Community Poem 2026

 Creative Hydration

 

We knew the thunder was coming, 

like a swarm coming after you. After loss,

community: “remind me of your name.” 

Two vessels meet, pouring into one another, 

 

reminding me of the delicate balance between 

nature and humanity. Warmth of the sun 

multiplied today... even flies are sweating.

Still, we stayed, hands clutched on our creations. 

 

This country will be “us.” A luscious garden

around empty tables, art blooming like flowers. 

Two barred owls sing me back to sleep, heaven,

infinity. Spider silk stretches between boughs. 

 

Smelling basil, I sat, grateful for a vagabond 

breeze. The deer on the road stares back. 

Butterflies tasting the salt on my skin. We are 

all pretty once. Life, the trophy, I have not

 

forgotten you. We danced, waiting for the storm 

to pass. Rain, rain, hail, hail. Creative hydration 

can quench as well... this place, people who cross 

our paths. The word “yet” fuels art, caresses the valley.  

 

~ Voices of Visitors to the Poetry Porch, Art on Cullers Run   

    (arranged by Charise Hoge)  

 Thank you all for writing on my notepad!  

 

 

 

Make it Seven

This is my seventh year as poet-in-residence for Art on Cullers Run! Hopefully the community doesn’t tire of me because I never get tired of this opportunity. It’s a highlight of the year, sharing poem making in the mountains. 

Leave the hullabaloo of the city and enjoy art outdoors for July 4th (or 3rd):

Cheers,
Charise

Placeholder

May I invite you into my newly painted office, with a gallery wall of book cover art? We patched all the nicks from its previous life as the rec room, and picked a warm white (called "Adorn") to cover the light blue that got tired. I call this post "Placeholder" before I share what is going on with writing and events for June and July! Here are the covers for Meet Your Muse: The Dance of Creativity, art by Kate Kroska, and Striking Light from Ashes, art by Rahela Majidi. How did Frida Kahlo (art by Kaylee Collinson) get in there? She was a gift from my daughter, and seems to belong, a special guest. 

Cheers, 
Charise

"Lost Painting"

 

Lost Painting

 

 

So many geese in the graveyard

roving among white rows 

of uniform headstones blurring by

on a Colorado road trip...

 

shifting gears in Albany’s cemetery,

choice site for learning how to 

drive a stick shift with my father: 

stop, start, stall over quiet knolls...

 

we meet a painter in Zermatt, 

his easel set in a path beside plots

planted with flowers, each grave 

its own garden in a town banning cars;

 

final stroke and the painting is ours,

gifted to me at thirteen... forgive 

its fumbling pass from place to place; 

the art of traveling is what holds fast.

 

 

~Charise M. Hoge

 

 

Para mi papá, March 1929-January 2026

 

No Place Like...

No Place Like Decorum

 

I’d like to live in a magazine

for a spell… to laze beneath high ceilings,  

            sink into overstuffed cushions, 

 

 

admire a variety of whatnots. 

Footstool here, taper candle there. 

Chair wearing its throw like a pashmina. 

 

Colors that contrast, disparate art.

All is in accord.

Behind the décor is a good eye…

 

beholder who makes a place 

inviting, sets the moon cactus in a chipped

cup, believes that earthenware has character. 

 

 

 

 

 ~CMH

 

Not the Usual Bent

When David Lehman offers a poetry prompt for his column "Next Line, Please" of The American Scholar, try your hand! Of course, the latest column is titled "Dead Man's Hand," but have no fear, this is all in fun... serious fun (more on that descriptor another time). Seriously, I would not have written my poem "Theatrics" in response to a Botticelli painting without prompting. I doubt my poem would have gone in the direction it did without this writing community and its esprit de corps. Here's a link to the most recent column, where you'll find "Theatrics" and other wonderful poems generated by "Next Line, Please": 

https://theamericanscholar.org/dead-mans-hand/

Cheers,
Charise

The Marvelous Life of a Bookseller

When all goes well, poems become books and poets become booksellers. It's the oddest thing, to write alone and share widely. But art is made to speak. And the voice of that expression doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's in the context of this chaotic, exhilarating, faltering, sweet slice of life we've been given. 

