This poem was written for the Lyric Line of the Week game played by the Saturday Songwriters, inspired by our 2020 sessions on Instagram with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol. The prompt was: “an unruly collection.”
I never intended to write this poem.
But isn’t that always the way.
MK Brennan always emails interested Saturday Songwriters the Lyric Lines she doesn’t have entries for when she’s editing our collections. When she did this for The Fire is Still Going, I replied with three poems. When she did this in March 2025 for Book 2, I replied with one poem. The next day, I replied with a second. The next day, I replied with a third.
“Sorry I keep doing this,” I told her. She laughed and said didn’t mind.
Now it was April 1, the first day of National Poetry Month, and my friend Charles Waters (and many other illustrious poets) were on a virtual panel hosted by Highlights that didn’t cost anything to attend. (You can watch the replay here.)
You 100% know I showed up! I have been a poet my whole life but I have zero formal instruction in poetry, so I am always eager to learn something. This enthusiasm has led to long chats with Kwame Alexander and Jane Yolen, meeting Nikki Giovanni when my friend took her course in TN, and sitting in a SCBWI workshop with Carole Boston Weatherford.
So I’m watching this panel, and someone brings up prompts to inspire poetry writing, for either yourself or your students. One of the prompts was to pick an inanimate object within your line of sight and play “If this ____ could talk, what would it say?”
At the time, I was writing my notes down in the first notebook I had laid my hands on, one I had been using for random poetry notes but still had blank pages left. Beneath it was that list of orphan poetry lines MK had sent us. As this was a panel and not a workshop, the speakers did not give us any time to actually work on the prompts, they just mentioned a few and moved on. Me, however…
When the panel was over, I emailed MK a forth poem for LLoW Book 2. Because I knew she wouldn’t mind. 💙
Deep Dive: "If This Notebook Could Talk"
Hey, sweetness!
This poem was written for the Lyric Line of the Week game played by the Saturday Songwriters, inspired by our 2020 sessions on Instagram with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol. The prompt was: “an unruly collection.”
I never intended to write this poem.
But isn’t that always the way.
MK Brennan always emails interested Saturday Songwriters the Lyric Lines she doesn’t have entries for when she’s editing our collections. When she did this for The Fire is Still Going, I replied with three poems. When she did this in March 2025 for Book 2, I replied with one poem. The next day, I replied with a second. The next day, I replied with a third.
“Sorry I keep doing this,” I told her. She laughed and said didn’t mind.
Now it was April 1, the first day of National Poetry Month, and my friend Charles Waters (and many other illustrious poets) were on a virtual panel hosted by Highlights that didn’t cost anything to attend. (You can watch the replay here.)
You 100% know I showed up! I have been a poet my whole life but I have zero formal instruction in poetry, so I am always eager to learn something. This enthusiasm has led to long chats with Kwame Alexander and Jane Yolen, meeting Nikki Giovanni when my friend took her course in TN, and sitting in a SCBWI workshop with Carole Boston Weatherford.
So I’m watching this panel, and someone brings up prompts to inspire poetry writing, for either yourself or your students. One of the prompts was to pick an inanimate object within your line of sight and play “If this ____ could talk, what would it say?”
At the time, I was writing my notes down in the first notebook I had laid my hands on, one I had been using for random poetry notes but still had blank pages left. Beneath it was that list of orphan poetry lines MK had sent us. As this was a panel and not a workshop, the speakers did not give us any time to actually work on the prompts, they just mentioned a few and moved on. Me, however…
When the panel was over, I emailed MK a forth poem for LLoW Book 2. Because I knew she wouldn’t mind. 💙
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The Fireside Sessions: https://amzn.to/3I5yRKL
Patchwork Poetry: https://amzn.to/4luQEcE
The Fire is Still Going: https://amzn.to/4dXzWAl
✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨
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