Betsy's Writings

Street People Series (from AARP Poetry Club)

Childhood Battles & Memories

• Bad Medicine (poem)
• Clothing Wars
• The Cooking Lesson (poem)
• Aftermath (poem)
• Bite (poem)
• Waiting for Daddy (poem)
• Trees, part I
• Trees, part II
• Trial by Fire (poem)
• Final Exit (poem)
• Mother's Madness
• Brain Magic (poem)
• Pain Don't Hurt (poem)
• Body Slam (poem)
• Daddy's Nightmare (poem)
• Night Skies (poem)

Belief Systems/Social Commentary

• Beliefs (poem)
• Moment by Moment (poem)
• Pain Don't Hurt (poem)
• Two Faces (poem)
• How Memory Works
• Lost and Found (poem)
• Just Say Know (poem)
• Boxes (poem) for Riley Ann and Caylee, and the little boy who lived next door
• Sleep Escape (poem)
• Anti-Valentine's (poem)
• The Lavalamp Brain (poem)
• Nothing Lasts Forever (poem)
• Can Can Memories (poem)
• Writer's Block (poem)
• Lost and Found (poem)
• Why Not (poem)
• The Thinker Sleeps (poem)
• Belief Systems (poem)
• Price of Fame (poem)

Dreams

• The Broken Cage (poem)
• Dream Lover (poem)
• Sky Watch (poem)
• Deathwatch (poem)
• Jack is Back (poem) started from magwords

The Grumbles years: humour (mostly)

• Pizza on the Wall
• The Battle of the Wounded Knee
• Raising the Stepkids (overveiw)
• Tapoco 11 (poem)
• The Wicker Stepmother (poem)
• Stone Soul (poem)
• Guardian Angle (poem)
• Bedtime is for Bozos (poem)

Assignments

(from AARP, mostly from "Writing Memoirs" Group)

• Inappropriately Dressed
• Things I Need Around Me/Things I Miss
• Write 10 years of your life using lines of only 3 words (poems): Birth to 10 | 11 to 20 | 21 to 30| 31 to 40
• Looking Back (poem) response to Rilke's "the Face of the Beast"
• White Lies (poem)
• Refreshed (poem) response to Grace2you's "Refreshed and made new"
• Cool Loneliness (poem) response to article in "Spiritual Exporations" group
• Soul Journey (poem) response to post on Quakerism
• Individuation (poem) response to Lion's post in "Searching for Meaning in Modern Life" group
• My "Shining" Moment
• Still (poem)
• The Alarm Clock

from Poetry.com

• Haikus based on photos updated 2/18/09
• "Magnetic words" Make a poem from a list of words, using 20 pieces or less (updated 2/18/09)
• Adrift on a Raft (poem) started from Magnetic, then added too
• Blankie Blooms (poem) started from Magnetic, then added too
• Requiem for the Moon and Adam's Ladder both poems started from the same set of Magnetic words
• Quest for Knowledge (poem) started from magnetic words
• The Shift (poem) response to Tom's polar shift dream using magnetic words
• After the Shift (poem)
• Words (poem) started from magnetic words
• Adrift (poem) magwords
• Seasons (poem) magwords
• Colony (poem) magwords
• After Dinner Walk (poem) magwords

for Yahoo Answers

• 9-line homework
• limerick
• Flower (poem) response to a Yahoo Answers challenge

from Nashville Songwriters Group

• Green is the color of Surprise
• Two Faces (poem)
• Silent Orchestra (poem)
• She Repossessed my Heart (lyrics)

from school

• Next Year...

Favorite People

• My Sweet Baby Love
• The One-Legged Dancer