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Hello, dVerse poets! It’s Merril. I’m opening the southern New Jersey portal to the poets’ pub with this August prompt. Can you believe we’re halfway through August?

Here August is the beginning of the end of summer. It can be super-hot and humid, but the sun doesn’t rise as early or set as late as it did in June. I’ve even noticed some leaves turning color. In the US, children and teachers will soon be returning to school. School clothes and supplies are being advertised. Some schools, both public schools and universities, begin their autumn terms now in August.

Both of my parents were born in August. Neither is alive now, but I still think about them on their birthdays and eat food in their honor. Birthdays, I suppose, are a sort of transitioning to the next year.

So, for today I want you to write a poem that take place in some sort of transition time—perhaps just before school starts, or traveling on a bus or train in-between destination, or those few moments before you fall asleep, or a significant event in history that leads to something else, or . . . whatever you imagine fits the prompt of a transitional time.

I have also selected lines from two poems written by two very different poets born in August. Both selections have a sort of transition feel. The first is from a short poem by English, Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The second is by American poet, Rita Dove, who was the U.S. Poet Laureate 1993-1995. You may use these lines as inspiration, as well.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822)
English Romantic Poet

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
–Percy Bysshe Shelley, Music when soft voices die

Rita Dove (August 28, 1952)
American poet. She was US Poet Laureate 1993-1995

Rosa

“How she sat there,
the time right inside a place
so wrong it was ready. “

–Rita Dove, Rosa

So, to be clear, for this Poetics prompt, write a poem in any style about a transitional time—in nature, in your life, in history, or however you want to interpret it. You may also use the selected lines for inspiration.

Add the link to your poem in the Mister Linky box below. Then visit others to see how they interpreted the prompt!