NaPoWriMo – Back On Track – Day 25

Day 25

http://www.napowrimo.net/

This prompt enabled me to write a corker and I am delighted. I know that writing several poems a day for a month means that they won’t all make target, I can safely say they are all poems – but whether they are good poems or not (well I wouldn’t want to tell them – but even after editing next month some will be notebook bound forever), others like today’s may grow wings and fly.

Our featured participant today is Tea Parties on Neptune, where the medieval marginalia poem for Day 24 involves some peculiar rabbits!

Our interview today is with Douglas Kearney, whose poetry often involves very visual, altered typography as well as onomatopoeia – poems meant to be seen and heard out loud. You can learn more about Kearney here, and read some of his work here and here.

And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). In 1958, the philosopher/critic Gaston Bachelard wrote a book called The Poetics of Space, about the emotional relationship that people have with particular kinds of spaces – the insides of sea shells, drawers, nooks, and all the various parts of houses. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that explores a small, defined space – it could be your childhood bedroom, or the box where you keep old photos. It could be the inside of a coin purse or the recesses of an umbrella stand. Any space will do – so long as it is small, definite, and meaningful to you.

I wrote about a print Mr G. bought me as a Valentine’s gift, my small specific place the poster tube that still houses it two months later. I am searching for the perfect frame!

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Carrie Etter’s prompt was to write about a pet and show how the behaviour influences you, without naming the pet, leaving it to description to identify the subject. I have had pets – but we are currently pet-less, I wrote about a neighbouring creature instead.

Soaking up puddles of sun,

…

one stroke and your skin is raked.

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Jo Bell encouraged us to read Why We Need Libraries by Ian McMillan. http://www.jobell.org.uk/  

I moved around a lot and have always found my home in Libraries.

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The Poetry School  offered

Day 25: It All Ends The Same Anyway

A fun task for today. I’d like you to write a poem in which every line ends with the same word. That’s it. It lends itself to comedy, but if you can make a tragic poem out of the prompt, I’d be dead impressed.

Paul Stephenson’s ‘The Apprentice’ is your example poem.

Paul’s pamphlet ‘The Days That Followed Paris’ was one of the Poetry School’s ‘Books of the Year’, published on our blog. You do read our blog, don’t you?

NaPoWriMo – The BIG Catch Up – Day 24

Day 24 http://www.napowrimo.net/

Welcome back, everyone, for the twenty-fourth day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo!

Our featured participant for the day is The Mother of Adam, where you will find not one, not two, but eleven double elevenie poems for Day 23!

Today’s interview is another two-fer, with the poet Rachel McKibbens being interviewed by the poet Jennifer L. Knox. Both McKibbens and Knox have ties to the “slam” poetry movement, which focuses on performance. McKibbens is known for her work’s direct, fierce, emotional address, while Knox’s poems often exhibit a gonzo humor that can suddenly give way to deep pathos. You can read several of McKibbens’ poems here, and examples of Knox’s work here.

Last but not least, our (optional) daily prompt. Today, I challenge you to write a poem of ekphrasis — that is, a poem inspired by a work of art. But I’d also like to challenge you to base your poem on a very particular kind of art – the marginalia of medieval manuscripts. Here you’ll find some characteristic images of rabbits hunting wolves, people sitting on nests of eggs, dogs studiously reading books, and birds wearing snail shells. What can I say? It must have gotten quite boring copying out manuscripts all day, so the monks made their own fun. Hopefully, the detritus of their daydreams will inspire you as well!

I love Ekphrastic poetry and I fell in love with the Monk’s Marginalia. I saved several images to my phone as I want to delve deeper into this prompt at a later stage. I thoroughly enjoyed my writing experience on Day 24. I love the idea that Monks could imagine such images and like early Banksy, left them on copied manuscripts. Part of me thinks all the search engine images must be faked.

I choose the image which had the most impact. A creature morphed from at least 8 animals that I could see. My way in was just to write lines of narrative describing what I could see, this enabled me to get inside the mind of the beast and write my poem as he.

