#TankaTuesday #Poetry Stars No. 250: #Poet’sChoice

Posted on by Colleen M. Chesebro

The Holiday’s are Approaching

Books are great gifts to give for the holidays. I’ve read a few articles which said print books are taking longer to make and that Amazon is trying hard to keep up with demands. Shop early and order soon. Support your community writers and poets. I know I am!

Word Weaving #1: A Word Craft Journal of Syllabic Verse (Kindle) purchase link

The Moons of Autumn: A Word Craft Journal of Syllabic Verse (print) purchase link

Welcome to our weekly poetry stars’ celebration. This week’s challenge was Poet’s Choice, where you could choose whatever form you wanted to write. This included freestyle poetry as long as you included a syllabic form with the poem.

I am so excited about next year’s challenge. I have some new ideas to add some magic to our poetry challenges. Did you know some readers don’t take part in the challenge, but work on the different poetry forms on their own? How cool is that?

Your suggestions have helped me decide a path forward. Here’s what you’ve shared so far in order of preference:

  • You all mentioned specific forms the most. You want to learn about specific forms (preferably the shorter forms) with instructions and then try the form out for yourself. This includes explaining the differences between the Japanese forms and the American forms.
  • Next to a specific form, photo or Ekphrastic challenges give you the most poetic inspiration.
  • Themes are also inspiring.
  • Most of you do not prefer the Synonyms Only challenge. Only two poets enjoyed choosing synonyms for the two words. We only have two of those challenges left, and I’ll make them fun for the rest of the year. (I’d already scrapped synonyms only from next year’s calendar).
  • Poet’s Choice is a favorite for some.
  • Rhyming poetry or forced meter is not a favorite. Although, some of the shorter forms use rhyme. We could learn how to work with rhyme schemes together by adding this aspect to the specific forms challenge.
  • Another suggestion was to use a poem as the inspiration to write our own poem. If we did this, I would select poems written by literary poets (including their background) to use as the inspiration for you to write your own poem. We could use a song or a poem for inspiration.
  • Not everyone takes part each week, and that’s okay. The challenge is a place to practice and learn different forms. Some prompts don’t give you inspiration. I understand that. This is a safe place to try new things. Join in when it works for you.
  • I got the impression that most of you enjoy the opportunity of selecting a photo, theme, or even a specific form to use in the challenge. Does that mean you would like the opportunity to teach us how to write a specific form, or do you want to leave that to me? Share your thoughts.
  • Some of you would like the schedule of prompts in a different order each month. We could even change it up quarterly if that is something that sounds fun? Share your thoughts.

If you have any other thoughts to share, please add them in the comments. I would like to grow this syllabic challenge and bring new poets into the community. All suggestions are welcome.

Many thanks to everyone who joined in below:

1.Harmony Kent10.D. L. Finn19.Jude
2.Trent McDonald11.Jules20.s. s.
3.Gwen Plano12.Donna Matthews21.The Versesmith
4.willowdot2113.Cheryl22.theindieshe
5.Elizabeth14.anita dawes23.D.G. Kaye
6.Annette Rochelle Aben15.Selma24.Ruth Klein
7.Reena Saxena16.Kerfe25.You’re next!
8.T. J.S. Sherman17.Balroop Singh  
9.Laura McHarrie18.Colleen Chesebro  

There was some exceptional poetry here this week. Please stop by and have a read!

See you tomorrow for the new challenge!

24 thoughts on “#TankaTuesday #Poetry Stars No. 250: #Poet’sChoice”

  1. Sounds like good ideas for next year. I’ll leave the teaching to you. I don’t pay attention to the order of challengers so I’m open to how they are given.

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  4. Happy to go where you and everyone else here wants to. This is one of my safe places and for that I say Thank You.
    I love all kinds of poetry and as ever I love to read and learn from all entries.💜

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  5. I like particularly that idea of using a poem or song as inspiration. I agree with Merril, that you are always so encouraging of our efforts. It’s something I really appreciate. (K)

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    1. Thanks, Kerfe. I think all types of music are inspiring too. I’ve been excited to research different literary poets to share. We can learn so much from them. That includes the Japanese greats, as well. I love our poetry community! They say practice makes perfect and that is evident in everyone’s poetry. ❤️

      Liked by 1 person

  8. I don’t see any benefit to changing the order of the prompts. For me I like knowing what week is what. Like, “Second week! Synonyms!” Changing the order will cause one or the other to be nearer it’s last use, unless there’s something new thrown in.
    I think “teaching” could be as easy as introducing the form, giving the “rules” and showing an example. That might be fun. There are SO many syllabic forms, and more invented ones all the time!
    Just keep it all syllabic! It’s what makes this place unique! Plus, more challenging.
    At the end of the day, it’s what is easiest for you.

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    1. Oh, yes… we will always stay with syllabic poetry. That is my favorite and why I started the challenge to begin with. I’ll stick close to what we’ve been doing with a few minor changes. No worries. ❤

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  9. Hi aunty!
    The new ideas for this challenge sound interesting. I don’t participate every week, but still read the works of others. It’s a nice place to learn poetic forms.

    With regards to syllabic poetry, I’ve always preferred the shorter forms like Kimo, Lune, Oddquain, Naani and Hay(na)ku besides haiku and tanka. You know better about syllables. So, I’d love to learn more from you, whatever be the forms or the order. (:

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    1. Hello, dear one. That’s excellent advice. I’m thinking of choosing a poet on the recap and they can let me know what form they want to learn and the next month, that’s what we will try. That way, I have time to prepare. ❤

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