NaPoWriMo – Day 6

 

Day Six

On April 6, 2014

Welcome back for Day Six of NaPoWriMo. Yesterday’s prompt was a bit of a doozy, so I’ve something much more simple lined up for today.

We got rather complicated with yesterday’s prompt, so today’s is much simpler. Take a good look outside your window. Spend a minute or so jotting down all the nouns you see outside. Tree. Car. Bus. Dog. Then spend a minute or so writing down all the colors you see. Finally, think about taking place outside. Is the wind blowing? “Blow.” Is someone walking their dog? “Walk.” Spend a minute or so writing down these verbs. Now you’ve got a whole list of words from which to build a poem, mixing and matching as you go. Happy writing!

 

 

Delighted that I have FINALLY caught up with the first week of NaPoWriMo!

I found this harder than the golden shovel task of yesterday. I have got there – I question the strength of the poem, still – here is an extract all the same:

 

Sunday

Walking in purple

through blue

over grey roads, across kerbstones.

Magnolia dreams seep into your dark mind.

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 5

The prompt for Day 5 confused me for a while and I found the poem the hardest I have had to write, mainly because I was trying to write my poem and make the other poem fit the end words, as opposed to looking at the poem and seeking inspiration from the words. Something I tried the second time.

Day Five

On April 5, 2014

Welcome back, all, for Day Five of NaPoWriMo!

Today’s prompt is a little complicated, which is why I saved it for a Saturday, in the hopes that you might have a little more time today than during a weekday. I think this is a very rewarding form, though, so I hope you’ll enjoy it! Today I challenge you to write a “golden shovel.” This form was invented by Terrance Hayes in his poem, The Golden Shovel. The last word of each line of Hayes’ poem is a word from Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem We Real Cool. You can read Brooks’ poem by reading the last word of each line of Hayes’ poem! (In fact, you can do so twice, because Hayes, being ultra-ambitious, wrote a two-part golden shovel, repeating Brooks’ poem). Now, the golden shovel is a tricky form, but you can help keep it manageable by picking a short poem to shovel-ize. And there’s no need to double-up the poem you pick, like Hayes did.

 

And here is the poem I chose:

Watermelons

Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.

-Charles Simic

I like both versions and as a special treat for you I am going to post both on here for now, I was struggling to choose an extract to share.

 

The Air is Black

 

We stand in the garden and talk about watermelons.

Planting seeds in green

trays, sitting like Buddhas

huddled up against the rain in garden chairs, music on

the ipod playing the

tracks we usually listen to on a Friday night, and still we talk fruit,

I stand,

move inside the shed, we

look up, rain can eat the smile

right out of the sky, town covered in smog and

pollution. Spit

my disappointment of the grey sheen out

at the sky from the

shed door – seed packet held between my teeth.

 

 

 

 

Party

 

I hide the cake behind a slice of Watermelon,

bowl looks a healthy on one side. I carry the desert past the green buddhas

and on

up the

garden path, fruit

leading the way. I stand

and smile, remember how we

used to dance nights like this away. I eat.

I think of the

memories and smile.

Biting cold mouthfuls and

swallowing the pips I should spit out, the teeth

of the melon stuck in mine.

 

 

 

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 4

Today’s optional prompt is to write a lune. A lune is a sort of English-language variation on the haiku, meant to better render the tone of the Japanese haiku than the standard 5-7-5 format we all learned (and maybe loved) in elementary school. Happy writing!

If you want to know more about this type of poetry check out the terms post.

https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/napowrimo-a-post-of-terms/

A treat today – with such short form I am posting the whole poem and then I plan to write some more over the next few weeks using this, new to me, form.

 

Beginnings  (or Preparation)

 

In the garden

we plant seeds in small

pots and hope.

 

 

NaPoWriMo – Day 3

I will eventually post within the same 24 hours as the prompt!

DAY 3

Third Time’s The Charm

On April 3, 2014

In keeping with today’s status as the third day of NaPoWriMo, I challenge you to write a charm – a simple rhyming poem, in the style of a recipe-slash-nursery rhyme. It could be a charm against warts, or against traffic tickets. It could be a charm to bring love, or to bring free pizzas from your local radio station.

This year every day there is also a ‘featured participant’, I like to broaden my knowledge of poetry by reading all that’s on offer. Today I was linked to a page by Scant Scintilla, a mixed offering of found poetry and erasure poetry. Both techniques I am aware of.

Inspired by what I read (especially the internet insanity) I set about creating my own found poem. What I ended up with might well plug any extra time needed for the Dualogue set being prepared for  Tuesday’s  (Next rehearsal Monday!)

Then I got on with my Charm poem.

I am delighted with this poem – although it needs a bit more work – as it rhymes and I used to do that and now rarely do, will take some editing, but it is amusing (always good at spoken word events) – I actually hadn’t thought what it was a concoction for until towards the end of writing the poem. The most fun prompt to get stuck into so far!

Thoroughly enjoyed it – why not give it a try?

 

(Extracts only)

Take one leaf from the apple tree

add a spoonful of sugar,

Oh, go on, make that three!

Give it a generous stir.

Let it rest for just a minute

Whilst you pour yourself a gin,

this is a non-alcholic recipe

you won’t have to drop any in!

 

 

All I Needed was a Good Party!

I recently posted about writing fatigue, having suffered fatigue in general these past few weeks. I fell asleep after a film on Friday night, it finished before Midnight and I had been relaxing since 4pm. I woke up at 5:30 and again at 10:30 and eventually Mr G woke me up at 2pm and I still felt like I could have slept longer.

It was a friend’s birthday Friday,  another one yesterday and I had already sent an RSVP to a joint 60th and 40th Wedding Anniversary Party.

I decided I only had the energy for one event and missed seeing all my friends and the birthday girl in the pub yesterday afternoon. Not that we have a lot of bar money left since going to the new Home store on Friday!

 Before I got myself ready, I had time for a spot of email catch up and some writing. I realised as my mind was wandering off task that I might have slight cabin fever…. which seemed crazy as I had been out at work all week and Friday Mr G and I myself spent the whole afternoon out shopping for the home and garden! We had a friend pop round and see us in the garden too, another friend was over at ours on Thursday – so it is not even as if we were suffering each other’s company!

But it had been a week since I did anything. I am sociable or duvet ridden – extremes with barely an in between. Much as I felt it a great effort to get ready to go out, I had the perfect poetry dress in mind and I got ready without any hitches.

Once I was on the road I realised it had been ages since I had seen the friends I would share the party night with, everybody apart from me has been abroad since I last saw them too. Lots of stories and despite posting pretty much every step and event on social media they asked how my writing was going.

All I needed to do was brush off the cobwebs and mingle!
It was a great night celebrating with Glenis and Mick.