Dear reader, dear poet,
Thirteenth year of participation achieved with 32 draft poems. I am proud of this feat, for it wasn’t easy for me this year. Thank you to fellow poets for lending their energy.
I am grateful to Maureen for launching this creative project in 2003 and gathering us every year since its inception. I also thank Aaron Compton, who coined the term “GloPoWriMo” or “Global Poetry Writing Month” in 2016. I proudly wear the hat of the GloPoWriMoers.
Regarding my poems, I showed up in April and have taken them down for refinement. If you are curious about my previously featured poems, check out the list further below.
Asante / Thank you / Vielen Dank for being here. Godspeed poets!
2025: Written by a Skirt
2024: The Grace to be Myself
2024: In my Next Life, I Want The Courage of Our German Shepherds
2022: Table of Farewells (erroneously deleted and can’t recover that page)
2020: The Return of the Rose
2019: Allegory of Dancing
2017: Spring Wedding
2014: Berry-Ho, Merry-Ho (hosted in the old website and a technical glitch happened)
Gloria! You’ve gone straight to the gut is the most wonderously clear way — the hardest truths can only be taken in this way. Gorgeous, heartbreaking piece. Thank you.
Thank you, dear Liz, for finding your way to my piece 🙂
What glorious, spring infused Tanka Gloria. My favourite is the magnolia and that last line — love the resoluteness of ‘even if the lawn turns pink.’
Arti, I am happy you found a line that speaks to you.
Very glad I found your site as well. I didn’t get “spam” warnings, so I am hopeful that’s fixed. I’m waiting for bulbs to bloom here in MI, so I appreciate the reminder of flowers.
I am glad you made it safely to my writing wall. Here in Germany, the bulbs are already rising in our garden.
1 apr 26. so good to read you again, Gloria. ~ m
I am happy you are here again, Michael. I am still reminiscing on your last April featured song-poem.
April 2: I love the vivid surrealism of these two poems. And I appreciate how the poem exploring flowers’ perceptions of themselves in contrast to others winds down into silence.
Alana :))) I am grateful for your review.
My condolences, Gloria. “hold tears in the hand” will stay with me.
Thank you, Nora.
2 april. a poem like a kaleidoscope lens into your past – each phrase turn vivid and bright. and the close – how i remember my deceased father, so many unanswered questions ~
Thank you for your reading time, M. Our deceased ones must rest in peace but maybe it is us who are alive that need the peace.
3 april. ice cream absolutely is a meal ~
We don’t say it aloud for the children to hear LOL
Amazing how a clear and fresh image pops up with each line of your “listicle.” There’s only one line that I couldn’t relate to, personally: “You learn to accept that ice cream is a meal.” That, to me, is a given. 😉 Delicious poem!
For someone who loves her desserts, that ice cream line is a difficulty one to preach
Lovely my darling friend. The Japanese masters claim 72 seasons … so yeah, there’s that. I love your Day 4. Thank you sincerely. Happy Easter
Wow! 72 seasons is a gift for poetry 🙂 Thank you for being here, friend in poetry.
I will do this RIGHT NOW: Open the door to the sun as my bait. How brilliant–in every way!
Do that, fellow child. To be baited by the sun is an adventurous possibility 😉
No, no, poo poo, for you you, or me! Much fun…
Thank you, Liz.
Oh my gosh, Gloria, you made me put my nose and crinkle my face with all the poopoos…watery and stinky and green. You managed silly and dislike very well. I don’t know whether to say ‘Lovely’ or ‘Yucky’ but the latter too is a compliment.
Thank you for the yucky compliment, Smitha. LOL!
A beach wedding! I definitely accept the delightful invitation. The images–especially the trip there. “I threw seeds, bread crumbs, and rice. The road resembled a wedding aisle…” I loved every happy scene and thing in this poem–even the poop (which brings good luck, if you’re in France anyway…)
I am off to get my lucky poop now. Thank you for reading and sharing that.
That was such a fun poem, Gloria. I could imagine the children giggling as they said it. I liked the line about sheering the sheep, the line about the world being round and the way you end it. That was sweet.
