I wanted to share some of the poetry I have been writing in response to our current global situation. I am using the format of a form challenge--something I typically do in April for National Poetry Writing Month. I hope you see something that inspires you. Follow me on facebook for almost daily form challenges.

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge (why wait until April for NaPoWriMo?)
Day 1

All calm and all bright
No cars on the street tonight
Just enjoy the moon

~sf 3.16.20
Day 1: Haiku

Share your haiku (5-7-5 syllables)

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge, Day 2

An Irish Blessing 

May time spent in your dwelling be met with good health

May your days fill with reading—your solace feel like wealth

May your goals turn to gold like the sunshine in spring

And may God hear our prayers and brighter days bring

~sf 3.17.20

Write a blessing & share it!

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge, Day 3

All That Has Befallen Us

Ravaged by lonely, lovely decay
Seeping through our subconscious
We measure not time as an epoch or age
But by all that has befallen us

Sifting to find what must go, what can stay
Too proud of the stain and the rust
Ravaged by lonely, lovely decay
Seeping through our subconscious

How the soot stained past still holds sway!
Shadows of an era still arduous
Our sin sheared souls now innocuous
Ravaged by lonely, lovely decay
Seeping through our subconscious
We measure time through our wanton ways
And by all that has befallen us

~sf 11.7.16 & 3.18.20
Modified French Form
(Somewhere between a Villanelle & a Kyrielle)

I wrote this several years ago, and I could not stop thinking about it as things change around us. “Katrina,” “911,” “Challenger Explosion,” in my lifetime are the ways by which we measure time...and now this.

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge Day 4

Let’s Roam!

Because we can’t meet up today
Confined to these four walls I’ll stay
And though I scarcely leave my bed
I roam the streets inside my head

A trip down Dauphin, late for brunch
Exploring Backflash on a hunch
I long to wander, yet instead
I roam the streets inside my head

So should your loneliness consume
Our spirits join til life resume
To help choke back this sense of dread
We’ll roam the streets inside our heads

~sf 3.19.20

For my non-Mobile folks, Dauphin St. is the main path downtown where everything happens or happens nearby. Backflash is a fantastic antique shop I love to browse on Sundays after brunch at any of the fantastic local spots. 

A Kyrielle is a French form of rhyming poetry written in 3 or more quatrains (a stanza consisting of 4 lines), each with a repeating line or phrase as a refrain as the last line of each stanza. Each line has eight syllables.

Quarantine Poetry Form Challenge Day 5

Allergic Reactions

It seems pollen has fallen on all our plans

Rest assured the rain will wash it away

Forgive yourself time to not understand

It seems pollen has fallen on all our plans

Past the saffron dust fallout we’ll join hands

For now take this time to live in the day

It seems pollen has fallen on all our plans

Rest assured the rain will wash it away

~sf 3.22.20
A Triolet consists of 8 lines. Within a Triolet, the 1st, 4th, and 7th lines repeat, and the 2nd and 8th lines do as well. The rhyme scheme is simple: ABaAabAB, capital letters representing the repeated lines