Poetry Sisters Write TriCubes

Phillip Larrea is an American poet and syndicated columnist. He invented a poetic form he calls TriCubes. Tricubes are poems composed of three stanzas, each containing three lines of three syllables. This was the form my poetry sisters and I took on as this month's challenge.

This year, we have no theme to hang our poems on, so we are free to write on any topic. I began by drafting poems related to the lunar new year. Then I turned to the snow, my dog, and baking. The biggest hurdle in writing these poems was making them sound and feel poetic. Three-syllable lines are a challenge. I liked what some of the drafts were trying to do, but they felt choppy and unfinished. I finally turned to writing a series of three-syllable lines on related topics and tried to rearrange them into coherent poems. That approach didn't really work. In the end, I found the first poems I wrote to be the best of the bunch.

Tricube for the Year of the Horse

New year dawns
doors open
luck enters

kin gather
to honor
ancestors

lanterns rise
wishes fly
like horses

Tricube for the Lunar New Year

two moons past

the winter

solstice eve

the new year 

welcomes spring

and the horse

hooves thunder

hearts gallop

luck runs wild

Block Printing Tricube

printmaker

sees art in

black and white 

lines and curves

gouged and cut

inked and rolled

paper smoothed

breathe and lift

image blooms

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2026. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? We're writing poems in response to a poem (any poem, you choose!) written by the current U.S. Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on February 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems! 

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm. Happy poetry Friday! 

Poetry Friday is Here!

No matter which holiday you are celebrating this season, I wish you peace and light.

I am happy to host this last Poetry Friday of the year on a day when my poetry sisters and I have written to another challenge. This month, we were not locked into form, but theme, writing on the theme of peace, light, or hope.

I've been thinking of my mom lately, and all moms who deal with the chaos of the season. I wanted to write about finding peace in the midst of that chaos. I settled on the form of a sonnet. I had trouble choosing my favorite couplet to end it, so I'm sharing both.

Untitled Sonnet

When Christmas comes with drums and clanging cheer
the house becomes a stage for wild delight
the bells, the lists, the shouts of “Mom, come here!”
begin at dawn and echo through the night

The children shout, the playlist never ends
the oven groans beneath a sugared load
each hour invents three tasks it swiftly sends
to me alone, patrol of hearth and road

I crave sweet peace—a chair, a steaming cup
a door that stays untouched for sixty beats
I’d trade one present just to drink it up
in silence all alone and off my feet 

Yet when night falls and all the clamor ends
I laugh—this noise is love, my loudest friend

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

Here is the second couplet I wrote to end the sonnet. Which do you like better? 

Yet when night falls and all the sounds depart
I miss the noise that fills my tired heart

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below.

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

We will be writing to 12 new challenges next year. We meet in early January to make our poetry plan. As soon as we have a January challenge, we'll share it with you so you can join in the fun.

I will be hitting the road before the sun comes up tomorrow to drive to western NY to visit family. That means I won't be around to visit your blogs and read your poems until late in the day or over the weekend. Rest assured that I will stop by!

Please join the Poetry Friday party by leaving your link below, and don't forget to leave a comment to let us know you're here. Happy poetry Friday, friends!  

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Poetry Sisters Tackle the Burning Haibun

This month, the poetry sisters faced the challenge of the burning haibun. A burning haibun is composed of at least three parts—a prose poem, an erasure of that prose poem, and a haiku derived from an erasure of the previous erasure. PHEW! What I found most difficult about this form is the requirement that each erasure represents something different from the section that came before. 

You can read more about the form at Writing from the Ashes: On the Burning Haibun and Writing Prompt: Burning Haibun.

I have written haiku and blackout poems, but I have never written a prose poem. That's where this needed to start. I also tried to keep our theme of "in conversation" in mind, but I'm not sure the use of the word voices manages to get me there. Either way, this was a tough challenge, so I am happy to have a draft to share. The image shows the erasure that created the second poem. Below the image you can read the poem without the blackout. I like both forms, but for different reasons. There's something startling about seeing the earasure as part of this burning down of poetry.

