K is for Kayak and Kyrielle

It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge is in full swing. My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

 

Today for the letter K in the AtoZ Challenge, I have a Kyrielle and Kayak.

The kyrielle is a French four-line stanza form with a refrain in the fourth line. The rhyme scheme may be: aabb, abab, aaab, abcb.  

The poem can be any length, but at least 2 stanzas, in order to have a refrain.  Each line must have 8 syllables. 

So here goes.  I painted a couple kyaks as seen from above...I think a king was flying a kite that had a kamera attached to kapture the scene...or knot.

Two Kyaks

nigh granite shores and guards of pine 

on waters deep and bluish green

just overhead gray gulls protest

two kayaks gliding through the scene

the sun points down with golden rays

where osprey could peruse and glean 

the herring school just swimming past

two kayaks gliding through the scene

 

soft waves lift fingers stroking air

as bouncing buoys in cove lean

the sun retreats, gray clouds browbeat

two kayaks gliding through the scene

by Donna JT Smith ©2025

 

J is for Joseph's Star for a Jaguar

It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge is in full swing. My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

 

I painted a Jaguar for today.  And I wrote a Joseph's Star poem.  It has no rhyme, and is written with 1,3,5,7,7,5,3,1 syllables, center aligned and no stanza limit.  Each line should have a complete statement in each line - or be able to stand on its own.

Jaguar

hush

hunger stalks

dappled shadow leaps

repast requires energy 

satiation allows nap

dappled tree limb calls

birds resound

fest

by Donna JT Smith ©2025

The bad or good thing about this watercolor is that, as I was painting, I kept forgetting it was a jaguar, not a leopard... I almost saved it for L..I still have some things I want to experiment with...or with which I want to experiment...

I realized that at the very least I could just try again painting a leopard! LOL! I learned about how the spots are different on the two beasts, and the size difference.  Very interesting.  So I get to try another one, unless I chicken out.

I was feeling unhappy with this one at so many stages, I almost threw it away. But I'm trying to persevere no matter what mess I make.  And trying to give time between adding to it.  It can quickly turn into a brown blob if you don't let it dry.  So hard for me to not end up with a piece of trash.  I'm still learning to wait.

Tomorrow is K.  I don't have a clue...klue...kitchen, kettle, ketchup, key, kerchief, knife, king, kitten (I already did cat for c, so no)... kayak, kilt, kelp?  A king dressed in a kilt wielding a knife to cut his kayak out of the kelp?

Any ideas?

I is for Iguana and Imayo

 It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge is in full swing. My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

 

Oh, my goodness!  I decided to try to paint an iguana for I... Why not?  It came out better than I imagined.  Not as well as I'd like, but better than I expected.  I've never seen an iguana, so had to go exploring online to see what they looked like.

Then I had to search for some form of poem that begins with an I.  There are not a lot of poem formats for the letter I, but I did find the Imayo.

It is a 4-line Japanese poem that has 12 syllables in each line. There is a caesura (or pause) between the first 7 syllables and the final 5 of each line.

The imayo was originally written to be sung, but that's not a requirement, so I won't be singing it today. Feel free to sing.   Also, poets have free range on subject matter, which is handy because a love poem to an iguana would be difficult to write.

My Imayo to an Iguana

Iguana high above us – contemplating lunch
Leafy greens a camo screen – privacy to munch
Water far below you know – stage left exit plan
Predators won’t make the leap – they’d prefer you ran

By Donna JT Smith ©2025

I have nothing for J yet.  I'm thinking jaguar.  But a jack o'lantern would be easier, or a jar of jam.  I guess I'll see how much energy I have for it.

H is for Hat and Haiku

It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge is in full swing. My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

The 8th day is H.  And H is for a hat...and a traditional Haiku of 3 lines, with the tradional 5-7-5 syllable counts per line. As much as I like to "do whatever", I'm a traditionalist at heart.

posied hat poised, tipped

dewy morning memorized

adventures await

 by Donna JT Smith  ©2025

G is for Giraffe and Ghazal

It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge is in full swing. My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

Today I have a ghazal for a giraffe.  The ghazal (pronounced "guzzle") form has many rules. In order for a poem to be called a ghazal, it must adhere to the following:

• typically about love.
• written in couplets, or stanzas of 2 lines each.
• has no less than 5, and no more than 15, couplets.
• couplets must be end-stopped.
• the same number of syllables in each line. Written in meter, but contemporary ghazals don’t require this.
• has a radeef - a refrain repeated at the end of lines 1 and 2, and then at the end of lines 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc., and often titles the poem as well.
• has a kafiya - a rhyming phrase that precedes every radeef. The poem cannot repeat any kafiyas.
• the poet usually refer to themselves in the final couplet.

The giraffe (pronounced jer-af'):

• is a long necked mammal, standing approximately 5 meters tall, give or take a meter
  
• does not understand poetry
• does like to listen to music
• runs fast
• kicks hard
• eats leaves way up high
  

 

 

A Ghazal for a Giraffe

Tallest of the earthly animals, dear Giraffe.
Is there another mammal to compare, Giraffe?

