Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Traci Brimhall’s poem “A Group of Moths” provides a great example of these poetic devices at work […]
Happy writing!
As soon as I read the description about today’s featured poem, I thought… that’s how to tackle Proust! A wish I’d thought of that moment…
A great resource I look forward to dipping into. I watched:
Ana Božičević reads “Waterfall” from her book New Life at the July 22, 2023 Silo City Reading Series.
and of course one of my favourites –
Jericho Brown reads “Duplex (I begin with love)” from his book The Tradition at the August 27, 2022 Silo City Reading Series.
And another favourite –
Victoria Chang reads “Grief” from OBIT at the July 30, 2022 Silo City Reading Series.
and
Hanif Abdurraqib reads “How Can Black People Write About Flowers At A Time Like This” at the July 21, 2018 Silo City Reading Series.
I could have watched everything – but like to save/ savour the best resources plus I was eager to get writing. I read the example poem, admired it. Struggled to come up with a subject as my head has been focused in work mode all day… made a coffee, sent a text and then came back to the desk.
I chose a subject which ties into some other NaPo writes and busied myself with research.
I don’t feel I completely met the brief but am happy with the poem.
Our featured resource for the day is the website of the Poetry Society of America’s Poetry in Motion project, which places posters with poems on them into the transit systems of major American cities.
PROMPT:
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on the “Proust Questionnaire,” a set of questions drawn from Victorian-era parlor games, and adapted by modern interviewers. You could choose to answer the whole questionnaire, and then write a poem based on your answers, answer just a few, or just write a poem that’s based on the questions. You could even write a poem in the form of an entirely new Proust Questionnaire. We have a fairly standard, 35-question version of the questionnaire laid out for you below.
Happy writing!
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
What is your greatest fear?
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Which living person do you most admire?
What is your greatest extravagance?
What is your current state of mind?
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
On what occasion do you lie?
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Which living person do you most despise?
What is the quality you most like in a man?
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
When and where were you happiest?
Which talent would you most like to have?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Where would you most like to live?
What is your most treasured possession?
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
What is your favorite occupation?
What is your most marked characteristic?
What do you most value in your friends?
Who are your favorite writers?
Who is your hero of fiction?
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Who are your heroes in real life?
What are your favorite names?
What is it that you most dislike?
What is your greatest regret?
How would you like to die?
What is your motto?
I started by finishing Day 24’s poem and have updated the post with process notes and an extract.
I remember this prompt from previous years, I found it intense so I already know this year I am picking just one question to write from.
I started with the featured poem I Will Keep Broken Things by LuAnne Holder. I loved this poem and could copy the entire poem, I will leave these lines instead:
Not all that breaks needs to be fixed silence, rhythm and trains of thought
I read this poem over and over. She used I Will Keep Broken Thingsby Alice Walker as her poem for the line.
Stunning.
I then moved onto looking at today’s poetry resource. It is a lovely site and one I will delve into when I have more time. I read a couple of poems. The presentation of the poems is beautiful.
I then moved onto today’s prompt. I struggled with it last time and it was the same story today, flailing around trying to latch onto a question – I tried – and failed so decided to use the link to the history behind the list and use something from there instead.
I did find an example of Proust’s answers and how they changed, which I thought I might use. I continued to read. This brought me to the Confession Book – and I took a slanted take at the historical knowledge to create a poem.
It was a short poem – just 4 couplets. It focuses on confession and secrecy.
Our featured participant for the day is Sarah Davies, whose response to Day 23’s superhero prompt conjures a hero called Imaginarywoman.
Today’s featured resource is this BBC archive dedicated to the poetry of Robert Burns. You can read about his life, read his poems, and hear them read by dozens of folks, including former-prince-now-king Charles.
PROMPT:
[…] is another one pulled from our 2016 archives. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it. This will work best if you just start with a line of poetry you remember, but without looking up the whole original poem. Or you could find a poem that you haven’t read before and then use a line that interests you. The idea is for the original to furnish the backdrop for your work, but without influencing you so much that you feel as if you are just rewriting the original!