The marginalia dream of escape, trapped by words.

Nutmeg eye, laboured with anguish, magnifies sin.

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Carrie Etter’s prompt suggested we look at a poem that does not work, choose a favourite line as a starting point and write a new poem.

Well I have plenty of Napo poems that haven’t quite worked, so didn’t have far to look.

I took ‘Word wise and letter loving…’ and penned a new poem around it.

Bake until our ideas glaze.

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Jo Bell http://www.jobell.org.uk/ posted Warning by Malika Booker.

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The Poetry School

• Day 24: The Single-Use Poem

  Morning poets. Welcome to the home stretch! Just one more week to go…

  What is a single-use poem? Well, it’s one that breaks after the first time you read it. What falls into that category? Twist Endings. Riddles. Jokes. Sudden revelations. Anything that relies on surprise for its effect. I want you to write a poem that will make people say, ‘You have to read this. I won’t spoil it for you. Just trust me!’.

  For inspiration, have a look at Matthew Francis’ ‘The Ornamental Hermit’. I won’t spoil it for you. Just trust me!

  It’s hard to find a decent copy online, but Michael Donaghy’s ‘Riddle’ is also a good example.

NaPoWriMo – The BIG Catch Up – Day 23

DAY 23

http://www.napowrimo.net/

Wow! It’s hard to believe we’ve been at this for 23 whole days already. I hope you each have nearly 2 dozen poems under your belt. And if not, that’s okay too! Whether you try to catch up, or just jump back into writing now, either way works for us!

Today’s featured participant is Marilyn Rauch Cavicchia, whose georgic poem for Day 22 explains to us how (not) to grow a cabbage!

For our interview today, we’re “kicking it old school,” with T.S. Eliot being interviewed by Donald Hall. Not entirely sure who these two are? (Maybe you went into a defensive faint when asked to read “The Waste Land” in high school?) Well, here’s a little information on Eliot and Hall. You can also check out a number of Eliot’s poems (including some blessedly short ones) here, and some of Hall’s poems here.

And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). Our prompt for Day Twenty-Three comes to us from Gloria Gonsalves, who challenges us to write a double elevenie. What’s that? Well, an elevenie is an eleven-word poem of five lines, with each line performing a specific task in the poem. The first line is one word, a noun. The second line is two words that explain what the noun in the first line does, the third line explains where the noun is in three words, the fourth line provides further explanation in four words, and the fifth line concludes with one word that sums up the feeling or result of the first line’s noun being what it is and where it is. There are some good examples in the link above.

A double elevenie would have two stanzas of five lines each, and twenty-two words in all. It might be fun to try to write your double elevenie based on two nouns that are opposites, like sun and moon, or mountain and sea.

I had to study The Waste Land at A-level and remember enjoying it immensely. Just as I enjoyed discovering how to write an elevenie and writing several. I wrote three and this is a form I will return to.

They are so short and each line needs the preceding one, so I do not feel I can share any of the lines without the rest of the poem. I wrote one on sky and then followed the Double Elevenie idea of combining Mountain/Sea as opposites.

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Carrie Etter’s prompt was to write something unpleasant that happened to you as a child in third person, showing how the child feels. I, like many others wrote about a wasp sting.

She learnt hard lessons that summer:

not to leave sticky lollies to heat,

the sugary fascination of striped creatures

and how best to avoid airborne predators.

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Jo Bell http://www.jobell.org.uk/ posted Rhetorical Questions by Hugo Williams.

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The Poetry School  set an incredibly challenging task. I believe it is the act of writing that helps create my writing. I do know a few incredibly talented/renowned poets who work in this head first way.

Day 23 It’s All In Your Head

Poetry is supposed to be i) read aloud and ii) memorable. Bearing that in mind, I’d like you to explore a compositional process that forces you to actually speak the words you’re crafting and make sure they stick in your head.

So, for today’s task, I’d like you to not put pen to paper. Compose in your head, or aloud – nowhere near a pen, pencil or computer. Smart phones are particularly toxic for this exercise – if you can go out without yours, do so. I suggest you go for a walk, take a long bath, sit in the library, garden or park – or just let your mind wander over the hoovering.

