we might ask if this plant matters yetit blooms without our questions
It was easy to choose “Bloom” from Maria Antonia‘s bingo sheet for her #picoftheweek photo challenge. I have a few photos of flowers, some more iconic for this state, like cactus blossoms and the Palo Verde blooms that buzz with insects, wild flowers from the higher elevations to the north. This could be a noxious weed for all I know, but I admire its tenacity. It was doing what it could in the thin soil above Cottonwood, AZ.
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
I have always enjoyed reading poetry. My love started with nursery rhymes which I read repeatedly when I was a child. I had some personal favourites including The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly, and Who Killed Cock Robin. My enjoyment of nursery rhymes developed rather naturally into a delight in poetry.
When I was at school, we were made to learn certain poems off by heart. This was required for both English, my first language, and Afrikaans, my secondary language.
Astonishingly, some of the poems I learned impacted me so much, I can still recite them. Do you recognise these lines?
“When you hear it languishing
and hooing and cooing, and sidling through the front teeth,
the Oxford voice
or worse still
the would-be Oxford voice
you don’t even laugh any more, you can’t.”
OR
“But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.”
Over time, my enjoyment of reading poetry evolved into a pleasure in writing poetry. For me, poetry is like a pressure valve, writing it allows me to work through emotions and thoughts that plague me and I use my poems to try to make sense of them. I have poems about corporate life, relationships, poverty in Africa, and lately, the demise of the creatures that populate our beautiful planet, with a focus on South Africa.
When I started blogging in August 2016, I planned to use my blog as a way of sharing my own poetry and thoughts about poetry. I had no idea when I took that initial step that I would be entering a marvellous world of creators. Over the past five and a half years, I’ve met poets, writers, artists, and photographers and entered a world of creative learning beyond anything I’d experienced before.
With specific regard to poetry, I realised that I could learn to see things differently, to appreciate
how other people viewed a picture or prompt and how their thought processes differed from my own. I opened a door to a whole new world of poetry forms.
This, is a nutshell, is why I love poetry anthologies. They are a doorway into the minds, ideas, and poetic thoughts of a spectrum of other creatives. I love discovering new poets and partaking of their work in bite sized chunks and an anthology often leads me to purchase more of selected poets’ work. I enjoy learning from others under the combined artistic endeavour of a poetry anthology.
Today, in celebration of WordCrafter Press’ new anthology, Treasuring Poetry 2: Relationships, I have selected three poems from the book to recite to you.
Robbie Cheadle is a South African children’s author and poet with ten children’s books and two poetry books.
The eight Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.
Robbie has also published two books for older children which incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.
Robbie has two adult novels in the paranormal historical and supernatural fantasy genres published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. She also has short stories, in the horror and paranormal genre, and poems included in several anthologies.
Robbie writes two monthly posts for https://writingtoberead.com called Growing Bookworms and Treasuring Poetry and one monthly post, under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle, called Dark Origins: African Myths and Legends.
Hello, briefly. I am still on a writing and blogging break, but here is a picture inspired from Maria Antonia‘s bingo sheet for her #picoftheweek photo challenge. This is a sunset sky west of Tucson. We’re farther north now and have seen a lot of amazing and fragile terrain.
Have a good week!
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
This is a check in. I have been rather absent from blogging and will continue to be, though if possible I may manage a picture each weekend. I have enjoyed this weekly picture sharing, taking inspiration from Maria Antonia‘s bingo sheet for her #picoftheweek photo challenge. I also have noticed there hasn’t been a blue sky in any of mine since early February on a day when I was out snowshoeing under the trees. I did something about it, though the skies here are hazy with blowing dust and smoke from fires. I am presently under blue skies and palm trees and cactus are all around even in the city limits of Tucson. Better pictures to follow, maybe, I never claimed to be a good photographer.
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
I had it in mind all week to take a picture of Holsteins for the “Black & White” square for Maria Antonia‘s photo challenge. Before getting to the farm I saw this banner hanging from the deck railing of a cafe and went with this cow and all she stands for. (Though cropped, this is a photo of a banner. If I find out who the artist is, I’ll come back and plug the name in.)
Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
(Shorty carries a California apricot crate to the stage at the Saddle Up Saloon, places it in front of the mic to reach, steps up.)
(Mic check…testing…testing.)
SQUEEEAL (sorry folks that was Curly, not the mic).
(Clears throat…)
“Howdy Ranchers!
“Shorty here to tell ya’ll how much fun it is to play with word wranglers. When some of you first ambled ‘cross the plains to find this here Carrot Ranch, why it weren’t more than a dream in a sandbox. We’ve wrangled 99ers together ever since. Kid and Pal came along and them hands been real steady. What a couple a characters, them two!
“Over winter, staring into the fire to keep warm and hopeful, I thought, why not add another game? One just for fun. No collectin’, no promotin’ just old-fashioned story-tellin’ off the cuff. Course, I responded to my own way of thinkin’ with…
TheApril 4, 2022, story challengefrom Charli Mills at Carrot Ranch is to: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story to explain “baby ducks ate my lunch.” How did that happen? Who is the protagonist? Where did the baby ducks come from? Go where the prompt leads! Submit by April 9, 2022.
Learning Curve by D. Avery
“You’re keeping that Pickett boy after school? Don’t waste your time. Picketts are lazy liars. He actually says that a goat eats his homework.”
“It’s plausible,” said Mrs. K. “His family does raise animals.”
“You mean they live in a pigsty. And today in the cafeteria he wouldn’t eat, just sat there, said he usually brings lunch from home but that baby ducks ate it. Baby ducks!”
Mrs. K sighed as her colleague left. Then she went to her snack drawer, more concerned with what the ducks ate than what the goat ate, whether there were ducks or not.
Be sure to go to Carrot Ranch to read the complete“Ready For a Change” collection from last week. And there’s always the Ranch Yarns with Kid and Pal’s responses HERE.
A Six Sentence Story is a story told in exactly six sentences. It could also be a six lined or six stanza poem; it could be a soc, a bots, or creative non-fiction. This week’s prompt word, provided by our hostess Denise, at GirlieOntheEdge, is “rhythm“. I’m early this week, the link will open Wednesday at six pm, EST, so write now so you can link up your story then and join the fun crowd of Sixers.
A Strong, Regular, Repeated Pattern by D. Avery
Rodney Snoddergust, though a good sport, was not known for athleticism or coordination, in fact quite the opposite.
In basketball he stood out for his clumsy missteps and spectacular airballs and at season’s end when the court was transformed and decorated for that unfortunate school dance, his signature move was, all too literally, the anklebreaker.
He and his dance partner were both healed and ambulatory by baseball season, when Rodney stoically donned cleats and took up the bat for his team, but always he swung a beat too late, never occasioning to hear the gratifying ring of aluminum connecting with the ball, nor the satisfying slap of a ball in the pocket of his mitt.
But his school also fielded a spelling bee team and it was here that Rodney excelled; in this arena Rodney was the cleanup hitter assuring his team of victory; here he confidently stamped out the letters of the most obscure words linguistics had to offer in a metronomic voice that never faltered throughout the finals, for here Rodney was in the zone.
There was only one word that rattled this spelling prodigy, and suddenly the pronouncer lobbed it, that vexing six letter word that seemed strangled and constricted by its plethora of consonants, but Rodney took a deep vowelly breath and stepped up to the microphone.
Yes, it is once again time for my weekly snapshot in response to Maria Antonia‘s photo challenge. Maria has updated the bingo sheet with 25 new categories for April, May, and June. Check out Maria’s #2022picoftheweek to see how you can participate in this fun prompt.
So what is it for these chickens, caught in the act of crossing the road? Tradition? Feathers? Wanderlust?
spring chicken free range forager unruffled
One hen remained in the road, scratching and eating grit. Perhaps this week I shall cross off Cheeky.
If you like chickens and poetry you are sure to like Chicken Shift. It contains the answers to some of life’s questions.
ShiftnShake 