Read the post in full here.
Today’s featured participant is Scrambled, Not Fried, where Day Thirteen’s theft-inspired prompt resulted in an ode to the joys of the illicit.
Our poetry resource for the day is “Dr. Williams’ Heiresses,” a chapbook published by Alice Notley in 1980. In it, she weaves strange and discursive creation-myth for American poetry, and her own work, as influenced by the work of the poet William Carlos Williams.
Today’s prompt, like Alice Notley, think about your own inspirations and forebears. Specifically, I challenge you today to write a poem that deals with the poems, poets, and other people who inspired you to write poems. These could be poems/poets/people that you strive to be like, or even poems, poets, and people that you strive not to be like.
It’s hard to believe we are almost halfway through April, halfway through NaPoWriMo. We have reached the end of a fortnight of writing poems. How are yours looking? Some will be showing promise.
I really enjoyed today’s post, spent quite some time with the resources and exploring poets – in fact I fell so far down the rabbit hole I reloaded the site rather than using the back arrow button for a more swift return to the prompt!
As with many of the prompts this is one which does work for me and I see already that I will revisit and write from the many avenues into this prompt.
I started with Ron’s website, I had a little explore and read his poem. I enjoyed it, there was a lot of story to unpack in the scenario. Another chapbook belongs to the resources today, I read a little when I was sitting in the summer house this afternoon, it is a spectacular and intriguing read. I also read up on Alice Notley and my first attempt at the prompt (and my only so far, but I will be coming back to this one) was based on her style, having spent over an hour with her in my garden!
I actually took the rhythm of one of her poems first and then drew a thematic parallel from the title.
Once written (and I only used the first 10 lines) I let it settle for a while on the page and then changed the order of some of it and re-edited to keep the rhythmic sense of my original. So now I think there is some show of influence without any direct pastiche of her work. I may not keep the whole poem as it is, but was happy to discover several strong lines and a new to me poet.
awritersfountain 