Anyway. Our challenge was to write a pantoum, using these particular prompts from Pádraig Ó Tuama.

This is a verrrrry rough draft, but I’m happy to have felt it and noticed it and written it, such as it is right now.

Cottage Pantoum
By Liz Garton Scanlon

The cottage – boney, beautiful and old
listens to the trees creak (and the crows),
secrets spill upon the sleeping porch like gold.
The moon at half-mast holds quite still and glows,

listens to the trees creak (and the crows)
while carp the size of platters flaunt the night.
The moon at half-mast holds quite still and glows –
real time dissolves to nothing in this light

while carp the size of platters flaunt the night.
My skin awakes to slips of sheets and sand,
real time dissolves to nothing in this light,
another day arriving whole, unplanned.

My skin awakes to slips of sheets and sand,
secrets spill upon the sleeping porch like gold.
Another day arriving whole, unplanned,
in this cottage – boney, beautiful and old.

To read the others, go here:
Tanita
Mary Lee
Laura
Tricia

And if you’d like to write alongside us next month, we’ll be writing haiku sonnets! Try one!

1. It’s arguable, but peaches may well be The Whole Point of Summer.

2. My puppy is a tall and lanky boy but he doesn’t know he can jump. Should I tell him?

3. Cartoonists make it look so easy. How?

4. I like the World Cup a lot more than I expected to and Widow’s Bay a lot less. Life’s a mystery.

5. The live cams are turned on at Katmai National Park. My current favorite bear is Bean.

6. Backyard bamboo is today’s version of Sisyphus’ stone.

7. Getting tickets to the Obama Center is today’s version of getting tickets to the Eras Tour.

8. Maybe the US’s semiquincentennial needed to be a reckoning rather than a celebration. Just saying.

9. I swear, Boston ferns are sentient.

10. What are you reading?

We used it as this month’s jumping-off point, writing poems “In the Style Of...” but from the other side of summer. I like this kind of challenge -- where we’re given a container of sorts and have to work within it. To fill it, I guess! In Texas, June feels like full-on summer rather than the beginning, so that’s what I went with.

June triptych
Liz Garton Scanlon

I.

Freedom is the sun hanging
like laundry on the line,
hot and still – not a breath
of breeze to bother it –
and the day unfolds
as it will.

II.

Look! There are groundhogs
everywhere, out of control
and way too much
to manage.
Holes as tripping hazards
and garden peppers all but gone.
Chaos reigns,
and we hurry
to get ahead of it.

III.

The century plant blooms just once,
this bright spike emerging

from the sharpest,
most protected center,
showing us how

to go out with a beautiful bang
when the time comes.

See the other triptychs here:
Tanita
Mary Lee
Tricia
Sara
Laura

(And our own Tricia is hosting Poetry Friday!)

As for next month, we’re writing pantoums, using Pádraig Ó Tuama’s very specific and sensory prompts (scroll down to find them...) Will you write along with us? I hope so!

Here’s the truth. My poetry sisters and I plan our whole year of prompts each January. It’s challenging! It’s thrilling! It’s… always incomplete! I can’t say why but we inevitably leave one or two months unspoken for. (In our defense, twelve months is a lot of months.) So when May crept up on us and we didn’t have time to sort anything out, Tanita declared a potluck — a bring-what-you-will — so we did.

Since it’s (very nearly) summer, I decided on my grandmother’s strawberry-rhubarb kuchen — tart, pink, eggy, delicious! And since following a recipe is essential when baking, following a poetic form felt necessary, too. Thus, my triolet (with a couple of little cheats — sorry, but think of it like adding just a little shake of nutmeg or ginger).

Strawberry Rhubarb Kuchen: A Triolet
Liz Garton Scanlon

Recipe written in grandmother’s hand
Faithfully followed by cup and by spoon
Dough pressed to crust up the sides of the pan
Recipe written in grandmother’s hand
Warm eggy custard, fresh fruit (never canned)
Strawberries sweet and rhubarb rough-hewn
Recipe written in grandmother’s hand
Faithfully followed, will be ready soon

Now, dig into the other potluck poems. Seriously — eat up!

Sara
Tanita
Tricia
Laura

And don’t forget, it’s our very own Mary Lee, hosting the party in her backyard this week!

As for June, we’ll be writing “In the Style Of” this triptych — August, by Louise Ireland — although we’ll be leaning into summer rather than stepping out of it!! Join us?

2. Tart things are yummy! (This is about rhubarb.)

3. I used to say the Midwest was the country’s best keep secret, but really it’s libraries.

4. Peony season is the prettiest season.

5. The West Wing is quite possibly the perfect show.

6. Collaboration is the way around self-doubt.

7. Mint in fruit salad. And chopped walnuts or hickory nuts. Trust me on this.

8. Ratings may change, but at the moment Enterprise>Budget, United>American, EWR>DEN>ORD.

9. Can the engineers cut it out with AI and just fix the basic voice memo app, please?

10. What are you reading?

10 days to two weeks in, I buckle. I feel a little stressed. Some of my haiku are genuinely terrible. I wonder why I’ve promised to do this??? But then I carb load, catch my stride and head, clear-eyed, toward the finish.

