Unlocking Verse: Exploring Poetry, Prayers, and Blessings with Your One Word
{One Word 2024 April Linkup}
Link all of your ONE WORD blog posts below. Share an update about your One Word in the comments.
~ * ~ * ~
You don’t have to be an official poet or a priest to take this month’s suggestion to tap into your inner creativity and spirituality:
Find or create a poem, a prayer, or a blessing using your One Word.
POETRY
For poetry, google poems online with your word. Or create your own. Play by the rules and compose a haiku or assemble an acrostic. Or go rogue by experimenting with blackout poetry or writing free verse.
Here is a link to 11 types of poetry with examples for you to consider. Choose one or two to play with.
I wrote a haiku exploring my word Curiosity:
The seed was “I know”
But it grew into “I think”
Bloomed to “I wonder…”
And then a limerick:
There once was a girl in a house
Who hoarded curiosity and doubts
But the rooms grew too full
So the doorknob she pulled
And the questions came tumbling out
PRAYERS AND BLESSINGS
You can adapt prayers recorded in the Bible or books special to you that relate to your word. Or choose to write a prayer from scratch. You also might try writing a blessing of thanksgiving or lovingkindness related to your One Word.
I wrote a 4-line prayer/blessing centered around what Curiosity is meaning to me this year:
May you be brave enough to ask.
May you be free enough to wander.
May you be empty enough to learn.
May you be full enough to overflow.
If you do compose something, we’d love to hear it! Add a comment on this post or link up your own blog post.
This One Word linkup will remain open for 2 weeks for your One Word posts, closing at midnight on Wednesday, May 8. Link as many posts as you’d like about your One Word. Each link will also be shared in our One Word Facebook group.
Our May linkup will open on Friday, May 24 (and on the 24th of each month for 2024).
If you’d like to receive our monthly One Word emails and ideas, join here any time of the year.
Tell us about your One Word for 2024. Leave a comment here.
Link Up About Your One Word!
- Open a Lifetime Gift: Can a Childhood Diary Change You?
- Share 4 Somethings in the “How to Know a Person” Edition—April 2024
What a beautiful prayer/blessing, Lisa!
Thanks, Lisa! Poetry isn’t my native tongue. 🙂 But I do like experimenting with it.
Lisa, your creativity is tremendous! I try to incorporate my word into my blog posts. I used to write poetry. Maybe I’ll do a poem with my word?
I hope you will write a poem with your word, Horace. I appreciate how you incorporate your word into your blog posts. And your life!
Lisa, see, I told you are a poet, so there! Love these! I think I may have written one haiku in my life, and never really a blessing. Will try. And I’ve written a lot of haiku–some (I guess) good, some pitiful, some cathartic. Actually most all writing is cathartic.
Will mull on these forms, and thanks for the earlier link outlining all manner of poetry!
Love you
Lynn
Thank you for your encouragement, Lynn. Were you a cheerleader in school? 🙂 You are poetic even with your prose. I appreciate the words you put into the world, in whatever form they are.
Tx for your kind words. Oops. Misspoke. I’d meant I think I’ve written but one limerick in my life (and I’m Irish)! Will have to remedy that.
Lisa, thank you for these suggestions. I love your haiku, limerick, and your prayer/blessing! I wrote an acrostic, but I still want to write a haiku and a limerick. We’ll see what happens. LOL Thank you for all you do to encourage us with our #oneword. Blessings to you! xo
I know I’m not the most creative in our group, but I try. lol. I’d definitely rank you among the top for that! I appreciate you linking up and keeping us posted on your word, Gayl.
Thank you for your encouragement, dear Lisa! For the record, I think you are very creative!
Excellent poems!
Thank you, Linda. One day I may try to write a real poem. ha. I feel like I just spit these out to get them done.
Ok, Miss Lisa, so you threw down the gauntlet, and I picked up my pen. Pretty sure I may have shared to alpha poem (acrostic) already, but in case not, here ’tis. Now I have to conjure a blessing. Actually if I would obey the Lord more, I’d be choosing to be blessed! oh, and were I printing this, then the first letters in caps would be in bold, too. Your blog doesn’t show that. 🙂 Tx for the challenge. Fun trying to meet it!
xo
Lynn
CHOOSE
by Lynn D. Morrissey
Choose to choose: Choose
Health & flourishing over languishing,
Optimism over pessimism,
Obedience over rebellion,
Sacrifice over self-indulgence,
Edifying over debasing.
Choose: Haiku Suite
by Lynn D. Morrissey
Watch the world go by
Passivity is a choice
You must choose to choose
You must choose to choose:
Sour-sweet, dark-light, sin-obey.
She ate of the fruit.
She ate of the fruit.
He did, too, so Adam fell.
Jesus chose to come!
Jesus chose to come—
Chose me before I was born
I choose to obey.
I choose to obey.
Part of Adam’s race, I fall.
Jesus picks me up.
Jesus picks me up.
I choose *again* to repent!
Jesus breaks my fall.
Limerick on Choice
by Lynn D. Morrissey
There once was a girl with a voice
who had trouble sounding a choice.
So she hemmed and she hawed,
indecision gnawed so much
she chose, then she rejoiced!
These are so creative, Lynn!!! You are quite the wordsmith, my friend. 🙂 Thanks for *choosing* to share these here! hehe
Aw… you are so cute. I’m glad YOU chose to challenge us!
xo
L