Happy writing!
My first job this evening is to complete my Superhero poem from yesterday, once I’ve done that I can read the featured poem and get stuck into today’s resource and prompt.
I worked on my superhero poem last night and finished it this morning. I have updated the Day 23 post with process notes and an extract. And now I can read the featured poem and start on Day 24.
I read the featured poem about Imaginarywoman by Sarah Davies.
Girl. Give yourself whatever powers
You want. Think big,
Think supermegaultra
I thought about inventing a superhero and even watched a video of clips of superhuman powers from around the world to gather skills and powers, but left that idea in the work-in-progress file. It’s fun because there are no limits.
The poetry resource is a good place to find out/read Robert Burns and something I wish I’d known about for all the years I wrote Burn’s Night poems with wide, extensive research. It’s all here in one smart package.
I then moved onto the prompt.
I chose my line by looking at the Poetry Foundation website, browsing all subjects, closing my eyes and moving the cursor to randomly pick a theme and poem, then repeated closing my eyes, moving my cursor to land on a line.
It was a poem I didn’t know and I resisted reading it fully (until after I wrote my NaPo poem). The poem was Getting Your Rocks Off BY MELVIN DIXON. The line I picked was: You will learn to read rain.
This line definitely offers scope. My brain already pinging with multiple possibilities. I started by writing about dancing in the rain, which has been overdone in poems, but the focus remained learning to read the rain and I hoped this was enough to make it different to the other dancing poems.
It was a poem which stopped before I thought it would. I may return to this and write more but for now it is 3 small, intense stanzas.
You will forget all you know of scent and science,
I enjoyed writing this one. I just let it flow (no watery/rain pun).
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem about, or involving, a superhero, taking your inspiration from these four poems in which Lucille Clifton addresses Clark Kent/Superman.
Well it is an important day: St. George’s Day, Shakespeare’s Birthday, a very cherished family member is growing older today too… and it is day 23 of NaPo!
I can’t start today’s prompt until I complete my poem from yesterday. I have updated yesterday’s post with process notes, an extract and also updated the missing links from Day 21.
Having written about a Superman T-shirt and an Ice Cube Tray (Day 22), I can come back to present day! All NaPo caught up again.
The On being Project and Poetry Unbound are projects I have used, finding them over Lockdown and being part of a Wellness group (Mindful Poetry), based in Cincinnati, which was incubated with the On Being series. I have therefore seen and read/watched some of the material before. But it is great to be reminded of this wonderful resource and it brought my heart a little joy!
I also had an opportunity to create animation for Poetry Film for Elephant’s Footprint back in 2019. Some of the 10 films I made were used on the re-launch of their website and shown at The Reel Film Festival, Houston, Texas.
I enjoyed Toshi Reagon performs “Singularity” by Marissa Davis and will return to re-watch the other 12 videos after NaPo. This to me releases the same feelings as dancing. Full-spirit-poetry-experience!
I also watched “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry, A Poetry Film by Charlotte Ager & Katy Wang and “How to Be Alone” by Pádraig Ó Tuama, A Poetry Film by Leo G Franchi… because I couldn’t stop/resist!
Pádraig Ó Tuama played a big part in my Lockdown and he is a large part of the On Being project.
I also watched “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye, A Poetry Film by Ana Pérez López.
I then read the prompt – ironically I have started the superhero theme a day early with the t-shirt which featured in yesterday’s poem. I love Lucille Clifton’s poetry and looked forward to re-reading the example poems.
My next mission was to choose a subject. I didn’t want to continue with Superman, nor did I want to use my go to (Wonder Woman) – as she appeared in a workshopped poem last year. I searched for Superheroes and didn’t find THE one.
