A Note on This Museletter Extra Page

You may have read (or not) about the changes in WFOP’s Museletter. There are a number of changes you can read about on page 4 of the Summer 2025 edition. (https://www.wfop.org/s/25summer_muse124.pdf)

The one big change for the members’ poetry pages is that there will be only one page for poetry in the printed edition of the Museletter (and its corresponding PDF version).  However, this “Museletter Extra” page is where chosen poems that don’t fit in the Museletter will be posted. The poems on this page will refresh with each quarterly Museletter and new prompt.

Access the latest issue of the Museletter.

Museletter Extra

Poems by Our Membership

The prompt for the August 1, 2026, Museletter was to write a pome. Botanically, it’s a group of fruits that share certain characteristics. Poems can be ekphrastic, a memory, a description of the taste or whatever direction poets want to take.

Sea Change

We live on Rome Street near the ocean.
Everything is on one floor
and smells of salt air.
On the ground a bruised pear
from our prized tree.
It should have been picked and eaten,
but a gust of wind took it.
I see blue every day—sky, sea, shoes—my blue eyes.
But green is the color
of the smallest blade
that holds the mustard seed.

—Carrie Voigt Schonhoff, Reeseville

Falling Apple Blossoms

When apple blossoms fill the air, 
Fluttering down everywhere 
In a blanket of profusion, 
Scattering in light confusion
To make a bed of pink and white,
Delicate, a spring delight,
Like confetti spread around
Sprinkling the greening ground,
We stop to gaze and contemplate
Such beauty and luxuriate
In this gift brought on by spring
Only briefly lingering.
Magic for a little while:
Bright petals falling bring a smile.

—Jeffry Glover, Pleasant Springs

Submit Your Poems

We know of poets being asked to write a poem for a special occasion (birthday, wedding, divorce, etc.). Maybe you’ve done this. For the fall prompt, write an “occasion” poem about some everyday task, event, or happening. “On the occasion of clipping my toenails,” or “when I turn on the garbage disposal, I think of…” for example. You don’t have to use the word “occasion” in your title or poem, but can if you wish. Please, 20 lines maximum!

Deadline: Saturday, August 1, 2026

When submitting, include your city of residence. Email to Steve Tomasko, Museletter Poetry Editor, with the subject line “Museletter poem submission.”