: Hilda Doolittle, known–if known at all–as H.D. Imagiste!

Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961)

If you would like to know more about H.D.’s remarkable literary life & achievements, go here and learn from the “Literary Ladies Guide.”

But to my poem! Late last night after diving deeply into some of my favorite poems in my well-worn copy of the H. D. Collected Poems on my desk, I selected “Evening.” I post it in its entirety below my response to her poem.

H.D. in later years

Evening

The light passes

from ridge to ridge,

from flower to flower—

the hepaticas, wide-spread

under the light

grow faint—

the petals reach inward

the blue tips bend

toward the bluer heart

and the flowers are lost./

The cornel-buds are still white

but shadows dart

from the cornel roots—

black creeps from root to root

each leaf

cuts another leaf on the grass,

shadow seeks shadow,

then both leaf

and leaf-shadow are lost.

            Hilda Doolittle (H.D.)

Hepaticas, credit: https://www.theenglishgarden.co.uk/plants/flowers/how-to-grow-hepaticas/

Another day in the life of Poet Voice, aka Jacquelyn Markham, poet; “thinking about poetry everyday,“

Sweet Meadow & Orchard of Childhood

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Credit: Artist, Emily Lowe; vareikafinearts.com

Hello out there! It is Day 13 of the Poem-a-Day for April, 2026. How are you doing with your poems, dear poets?

Today, our guru poet prompter, Maureen Thorsen at Napowrimo.net, asks us to try our hand at a prompt about a “cherished landscape.” (Please check out the link for more detail.) Here’s a recap:

“Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny strip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.” (napowrimo)

The “remembered cherished landscape” that I chose takes me back to a meadow & apple orchard in rural Michigan, when I was a mere child and loved to explore there. I used the tiniest hint of a rhyme in the last line of each stanza.

What a sweet memory, especially when our uncle would take us on hayrides through the cherry orchards up north & as a child at home, I would traverse the paths of Queen Anne’s Lace on my own.

Poetry is a wonderful way to revisit memories, or as William Wordsworth called them “spots of time.” Do you agree with this Romantic Poet of the 19th century? He found his memories of great use in his old age, as explained here: “These ‘spots’ are potent memories that can help a person grow and learn something about life and loss. When Wordsworth reflected upon experiences that he had with nature or with other people, he often used them as inspiration for his poetry.” (credit: https://wordsworth250.byu.edu/index.html_p=386.html)

Please feel free to comment. How does your memory serve you in writing, especially poetry?

Jacquelyn Markham aka Poet Voice!

my head is in the clouds

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An antidote to the news, today’s prompt is quite fun! I responded to the Day 8 prompt from Napowrimo.net which is pretty simple: “In your poem for today, use a simple phrase repeatedly, and then make statements that invert or contradict that phrase.”

Check out the sample poem by Jean D’Amerique from Haiti if you need inspiration. https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-30866_POeTE-NON-MERCI

I’m sharing my poem & more clouds below! Maybe you will enjoy an escape into the clouds today!

photo by the poet

National Poetry Month for April 2026 Begins!

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Edna St. Vincent Millay at Work credit https://millay.org/

Poet Voice here, aka Jacquelyn Markham, poet. Welcome back to Poet Voice!!

Already participating in the Stafford Challenge (writing a poem a day all year), I am now overlapping with National Poetry Month, or as we know at Napowrimo.net, it is actually Na/GloPoWriMo (National/Global Poetry Writing Month)! Poets participate from all over the globe! Won’t you join us?

Napowrimo.net founder Maureen Thorson explains: “Each day, you’ll find here a new featured participant and daily resource. We’ll also have an optional daily prompt for those of you who find yourself in need of a little inspiration (or just like the additional challenge).” There are other sites, too, that provide prompts or you can simply begin on your own! Thank you Maureen (who founded Napowrimo in 2003!!) for your dedication to poets and National Poetry Month!

Happy 30th birthday to National Poetry Month, launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets! Below is this year’s poster, graced with words by our current U. S. Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze.

Rather than sharing my newly created poem from today, I am sharing a poem I wrote in another year during National Poetry Month.

