Capitalism by Elaine Fowler Palencia published in Rattle, August 18, 2021 Along the two-lane blacktops of my childhood we stopped to buy watermelons. Mother thumped them, listening for that deep, ripe sound. If she hesitated, the farmer would take out his clasp knife, cut a square plug for tasting, offer it on the point of his knife. She always bought the melon he’d spoiled for us. Later, a high school friend who sold Bibles door-to-door for spending money, said he was sent o

This week's prompt acknowledges that we all have different reactions to winter and its holidays. Write about winter. You can even use "What Winter Means to Me" as a placeholder title. (But please change that in revision, as that is not a great title.) You can focus on a specific memory, incident, holiday, or person. Use lots of specific details that entail the 5 senses: the smell of popcorn at the Super Bowl party, the sounds of waves on the beach, the feel of -40 on an uncov

Christmas, 1970 by Sandra M. Castillo published in her book, My Father Sings, to My Embarrassment, White Pine Press We assemble the silver tree, our translated lives, its luminous branches, numbered to fit into its body. place its metallic roots to decorate our first Christmas. Mother finds herself opening, closing the Red Cross box she will carry into 1976 like an unwanted door prize, a timepiece, a stubborn fact, an emblem of exile measuring our days, marked by the moment o

Chanukah Lights Tonight by Steven Schneider published in his 2000 book, Prairie Air Show, Talking River Publications Our annual prairie Chanukah party— latkes, kugel, cherry blintzes. Friends arrive from nearby towns and dance the twist to “Chanukah Lights Tonight,” spin like a dreidel to a klezmer hit. The candles flicker in the window. Outside, ponderosa pines are tied in red bows. If you squint, the neighbors’ Christmas lights look like the Omaha skyline. The smell of oil

Read today's blog poem, "Cherries in Winter," by Claudette Mork Sigg. Then, if you do not know this poem by heart, go read/re-read Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays," which you can find here. Each of these poems has a parent doing seemingly small, ordinary tasks for their families. But both poets expertly make it known to us readers that these acts are anything but tiny. Think back to your own childhood. What was something that one of your parents (or one of your guardian

Cherries in Winter by Claudette Mork Sigg When the fruit came in, my mother went on binges. She spent the night canning, naked, in the bright hot kitchen working over the stove. In the morning she emerged, sanctified by her love affair with carnelian cherries, spiced pears, apricots intoxicated in their own scent. The kitchen clean, she stood in front of rows of shining glass jars waiting to be carried down to the basement. When winter edged the lawns with frost, she filled o

Evening Meal by Tiffany Midge Mushrooms are seekers. They sweat in a pan of garlic and butter, fuss, bicker and toss— toughing it out like the rest of us. They furl, tucking into themselves along an arm of steam. They eye a slant of vinegar, the crush of lemon rising like a halved sun along horizon of skillet. And all because they want what we want: the dose of salt, the kiss, to be poured onto a plate. They want praise, perhaps even dare, ask for love.

An Old Man Performs Alchemy on His Doorstep at Christmastime by Anna George Meek published in her book, Acts of Contortion (2002) Cream of Tartar, commonly used to lift meringue and angel food cake, is actually made from crystallized fine wine. After they stopped singing for him, the carolers became transparent in the dark, and he stepped into their emptiness to say he lost his wife last week, please sing again. Their voices filled with gold. Last week, his fedora nodded

This week's prompt asks that you consider postage stamps. Write a poem that focuses on stamps in some way, or at least mentions a stamp/stamps. Your poem's speaker could be licking a stamp, decorating a tray with stamps, dating a philatelist, or mulling over the history of stamps, or any other number of things. Let your imagination stamp itself into your writing! Information about stamps can be found in many places, both IRL and online, but you can start here: Smithsonian Nat

Written on a Bathroom Wall in Rome by Gráinne Tobin published in Banshee, Issue #3, Autumn/Winter 2016 This window is kept open: the catch sticks. Take care not to drop items into the courtyard four storeys below, especially if awakened at three a.m. when nightingales renew their legendary song during the break in traffic before dawn— if you must lean out, entranced, holding your mobile phone set to record, saving this wonder to your sim card, observe all reasonable precautio

One of my favorite classroom activities in my Composition classes was to put the students into small groups, then ask them--as a group--to come up with the most poorly written sentence they could come up with. We did this exercise in the middle of the semester, when they had learned enough about grammar, diction, and punctuation to know how to break rules. The students then put each group's sentences on the board, pointed out all the errors in the sentence, and we voted on th

Whir by Marjorie Power published in Peacock Journal, 2017 Preparing to market our last house we sort mugs, linens, boots, books, hooks in little plastic drawers nesting bowls and winter coats. We choose which furniture to sell – trestle table, fairy tale bed. We circle through each carousel of tiny photos meant to be seen projected large on a bleach-white screen left at Goodwill before we moved here. Left with its partner, that machine whose whir meant all’s right with t