On Resilience: A Burning Haibun

The ninth month burns at both ends. Morning arrives too soon, light spilling like fever across the asphalt. I run because not running feels heavier. The ground hums beneath me, a living pulse of heat and dust. I think of orbit, of repetition—how the earth returns to the same place and calls it new.
The body remembers what the mind resists. Each mile a small defiance, each footfall a kind of prayer. Autumn waits behind the curtain, still painting her leaves. The air burns, clings to summer’s breath, unwilling to let go.
Voices crescendo and pass me—strangers, certain, unbroken. I am neither fast nor sure. I am only moving, carrying the weight of my own doubt. The finish line is not a place but a threshold—thin, invisible, already inside me.
The sun watches everything. I keep running toward the part of myself that does not quit.

Morning arrives
the pulse of repetition
the earth remembers
resists defiance
each prayer clings to me
certain, unbroken
carrying the doubt 
inside me

The sun watches everything
that does not quit

morning remembers

each prayer, certain, unbroken

the sun does not quit

Burning Haibun ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below. 

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? We're writing poems inspired by something overheard. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on November 28th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems! 

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Jone Rush MacCulloch. Happy poetry Friday all! And Happy Halloween!

Poetry Sisters Write Tritina

This month's challenge was to write in the form of the tritina. The tritina is composed of 3 tercets and a final line (envoi) that stands alone. Similar to a sestina, though shorter, it uses a set of 3 alternating end words instead of six. The form is: 123 / 312 / 231 / 1, 2, 3 (final line/envoi).

Our theme for the year is "in conversation." The last time we wrote to this form (May 2016 if you want to check them out), we generated a list of words and selected our end words from the communal list. We didn't do that this time around, and I found not having words to work with made the challenge a lot harder.

Given our charged political times, I wanted to write about political conversations, but that didn't go well. I wrote a lot of really terrible poems before finally settling on the subject of secrets and whispering. After some thought and numerous revisions, I have two drafts. I wrote at least 10 different envois for version 1, and didn't like any of them. I tried some new end words and found that I like version 2 much better.

Image from: https://theosophical.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/telephone-game.jpg

The Telephone Game - Version 1
The message starts with just a whisper
children gather close to listen
as words twist and spark a laugh

The meaning bends and others laugh
as words are passed along in a whisper
each eager ear strains to listen

The end of the line waits to listen
excitement growing with every laugh—
but the truth slips by, lost in a whisper

Children at play whisper, listen, laugh—making indelible memories

The Telephone Game - Version 2
A secret phrase shared in a whisper
from lips to ear, heads bend
together in the telephone game

Truth unravels in the game
laughs punctuate every whisper
meaning shifts as words bend

Children in the circle wait to bend
their neighbor's ear in a game
carried forward whisper by whisper

In every whisper, truth bends to shape the game

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below. A few folks are traveling this month, but they may pop up later with a poem.

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? We're writing burning haibun. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on October 31st in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems! 

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Amy VanDerwater at The Poem Farm. Happy poetry Friday all!

Poetry Friday - Summer Poems Zine

Hello friends. I participated in Tabatha Yeatts summer poetry swap again this year. I received so many lovely poems and gifts from this community. I plan to highlight them in a post later this month. 

Today I want to share the poems I wrote for others and the zine I created to collect them all in one place. Here's what it looks like (unfolded).

You can download the file if you would like to fold your own copy. 

Do you need directions on how to fold a zine? 

Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord at makingbooks.com offers numerous free resources for creating various book forms. She calls this zine format a hotdog booklet. I love her easy-to-follow directions and images. You will find written directions and a downloadable PDF for this form on her site.

For the swap this year, I made and sent "poetry wallets," which were paper wallets made from recycled (upcycled?) envelopes with poetic form cards inside. Here's a peek at what they looked like.

The poems I wrote this year reflected some of the forms on the cards (there were 12 form cards in the wallet) and were all on summer topics. I usually do a better job of personalizing poems, so I fell short of the mark this time around. I wrote a sixth poem, not in one of these funky forms, but something more traditional (a sonnet), and sent it off to my pal Tanita, who was settling in to a new place this summer. That is the poem I'm sharing today.