Don’t set pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, until the poem is perfect and whole in your head. It’ll be indescribably tempting to rush to a notepad as soon as you get a good line in your head – resist this urge!

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NaPoWriMo – The BIG Catch Up – Day 22

I think Day 22 was one of the most enjoyable writing I have experienced this year. As a vegetable lover and ex-allotment owner with a green-fingered (I would go as far as Green -God), Mr G. – how could I resist the material from today.

 http://www.napowrimo.net/

Our featured participant today is Arash’s Poetry, where the overheard poem for Day 21 is a wonderful rendering of speech in a busy cafe.

Our interview today is with Kyle Dargan. Originally from New Jersey, Dargan now lives in Washington, DC, where he directs the creative writing program at American University. He is the author of four books of poetry that explore the intersection of the personal and the political, with a twist of science fiction. You can learn more about Dargan and find some of his poems here, and find an additional poem here.

Last but not least, here is our prompt for the day (optional, as always). In honor of Earth Day, I’d like to challenge you to write a georgic. The original georgic poem was written by Virgil, and while it was ostensibly a practical and instructional guide regarding agricultural concerns, it also offers political commentary on the use of land in the wake of war. The georgic was revived by British poets in the eighteenth century, when the use of land was changing both due to the increased use of enlightenment farming techniques and due to political realignments such as the union of England, Scotland, and Wales.

Your Georgic could be a simple set of instructions on how to grow or care for something, but it could also incorporate larger themes as to how land should be used (or not used), or for what purposes.

Well, I had never heard of the form before, so with my research head still on my shoulders I delved into discovering the Georgic. After this some Agricultural research which was scribbled all over my notebook and finally a list of the most grown crops internationally. It was good to see some of our allotment fodder on our list – and there went my muse again, setting off fireworks. There is still a mountain of untapped ideas waiting for exploration over the summer.

I eventually calmed down enough to pen a poem, back in the notebook after several days at the keys. I wrote two short poems and a longer Georgic about growing tomatoes (the 8th most valuable crop in the world).

Accept that neighbours will pinch the odd one or two,

eat a healthy quota when hanging out the washing,

Sample a few whilst watering the garden.

And YES, I know tomato is a fruit, a berry in fact.

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Carrie Etter’s prompt for Day 22 was also vegetable related…

Write an ode to your favourite vegetable. For inspiration, here’s Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to the Artichoke”: http://www.versedaily.org/2013/odetotheartichoke.shtml

the cabbage

devoted itself

to trying on skirts,

….

who fearlessly

picks out

an artichoke,

looking at it, examining it

against the light as if it were an egg.

From Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to the Artichoke”

Having just come up for air after my agricultural research, I had a million (well, 5 or 6) ideas from this prompt as well. I also had fun (yes, I said – FUN) revising the Ode. The Pindaric, Horatian and Meditation Odes.

In the end I swung vegetable odes for a Fruit ode and wrote about my favourite to plant and eat, strawberries.

….we reaped you fast, gobbled you up, greedily.

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Jo Bell http://www.jobell.org.uk/ encouraged us to read… if any poet can, it would be Kei Miller – go and read him if you haven’t!

When Considering the Long, Long Journey of 28,000 Rubber Ducks by Kei Miller

I remember this story being news. Jo’s discussion is filled with consideration. Treat yourself.

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The Poetry School offered a prompt from Julia Bird. The Golden Shovel – featured in past Napowrimo and a firm favourite amongst the poets in Carrie Etter’s NaPo Prompt group. I have written several already this month.

Day 22 The Golden Shovel

A modern form, which has really taken off since it was invented by Terrance Hayes. Take a line from a poem you admire, then use each word in that line as the end word in your own line, keeping them in order. If all goes well, you should be able to read the original poem down the right hand margin of your poem.

Remember Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem ‘We Real Cool’ from a few prompts ago? Well, read down the right margin of Terrance Hayes’ ‘The Golden Shovel’, after which the form was named.

