WriteOut Collaboration of Small Poems

Found In Our Lawn of Clover

One day while out in the yard, I paused at circles of white in the clover– little parasols, pleated and transparent, catching the morning dew.

Beautiful and dainty, but by the end of the day, black and dying, having completed their part of the food web: to transform decaying plant matter into rich nutrients.

With our iPhones, we were able to capture the little fungi to remember their delicate beauty. I’m glad we did. This was 2017, and we’ve not seen them again.

So, when WriteOut Daily Create [  #DS106  @ds106dc   #tdc3933 #writeout  ] asked for small poems for a collaborative project, these small beauties came to mind– an outdoor delight perfect for WriteOut and a small haiku poem:

A Day is Life

Dainty parasol
Open in the clover’s green
Closing life’s cycle.

Sheri Edwards
10.20.22 295.365.22
Poetry/Photography

The little fungi are Parasola plicatilis and complete the food web cycle as a decomposer– leaving nutrients for the cycle to continue. [ See National Geographic about Food Web ].

Your Turn

Take a look through your own photos on your device or albums, and choose one to write a small poem. It could be a description, your feelings about it, a hope. If you’d like to write a haiku, see children’s poet  Ken Nesbitt’s How To Write a Haiku.

If you can, share on social media with the #writeout hastag. Or, add it to the Daily Create #tdc3922 collaborative slides here: Collaborative Small Poem Project

And…….Why I Write: National Day on Writing

And please — today, October 20th, join in on the #whyIwrite and #NationalDayonWriting activities that are port of the WriteOut program activities.

The National Day on Writing is sponsored by the National Writing Project and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) to  share #WHYIWRITE. Everyone is invited to take this one step further by writing outside as part of the Write Out partnership with the National Park Service.

So, find a place outside to breath deep and write — on your phone, in a notebook, in the dirt, or on the sidewalk. Share it with your family, friends, neighbors or someone close to you. Perhaps take a picture of it or even record yourself reading it. Share on social media along with the hashtags #writeout and #whyiwrite. Here are a more invitations to this event, from Twitter:


This post is part of the October WRITEOUT adventure of the National Writing Project and the National Park Service — a STEAM-powered Write Out 2022. Organized as a public invitation to get out and create, supported by a series of free online activities, Write Out invites educators, students, and families to explore national parks and other public spaces. The goal is to connect and learn through place-based writing and sharing. Learn more and sign up: https://writeout.nwp.org