Micropoems

Haiku

Blackbirds disappear
into the night—
or were they blue

Annie Klier Newcomer lives in Prairie Village, Kansas, with David, her husband of 43 years and their Aussiedoodle, Summit. 

She is a poetry editor for Flapper Press Poetry Café. She loves to swim, hike, play chess and write. 

Photo courtesy Meghan Klier Newcomer

Haiku

Hiking slot canyons.
A raven, wings beating air
the only sound.

Laura Shovan is a novelist, educator, and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. Her award-winning children’s books include The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, Takedown, and the Sydney Taylor Notable A Place at the Table, written with Saadia Faruqi. She is a longtime poet-in-the-schools for the Maryland State Arts Council and teaches for Vermont College of Fine Arts’ MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Her latest poetry collection for kids is Welcome to Monsterville. 

Photo courtesy the poet.

Wind in the trees

The trees creak and groan
like wooden ships
awaiting a storm

Dorothy Swoope is an award winning poet published internationally in print and online. Her publications include The Touch of a Word and Wait ‘til Your Father Gets Home. She resides on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. When not weaving words with nature, she is weaving upcycled materials.

Patience

on the bank, a heron
hunched in stillness
blending into dusk
a lesson in when to wait
and when to soar

After a career as a journalist specializing in bicycling and active travel, Susan Weaver discovered tanka, a five-line Japanese verse form. Her tanka have appeared in Moonbathing, red lights, Ribbons, and other journals. Her tanka prose, “A Date with the Moon: Limulus polyphemus,” appeared in Parks & Points & Poetry 2021. Weaver is now editor of Ribbons, the journal of the Tanka Society of America. She and her husband live in Allenown, Pa., where she enjoys theatre, music, and the outdoors.

Photo courtesy Joni Jackson