We are past mid-February in the poem-a-day month I am sharing with my poetry group. As anticipated, I feel more at-ease with the project than I did last year–in fact the month seems to be going by a bit fast.
In honor of Poetry Friday, I’m posting a few of my February poems. Visit Linda Baie’s web site, teacherdance, for links to more Friday poetry.
February 4: I am co-teaching an afterschool poetry class which began this month, so February has been doubly rich with poetry. We started with cinquains. One of my students finished her first and asked if there was time for a second. With about 10 minutes left, I thought it was borderline, but said, “yes, go ahead.” Less than 10 minutes later this nine-year-old came back to me and had written a very clever cinquain that was also an acrostic. I still needed to write a poem that day, so after class, I challenged myself to an acrostic cinquain. For the record, this little poem took me more than 10 minutes to write.
Cool drops Latch together Out over oceans, high Up above mountains, hills, plain, then Drop rain. © Karin Fisher-Golton, 2015
February 8: I am not usually a big acrostic person, but I wrote another I like this month. February is full of surprises.
Luminous Arc Rainbow— Apple-y red fire engine arches Insistent citrus orange-color California poppy New day, new light, new yolk yellow then Boreal lush-living wet grassy green over Ocean sky blueberry blue to indigo Wowing plum purple-y violet complete © Karin Fisher-Golton, 2015
February 9: The moment described in “Picture This” had me thinking, “There’s a poem in that!” One benefit of poem-a-day month is that I notice even more poetry in life than usual.
Picture This today I saw a woman with a phone hovering over a parking lot planting strip my device-judgment radar on high I cursed the ubiquitousness of phones then realized she was taking a photo but of what? curiosity slowed me down I looked as I passed and saw a dew-covered web tucked in green I glimpsed a world where cell phones make people halt for beauty and art © Karin Fisher-Golton, 2015
February 12: Some February days it’s handy to have a short poem possibility. One of the members of our group remembered the 11-syllable lantern poem. We are enjoying it and not just for its brevity.
Above
sky
expanse
realm for wings
sector of stars
space
© Karin Fisher-Golton, 2015
February 19: Laura Shovan at Author Amok is doing a month of poetry prompts based on sounds, another synergy with our poem-a-day month. I highly recommend heading over there and delving into the excellent array of poems on 19 February days, so far. It is fascinating to see how different poets respond to the same sound. Today I was inspired by this sound:
Museum Stairwell in the museum’s grand stairs there are echoes— echoes of conversation, echoes of anticipation conversation anticipation stairwell echoes off metal, echoes off marble metal marble stairwell echoes of art, echoes of story art story stairwell stairwell echoes echo © Karin Fisher-Golton, 2015
Karin Fisher-Golton 
I agree that in my poem-a-day months I see more poetry than usual. (So…I should make every month a poem-a-day month???) I have been that woman with the cellphone camera capturing beauty that would otherwise go unnoticed (…and taking pictures of my food)!
At Laura’s blog I already proclaimed my love for your museum echoes, but I’ll leave an echo of that here, too!
Thanks so much, Mary Lee, for leaving these echoes. I know people joke about food photos, but I do think that is part of the beauty phones are helping us see. I like knowing you are one of the people capturing beauty with a phone.
I love your echo poem, Karin, just right for that echo-y sound Laura gave us. And the other poems are lovely too. I especially like the cloud poem. I take pictures of clouds all the time, love that they give me new images often, so your poem spoke “loud” to me.
Thank you, Linda! Would that be called an intra-acrostic response? I love poetic responses. And yay to the array of clouds!
Such lovely work you’re turning out, Karin! I especially love your cloud cinquain (well worth any number of minutes you put into it!) and your gorgeous, echoey stairwell poem is a masterpiece.
Thanks so much, Michelle!
Enjoyed all of these, Karin. The lantern poem is especially lovely, and I like the change of heart in Picture This.
Thank you, jama. That change of heart about phones has really stuck, and I think more so because I wrote the poem.
Lovely poems, especially The Museum Stairwell and Picture This. I am in awe of those who write beautiful poetry.
Thanks so much, Patricia!
Loved reading these – and I especially loved reading your “echoes” poem over at Laura’s today.
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for stopping by, Robyn. Those echoes like to get around. : )
Your poetry is just lovely. I especially enjoyed Picture This since I am not a phone fan, so I was pleasantly surprised to see what the lady was doing – Camera’s in phones do enable us to catch moments of beauty.
Thank you very much. I’m glad to know that you related to “Picture This.”
Enjoyed February poems
Thank you, Yael.