(Hayes’ poem uses all of Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem and does so twice but you only need to use one line, and to do it once!)

https://poetryschool.com/courses/masterclass-patricia-smith-malika-booker/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/55678

NaPoWriMo – The BIG Catch Up – Day 21

As I have said – I managed to keep up to date with writing poetry for the NaPoWriMo challenge, but the blog posts have lacked due to generally being extremely busy over the past week.

I am back at work now and my schedule is all about attempting balance. I have events booked for the next 5 days though, so I am trying to catch up with blogposts this evening.

I can tell you where I went… researchland – and I got stuck there for almost an entire day.

The reason… I started with Carrie Etter’s prompt today and not napowrimo.net. Carrie’s 21st prompt required finding a photo/image online of the place you live, fifty years ago. At first I thought that was ages ago, then I keyed into how old I am and that these images wouldn’t be that historical.

I started my mammoth search and from the hunger of image came video exploration and a whole new obsession about our town twinning and the expeditions of local swimming clubs, then to the German town we are twinned with – as it was then and is now – then back to a Local Historian Society, more images… some quick scribbles, fleeting muse and then the seed of a huge, enormous post-Napo idea.

A visit to the reference section of the library, more notes… scaffold poems… more ideas. Once home some forgotten memories of my own and a local search in pursuit of an image of a building, long since demolished.

Another seedling idea.

This took me to a site where people film in derelict places and another local story. Needless to say it was late when I started my poem, I chose an earlier image I had collected before all my ideas started to explode like firecrackers.

The idea of Carrie’s prompt was to write as if you were there now. The photograph was a family picnic, in the background a special building central to our town (which is a lot older than I imagined)… the town not the significant building.

I picked my narrative from the youngest child (I am a middle child). It was nice to wear the baby shoes!

As with Day 20, I wrote straight onto the laptop and messed with the form of the poem with ease.

Dad’s car, our windbreaker,

I licked my fingers

as an hors d’oeuvre to chicken legs

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 http://www.napowrimo.net/

Our featured participant for the day is rhymeswithbug, where the sports poem for Day 20 imagines poetry as a game of golf!

Today’s interview is with Eileen Myles, a longtime New Yorker and erstwhile presidential candidate, whose poems exhibit a direct, punk sensibility. You can read more about Myles in this brief New York Times profile, and you can find a number of her poems here.

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates overheard speech. It could be something you’ve heard on the radio, or a phrase you remember from your childhood, even something you overheard a co-worker say in the break room! Use the overheard speech as a springboard from which to launch your poem. Your poem could comment directly on the overheard phrase or simply use it as illustration or tone-setting material.

I have a carry about notebook filled with overheard speech, but decided to listen out for something fresh. This meant that my poem was written after the 21st day (but as I am following 2 prompts and producing more than 60 poems, I can forgive myself). It was worth the wait. Overheard siblings.

I wrote two Haikus.

… meanness, fault shifted.

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Jo Bell http://www.jobell.org.uk/ encouraged us to read And by Alison Brackenbury. I have met Alison several times, but this poem was a new read for me.

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The Poetry School offered writing in the style of someone else.

Day 21: In the Style of…

Morning poets! Today I’d like you to write in the style of another poet. Study their subject matter, the way they phrase things, the way they break lines, their vocabulary, their world view. Try not to do this from memory, but to actually read your chosen poet.

Do not say whose style you are writing in because I would like you to try to guess each other’s. Because they have such distinctive and easy to guess styles the following poets are banned: Emily Dickinson, ee cummings, Sharon Olds. Contemporary poets preferred please!

As an example, I have quickly written the following in the style of a contemporary American poet. Can you guess who?

Ringers

Leaving our beds

in the thick dark

and walking

to the light switch

on the wall

we have to just step

out and trust

there’ll be a floor

beneath us

as bell ringers

pull their ropes hard

before they’ve heard

the note before

the note before.

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Feel free to solve this in the comments below.

Happy writing NaPo-ers!