You view the world beyond our limited vision,
Seeing all, as from the top of the stair, Giraffe.

Splotched with warm brown fingerpaint,
You are a unique fingerprint of hair, Giraffe.

As a voracious eater of aerial leaves
You send sunlight for shorter plants to share, Giraffe.

Long, limber legs spread awkwardly to lower you.
Stay alert for danger, drink if you dare, Giraffe.

Fast runner, strong kicker, Donna defers to you,
Power tower!  Oh, predators beware! Giraffe!

by Donna JT Smith, ©2025

Phew...so many rules, such a tall order. 

In this poem, the kafiyas are: compare, stair, hair, share, dare, beware.  They precede the radeef "Giraffe".  Each line has 12 syllables.  Each stanza could stand alone and has end-stop punctuation.  I am in the last stanza.  The title has Giraffe in it.  Maybe it isn't exactly a love poem, but I think it's close enough!

Maybe tomorrow will be a one word poem.  Is there one?  Maybe I'll invent it. 

The "Title" poem: 

• It's just one word.  
• The title may be more words than the poem.  

Here's my Title poem for this image:

The Tallest Mammal on Earth (title)

Giraffe (poem)

 

F is for Fish and Footle

It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge is in full swing. My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

 

 

Today is our 6th day of the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge.

I have chosen to paint a fish and write a Footle poem for F.

A Footle poem is VERY short.  It's almost seems like cheating.  It was actually harder to make it short than it would have been to stretch it out into a full blown sonnetty or ballady thing.  

A Footle is used to express a thought: a kind of finalizing a point.  Its definition is longer than it is.  It's a trochaic monometer, which I am told means it is written in a foot, which is only two syllables.  Simply said, there are two rhyming lines of two syllables each, and a title, though I've seen them without the title.

A fish can be short or long.  And they have no syllables but they do have gills.

Fish Chowder

Caught fish

Soup dish

by Donna JT Smith ©2025

 

And here's three I strung together to make a different one:

Fish Chowder

Fish fought

Still caught

 
Fish dead

'Nuf said

Boiled fish

Soup dish

by Donna JT Smith ©2025

 

Tomorrow is G...giraffe, goat, gorilla, garage, garden...I have to get going... I'm not ready yet!  

I have to write a poem and paint a picture.

E is for Ekphrasis for an Elephant

It's the AtoZ Challenge day 5!  So here EEEEEt is...E.

My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

Today, I've have my elephant watercolor, and my ekphrasis poem to go with it.  Enjoy!

Elephant

Ah, to be

a gray boulder of savannah,

a Loch Ness fountain of swamp,

a surprisingly fleet tree stump stomper

with limber timber limbs,

one of grace-grappling tonnage;

with fans alert to avert the flies,

beginning and ending in wiry spirals,

flat memory-foamed

toenailed feet;

a tower of power

a family fortress

in time of need;

ah, to be

an elephant.

by Donna JT Smith ©2025

An Ekphrasis describes a scene, often a work of art. It is used to denote poetry or poetic writing concerning itself with the visual arts, artistic objects, and/or scenes. It tells about the moral, creative, and artistic elements of the scene or object. The ekphrasis poem originated in Ancient Greece. It has no strict form, and can be any length. They may be written in stanzas or long paragraphs.

See you on Monday.  No AtoZ post on Sundays!  I'll be back on Monday with F.

Progressive Poem and D is for a Dragonfly Dodoistu

Happy National Poetry Month 

Happy Poetry Friday

Happy Progressive Poem

and Happy AtoZ Challenge!

It's a busy day and month!

This whole page is in celebration of National Poetry Month and Poetry Friday.  

There are two parts to the blog today.  

First up is the Progressive Poem

and then scroll down to the AtoZ Challenge of writing to the letter D today.

*******Progressive Poem Line 4 for April 4 is HERE*******

I am so excited for this line today.  It's a beautiful April poem that's been started...

The Progressive Poem was begun by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem and is now organized by Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  

The Progressive Poem is a collaborative poem with one new line written each day, with a different author adding each new line.  At the end of April, we'll have a completed poem.  No one knows what path it will take! 

Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise wrote the first line, getting us in the mood for Spring air, and Tricia Stohr-Hunt of The Miss Rumphius Effect added a visual splash of sun.  Then Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge gave us what I see as that dotted paint of almost breezy movement of sunlight spots on the beautiful spring-flowering dogwood. Ah...it's almost enough as is!  We could be done!         But no...there is more to come.

I have to admit, I picked April 4, the 4th line on purpose.  It isn't a special day of any sort, except for the fact that every day is special.  No, I decided to watch for line 2, and see if this could be a poem that could support a rhyme.  Imagine my excitement when I saw the word "air" appear!

I think air is too good a word NOT to rhyme, so...share, fair, fare, care, chair stare, stair, compare, flair, repair, impair, lair, dare, hair, hare, share, there, unfair, impair, flare, bear, bare, glare, spare, where, mare, tear, wear...what should I use?  Or should I?  Let's see...

Open an April window
let sunlight paint the air
stippling every dogwood

dappling daffodils with flair

And TAG!  You're it, Denise!  

