What better way to celebrate National Poetry Month than by creating a progressive poem with a community of kind and caring poets! Irene Latham started this practice in the kidlit community in 2012, and Margaret Simon took over in 2020, my first year of participation.

The rules are simple:
Each poet-blogger adds a line, creating a poem for children by copying the previous lines exactly as written (unless permission from the previous poet is obtained). Commentary on the process is welcome but optional.

Here’s what we have so far:

Suddenly everything fell into place
like raindrops hitting soil and sinking in.

When morning first poked me, I’d wished it away
my mind in the mist, muddled, confused.

We know in the end things are going to fall into place, and that there appears to be a struggle or challenge ensuing. I loved the way Buffy’s line (the last one), captured that feeling of waking, when your mind is “muddled, confused.” Putting myself in that position, I realized the first thing I would do was question what was happening. I wanted to stay in that moment a bit longer. Here’s the poem again with my line added:

Suddenly everything fell into place
like raindrops hitting soil and sinking in.

When morning first poked me, I’d wished it away
my mind in the mist, muddled, confused.

Was this a dream, or reality, rousing my response?

Here is the list of participants and their blogs if you want to follow along:
April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading
April 2 Heidi Mordhorst, My Juicy Little Universe
April 3 Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference
April 4 Buffy’s Blog
April 5 Rose Cappelli, Imagine the Possibilities
April 6 Donna Smith, Mainely Write
April 7 Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche
April 8 Leigh Anne, A Day in the Life
April 9 Linda Mitchell, A Word Edgewise
April 10 Denise Krebs, Dare to Care
April 11 Emma Roller, Penguins and Poems
April 12 Dave Roller, Leap Of Dave
April 13 Irene Latham Live You Poem
April 14 Janice Scully, Salt City Verse
April 15 Jone Rush MacCulloch
April 16 Linda Baie, TeacherDance
April 17 Carol Varsalona, Beyond Literacy Link
April 18 Marcie Atkins
April 19 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in My Orchard 
April 20 Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes
April 21 Sarah Grace Tuttle,  Sarah Grace Tuttle’s Blog,
April 22 Marilyn Garcia
April 23 Catherine,  Reading to the Core
April 24 Janet Fagal, hosted by Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference
April 25 Ruth, There is no Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town
April 26 Patricia J. Franz, Reverie
April 27 Theresa Gaughan, Theresa’s Teaching Tidbits
April 28 Karin Fisher-Golton, Still in Awe Blog
April 29 Karen Eastlund, Karen’s Got a Blog
April 30 Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, and Writing

I’m looking forward to seeing what Donna adds tomorrow at Mainely Write, and how the story uncontinues to unfold. To those readers celebrating Passover, I hope you enjoy the special time with your families.

Thanks for reading!