DMC: "The Open Door" by Brenda Davis Harsham

THE OPEN DOOR

A brown cardboard package
ker-thumps on my porch.

The open door
creates a cascade.
Icicles scatter-shatter.
Squirrel-tail twitches
before tiny toes flee.
Brown birds heckle and hang
on twig-twanging holly branches.
Rabbits munch ice-crusted clover,
small, round eyes fixed. On me.

I give the cold package a shake.
And a tilt. Bump-whump.
My nose doesn’t quite freeze.

Inside, I slit packing tape,
but some part of me
remains outside
as if my soul is part hound
and the universe has shouted

“Squirrel!”

© 2020 by Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Buffy Silverman has challenged us to write a poem that uses combined or invented words. Click HERE for more details and to read this month's Spotlight ON interview.

Post your poem on our February 2020 padlet. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration this Friday, February 28th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her nonfiction poetry picture book from Millbrook Press:

DMC: "September, When the Heat Finally Breaks and We Open the Windows" by Brenda Davis Harsham

September, When the Heat Finally Breaks 
and We Open the Windows

Rain pounds as sheer
curtains dance a damp minuet.
My husband’s shoulder
moves up and down,
under the tightly-gripped blanket
but the scent of rain
takes me back to camping
in a crowded tent, my children
fidgeting and sighing
around me as frogs croaked
and cicadas hummed, until
I thought I’d never hear my
own heart beat again.
The tent roof was green
and dark with seams from
front to back, moving with breezes.
My bedroom ceiling is cracked
from window to window, a dark
fine-lined pathway
with one dark spot. What is it?
A spider perhaps, frozen there,
wondering the same thing as me:


Why can’t I sleep?

© 2018 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Click HERE to read this month's interview with Naomi Shihab Nye. Her DMC challenge is to write a letter to yourself in which you ask some questions that you don't have to answer. (Please keep in mind that your poem does not need to be in standard letter form.)

Post your poem on our September 2018 padlet. While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month, all contributions will be included in a wrap-up presentation on Friday, September 28th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her latest collection of poetry from Greenwillow Books:

DMC: "To the Facebook Ads that Dog My Days" by Brenda Davis Harsham

TO THE FACEBOOK ADS THAT DOG MY DAYS
          ~with a line from "Black Box, by Devon Hope"

Don’t show me belly fat, underwire bras or tell me what I’m
to think. Or want. Shut down. Back off. I’m allergic
to your diet pill ads, your voyeuristic snidery, asking me to
feel incomplete. For money. My dreams aren’t found in your boxes.

© 2018 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.

"Black Box, by Devon Hope" © 2002 Nikki Grimes, from BRONX MASQUERADE


Click HERE to read this month's interview with Nikki Grimes. She has challenged us to write a golden shovel poem using a line from one of the poems in the post.

Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet. While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month, all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her new companion novel to Bronx Masquerade:

"Annabeth Bakes Cupcakes" by Brenda Davis Harsham

ANNABETH BAKES CUPCAKES

          an Abecedarian Badinage

Annabeth bakes cupcakes 

and decorates energetically

with full, generous handfuls of

ivory irises and jasmine jimmies,

knee-deep in kernels of 

lemon lusciousness and

mouth-watering nuggets 

of orange-spiced peppermint,

in her queenly realm, both

sanctum and treasure trove,

until, unceremoniously,

she vanishes with 

a winsome werewolf 

named Xavier Xanadu, 

yeoman of yak-zombies.

© 2017 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Click HERE to read this month's interview with Carole Boston Weatherford. She has challenged us to write an abecedarian poem.

Generally each line (or word) of an abecedarian poem begins with A and continues in alphabetical order until you reach Z. For this challenge, you may start and end with whichever letters you choose, as long as they are sequential.

Post your poem on our September 2017 padlet. While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month, all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, September 29th. One lucky participant will win a copy of Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Eric Velasquez (Candlewick Press, 2017).

DMC: "A Recipe for Poetry" by Brenda Davis Harsham

A RECIPE FOR POETRY

Preheat the oven.
            Set a deadline.
Measure flour, sugar, eggs.
            Sift emotions, moments, images.
Set mixer to medium.
            Swirl words, rearrange, refine, redefine.
Do not overmix.
            Avoid tunnel vision.
Insert cupcake papers.
            Framework and structure help it rise.
Fill papers to three-quarters. Do not overfill.
            Long division, slice away excess.
Bake.
            Wait. Garden. Paint sunflowers. Play Vivaldi.
Cool.
            Start a new project. Do counter-stretches.
Frost.
            Help the original idea shine.
Top with imagination: sprinkles, sugars, monkey smiles.
             Add jazz, pizzazz, razzle-dazzle.
Taste.
            Take the words inside.
Share.
            Sing them, slam them, ping them, fan them.
Repeat.

© 2017 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Click HERE to read this month's interview with Melissa Manlove, Senior Editor at Chronicle Books. Her DMC challenge is to write a poem that explores how writing (or a book) is like something else.