When I returned to this prompt yesterday (Weds.) I found my superhero. I decided on a sidekick, Robin. My experience of DC/Comics in general is limited. I remember watching the 60’s Batman series at the weekend and of course Superman, Wonder Woman and the like. I’ve watched the Marvel shows on Netflix and don’t object to a superhero film, but I have never read the comics and don’t have knowledge of the backstories of characters. So, researching this poem was a new world.
The 3 stanza poem explores the relationship between Robin and Batman.
template teenage sidekick already fledging in his radar.
Today’s featured resource is litbowl, an Instagram account and Facebook page that posts poems and prose with the goal of helping readers find new poets and authors.
PROMPT:
This one comes from the poet and fiction writer Todd Dillard, who provided this idea on his twitter account a few months ago. The idea is to write a poem in which two things have a fight. Two very unlikely things, if you can manage it. Like, maybe a comb and a spatula. Or a daffodil and a bag of potato chips.
Happy writing!
I read the featured poem. I like how the poet’s relationship with purple was explored.
I would fill my arms with purple flowers, Lavender and mallow, thistle and heliotrope,
I had a quick look at the poetry resource and know I will return to Litbowl to serve myself poetry reading time. I read a couple of poems on the FB account.
I read:
[…] by Fady Joudah
A harrowing (and necessary) poem. I have come across Joudah before (over Lockdown), he is a Palestinian-American poet. He won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2007, for his collection of poems The Earth in the Attic.
Earlier tonight (23rd) I was on a call and this is the first time I had come across […] other than in this poem. The universe is funny how it delivers echoes.
Unfinished by Geffrey Davis from One Wild Word Away.
Hard Love Rock by Audre Lorde from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde
And finally from Yanyi‘s book, The Year of Blue Water.
I stored the prompt overnight as I had no time and it was too late for my brain to manage NaPo last night.
I started the prompt with (a slightly limiting) random object generator and kept generating pairs of objects. I didn’t find inspiration in any of the pairings but noted objects as they caught my attention and listed them alongside each other. Within 4 minutes I had a list of 5 potential pairings.
Next decision was to choose which one to use. I chose the pairing which seemed MOST random! Love a challenge! A Superman T-shirt & an Ice Cube Tray.
Once selected I planned to start a free write from the p.o.v of each object personifying them individually before bringing them together in a poem to disagree/ fight. But I actually went straight in with the first line
I can’t help it, you remind me of Kryptonite.
I continued to write a poem as conversation, allowing the personality to reveal itself. A good piece of humour/surrealism/debate.
I really enjoyed this write and became quite the expert on Superman facts, which of course the Superman T-shirt was full of as he had a heated discussion with a wily ice cube tray.
I liked the voice of the t-shirt. Personified different personalities and managed to conclude it despite being unsure how (or even when) it would end. Written in couplets – it’s A4 length! Superman is dubious about ice cubes as they’re reminiscent of kryptonite.
The 3rd week of the challenge is over! We are nearly there, we are three quarters of the way there… pat yourselves on those powerful elbows!
This was the first time slippage of the challenge, where life + my working week prevented me from completing the daily challenges in real time. I left a few to catch up with on Friday (and I did) – although it took some hours.
It was also a great week for prompts and highly emotive poems. The resources were extremely rich pickings this week too.
Enjoy!
Here’s my weekly review where I pull together my favourite poems, resources, sites or experiences from the third NaPo week.
All featured poems are chosen for a reason, these were picked out this week for concept and powerful lines/imagery – all poetry is subjective (that enables us to be published in the first place).
Before I move onto prompts I want to add a few more resources to the list this week. These came from the prompts where Maureen Thorson masterfully signposted us to either example poems or other resources. Many of which were either invaluable in assisting the writer through the prompt or inspirational.
Additional Resources & Poems from the Prompts in Week 3:
My love of stamps and all things postage was reignited by this site.
These are the prompts which gave me food for thought or joy this week:
Day 15: inspired by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps.