Thank you to all who visited the poetry porch at
"Art On Cullers Run" in West Virginia and all who joined me for "Poetry & Sound" in Maryland. A deep bow to you. 

Cheers,

Charise

Community Poem 2025

Again to Art on Cullers Run

  

Let’s gather today, ta da, 

as the mist veils the world from sight. 

Take a load off—

 

bask in soft silks and molten jewels, 

the smell of wildflowers. 

We are the art, word fodder. 

 

His wallet, sleeping till 12 pm, yawns 

“oh-well.” I need to buy some poetry. 

Red-tailed hawk screams, “what 

should our best be?”

 

The part inside that sings? 

Trying desperately—running from 

wasps—holding the exposed parts 

together. 

 

I saw a moose––oh really?––standing 

alone in our field, taking a minute 

to warm up to the art. 

 

Rhododendron frames the silence, 

unaspirated. A tapestry underneath

is dancing to mellow songs, knitting 

useful waste.

 

a monarch pauses

one wing leads to another 

reverberations

 

This community is almost haiku, 

not even a page, open space. 

Feel the positive breeze blowing 

through the hollow. 

 

~voices of visitors to the Poetry Porch at "Art on Cullers Run"

(assembled by Charise Hoge) 

 

 

In the Tent

"Art on Cullers Run" 2025 is right around the corner! 

I will be in the poetry tent July 4th & 5th to greet you, meet you, create a new community poem, and share my work. The locale is lovely, the artists are talented, the mood is festive. Art uplifts. 

Cheers,

Charise

"Bard of the Streetcar"

To honor five years as poet-in-residence for Art All Night H street: 

 

Bard of the Streetcar

We are transported. Up and down H Street, Washington, DC. 

It’s 8:00 pm. The last Saturday of September.

 

We are transported. Up and down 

 

the Rue de Seine.        It could be broad daylight.     

 

On an old shale logging road.            

 

Toward the lions         of the New York Public Library.         

 

And here are two sling-back chairs, one for you

 

… be my companion. 

 

It’s “Art All Night.” Poetry on the streetcar.

 

A room with a courtyard and easy transport. 

 

Up and down H Street.

 

Circling the ancestors’ wholly baked faith

 

            … over the streets past the cars out of the city to the sea. 

 

 

 *Italicized lines from Charise Hoge’s poetry readings at Art All Night H Street

"Coming Home to the Valley"

The community poem at Art on Cullers Run is a tradition. This is our fifth year, a milestone. 

I am the weaver, not the author, threading individual bits of writing into a whole. What one person writes offers a different meaning when it's joined to someone else's phrase. And seemingly random thoughts/images end up perfectly suited to the final piece. 

Here's our 2024 arts festival community poem:

Coming Home to the Valley

 

Nomads wandering country roads. 

Floating seeds ride summer breezes. 

Buzz of insects… lilt of laughter. The art

of connections. The “hi” way up gravel 

 

roads to poets and porches, panting pups 

lapping water, shadows on sweltering grass. 

Warm air lazily lazing. I’m a poet but 

have control issues, moving incrementally 

 

as the sun moves across the sky. Bee 

breath in heavy air. Dancing with creativity… 

getting lost in shadows of moon, fireflies 

glowing the quietness. Their silent song. 

 

Blood-red barns born from slices of sunrise, 

band sanders and belt saws, sweat. 

Holes in the sky between clouds steal 

some art. And the woodpecker came home 

 

with us. I refresh with the balm of beauty,

admiring art in the shade. Reminding 

me how I love boxes… filling the void. 

Say what you will, I did my best. 

 

Burgeoning clouds take me home. 

Lightness of a breeze, a kind soul, relief. 

Time exiled to savor the moment. Art brings 

the world together. Again and again.

 

~voices of visitors to the poetry tent, Art on Cullers Run 2024

(assembled by poet-in-residence Charise M. Hoge)

Thank you to all the contributors! 

Appalachian Mountain Hug

We're getting ready for the next Art on Cullers Run event in Mathias, WVA! 

This will be my fifth year joining as poet-in-residence. We've had a community-generated poem by visitors to my tent on each occasion, and it's a highlight of the year for me. Poetry as a patchwork quilt, you could say, where I'm the seamstress putting together other people's phrases thematically. This can't be done virtually––the in-person experience of the event, the location, the arts, and conversation becomes the "fabric" of a poem. 

