My Featured Blogger this week is Laura M. Bailey of All the Shoes I Wear, “my attempt,” she says, “to write down the bones of a crazy, random, uncharted life.” Indeed, this engaging, down-to-earth writer-poet has also been “a construction worker, grease monkey, public speaker, tattoo studio owner, music promoter, and race horse owner,” among other things. Her purpose here is to uncover “the common threads that connect us all.” And this brief gallery of life-affirming poems does just that!
You never know what your going to get. Random, I know but….today, I’m a poetry rebel and challenge you to explore beyond the acceptable tends.
There are a lot of poets out there and I can’t help but notice the trend remains as it had for the last 20 years. Poetry MUST be free form. Patterned and rhyme is darn near criminal, in fact, almost extinct! I do see a few rebels like myself who post a haiku, tanka or drop a rhyme from time to time so I’ll pitch my penny in the round with a few seldom seen. Octo, Cameo, Laurette, Quatrain Sequence, Free Verse, Cinquain
Daddy’s Little Girl
( OCTO)
The first time that I danced with you
My tiny feet upon your toes
Tearing eyes say you remember
Our dance tonight ends far too soon
You hand the dance to my new groom
Tearing eyes…
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Mitch Teemley 
Thanks for introducing, Mitch! Will head over to read. xx Michael
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Thanks, Mitch … what beautiful words!
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I love Laura! 💛Her writing and spirit are such treasures. Thank you, Mitch!
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My pleasure, truly.
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Laura M. Bailey
the virtuoso of verse
happy to meet you
(5-7-5)
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Thank you, Mitch. Her poem about dancing with her father made me all misty-eyed as I remembered dancing with my daughter at her wedding.
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“If it ain’t one thing, it’s bound to be your mother.” 😂 Love it!
I like old fashioned rhythm and rhyme, too, as uncool as some might think it is. I call those “lyric poems,” or just “song lyrics,” even if the melody hasn’t been written yet. The other poems are much harder to set to music – harder to memorize, too.
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