“Taste of Sun: Eriobotrya japonica” was published by Petigru Review. Proof Poem-a-day can be productive! Enjoy!

https://petigrureview.wordpress.com/2025/10/27/taste-of-sun-eriobotrya-japonica-markham/

Those Lonesome Fishing Boats

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Day 16, Poem-a-Day Challenge (a poem after Blue Bayou)

Here’s the prompt: Today’s prompt asks us to “imagine music in the context of a place, but more along the lines of a soundtrack laid on top of the location, rather than just natural sounds. Today, try writing a poem that similarly imposes a particular song on a place. Describe the interaction between the place and the music using references to a plant and, if possible, incorporate a quotation – bonus points for using a piece of everyday, overheard language.”

You can visit Napowrimo, Day 16, to learn more details. Meanwhile, here’s my poem, under the wire on Day 16 of the poem-a-day challenge for National Poetry Month, 2025!

Lime Lake, Michigan

Those Lonesome Fishing Boats

after Blue Bayou

On the green Lime Lake

where the lonesome fishing boats

slap the long low dock

while the clear waves wash

the flat grey stones. I’m pining

for a boy back home, carve initials

in the white birch trunk to

keep that southern boy of mine

in my heart near the limestone lake.

The clear spring lake, where my grandpa

built in his overalls and my grandma

dreamed in her pillbox hat &

I was lonesome all of the time

‘cause I left my baby behind.

White birch bark curled into delicate boats

like the Natives’ boats, when they

waited to get back home, a canoe

filled with fish, silver in the sun.

They were lonesome all of the time.

Shallow green, quiet waves,

rustling trees, sandy bottom rises

with our steps and fishing boats

slap against the long dock

in a rhythm with the voices

of my family in the distance, and

the smell of campfire smoke.

I’m going back some day

come what may to

the memories of the clear

Lime Lake and the White Birch bark

where I carved my baby’s name

since I left my baby behind.

Birch bark grown, covers over

my baby’s name now. Oh, some

sweet day, gonna take away

this hurting inside.

I’m going back some day

to the green Lime Lake.

Jacquelyn Markham ©4/16/2025

Image courtesy of pixy.org

Thank you for visiting Poet Voice @jacquelynmarkham.com

Lunatics

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Getty image, courtesy of http://www.popsugar.com

Prompt for Day 13 from NaPoWriMo:

Also, the short version below:

…here’s our prompt for the day (optional, as always). Donald Justice’s poem, “There is a gold light in certain old paintings,” plays with both art and music, and uses an interesting and (as far as I know) self-invented form. His six-line stanzas use lines of twelve syllables, and while they don’t use rhyme, they repeat end words. Specifically, the second and fourth line of each stanza repeat an end-word or syllable; he fifth and sixth lines also repeat their end-word or syllable. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that uses Justice’s invented form.

I found that the lines in Justice’s invented form varied from ten to thirteen syllables rather than always 12 syllables, soI did the same with my response and varied line length.  Also, I wrote only one stanza of the required six lines as no length was set. Perhaps more to come!

Lunatics

Out from the rivered horizon the moon glows pink-gold.

We waited, yet nearly missed, as in silence it rose.

Across the way, the sunset in a sky of color,

a backdrop of azure splashed in red & rose.

On earth, our moods feel the presence of the moon.

All night, we cha-cha in the light of the moon.

Jacquelyn Markham© (4/13/2025)

Courtesy of wisdomofthespirit.com

Enjoy exploring the spiritual meaning, symbolism and astrology of the April’s pink moon:

How to Get the Most Out of April’s Pink Moon, According to an Astrologer by popsugar.com

Pink Moon Spiritual Meaning & Symbolism by wisdomofthespirit.com

Thanks for visiting me at Poet Voice, thinking about poetry everyday!

For All We Know: Villanelle

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Day 11 Poem-a-Day Challenge

Although we were given the opportunity to write a “loose” villanelle today, I went with the traditional rhyme scheme. You will find the rules for this form linked below, courtesy of the Academy of American poets.

Rules of the Villanelle Form (from Academy of American Poets @ https://poets.org)

From NaPoWriMo, my favorite poem-a-day challenge website, Maureen Thorson offered this optional prompt: “Take a look at Kyle Dargan’s “Diaspora: A Narcolepsy Hymn.” This poem is a loose villanelle that uses song lyrics as its repeating lines (loose because it doesn’t rhyme).  Your challenge is, like Dargan, to write a poem that incorporates song lyrics – ideally, incorporating them as opposing phrases or refrains.”