"Art on Cullers Run 2024," surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains, is about a two hour drive from Washington, DC. See you there?  

Cheers,
Charise

Poetry in Locomotion

 

 

It's that time of year, and DC is getting ready to celebrate the arts. I'm thrilled to be joining this event for the fourth go-around, sharing poetry with fellow riders of the streetcar. This is, literally, poetry in motion... or locomotion.

 

You can catch as little or as much as you like 

of "Let's Go Poetry!" from 8:00 to 9:00 pm September 30 while riding DC's streetcar on H Street.

Thank you to the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities for supporting local artists. 

Cheers,

Charise 

More Art (on Cullers Run)

My youngest visitor, an aspiring poet...

 

 

Welcoming visitors, one and all...

 

 

Close of day in the Lost River Valley...

 

Cheers,

Charise

"Art in the Valley"

A big thanks to all who contributed to the art show community poem on July 1 & 2! 

Here is the result of your words (and my wordsmithing): 

Art in the Valley

 

Mountains in bloom. Walking past

cow patties into the womb of art.

Into the womb of everything.

Into my senses—I hold this bowl you made

—I look at your face and hold this bowl

you made. Summertime mountains and forest

are holding me in a luscious embrace.

And the dogs understand…

sweltering songs, surrounded by visions

of imagination. The tools are not what they seem.

Ceramic pages—stiff, but not frozen.

We all stare. Awaiting the rain. Waiting.

People wait for trains. There are so many people

passing through who are just on a journey.

 

Life in the valley provides

people when you want them, solitude

when you need it most. Lush green rolling hills,

the beauty of the hollow. Who knew the music

and the rain both help us grow?

Worries melting away. Say! When will the muse

strike? Brought on by a light breeze…

rain shouldn’t feel so heavy, should it?

Disappointment, discouragement.

The rub. There are too many words, some lost,

some found. Aha! Tools bent to a new purpose.

We all need a poetry moment. Soothing souls.

What if we’re best together?

Brought together in a wooded paradise.

 

~ voices of poetry table visitors at Art on Cullers Run 2023

(assembled by Charise M. Hoge)

Poetry Outdoors

 

   

Poetry books tend to live on shelves, but sometimes they want an airing. I'm imagining that my books will benefit from two days outdoors at the upcoming Art on Cullers Run Festival, July 1 and 2. The outdoor setting is the Lost River Valley of West Virginia.

 

Look for the signs that bring you to: 460 Cullers Run Rd, Mathias, WV 26812. Artists will be there 10:00 am-5:00 pm both days, in tents, studios, and porches! Oh, my!

Cheers,

Charise

Visitors Voice a Poem

Thanks to all who contributed to the arts festival community poem!

Art on Cullers Run 2022

 

Some of us in the car had doubt.

Look, Ma! A steel chicken!

Even our dog stares mesmerized.

We press on to more unknowns.

Winding country roads lead to artists

who answer questions.

I realized my work was going “dark”––

so I moved on to the next project.

When you think you’ve gone too far

and you’ve missed it, keep on going.

I painted my way out of darkness.

Traveling with the long-skirted wind

that walks these hills.

 

Escape from solitude into community.

20 years in this place, don’t I know that face?

Even narrow roads widen horizons.

The view makes the coffee taste better.

On the hottest days, the art is cool.

Tranquility in bird songs, simple words,

lasting friendships. The light show

of fireflies luminous. Newlyweds

on a minimoon. Beautiful art

feeds the soul wherever we go.

Everyone here is on the same page.

The web of life, continually rewoven.

 

 

~ voices of poetry table visitors, arranged by Charise Hoge

 

Pairing Poetry and Art

These are the pages of the October Issue of Beyond Words Literary Magazine where my poem lives, paired with the art of Rita Malenczyk. 

The artist and I have never met. The editor chose our collaboration on paper (and in digital format). What do you think? 

There's so much to read into this artwork––gazing into it the way you'd gaze into a crystal ball. And isn't it uncanny how the color orange shows up to meet my poetry (chapbook covers a case in point)?

Warmly,

Charise