This is my response to the W3 prompt by Leslie Scoble. (Congrats, Leslie!)

The prompt: Write a monologue poem in which a character—historical, fictional, or original—takes center stage. Step into their voice and let them speak. Who are they, and whom are they addressing? Reveal their personality through their words, tone, and actions.

• Set the Scene – Your character must be seated on a bench. It could be a park bench, a courtroom seat, a workbench, or even the dreaded school “naughty bench.”
• Use Subtext – What remains unsaid is just as important as what is spoken. Let hidden emotions or unspoken truths add depth.
• Engage the Audience – Though alone, their words should feel directed at someone or something—whether a specific listener, a memory, or the universe itself. 
• Finish Strong – End with a revelation, a twist, or a lingering thought that leaves an impact.

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This is loosely based on some family history of my great-grandfather, Martin Hopkins, who was a Nantucket fisherman who died when his schooner went down in a storm in 1899.

This is the W3 Challenge for this week, given by Anupama, the Poet of the Week.

• Challenge: Reimagine emotions as objects;
  • What if feelings took shape? Anger could be a blade, sharp and biting. Loneliness might be an echo in an empty room;
• Poetic form: Any
• Length: No more than 12 lines

I struggled with this. My first attempt was using the Irish Snam Suad. I put the rules below the poem — and I, of course, didn’t follow all of them. Also, is introvert an emotion or just a state of being?

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A closed box
Rarely talks
Readily

Disconcert
-ed by crowds
Too too loud
In a shroud

Introvert

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Rules for Snam Suad:

• all lines have 3 syllables with the following rhyme pattern: aabcdddc
• lines four and eight are 3-syllable words, all other lines end in monosyllabic words
• lines two and three share consonance
• lines three and four, six and seven, and four and seven share alliteration
• line seven uses alliteration

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Frankly, I was not satisfied with my introvert poem so I tried again with a different Irish form: Deibide baise fri toi and different object-emotion pairing. Water — Peace. It makes sense to me, but I’m not sure I communicated it.

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Rules for Deibide baise fri toi:

• The poem and/or stanzas within the poem are quatrains (or 4-line stanzas).
• Rhyme scheme for each stanza is a simple aabb pattern.
• Lines one and two rhyme on a two-syllable word; lines three and four rhyme on a monosyllabic word.
• Line one has three syllables, line two has seven, line three has seven, and line four has one

I met a prattling woman
From her mouth, the words kept a-comin’
Critical talk-talk-talk-talk
Like a hen: bawk-bawk-BAWK
’til I finally exploded and said,
“You realize, don’t you, that you aren’t the only person in this room,
or this organization,
this town,
this country,
or this world,
right?
You need to stop talking.
Stop talking.
Listen.
Take a breath.
Other people have thoughts and feelings.
They may be different than yours but they are just as valid.
The biggest problem right now in this country isn’t
transgender troops or
government waste or
Venezuelan gangs.
It’s that people don’t listen.
They don’t.
They talk over people.
They mock.
They belittle.
They shut down conversations.
They think everything is about them.
Please stop.”

Actually I didn’t say that. But I woke up in the middle of the night wishing I had.

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This is my response to this week’s W3 prompt: write an Almost Poem, a poem that’s almost something, but not quite.

Actually, I’m not sure how almost this is. It’s based on my day yesterday. Or a snippet of it.

Congrats to Jaideep, this week’s Poet of the Week. I HIGHLY recommend reading his poem You, Me and the Catastrophe of Love. It’s amazing!

He presses
Himself to the wall. Guesses
She won’t see him out of view —
Boo!

So surpised!
You! she yells, giggling disguised
As annoyance, but she’s not
Hot

She’s laughing!
The fun is telegraphing
A bond they share. It’s such prime
Time.

’cause sometimes
I think being scared (oft-times)
Is half the fun… More than half!
Laugh!

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This is my response to this week’s W3 prompt. POW, Violet, gave us three quotes to choose from to incorporate into our poem — all having to do with “The Human Condition.” I chose a quote from Krystal Sutherland, House of Hollow: “Sometimes I think being scared is half the fun.”

I used a Celtic form called Deibide Baise Fri Toin. Syllable counts per line are 3-7-7-1. Lines 1 and 2 rhymes on 2 syllables. Lines 3 and 4 rhyme on one.

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This is my submission to the W3 challenge this week. The challenge was to write a Ghazal on the theme of Love. Here are the instructions for a Ghazal:

• Made up of a chain of couplets, where each couplet is an independent poem;
  • It should be natural to put a comma at the end of the first line of each couplet;
• The Ghazal has a refrain of one to three words that repeat, and an inline rhyme that precedes the refrain;
  • Lines 1 and 2, then every second line, have this refrain and inline rhyme;
• The last couplet should refer to the author’s name;
• The rhyming scheme is AA bA cA dA eA etc.

I read and read and read the instructions and, in the end, did only half of them. I wrote couplets, I had a refrain (though not at the end of the line), and the last couplet refers to my name. But the internal rhyme and the rhyme scheme? – Meh.