I am honored to be part of a writing community creating a progressive poem throughout the month of April. There are thirty of us, and we each add a line when our day comes.
I am the twelfth. The final line in bold is mine…interesting to watch the poem taking shape! And in which direction will it go next?
*******
Open an April window
let sunlight paint the air
stippling every dogwood
dappling daffodils with flair
Race to the garden
where woodpeckers drum
as hummingbirds thrum
in the blossoming Sweetgum.
Sing as you set up the easels
dabble in the paints
echo the colors of lilacs and phlox
commune without constraints
-Now I hand the poem off to Cathy Stenquist!
Here are the contributors for the month:
April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/
April 6 Buffy at http://www.buffysilverman.com/blog
April 7 Jone at https://www.jonerushmacculloch.com/
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose’s Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly Write
April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 21 Tanita at TanitasDavis.com
April 22 Patricia Franz
April 23 Ruth at There’s No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors
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lit bits and pieces 
Thank you Fran, for the lovely hand-off for the KidLit Progressive Poem. It’s my first time and I was so excited to see what you wrote. I browsed your blog a bit and really love your writing. Will be a follower for sure. Have a great weekend!
Cathy Stenquist
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Hello, Cathy, and thank you for your gracious words! I have only done the progressive poem once before, I believe. It’s a greater challenge than one might imagine, coming up with just one line in keeping with the others! I read your successive line on lilacs and it’s lovely. Sensory and calming – appreciating nature’s gifts, for sure.
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love the line you added, Fran! That was a hard one to rhyme.
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Thank you, Rose – it was a hard rhyme, and I wanted to keep the pattern of a verb as first word; it took almost two days to come up with those three words!
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“Commune” is a lovely thing to do in the painting of flowers. A safe harbor for our character, perhaps. 😉 Well done on the rhyme too.
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Ah, Denise – how true, “commune” as “safe harbor” – poetry can be so prophetic sometimes! Thank you for your insight and sweet words.
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Hi, Fran! I’m catching up with our poem, and I’m enjoying your combination of alliteration and rhyme, so that we’ve got a third stanza with abcb–but more importantly, as I said to Tabatha, we have COMMUNITY, and there’s nothing more powerful than creating together right now! It’s a time for unrestrained brainstorming (and painting!).
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Thank you for your words, Heidi – the pressure was on for an ending line in the third stanza. I felt it needed a verb at the beginning in keeping with the pattern and a rhyme at the end; only took me two days to think of those three words, ha. Yes – COMMUNITY is what we need more than anything right now, to be able to pull together and support one another and create. In so doing, we appreciate the ‘beautiful’ around us and generate more, thereby transforming the the world – and ourselves. I so appreciate your thoughts.
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Wow, Fran – now that is a clever line, packing in so much (alliteration! rhyme! & a gathering!) in so few words. Thanks, and Brava!!
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