Now it's out of my hands...will there be more rhymes?  Same pattern of rhyming?  Different? None?  Whatever it is, it will be amazing!  I don't want to wish April away, but I am very excited to see where this goes.

Tomorrow, April 5, Denise Krebs at Dare to Care will add the next line!  I hope you'll follow this progressive poem's journey throughout the month. Below is the complete list of participants, with links to the blog on which the next line will be posted.  Please, also come back here on April 14, when Janet Fagel will have her line offering posted here.

• April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
• April 2 Tricia Stohr-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect
• April 3 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
• April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
• April 5 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
• April 6 Buffy Silverman 
• April 7 Jone Rush MacCulloch
• April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
• April 9 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference 
• April 10 Marcie Flinchum Atkins
• April 11 Rose Capelli at Imagine the Possibilities 
• April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
• April 13 Cathy Stenquist
• April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainely 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 Davis 
• April 22 Patricia Franz
• April 23 Ruth at There’s no such thing as a Godforsaken town
• April 24 Linda Kulp Trout 
• April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
• April 26 Michelle Kogan 
• 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

 

*********AtoZ Challenge is HERE*********

My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

 

 

It's D today.  I am having fun!  Hope you are, too!  This one was a form I'd not heard of before.  I could have taken more time on the watercolor and the poem, but I'm trying not to make it my life's work.  Short and sweet (well, hopefully sweet...).

I wrote a Dodoistu* to accompany my dragonfly. 

 

Dragonfly, delicate one,

seemingly lighter than air,

darting, devilishly fast,

grabs lunch on the go.


 by Donna JT Smith ©2025
 

*The Dodoistu is a Japanese poetry form made up of four lines, with the first three lines consisting of seven syllables each. The final, fourth line has five syllables. It is unrhymed and non-metrical.

Stay tuned for E.  I'm ready and poised to post!

C is for Cat Cinquain and Clerihew, Too.

It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ Challenge has officially begun.  My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

Day 3 AtoZ Challenge - C

My C watercolor is a Cat, with a Cinquain* and a Clerihew**, too.  I couldn't decide which to do.

Cat Napping

Shadow

Hums in the dark

Happy to curl up under

Or on my bed, knowing that I 

Am near.

by Donna JT Smith ©2025

 

And a Clerihew, too:

 

Miss Shadow McCat

Knows just where it's at;

In darkest recesses

She makes hairball messes.

 

 by Donna JT Smith ©2025

 

* Adelaide Crapsey's American Cinquain form is a stanza of five lines. The lines have stresses, in order: line 1 has 1 stresses syllable, line 2 has 2 stressed syllables, 3, has 3, 4 has 4, and 5 has 1.  The number of syllables per line are 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2. The strict strict structure and physical imagery is used to communicate a mood or feeling.

**A clerihew  is a four-line biographical poem of a type invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The first line is the name of the poem's subject (usually a famous person). The poem is whimsical and humorous. It has an often forced AABB rhyme. The line length and metre can be and are often irregular.

B is for Butterfly Ballad

It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ  Challenge has officially begun.  My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

 

April 2 - B

B is for Butterfly Ballad - A Balladified Acrostic for the Butterfly:

 

Butterfly

Beauty's iridescent wings

Under the canopy, over field

Tagging hues, faceted eyes spy

Twinkling flowers bobbing, petals yield.

Enticed by nectar, its tubered tongue

Ripples forth to call of blooms;

Flourishing in each nourishing, Beauty

Lifts off sprightly, never zooms.

"Yum!" it fairly hums. 

 

by Donna JT Smith ©2025

A is for an Apple Acrostic

It's April, so the Blogging from AtoZ  Challenge has officially begun.  My theme is Watercolor and Words.  This year I am painting a watercolor to go with each letter and composing a poem to accompany it with a type of poetry that starts with the letter of the day.  I am mostly experimenting with the watercolors still, so don't expect perfection....

Clicking on the letter of the day will bring you to the main site which has links to get to other participants if you would like to go on an alphabetical adventure!

Here's the first:  An Apple Acrostic

by Donna JT Smith, 2025

 

Ambrosia with a crunch,

Plucked fresh from a tree,

Plump and sweet to fill a pie; for

Lunch I could

Eat three! 

          by Donna JT Smith ©2025

 

Spiritual Journey Thursday: Wholeness

 Spiritual Journey Thursday

is hosted today by Denise Krebs and you can find more posts by going to her site and reading the comments with links in them to others commenting on "Wholeness" today. 

 

Wholeness

There is a wholeness that I felt as a child

with wind and sea and pine,

and security of family. 

I drifted into more

security and wholeness,

or expanded perhaps is the better word,

to living with the bits and pieces we put

together in life, 

creating our space and

our new family unit, 

blending and growing that to new wholeness. 

Now I seek my own 

oneness,

wholeness

rearranging the bits and pieces

we had set about us,

and realize

God is my wholeness,

always has been

Wholly Holy.

He is all.

I don't need bits and pieces

to be whole. 

There are no bits and pieces

to the Wholeness.

 

By Donna JT Smith, ©2025