Smitha, I appreciate your reading me and happy you found resonating lines.
ohhhhh on Day 10’s poem–I got goose bumps during the second stanza–the idea of appearing in someone else’s dream and making them cry. You see all sorts of poems about people appearing in the writer’s dream–but not about the writer appearing in others’ dreams. Very cool!
Thank you, Liz, particularly on how you interpreted the poem. That’s the cool thing about writing. The poem is not yours after it is gifted. I am not a fan on insisting to find out what the writer had in mind 🙂
What a cool format –Tryptich ?–for the visuals all connected but separate. Love the imagery work. BTW Do pigs really manage to spit back seeds? (Asking for a friend.)
Contrapuntal attempt. Ours spat out mango seeds, the smaller seeds came out with the dung. They also sucked sugarcane and spat out the fibrous pulp too.
Day 14, Those first two stanzas should be written in stone somewhere!
Thank you for the compliment, fellow child. I hope the mason heard you 🙂
Expert rhyming and stunning imagery, Gloria, especially in these atmospheric lines:
‘Wind no longer came as a wanted lover
who charmed and rustled out the cover.
As our fate, the wind knives loved gutting’
and
‘In the dawn, the wind came with axing sounds.
In the dusk, the wind left with chopping sounds’.
Yes, Mother Nature will pay us back for all the damage we’ve done.
I am grateful for your feedback, dear Kim.
Day 18 — THIS is a must read. Here is a start, but I hope you it’s published wide and far, for its terrifying truth so very beautiful told that we can bare to hold it for a bit.
Thank you, Liz. I am testing the shorter version.
Nice one, Gloria! The butterflies and I love nettles, although I’m not so keen on the sting. Nettle tea and cheese get a thumbs up from me too. I love the lines ‘The longer the pain vowels, the weaker you are’ and ‘Choose your words, choose your commas. I am the final frontier between the caterpillars and you’.
Kim, thank for visiting my writing wall. The nettle appreciates too 🙂
As a cat lover, I was drawn into your poem by the title, Gloria, and then got lost in the all the feline detail, which then became so surreal it made me smile.
I am glad to know I made a cat lover smile, dear Kim.
Day 22: Especially enjoyed, “I could have consulted the cat’s manual
for adolescence but the constant growling
about life blinded me. I once snarled back,” The shoulda-woulda-coulda of an impossible eternal situation!
And still, we made it through until the rat is out 🙂
Wow, Gloria, your description of the first kiss leaves me speechless. You managed to describe the emotions, the changes in the body, with such beauty and accuracy. Loved it!
Thank you, dear Smitha.
I’ve been late to catch one of your poems. There’s the glitches on the Disqus and I hate wasting time on tech I do not understand. So forgive me, please. Glad I landed here today. It must be garbage collection day. Well, how happy and lucky those bins are–they got a lovely poem. And from one of the best poets around. Thanks for the smile you gifted me. Bless you.
I am happy you made it here again, Selma. Thank you for the compliment 😉
Day 29: What an absolutely stunning viewpoint : “I left the house for a daily walk,
/to stretch the home I live in.” And that was just the beginning! The naming, the imagery, the music of it all work wonders. Congratulations!
Thank you, Liz. For a penultimate poem, your praise makes me happy
I’m always looking out for our local heron, Gloria, so this poem hooked me. I love the idea of birds singing in alphabets and ‘tweeting abecedarian tales’.
Kim, great to know that besides cats, the birds resonate with you too. Thank you for reading.
A powerful final offering. The tone is wonderfully odd and controlled, and I love how instinct refuses to behave politely or fit into any human system.
Oizy, I am grateful you stopped by my wall. Thank you for your company this year. Off to read you now.
30 april. Sigh. I am sorry to have missed your poetry this year, Gloria. You write beautifully. May the year to come be filled with light and the presence of the muses ~ M
Don’t worry about it, dear M. We all tried whether it was showing up, reading others, and/or providing feedback. Promise to meet you at the same place, same time, next year. May blessing be, dear poet.
Miss you and your poetry already!
Thank you, Liz. Same here. Poetry adrenaline still high 🙂