The Poemsmiths

The Poemsmiths, a writing and performance group of ten poets that began in 2016, are one of many critique groups of the High Desert California Writers Club. Each poet has read individually, and we have performed as a group at such venues as the local High Desert Cultural Center. Confined by the COVID-19 virus, we discovered The Mondo form in which the first verse of three lines, a question, is written by one poet and answered by another in the second verse. The Poemsmiths tried out the form before opening up the exercise to the wider HDCWC club. Mary Langer Thompson is founder of the Poemsmiths.

Six of the Poemsmith Mondos are included here.

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► The Poemsmith's Mondo poems are available below. Download the single-page PDF by clicking the title & saving to your pc. Set your printer for 'landscape' printing. Folding instructions are under the Who We Are menu tab.

Origami Microchap

Mondos from Our Condos
and Other Sequestered Places

Click title to download PDF microchap

Mary Langer Thompson et al CVR Mondos 2020 15 Jul

Cover collage by JanK

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The Mondo is a question-and-answer poem.
One poet sends a 3-line question
of no more than 19 syllables
to another poet who
answers with a second stanza.

These "Mondo" poems are from a group
in the Mohave Desert of California called
The Poemsmiths, a critique group of the
High Desert California Writers Club.

The Poemsmiths were founded by
Mary Langer Thompson. “We discovered
this form while sequestered for Covid-19.”

- The Poemsmiths

Something big, truth-like
may be stirring in our world.
Do we see the signs?

Answers can be found
if we choose to read below
the headlines, look at the facts.

- Mary Langer Thompson
and John Garner

Silver stars falling
leaving fiery trails on high,
but where does their stardust blow?

It blows through your hair
touching everything everywhere
We are all stardust.

- Lorelie Kay and Peg Ross Pawlak

Is love a flower
whose petals open to the sun
when warmed by its embrace?

For if love was just
a fragile petal form
our embrace marks winter.

- John Garner and Rusty LaGrange

Is it true that despite
all the news of the day
spring thrives unnoticed?

Daffodils still bloom,
a rain-like mist hangs on leaves,
waken us to joys of spring.

- Robert Young and Lorelei Kay

Can we remain kind
while masking our faces and
hiding in sequestered places?

waving to neighbors --
all the ways you don't click share
-- spreads lovingkindness.

- Peg Ross Pawlak and Anita I. Holmes

Hope springs eternal.
Can we compost viruses
with weeds and eggshells?

Patience washing hands.
Isolation is okay--
praise the sun’s warm beams.

- Anita I. Holmes and Peg Ross Pawlak

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Poets