Goodbye to Summer

In summer's garden fading in its glow  

old blossoms with their vibrant colors dim

yet fruits now swell with autumn's promise, slow  

as daylight wanes and shadows softly skim  

The apples blush with hints of rosy red 

as pears hang golden from big branching arms 

the vines with grapes like jewels finely spread

invite a taste of fall's forthcoming charms 

Faint is the buzz where once the bees did weave  

among the blooms now yielding to the field

tired flora gently take their leave

as nature turns, her secrets slow revealed

Thus ends sweet summer with its parting song  

to herald autumn's time, both crisp and strong

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

Image by wirestock on Freepik

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Happy poetry Friday all!

Poetry Sisters Talk Back to a Poem

This month, our challenge was to talk back to a poem, specifically the poem "Talk to Me Poem, I Think I Got the Blues" by Nikki Giovanni. (Note that this link is to the only written version I could find, and it is incomplete and has a few errors.) Since this poem was performed at a Def Poetry Jam, you really must hear it, not just read it.

There's so much I love about this poem and this performance. I love how poem is a metaphor that stands in for a person, or a people. I love how sassy Giovanni is in her writing and delivery. That's the cue I took in thinking about my own poem. I'm not sure I've talked back to this poem as much as modeled mine on its form, but I had fun trying.

Let's Talk, Poem

Alone? I’ve always have company—

a choir of crickets,

a half-broke heart that won’t quit singing

and every secret I've never said out loud.

Jail? I ran the cellblock.

I etched myself on the walls,

traded verses for cigarettes,

made guards hum my lines

when they thought no one was listening.

Lost? I don’t get lost.

I wander.

I slip out the back door

hide in alleys of memory,

show up on a porch swing

when the singing begins.

Neglected? Maybe, but

I don’t sulk.

I'm aging like vinyl—

a bit scratched and dusty,

but drop the needle

and I still spin fine.

Plans? I don’t do plans.

I happen.

I crash parties,

steal the spotlight,

turn silence into fireworks.

Miss home? I am home,

whenever a tongue

dares to speak me out loud, 

So don’t come crying, baby.

You got the blues? 

I taught the blues how to sway.

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below. A few folks are traveling this month, but they may pop up later with a poem.

• Tanita Davis
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

Would you like to try the next challenge? We will be writing tritina. The tritina is composed of 3 tercets and a final line (envoi) that stands alone. Similar to a sestina, though shorter, it uses a set of 3 alternating end words instead of six. The form is: ABC / CAB / BCA / A, B, and C (final line/envoi). We are continuing to write poems around the theme of "in conversation." You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on September 26th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems! 

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Karen Edmisten. Happy poetry Friday all!

Poetry Friday - Box Triolets

It's been a long time since I've written a poem for David Harrison's Word of the Month Poetry Challenge. The word for August is box.

I'm quite fond of the triolet, so that's the form I chose to write in. A triolet is an 8-line poem that uses only two rhymes throughout. Additionally, the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines, while the second line is repeated in the final line. Because of this, only five different poetic lines are written.  The rhyme scheme for a triolet is ABaAabAB (where capital letters stand for repeated lines).

I tried several different box topcis, but finally landed on Pandora's box and cat in a box. I'm still working on a Schrödinger's cat poem, which I think would be funny, but I'm just not there yet. Here are the two poems I'm sharing today.

Pandora's Box Triolet

Pandora's box was opened wide

unleashing woes upon the land,

yet hope remained, a light inside

Pandora's box was opened wide

from its troubles we could not hide

but hope endured, our guiding hand

when Pandora's box was opened wide

unleashing woes upon the land

A cat in an empty box at rest

curled in a corner snug and tight 

where simple spaces feel the best

a cat in an empty box takes rest 

a quiet spot becomes a nest

in a cardboard world of pure delight 

a cat in an empty box at rest, 

curled in corner snug and tight. 

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2025. All rights reserved.

I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe. Happy poetry Friday all!