Last Line of this year's Progressive Poem

The 2025 Progressive Poem

Ends Here!

Howdy, Campers, and welcome!

As Linda Baie wrote (exclamation marks and all): “Irene Latham began the Progressive Poem and hosted it from 2012-2019. Those archives of the poem can be found HERE! Margaret Simon took over
in 2020, and those archives are HERE!”

The rules: 1) The poem passes from blog to blog. 2) Each poet/blogger adds a line. 3) The poem is for children.

Here are some juicy quotes from Heidi Mordhorst’s March 29, 2018 interview with Irene Latham and Liz Steinglass about each Progressive Poem's team over the years:

Irene: People may come with some idea of where they would like to take it, but also an understanding that it may not go there at all.

Liz: And I think this exercise can be a reminder to let go, relinquish control, and see where things go.

Heidi: It’s a situation of “trust without danger,” isn’t it, and the reason I think that most of us (even though many of us who want to write tend to write by ourselves and it IS hard to give up ownership), can do it in this case because there’s really no stakes. It’s just for fun, it’s to play, and if things don’t go quite the way we expected, we just step back and say, “Oooh, that’s so interesting!”

Irene: I will tell you that some people take it very seriously, talk about how they couldn’t sleep the night before their line, and I think people really want to bring their best and that they really love the positive feedback. That’s a good thing in our community, being encouragers and cheerleaders of each other’s efforts, and you know you’re going to get that, but you also want to be the person who brings some really cool word to the poem, turns it in a new direction, but that’s why we’re here: to encourage each other! That’s why people invest in it, because they want that—being pushed by the community to bring their best to it.

........................................
Confession: I'm one of this year's participants who've lost sleep over it.

Can I say how much I love the line Linda Mitchell chose to start the poem? It makes me want to open my windows wide.

I began wondering...could I repeat Linda's first line as the last line? Would it work with the mystery line coming my way? If it does...our poem would be an envelope poem! (There are several definitions of envelope poes. Here's my post which includes a Writing Workout towards the end about envelope poems)

When Deborah Davis' evocative 29th line flew onto our poem, I began playing with the rhythm of her line. In trying to emulate her rhythm, I looked up the word April in different languages. The Finnish word sounded promising: huhtikuu (hooth-teek-koo) Until it didn't.

Instead, I found inspiration in Linda Baie's line (4th-from-the-end). And the rest is history.

........................................

And now, drum roll, please...

photo by Nguyen Tuan Hung from pixabay

Here, without further ado, is our CPP-2025 (Complete Progressive Poem of 2025):

Open an April window
let sunlight paint the air
stippling every dogwood
dappling daffodils with flair

Race to the garden
where woodpeckers drum
as hummingbirds thrum
in the blossoming Sweetgum

Sing as you set up the easels
dabble in the paints
echo the colors of lilac and phlox
commune without constraints

Breathe deeply the gifts of lilacs
rejoice in earth’s sweet offerings
feel renewed-give thanks at day’s end
remember long-ago springs

Bask in a royal spring meadow
romp like a golden-doodle pup!
startle the sleeping grasshoppers
delight in each flowering shrub…

Drinking in orange-blossom twilight
relax to the rhythm of stars dotting sky
as a passing Whip-poor-will gulps bugs
We follow a moonlit path that calls us

Grab your dripping brushes!
Our celestial canvas awaits
There we swirl, red, white, and blue
Behold what magic our montage creates!

Such marvelous palettes the earth bestows
When rain greens our hopes, watch them grow, watch them grow!

                                           ........................................
Regarding a title, I asked Margaret Simon, Irene Latham, Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, Robyn Hood Black, Doraine Bennet, Jeannine Atkins, and Linda Baie: who titles our completed poem? Apparently, there is no rule.

So, Campers ~ Here's your assignment:
1) Read this terrific prompt about titling a poem, which Margaret pointed me to...
2) After you've been blown away by the example in that prompt...
3) I'd love to hear your suggestion for the title of this year's poem! ........................................
HERE'S THE COMMUNITY OF POETS WHO HATCHED THIS POEM:
April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at Dare to Care
April 6 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
April 7 Jone at Jone Rush Macculloch
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist at Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly Write
April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy
April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 21 Tanita at {fiction instead of lies}
April 22 Patricia Franz at Patricia Franz
April 23 Ruth at There’s No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at Linda Kulp Trout
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: Michelle Kogan
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors

                                             It's time to dance, poets ~

here's a song for our celebration:

"The Last Line"

Thank you, Sadie, for hanging out with me
for hours while I sweated over this post.

(This is Sadie, watching her current favorite movie, FLOW,

made in Latvia, and winner of the 2025 Academy Award for Animation.

It's wonderous! Run, do not walk to see it)

PS: For me, April is whiplash month. I'm constantly turning around, wondering who just called my name--when they're simply making dinner reservations. Yes, my birthday is in April; I was named for the Ogden Nash poem, "Always Marry an April Girl".