Tag Archives: Visual Verse

Date Harvesting for #TankaTuesday

Colleen Chesebro has created a new #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons. The season right now is The Autumn Equinox (September 22 – October 7) Shubun 秋分.

My kigo (season) word is date because dates are harvested in Arizona only in the months of September and October. Here is my reverse etheree:

DATE HARVESTING

Under the leafy fronds of the date palms

the molasses-rich, honey-sweet fruit

hangs in heavy grape-like bunches.

Pickers with nets try to skim

whole bunches off the tree

without getting spiked

by fierce needles.

These sweet dates

are worth

risk.

smiling man holding branch with dates
Photo by Radwan Menzer on Pexels.com

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Switching now from autumn to spring, I have an ekphrastic poem up at Visual Verse here: https://visualverse.org/submissions/paschal-moon-at-midlife/. You can see the artwork that inspired it also. Or you can read the poem here (and the link at my name goes to all the poems and stories I’ve had published at this site):

PASCHAL MOON AT MIDLIFE

Luanne Castle

Release yourself from heavy
coats and boots of winter,
wiggle the toes and sense the air
scouting your arms and calves.
Consider the mud puddle, slide
the long grass along your tongue.
Sing in response to the sweet-
sweet-sweet of the cardinal.
In darkness imagine your guide,
the moon a bountiful platter
mirroring pink phlox-covered hills
of your imagination. Relieve
your mind of artificial restraints.
Let it loose into the unknown.

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Ekphrastic Tanka and Ekphrastic Microfiction:#TankaTuesday

We’re here at #TankaTuesday again! Colleen Chesebro’s prompt this week is to write an ekphrastic poem about this painting.

I am rushed for time, so I wrote a tanka since I feel familiar with the form.

This summer Sunday

lie upon the riverbank

and observe movements

of waterfowl and fishers,

neighbor’s herd and young lovers.  

I have a creepy ekphrastic timed (one hour max) microfiction piece up at Visual Verse. If you like creepy in small doses, here is the link and the image that inspired the story:

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February Poem at Visual Verse

I am continuing to submit ekphrastic one-hour poems to Visual Verse. Here is #3, “When We drove Up to the Lake Home Dad Just Bought”:

https://visualverse.org/submissions/when-we-drove-up-to-the-lake-home-dad-just-bought/

This one is another in a long line of Luanne’s lake poems. Makes sense since I grew up in Michigan on and around various lakes.

Merril Smith and a couple of others poets I know also have lovely poems in the February issue.

Here are some new tags I made for my art journals.

Make it a great week!

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