The Versesmith

Poets and Storytellers United  Friday Writings #195 : Revisiting Old Favorites "... for today’s optional prompt, I invite you to revisit one of our old prompts. Maybe one you missed? Or one you could explore again ?"  I have chosen a prompt from 2022, one I'd missed. I have " subverted " the prompt in that the narrator is not a stranger to the person she is writing, but they are both strangers to me, although one's name isn't unknown. Friday, November 25, 2022 Friday Writings #54 : Writing to a Stranger “...write to a stranger. Not just any stranger, but someone specific you have in mind, whether observed or imagined.” (Don't forget, you can always subvert a prompt too – by doing the opposite of what it says, or by writing about why you refuse to write to it, or by deliberately misunderstanding it, or by going off at a tangent....) Georgia, my dearest friend Georgia, Does it disappoint to know the public sees you  as “ that woman ” who paints those m...

  dVerse - Prosery : T. S. Eliot and J. Alfred Prufrock To write a contribution you will have to incorporate the given line into a piece of prose of no longer than 144 words (including the given line but excluding the title).  You may punctuate and divide the line as you want, but you cannot insert any words into the line.  public domain license      T. S. Eliot… Could it be?      A prompt based on Eliot’s line from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock , “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes”?      A great line, a great metaphor. As to be expected by a great poet. Although his Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is bizarre!      T. S. Eliot… one of my favorites. I incorporated or quoted his work in seven of my own poems on this blog. That ties with Edna St. Vincent Millay, another favorite.      Eliot’s The Wasteland is a fertile field of inspiration! Oh, the characters he...

 dVerse #231  :  Making Much of Poems  Pen us a smallish poem of just 44 words, including some semblance of the word MUCH.  image credit   Like scattered pieces of child’s puzzle, I shattered. Missing the most important piece, right there, where the ragged hole in my heart is. Nothing fits to fill it. So much left unsaid. So much left undone. You died much too early. I wasn’t ready. ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved   #dverse #quadrille 

 Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings #193: Tell Me Something Good “...for this week's optional prompt, I am requesting that you tell me something good .”  I hear the sparrows’ chirp cicadas’ buzz smell the neighbors’ barbecue I see the clouds above floating gently by feel breezes in my hair I pick a warm tomato ripened in the sun ...a taste of something fine the dog is belly up wriggling on the lawn his carefree joy contagious ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved   I've just had a taste of something fine. Jackson Browne, Something Fine #poetsandstorytellersunited #freeverse #jacksonbrowne #atasteofsomethingfine #fridaywritings

For  dVerse MTB : cinquains revisited The American cinquain "... is a... five-line poem with a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2, but there are plenty of variations . You may use this form as a single stanza, you may reverse and/or do it as a mirror. When done well it also bridges into concrete or shape poetry, as it may be shaped as an arrow, you may even want to use it as the poem of a haibun." I have chosen to write a Butterfly Cinquain. 2-4-6-8-2-8-6-4-2 centered my Queen of the Garden saved from the neighbor's trash now stands regal in the garden golden armlet, a crown upon her head amid a scent of herbs among the bees she reigns ©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  #americancinquain #butterflycinquain #dverse #syllabicpoetry 

dVerse   MTB: Ubi Sunt and that Where, Oh Where?   And our MTB prompt today is simply to use this Ubi Sunt motif in your poetry as such: title your poem with the question – where are the/they… use the questioning within your poem, even with repetition DO NOT ANSWER it though – the questioning is rhetorical employ concepts of mortality, the transience of life, a sense of nostalgia ubi sunt is a term meaning "where are they??" taken from the Latin phrase "ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt," or "where are those who were before us?"   Where are the friends who promised forever? Who vowed a cradle to grave? Where are the sisters who pricked their thumbs? Who undying kinship gave? Have they forgotten those carefree days? Broken our childhood pact? Have they forgotten we were as one? Ignoring our solemn act? Where are the friends we used to know? Those we held so dear? Where are the ones on whose sides we stood? W...