Happy National Poetry Month: Poem 4

Posted on April 4, 2026 by Michelle Garren-Flye

11 a.m. Trying to get started a little early today. Saturdays are usually busy at the store, and I have absolutely no idea what to write. I did take some pretty pictures this morning.

I think I’ll write about the pink rose. It’s the first perfect rose I’ve seen this spring. Others have been half bloomed or stunted by the cold snaps we’ve had. This one had perfect timing. Let’s try a villanelle.

Spring arrives with green glows
flowers, trees, insects abound
and you, finally, a perfect rose.

Pay no mind when wind blows
frost is gone till winter rolls round
spring has arrived with green glows.

and you, finally, a perfect rose

spring arrives with green glows

and you, finally, a perfect rose


spring arrives with green glows

and you, finally, a perfect rose

11:12 a.m. Pausing a moment here because I had to stop anyway to wait on someone at the store. It’s empty again, but I thought I’d explain how I write villanelle. It has a rhyming pattern where you use the same first and third lines. I usually end up altering those lines a bit. (You can tell I did at the end of the second verse above.) But to keep myself on track, I lay the sort of cornerstones before I write. Those are the last lines of each verse.

11:17 a.m. Back to it!

Spring arrives with green glows
flowers, trees, insects abound
and you, finally, a perfect rose.

Pay no mind when wind blows
frost is gone till winter rolls round
spring has arrived with green glows.

Sun is needed, everyone knows
to make violets and clover abound—
and you, finally, a perfect rose

There's no way to express in prose
how it feels when winter loses ground
and spring arrives with green glows

when everything thaws that cold froze
and pinks, reds, yellows arrive to astound
with you, finally, a perfect rose

When spring arrives with green glows
take a moment to rest and look around
Nature puts on her finest clothes
and dons, finally, a perfect rose

11:30 a.m. Finished, but looking back over it, I see a repeated rhyme (one that shouldn’t be repeated!). Lots of people in the store, but I’m going to get started on the rewrite now./

A Perfect Rose
by Michelle Garren-Flye

Spring arrives with green glows
flowers, trees, insects abound—
and you, finally, a perfect rose.

Pay no mind when the wind blows!
Frost is gone till winter rolls round.
Spring has arrived with green glows.

Sun is needed, everyone knows,
to warm the bluebird's song into sound
and summon you, my perfect rose.

There's no way to express in prose
how it feels when winter loses ground
and spring arrives with green glows,

when everything thaws that cold froze,
and pinks, reds, yellows arrive to astound
and give us at last a perfect rose.

When spring arrives with green glows
take a moment to rest and look around
as Nature puts on her finest clothes
and dons, finally, a perfect rose.

11:40 a.m. Amazing what a few minutes of quiet time can do for you. I think it’s good now. What do you think?

Poetography: Not My Gardenia

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Michelle Garren-Flye

Not My Gardenia

By Michelle Garren-Flye

Arrested by your scent on my walk

I look longingly your way—

but you’re not my gardenia!

No matter how you beckon and call

or raise my hopes, I know:

you’ll never be mine to sniff…

No, you’re not my gardenia at all.

Go on, keep your invitation.

I won’t listen anymore!

You’ll never be my gardenia.

Better not to have this conversation

about what can never be…

But who am I kidding?

I’m cursed to eternal damnation.

How to beat this craven desire

to add you to my garden,

to have you as my own?

Oh, how to put out this lit fire?

Will you help me please?

It’s not disingenuous

when I really mean to inquire.

Why rewriting might be easier for a “Pantser”, or the joy of the honeysuckle rose.

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Michelle Garren-Flye

I’m a “pantser” (as in fly-by-the-seat-of) when it comes to writing. And everything else in my life. Anybody who’s ever tried to set up a playdate with my kids knows I don’t plan ahead. The best way to make plans with me is text me at the last minute. If I’m not doing anything, I’ll probably join you. On the other hand, I hate birthday parties. Trying to figure out what me and my kids are going to be doing two weeks from next Saturday at three o’clock in the afternoon? Ha! As if.

When it comes to writing, “pantser” (and I really prefer the term “organic writer” and please don’t call me a “paNSter”) means one simple thing. I don’t outline. I plunge in with a vague idea of where I’m going and who I’m going with (my characters) and plow through until I reach the finish line. Which is usually not where I thought it was when I started out. Which usually means I have a total mess to go back through when I’m done.

So why do I think rewriting is easier for me than someone who has plotted and planned and checked out every intersection of the race? (Ahem, not that writing is a race. It’s totally not.) Because, to move from racing to gardening metaphors, I don’t mind throwing out and cutting and replanting. Just for instance, a first reader told me a few months ago that the story I was telling in my current work-in-progress wouldn’t work. She had some great points, including the fact that my heroine was totally unsympathetic. (I’d been going for tough.) She made some suggestions for a total rewrite and I set the work aside for a few weeks. Now, coming back to it, I’ve got fresh eyes and I’m pulling weeds like crazy, trying to get at the heart of the novel.

What I’m getting at is that it’s not that abnormal for me to throw out three thousand words at a chunk. I may have spent an entire working day composing those words, but if I find it’s a weed and not a flower (haha), I don’t mind tossing them at all. But what if I’d plotted and planned and written those words and gotten the same reaction from a first reader? I don’t think it would be as easy to pull and prune and toss.

But then, if I planned and plotted, maybe the finish line would stay where it was supposed to be, huh? Just like a well-planned garden. But then I might never get a chance to find something like this:

And that’s the true joy of being a pantser. Finding the heart in the middle of the massive mess of writing. A honeysuckle rose that nobody planned. Because there always is one. Even in a novel you have to completely rewrite.