Well, we’re there, folks. April got shorted a day, so this is it, and I’ve got to admit… I’m already a little nostalgic for the ritual of it. I’m like a mother forgetting how hard it was giving birth because look at the baby!!! Anyway, y’all… thanks for reading and writing along, and for sharing your own love of poetry in all the ways.

Joy Harjo says, “When I began to listen to poetry, it’s when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to others. And I think, most importantly for all of us, then you begin to learn to listen to the soul, the soul of yourself in here, which is also the soul of everyone else.”

That’s pretty much the sum of it, I guess. Poetry is a way to listen to — a way to notice — what’s around us and who we are. It’s a way to understand we are one. It’s a deeply necessary light. Thank goodness for it.

Haiku 30, 2026

Day slips into dark.
We can leave it to the moon,
and rest till morning.

So, here’s to the mint and leeks and cherry tomatoes, and here’s to Kirk, whose birthday it is today, and here’s to whatever signs of life we may all be clinging to these days.

Haiku 29, 2026

Ruby red planets
shining through darkest matter
offer proof of life

Haiku 28, 2026

From snug hidey-hole
watchful eyes assess the sky
”Will we fledge today?”

On the walk back to our car, I looked into a great big thistle blossom and saw that it was crawling with folks too — of the beetle variety — and I hoped they were there to help rather than harm!

Imagine my delight to learn that they’re called Kern’s Flower Scarab — could there be a prettier name? — and that they were indeed doing the good work of pollinating. Life really looks after itself sometimes.

Haiku 27, 2026

Wallow in yellow,
enraptured flower scarab.
Then, transmit joy!

(Also, this haiku made me realize — a little tiredly but also tenderly — how close we are to the end of National Poetry Month! Thanks for coming along for the journey, friends…)

Haiku 26, 2026

This great migration
burning, beating hearts and hooves
fixed on the finish

Well. You all. Golden wheel spiders do cartwheels to roll across the landscape quickly and away from prey!! What??? Isn’t the wild world just full of absolutely brilliant and whimsical and gorgeous magic?

Haiku 25, 2026

Brave and free-ranging
like a clutter of spiders
orbing over land

This month, I start a whole new year, and so does my husband. And my pals Krista and Kelly and Bernadette and Audrey and Audrey’s husband Michael. My cousins Anne and Knuckles and my beloved friend Steve and his mom Mary and my uncle DQ and… you get the idea. April brings a daily cacophony of birthdays and fresh starts and surprises and promises.

And today, my friend Sara, who’s had a hard year and really deserves the goodness this new one has to offer. We’ve only been together in person a few times, but we’ve been friends for, gosh, nearly 20 years? And have been writing poems together the whole of that time. Wow. Happy birthday, Sara. And happy birthday to the rest of my April kin and to the baby birds and buds bursting everywhere. Happy birthday.

Haiku 24, 2026

Possibility!
Pink petals layered like cake
or unread pages…

I have been writing ekphrastic haiku every day this month in celebration of National Poetry Month, so I figured I’d just keep that up today! You can read my friends’ ekphrastics here:

Tricia
Sara
Tanita
Mary Lee
Laura

And Irene Latham is hosting Poetry Friday today! Tra la! Enjoy!

Haiku 23, 2026

The dog’s odyssey:
he will not refuse the call!
Hero journeys on.

But then I witnessed a surprising little avian miracle unfolding on my own front porch, reminding me of nature’s insistence. So. Yes. That’s what I’m here for.

Haiku 22, 2026

Potted plant as nest
Wren drops down to hidden clutch
through swaddling fronds

Haiku 21, 2026

I’m in a painting:
Open road and open sky,
impressionist speed

Haiku 20, 2026

Moment of worship:
Is it the dog or the stick
we see bowing down?

Haiku 19, 2026

Here’s rabbit, waiting
for whatever’s coming next,
ready but guarded.

My friends and family in the north could be forgiven for thinking we don’t need or even experience much spring down here in Central Texas, but wow, y’all. The wildflowers! The birdsong! The baby everythings! The shift of seasons is more subtle here, maybe, but we are still so glad for it. And, knowing that summer is coming, we really, really want to hang on to … all of this.

Haiku 18, 2026

In spite of ourselves
we protect what’s most tender
Barbs around beauty

Anyway, it turns out one of the common names for the datura is moonflower. So, on the heels of the Artemis II mission, let the Moon Joy continue! (Nevermind that the datura is super toxic and its other common names are devil’s weed and hell’s bells. Sorry. Life’s not perfect.)

Haiku 17, 2026

Spiral galaxy
yawns into a moonflower
Darkness sits in awe

Haiku 16, 2026

Busy leafcutters
Doing more than your fair share
Small acts change the world