This poem and my journey to get there has stayed with me all week. I loved the search as much as the writing.
Day 16: write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place,
Not so much the poem or even the subject of it, but the fact that a city I used to know well and a street I have walked hundreds (or possibly thousands) of times has a historical Grade II listed building that I have never seen. I mean it is next to a shop I love so I would have seen it but not registered it as a church in the middle of the High Street and possibly the oldest in the city.
Day 17: write a poem that is inspired by a piece of music
I LOVED (YES, I’M SHOUTING) Day 17! I love the place it took me back to, the music, the friends. I was amazed by both example poems and loved the task – a prompt I have done before but this time I was transported. I was reliving the 90s for real. It was great to feel so empowered by memories. It’s also an okay poetry result for Day 17 too. I thank Kiefer Sutherland for that!
Day 21: write a poem that repeats or focuses on a single color.
Although I didn’t follow it to the letter… as I let many more colours in.
Our resource… is the website of the Oxford Professor of Poetry, where you’ll find audio files of the nine lectures given by Alice Oswald across the four years of her appointed term.
PROMPT:
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that repeats or focuses on a single color. Some examples for you – Diane Wakoski’s “Blue Monday,” Walter de la Mare’s “Silver,” and Dorothea Lasky’s “Red Rum.”
Happy writing!
The featured poem, The ballad of Dr. William Price and his infant son, Iesu Grist ( Jesus Christ), is on a FB group. It offered a real sense of the man and the times he lived in with the rhythm and meter. In the comments section Catrin Mari offered a little more information on the subject, talking of Dr. William Price:
A neo-druid and radical from the 19th century, who lived in my hometown of Llantrisant, South Wales. He cremated his infant son, causing shock and anger, but paving the way for the legalisation of cremation.
The opening line took me straight in with sense of place:
A city on a hill cannot be hid,
Dragon-tongued and quick of wit,
His tears were salt, like earth,
I checked the resource, a great one. I started to listen to the lectures. Alice Oswald was the first female to hold the post in the 300 year history.
Prompt:
Many of us will have completed this prompt before, I am always amazed at the results and how varied they can be. I want to carve a little time at some point this week to read around other people participating in NaPoWriMo.
I started with the example poems. Diane Wakoski’s Blue Monday. I found this work to be quite surreal and beautiful. Reading it goes beyond a sensory experience.
a
gush of blood-red lizards.
there is love dripping from me I cannot use—like acacia or
jacaranda—fallen blue and gold flowers, crushed into the street.
I was taken with the unfolding of the story through a series of seemingly unrelated and at times, wonderfully surreal descriptions. I don’t tend to like the theory/practise of emulating a poem… but this opportunity may be too good to miss. Always After…. you don’t want to be falsely accused of plagiarism!
As a child I loved Walter de la Mare’s poetry, I must have latched onto rhyme and rhythm. It was special to revisitSilver as an adult. I think he may have been one of the first names that stuck with me.
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
If you’re after metered poetry this is a great site/resource. A healthy list.
Finally I spent time with Red Rum by Dorothea Lasky. I listened to the poem. Very evocative.
I then set about choosing colour/theme/detail for my poem which I am going to free write into existence!
The first part of the process in my mind was to be focused around one colour with multiple examples as in Wakoski’s poem, dealing with the sub-text issue by the end. I had it ready to go in my mind – but as I wrote the words shifted and refused to stay in one place on the paint chart and so I exposed a story of memory colour(s) – I am keeping the poem…. part prose poem, potentially a Haibun* in the future. I am also attempting the prompt a 2nd time to follow it more closely if the words allow.
*Haibun (俳文, literally, haikai writings) is a prosimetric literary form originating in Japan, combining prose and haiku.(Wiki)
Well the plan was to try again but my mind was stuck fast in/to the writing I had splurged, so instead I worked with what I had and explored a range of colour – accepting that often workshop prompts work this way for people – you take what you need – allow what is happening to happen. Resulting in a poem different to something you would have produced if you followed to the letter.