From Nina Simone’s Song “For All We Know” from NinaSimone.com

This might only be a dream *first refrain
Like the ripples, like the ripples in the stream *second refrain

Villanelle: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2.

Where Trains Go

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Like a train a track that stretches ahead, the days blur by and we are now on Day 9 of the April poem-a-day challenge, chugging away toward the middle of the month. Below is the optional prompt from Maureen at the NaPoWriMo poetry site. This prompt is all about Rhyme & Sound which brought to my mind, a train ride.

“And here’s our optional prompt for the day. Like music, poetry offers us a way to play with and experience sound. This can be through meter, rhyme, varying line lengths, assonance, alliteration, and other techniques that call attention not just to the meaning of words, but the way they echo and resonate against each other. For a look at some of these sound devices in action, read Robert Hillyer’s poem, Fog. It uses both rhyme and uneven line lengths to create a slow, off-kilter rhythm that heightens the poem’s overall ominousness. Today we’d like to challenge you to try writing a poem of your own that uses rhyme, but without adhering to specific line lengths. For extra credit, reference a very specific sound, like the buoy in Hillyer’s poem.” Maureen Thorson

Thank you for visiting Poet Voice!

Jacquelyn ~

Cinnamon

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Kind of light and fun for a sixth day of the Poem-a-day challenge. How are you doing out there poets and writers and appreciaters of art?

Cinnamon

A dash of this spice

in my coffee, cream makes it

oh so golden

with a tingle of chai

but if it’s too heavy

it could make me wheeze

and if it’s too light

just a pinch makes me sneeze.

Like nutmeg, the benefits are great,

good for insomnia &

good for the skin.

Come fall, in the states

folks love pumpkin lattes

even if temps have not fallen.

The use of this spice goes back a long way!

3,000 years ago the sweet-smelling

spice was used to embalm the dead.

All of these uses give this spice

a noteworthy name—

until in our modern age

studies found lead in it.

Jacquelyn Markham ©2025

“Cinnamon” is a poem I wrote in response to Day 6 prompt of Poem-a-Day 2025 (30 Poems in 30 days). Check it out!

Now, dear readers, how did I come up with this odd poem? Why yes, it was the day 6 prompt that gave us so many choices and directions to go by . Please, visit NaPoWriMo to get all details, but basically, you choose a number from the chart which leads to a taste that becomes the title and two more words to work in. In my case, wheeze and golden were the words.

The poem starts out lovely with a sweet-smelling scent, but alas, like so many wonderful things in our modern world, the spice turned toxic. Not all, of course, but be mindful! Still, cinnamon has some health benefits according to some reports, like these claims from Cleveland Clinic.

And then, we may want some retro music to accompany our latte, so here it is! Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl.”

Neil Young, “Cinnamon Girl”

All poems brought to you by Poet Voice (J. Markham).

Lammas, Harvest & too hot to bake?

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Like Solstices and Equinoxes, the cross quarter dates can vary a day or two, so you may have celebrated Lammas yesterday on August 1 or you may be celebrating today. Also, as with any holiday that has been celebrated since ancient times, there are so many variations. The cross quarter holidays fall between the change of seasons–fall, winter, spring, and summer, so, as we celebrate Lammas (or Lughnasa as it is also called), let us be grateful for the harvest.

What is important to me today is to celebrate the harvest and bread (lamas is loaf mass). I plan to break out the sourdough starter and put my hands in the dough. I have enjoyed the videos that Hendrik has shared on his channel Bread Code.

If it is just too hot to bake (with climate change and our hot planet earth)! Sit down with a cool drink and watch this vintage film with Meryl Streep that I watched with a dear friend in Long Beach, California now many decades ago.

If it’s too hot to bake, once you have finished watching Meryl Streep, learn about ways to help save the planet from burning up!

The Gulf Coast’s Battles Against Climate Change and LNG
Too hot to bake? Help turn it around at Greenpeace.

Read full poem in Rainbow Warrior, my latest book of poems, that celebrates nature and calls us to action.

Jacquelyn Markham, Poet Voice