Post your poem on our May 2017 padlet. While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month, all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, May 26th. Two lucky participants will win a book published by Chronicle earlier this year: LOVING VS. VIRGINIA by Patricia Hruby Powell, illustrated by Shadra Strickland, or LOVE IS by Diane Adams, illustrated by Claire Keane.

DMC: "Ode to Wrapping Paper" by Brenda Davis Harsham

ODE TO WRAPPING PAPER

You sigh as you unroll, your stars
cartwheel and your candy clouds cluster.
The scent of paper newness and
an unwrinkled curl hold back my wrist
as I trim your party music into a square.
Do you know you conceal dreams?
One tear reveals, peels, unseals.

© 2017 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Helen Frost has challenged us to write an ode poem this month, following these instructions:

Choose an object (a seashell, a hairbrush, a bird nest, a rolling pin). It should not be anything symbolic (such as a doll, a wedding ring, or a flag). Write five lines about the object, using a different sense in each line (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell). Then ask the object a question, listen for its answer, and write the question, the answer, or both.

Click HERE to read her sample poem, "Ode to a River."

Post your poem on our March 2017 padlet. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, March 31st, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her latest novel-in-poems from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux/Macmillan:

DMC: An excerpt from "The Children of Privilege" by Brenda Davis Harsham

"Essie, Ruby and Ferdinand, Children of Asher Wertheimer"
by John Singer Sargent (1902)

Essie
I will never live this down,
painted with my kid
brother and sister
when I should be dancing
at balls
or singing
in an opera
or traveling
the continent.
Instead, I will forever
be stuck here,
turpentine
stinging my nose,
with no way
into the world.

Excerpted from "The Children of Privilege" 
© 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Laura Shovan has challenged us to write persona poems this month. Click HERE for more details. You don't need to include the artwork that inspired your poem, but you are welcome to as long as I can properly attribute the artist/photographer.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, May 27th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her fantastic new verse novel for middle grade readers:

DMC: "Echoes" by Brenda Davis Harsham

ECHOES
 
Anyone who falters to a stop,
mid breath, and
lets her words breathe,
then echo,
then die,
is a poet.

Splash your words,
on a page,
flowery or stark,
happy or dark,
make your mark.
Let them tell
their own tale
during this Month
of Poetic Madness.

I hope this April
brings you breathless
to May,
unwilling to stop,
the die cast,
the step taken,
hesitation forgotten,
your voice found,
naked
and admired.

© 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


In celebration of National Poetry Month, Marilyn Singer has challenged us to write poems inspired by the word "echo." Click HERE for more details.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, April 29th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of her fantastic new collection of reverso poems based on Greek myths:

DMC: "Summer Vacation!?" by Brenda Davis Harsham

SUMMER VACATION!?

I won’t write what you tell me!
I have my own plans,
my own thoughts and dreams,
why should I write what you tell me?
Who cares about summer?
Tyler island-hopped in Hawai’i,
Aaron played violin in Jerusalem,
and Nick picked mangoes in India.
Big deal!
Where did I go?
I’m not telling,
I’ll take my secret to the grave!
I’ve seen people fall down,
my stepbrother’s red face up in mine,
dishes break, haters gunna hate,
that’s my summer,
you can’t make me say anything!
Okay, I went nowhere!
I can’t tell you about Vermont or
Antarctica or Australia or Katmandu.
I can tell you about nowhere and nothing!
That’s what I did. I went nowhere,
and I did nothing.
I hid. I ran. I got through every day.
But I won’t write what you say!
Nothing doing!

© 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Douglas Florian has challenged us to write poems about nothing this month. Read his entire spotlight interview HERE.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on Friday, January 29th, and one lucky participant will win a signed copy of his adorable new picture book:

DMC: "Seed for Thought" by Brenda Davis Harsham

Seed for Thought

Kindness is
planting milkweed seed
for a monarch butterfly
we've never met.
My daughter and I
dig a trench along
a wooded path,
where just a bit of light comes in.
It's place where a caterpillar
might live its days in
emerald twilight,
munching its favorite food,
until it winds hope about itself.
Then it can be still,
listening to the wind
and the dog walkers,
the trail joggers
and the children finding pebbles
among the leaves and earth
in this green place of wishes.
Kindness is hoping it grows.
Kindness is carrying water in two hands,
sloshed onto colorful sneakers,
dribbled onto a rumpled trench.
Kindness is wishing all winter
for not-too-cold, not-too-dry,
for that seed to remember
the loving hands that patted
the soil into place.
Kindness is imagining the world
orange and yellow,
full of fluttering wings,
Without a care for oneself.

© 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.


Rebecca M. Davis has challenged us to write poems about acts of kindness this month– the more specific and vivid the better.  Click HERE for more details.

Send your poem to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com, or use the contact form in the sidebar to the right. All contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration this Friday, November 27th, and one lucky participant will win copies of two delightful picture books published by Boyds Mills Press: THIS ORQ. (HE CAVE BOY.) and THIS ORQ. (HE SAY "UGH!") by David Elliott, illustrated by Lori Nichols.