NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ Day 30

Read the full post here.

Today’s featured participant is 7eyedwonder.

Our final daily resource is this repository of podcasts hosted by the Scottish Poetry Library.

Prompt:

Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend, as in  Claire Scott’s poem “Scheherazade at the Doctor’s Office.”

Happy writing!

Congratulations you made it through NaPoWriMo 2024, 30 days and hopefully 30 poems later you’re happy (and perhaps relieved)… massive kudos. Now let the poems rest a while and come back to the editing room later this Spring/Summer, see what wonders your mind and hand combined under the watchful/thoughtful NaPo prompts.

As for me, I think this may be the first year I have not completed in real time. This week is brutal (schedule wise) and I can barely see the screen this late on in the evening. So I have come to post but will come back to finishing NaPo when I have time later this week.

I will post the final featured participant tomorrow after work and may even get stuck in to some writing, although I do have 2 events to attend.

I wanted to read the featured poem – but having not yet penned my Taylor Swift prompt poem from yesterday (Day 29), I am not able to read any yet.

I am aware of the Scottish Poetry Library and love this excellent resource. They also have a link on the homepage back to the Robert Burns Archive (BBC) shared last week (Day 24) in NaPo.

I treated myself to a podcast ‘Nothing but the Poem’ – Ross Gay recorded back in July 2023.

Poem to My Child, If Ever You Shall Be

BY ROSS GAY

Sorrow Is Not My Name

BY ROSS GAY

—after Gwendolyn Brooks

It’s great that the poems are linked and that you are guided to respond. This is a resource I will be dipping back into on my writing days for definite. GOLD DUST!

I then read Claire Scott’s poem Scheherazade at the Doctor’s.

Deep inhalation. A remarkable poem. I look forward to writing this prompt.

I will update this post when I have.

NaPoWriMo 24 ~ Day 29

Read the full post here.

We have two featured participants today: Frank Bekker and Brittany Mishra.

Today’s daily resource is Poems for These Hours.

Prompt:

If you’ve been paying attention to pop-music news over the past couple of weeks, you may know that Taylor Swift has released a new double album titled “The Tortured Poets Department.” In recognition of this occasion, Merriam-Webster put together a list of ten words from Taylor Swift songs. We hope you don’t find this too torturous yourself, but we’d like to challenge you to select one these words, and write a poem that uses the word as its title.

Happy writing!

Due to other commitments I don’t have time to finish my poem or process notes this evening. I will complete the challenge tomorrow, an interesting prompt.

NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ 4th Week Review

The final full week of NaPo has gone, even though we have a couple of days left of April. Here’s my weekly review, where I pull together my favourite poems, resources, sites or experiences from the final full week of NaPo.

Featured Poems:

I Will Keep Broken Things by LuAnne Holder

I Would Like to Visit the Moon…  on Peregrine Buffington by P.S. Shuller.

Poetry Resources

Litbowl

On Being Project

Poetry Society of America’s Poetry in Motion project

 

Video archive of the Silo City Reading Series, hosted by the Just Buffalo Literary Center

 Poetry Pause

Additional Resources:

The poem was Getting Your Rocks Off BY MELVIN DIXON (Day 24 prompt)

Traci Brimhall’s poem A Group of Moths (Day 26 prompt)

Prompts:

Sometimes prompts are favoured not for the resulting poem but for the unearthed knowledge found during research or the sheer joy of the chase. This is the case for some of this week’s prompts.

Day 22 – Todd Dillard, write a poem in which two things have a fight.

I chose an ice cube tray and a Superman T-shirt and am still a little in love with the conversation they had.

Photo by Helena Lopes on Pexels.com

Day 23 – where the superhero theme continued…  write a poem about, or involving, a superhero.

My fire was lit by the backstory research into characters from Batman. The things I never knew!

Photo by Picography on Pexels.com

Day 24 – write a poem that begins with a line from another poem, but then goes elsewhere with it. 

This time the poem.

Photo by Lum3n on Pexels.com

Day 26 – write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance.

For all I discovered in the depth of research about Sheila Scott.

Day 28 – write a sijo.

The poem and the act of writing / learning to write a Sijo and discovering a new form.

This year has been greatly enjoyable. There are still 2 glorious days left, let’s savour them!

NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ Day 28

Read the full post here.

Today’s featured participant is MellowYellow.

Our featured resource for the day is Harriet Books.

Prompt:

[…] try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.

You could also write a sijo in six lines – at least when it comes to translating classical sijo into English, translators seem to have developed this habit, as you can see from these translations of poems by Jong Mong-Ju and U Tak.

Happy writing!

I read the featured poem, Glass Heart Sonnet, you can see the musical influence in it. Then I moved onto the poetry resource. There are some interesting blog articles as well as book reviews.

I started by researching the Sijo using the links provided. I watched part of the Prof. David McCann Lecture Series but decided my morning brain was finding it overly complicated and reverted back to the break down of the written form.