It’s Sunday – I’m letting myself be free.
I did chain myself in knots finding a title – it took 30 mins (it was a shorter time writing the poem)… and in the end I changed one word…. Hum to Hue!
… write a poem that recounts a historical event. In writing your poem, you could draw on your memory, encyclopedias, history books, or primary documents. If you’re interested in a little research, you might find interesting this collection of letters written during the American Civil War, or… primary documents concerning South Sea voyages. Or… Europeana.
Happy writing!
I can’t believe we are 2/3 of the way through NaPoWriMo!
I started with the featured poem, The same boat. It is an interesting approach setting the points against each other this way, as Jane Dougherty states a contrapuntal poem.
I could access 12 poems on the IG resource. I will sort my passwords out and go back through the links when I have time. I read a few poems. It’s late and I have little time to manage the challenge.
The resources on the prompt will be something I look at retrospectively too. I fall down enough rabbit holes with research as it is. For tonight I will choose the historical event and go from there. These are probably valuable resources depending on where and what you’re writing. I will add them to my NaPo queue.
During my catch-up-with-NaPo writes from the end of the week, I discovered a building in the city that I have never seen. On Day 16 my research was, in part, historical and I have a few key notes of other events I wanted to delve into for source material. The richness of this work is that NaPo is guiding a mini project for me to develop for the rest of the summer which is forming the basis of something else. Exciting.
As I read today’s prompt I knew I would revisit my historical research and draw a thread to investigate further and see where I end up – hopefully, with a poem!
There was a gauntlet of research (it would have been quicker to use a provided resource) and links became new subjects – I collected a list and what I intended to write about was cast aside for the English Civil War (not really taught in my experience), armour and eventually WWII – more specifically post-war rationing. I made notes on each area I investigated but on my final path I watched an entire documentary and the Day 20 poem comes from notes made during that. The source was the Imperial War Museum.
Writing today’s poem was a moving experience on many levels, especially with every war happening in the world right now and the cost of living crisis. The way this poem found its ending was unexpected, it struck deeply. The whole time I was writing about food (or the lack of it), I was actually thinking of all the lost lives, how humans have not found a way to live together without this hardship affecting every generation.
I was looking forward to being able to refocus on the NaPo Challenge today… so I started back in Day 16, where due to time/work commitments I fell behind. Falling behind used to cause me all sorts of negativity, but I am fine with it. This is what happens to most writers, most of the time. It’s life. It’s okay.
I didn’t look at today’s features until I had attempted the writing. I have updated both posts for Day 16 and Day 17 with process notes and extracts.
So the catch up took a while, now I am ready to tackle today’s prompt.
I started with the featured poem Cutting Hail. I played the song as I read the poem. It’s not one I knew. It has interesting ambient noises which were picked up in the poem.
At night, the song of stars reflects your presence,
Then I checked the poetry source, Best American Poetry blog. I read a few posts and will return to this resource next month. There’s lots of great content. I read several poems. I could spend a day on the site. I may do in the future. Exciting resource to get to know.
buds. I want to be unabashed, audacious, to gobble
space, to blush deeper each day in the sun,
I then read Randall Jarrell’s The Woman at the Washington Zoo, before starting my writing. It’s funny because throughout my life I have imagined being someone else or something else and now I have to pick a desired destination I can’t pull any of these times from my memory bank! No withdrawal! So… I start with the challenge of getting into the prompt by choosing who or what to want to become.
I started with The Fascinating World of Insects video. I think when I consider reincarnation or having had a different life I am drawn to butterflies and ladybirds… and in contrast, brown bears and lions.
It was a rabbit hole which gave me abundant creatures. And I discovered the rusty spotted cat – and knew I’d found my subject.
It was a tiny poem, appropriate for the world’s smallest cat. I enjoyed writing it and discovering a new animal.
awritersfountain 