NaPoWriMo Day 9 Prompts & Poetry

Well after an epic morning writing the gaps I am finally back on track with prompts for NaPoWriMo.

Here is what is on offer over at http://www.napowrimo.net/day-nine-3/

Our featured participant for the day is Ordinary Average Thoughts, the repetition poem.

Today, our interview is with Thomas Lux. When he passed away earlier this year, he was the author of twenty books of poetry. Known for his sardonic verse (titles of his books include Pecked To Death By Swans and Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy), Lux taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, as well as in other writing programs around the country. Find examples of his poems here and here.

Finally, here is our prompt (optional, as always). Because today is the ninth day of NaPoWriMo, I’d like to challenge you to write a nine-line poem.

I wrote a very personal poem so I won’t post any snippets here. I am not sure it is one I can do anything with. So I set about writing more and after two false starts caught a poem that went somewhere.

‘…scared to ruin what is precious…

…time does not lace… with its trace…’

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Carrie Etter’s prompt leaves me with a lump in my throat before I even attempt pen to paper. Writing about loss. Writing about the month of loss and listing all the horrible things about the month then revealing in the endline that this was the month of loss. I am thinking of a friend who died, who I miss dearly.

I came back to writing this a while later, an incredibly short poem of 10 lines. Powerful, going somewhere.

…frost grieved evenings…

snow bleached hospital sheets…

November took you to that colourless place.

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Jo Bell under a post called leaping greenly, gives us an untitled poem by EE Cummings. http://www.jobell.org.uk/

In her post she shares the EE Cummings poem that first got her into poetry (thank goodness, a poetry world without Jo in it would be a poorer place). At 17 she wrote out the last two verses, Jo writes It can be explained, just as happiness can be explained as a ratio of endorphins – but that’s not the point of either poetry or happiness.

Which made me smile.

I am a Cummings fan and this was an insightful read. Enjoyed spending some time with Cummings.

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Over at The Poetry School calls for a response poem.

Day 9: Response poem

Morning all. Today’s challenge is a response poem: argue against, agree with, re-write, or converse with someone else’s poem. The difficulty, of course, lies in making your poem stand up on its own. © The Poetry School 2017 

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NaPoWriMo Day 9 The BIG Cook Up

Sometimes we use Sundays to do a bulk cook, as we have time and space to do so. Today the sun is shining and I have been awake since 6 a.m. I am writing (not continually), I am writing the gaps of prompts I skipped and days I missed due to writing off prompt.

I have so far written every day but not all poems follow the prompts, they don’t have to.

A lingering prompt – and by that, I mean a prompt I have not been able to get my teeth into came on Day 6 – a poem that looks at the same thing from various points of view. I think my main issue is finding the pinnacle event to hang the poem on. I tried watching a video of a Barrista at work (inspired by my 2nd coffee of the day). I made notes for 15 minutes and then wrote the poem. There are 5 different points of view but I am still not convinced it works. I will crack this prompt but I think I will surrender and let it come to me.

I played with Carrie Etter’s 6th prompt – choosing 5 out of 6 words. I started by listing synonyms and then during a search engine enquiry copied some bad rap lyrics and created a found poem. It is a thin poem, the longest line is 3 words and most lines are just a word. I am delighted with the result. I feel it is a full, proper poem and is unlike any of my writing. It has rhythm and packs a lot of story into very few words. I can imagine it would be fun to perform.

Once I wrote this, I went back to my word list and wrote 2 incredibly short poems and a haiku.

I missed number 7 on Carrie’s list too – which was a 20 line (or fewer) poem on ‘Flights of Fancy’, this is the theme for Bradford on Avon’s poetry competition which Carrie Etter is judging this year.  My poem ran to 16 lines and was a cathartic experience. Post break-up travel plans, a trip taken 15 years ago to heal a broken heart.

I revisited napowrimo.net prompt for Day 8 – using repetition, again a prompt that carried a struggle in the ideas department. On Elizabeth Bouquet’s blog she wrote about her students – and I thought that could be a way in but only got as far as ‘She had some pupils…’ before I started thinking about eyes and the entire thing collapsed!

Then I finally cracked it and wrote my 2nd ever poem about shoes. I have a great love for shoes and handbags.

She had some shoes once, bought in Paris, never worn.

I feel chuffed that I managed to crack this poem. I am finally on track for Day 9.

Today I have time to browse and read other blogs, other NaPo poetry now I have written mine up to date and finally I think I may need to type up the work so far, 28 poems. Some are just 3 lines, haikus, freewrites and splurges, a few are fully formed and ready to serve. I like a couple. ALL are poems I would never have written without NaPoWriMo!

Today I revisited Elizabeth Boquets ‘Oaks to Acorns’ blog, to read her Napo poem for Day 6, what I found was a body of work, beautiful poems (that I now give myself permission to read) from the first week of prompts.

It is a good job I am not currently working on submissions, my festival event organising needs to step up a gear and I need to work on that and I have taken most of the past week off from performing, in fact I took the whole week off, went to readings instead.

Here I am in Day 9 and ready to face the prompts – emerging from a morning write that yielded 6 poems!