Today’s write was the opposite of yesterday, bringing me great joy! A happy memory. I love what this form does to the English language, how distilled the image captures are. I also love discovering and trying a new-to-me form. This was my first Sijo and I WILL write more now I have learnt the form.

Water dream

Sijo is a Korean traditional poetic form that emerged during the Goryeo dynasty, flourished during the Joseon dynasty, and is still written today. © Wiki

NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ Day 27

Read the full post here.

Today, our featured daily participant is Peregrine Buffington.

Our featured resource for the day is Poetry Pause.

Prompt:

Today we’d like to challenge you to write an “American sonnet. Like a traditional Spencerian or Shakespearean sonnet, an American sonnet is shortish (generally 14 lines, but not necessarily!), discursive, and tends to end with a bang, but there’s no need to have a rhyme scheme or even a specific meter. Here are a few examples:

• Wanda Coleman’s American Sonnet (10)
• Terence Hayes’s American Sonnet for the New Year
• Ted Berrigan’s Sonnet LXXXVIII

Write 253 has a great “formula” prompt for an American sonnet, which you can find here.

Happy writing!

I started with the featured poem, I WOULD LIKE TO VISIT THE MOON … the Abecedarian form is a tough one to do well, but for language lovers it’s a great challenge. I didn’t discover this form until 2018, when I was back from Australia and trying to find the words to write poems about my experience. I have only written 2 to date (Abecedarians, not poems about Australia)! I recently attended a workshop where the group were introduced to poems which played with this form by breaking/following different rules, which was easier. So I have 2x half Abecedarian poems too. But back to today’s featured poem.

The best are the ones you don’t realise the form until you are part way through – or close to the end. Of course, today I knew I was reading one so this work didn’t get a chance to surprise me that way. But the theme delighted me and I enjoyed reading the poem.

old words are recycled and reused and re-
purposed for something new taking scrap fabric for new
quilt squares. sewing them together. a whole alphabet of letters.

^^ perfectly describes how children develop/hear language.

you will soak water up like knowledge, like music,
you will soak up rain like van gogh used yellow paint in flowers and stars.

I then checked the poetry resource. Lucky enough to be friends with a few Canadian poets and experienced a lot of what Canada offers Spoken Word/Poetry-wise during Lockdown. I was happy to be browsing a new-to-me resource. I dipped in and read a few poems and will definitely be back for a deeper dive.

I will need some time to work on my sonnet so will post this before process notes and the extract (to make sure it is still Day 27 when it lands).

I have written sonnets of various forms which usually end up only close to sonnets as they’re 14 lines. I usually break a rule and end up with a poem I am content with but one which hasn’t followed all the rules. I know the American Sonnet may be more relaxed rule-wise but I’m not sure my night-head is ready!

I read the example poems though. And then checked out American Sonnets on Write 253. Which is where I decided to start – following the prompt to write an American Sonnet. The prompt felt familiar – I am sure someone has used it in a workshop before, or something similar anyway. Sure a lot of poems start from lists of ideas/word banks.

My desk is such a mess that the 2nd part was easy:

b. 10 items you can see from where you are right now

I like writing to music, so I am off now to pen my Day 27.

Photo by Jessica Lewis ud83eudd8b
thepaintedsquare on Pexels.com

It was not an easy write emotionally, but following the prompt eased me into the waters of the American Sonnet smoothly. The writing was the easy part. The story it dredged up, was not.

flesh hidden by patina

NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ Day 26

Read the full post here.

Our featured participant for the day is Words With Ruth, where we get a dating profile in response to Day 25’s Proust Questionnaire prompt.

Our daily resource is the video archive of the Silo City Reading Series, hosted by the Just Buffalo Literary Center, New York.

Prompt:

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.

On her own with the one engine.

NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ Day 25

Read the full post here (although today most of it is here).

Our featured participant is Wind Rush.

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 Things by 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.

the pen rides the page in fast, hard markings

Photo by Arina Krasnikova on Pexels.com

NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ Day 24

Read the full post here.

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).

Photo by Fabiano Rodrigues on Pexels.com

NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ Day 23

Read the full post here.

Today’s featured participant is Jo Minns, who brings us a charming disagreement between an oven and some apples….

Our featured resource for the day is a series of poetry films from the On Being Project, which also hosts the Poetry Unbound podcast, featuring short explorations of a new poem every few days.

Prompt:

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.

Happy writing!

Photo by Andras Fritschek on Pexels.com

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.

Day 23 and read The Silent Fight by Jo Minns.

Majestic oven has been used on the sly

Forgotten apples should be an apple pie

I read it guiltily thinking of food waste.

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.

NaPoWriMo 2024 ~ Day 22

Read the full post here.

Our featured participant today is Flutterby’s NaPoWriMo.

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.

Read a full biography here and more poems here.

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.

I myself, am plastic. Which is hated by mankind

more than you hate Lex Luther or Kryptonite!

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