Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo 2022

Apr28

NaPoWriMo 2022 Day 28

Posted on April 28, 2022 by Nina Lewis

Read the full post here.

Today’s featured participant is yet again, two participants! First up, we have Eunoia and second, Karen Morris, bringing us a fully-rhymed duplex.

Our daily online magazine is failbetter. Among the poems that they’ve published recently, I’ll point out Jessie Raymundo’s “Memory with Water” and John Wall Barger’s “I Received a Bitter Email from a Good-Hearted Man.”

Prompt: write a concrete poem. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem. For example, May Swenson’s poem “Women” or George Starbuck’s “Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree”.

I am behind by 2 days so will look into this prompt and poems tomorrow. I want to write my missing days first.

One day later…

I read Adapting, by Smitha V. The poet felt the Duplex was an effective form for this telling and so do I.

It's meeting the old and the pain resurfacing, that scares me. 

Old memories scare me and the pain, the past brings with it.
I'm used to forgetting and being forgotten.

        Forgetting and being forgotten takes time to get used to

And Karen Morris even managed to rhyme her Duplex! Kudos. The poem is on FB so I had to take care of rabbit holes.

(Like full-time work’s not chore enough),

Shelves to dust and floors to buff.

Many of us have probably written about the memory of water (I know I have).

Memory with Water

Jessie Raymundo

who carries a pair of Neptunes
in her eyes

Gravity is when
the psychiatrist assessed you
& located a heart that is heavy
for no reason.

like a remembrance possessed by echoes

This poem was superb. So much backwater (no pun intended) story and a drive that flowed like rapid water.

I Received a Bitter Email from a Good-Hearted Man

John Wall Barger

John Wall Barger had me from the start. Wow! And the resolution of the piece is blessed. If only we could all find such peace and certainty when friendships fail.

So twenty years of friendship
ended in a small gesture
like a door sliding shut,

How blessed I was,
it didn’t seem real, like a gardener
who keeps finding seeds
in the creases of his clothes,

Well aware of concrete poems (shape poems), have taught them on the curriculum for decades and occasionally enjoy writing one. I read the example poems anyway. Love all the reading you get to do with Napowrimo.

I thoroughly enjoyed May Swenson‘s, Women and to think it was published in 1978! Wow. And the content of George Starbuck‘s, Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree was certainly different to other concrete Christmas tree poems I have read! And a Sonnet to boot! I struggle to write them without creating a shape on top.

I have no idea of a starting point and I know shape poems can be digitally challenging, but I am in catch up mode and ready to dive in!

Cheesy as it is – I went for the ‘shape of love’ and of course, contoured a heart. Although it currently looks like a map of Australia with the basic prog. I am running!

your eyes which speak whole

stories out into the space between us.

Apr25

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 25

Posted on April 25, 2022 by Nina Lewis

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Read the full post here.

Featured participants Jacqui Dempsey-Cohen and Amita Paul.

Our featured online journal for the day is Okay Donkey, I’ll point you to Audrey Hall’s “Old Man in the Kitchen,” and Amorak Huey’s “A Small, Private Sadness.”

Today’s prompt is based on the aisling, a poetic form that developed in Ireland. An aisling recounts a dream or vision featuring a woman who represents the land or country on/in which the poet lives, and who speaks to the poet about it. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that recounts a dream or vision, and in which a woman appears who represents or reflects the area in which you live.

I enjoyed the fun of Jacqui Dempsey-Cohen’s poem, although it was Facebook – so I had to resist all temptation to catch up on there! Some of my favourite examples:

I enjoyed the scene described in Amita Paul’s poem and felt incredibly sorry for the grandmother. A very translatable scene! I have a dear memory of our own Great Aunty being wrapped up in curly chord by a then three year old great-great nephew! She was golden, just sat there and let the play happen!

while some of her progeny’s progeny and their progeny

tumble all over her in an excess of affection and youthful exuberance.

I know Okay Donkey and have them listed to submit to. I am very good at letting deadlines whoosh past and since March haven’t submitted anywhere due to life intervening the way it does and the places it leaves us in.

Old Man in the Kitchen by Audrey Hall, a poem which moved me, especially as the last one reminded me of a relative we have recently lost. The passing is heroic and Biblical, the relationship explored so succinctly.

Take the soggy reins dangling
from your veiny hands
away from Sunday breakfast.
I do not need you to split
this egg on the pan’s edge
or slice this banana into circles.

splinters
and brambles crowning your corpse.

A Small, Private Sadness by Amorak Huey – at least the title prepared me for the deep inhalations I knew I’d have. This poem brims with sadness and loss.

& this breeze hums your name

& pat a space next to them on the bed
& the temperature falls

& out beyond the pines
a great lake churns & churns.

The aisling is a poetic genre I know. I was taken by some of Maureen’s suggestions on this prompt:

a woman appears who represents or reflects the area in which you live.

Perhaps she will be the Madonna of the Traffic Lights,
or the Mysterious Spirit of Bus Stops.
Or maybe you will be addressed by the Lost Lady of the Stony Coves.

So my plan was to go and have a think about who my woman might be – but at the same time I am tempted to skip straight to one of these suggestions.

PROCESS NOTES

I came up with 5 possible women (I think I will return to the list and write an aisling for each of them in the future).

Fairly sure Bus Stops were in my head from the suggested ideas but also we have a bus station that despite several revamps ours had some of the old metal bus stands for a while. All updated now, but it amused me the gradual update and how the customer bit came after the rest.

I also have this internal conflict that I moved and lived all over for a decade and when I came back to the county, I promised myself I would live close to but not in the town I was born in. I did for several years and then I met Mr G. and the rest is history.

And today… I am going to share the whole poem!

The Waiting Lady of Green Metal Bus Stops

I used to see you half your life ago, longer –
you’d sit and wait on narrow seats,
head full of thought.
Your frustration of lateness,
your willing belief in the public transport system.

You who saw past the old, green metal bus stands
and looked instead to the sweep of branches
the bank of grass, who would canter over
to the brook to watch water flow over stones.
And read and re-read the timetable

despite knowing your schedule by heart.
I watched you pick at conversations
from those bus stop strangers,
how the ideas would elongate in your mind,
you’d carry them onto the bus

(when it eventually turned up), like precious
cargo, in case you spilled a line before
you reached your destination,
the city of Worcester.
Well, I’m still here and after you

moved away I saw other girls like you,
heads full of dreams, ambitions to leave
this town behind them.
You always knew the pull of this place,
your analogy was more a spider’s web

and trapped flies – but you see the beauty
now you’ve lived in cities without
stars and trees.
You came back to the green, to countryside
and small market towns, to urban sprawl

and this battered, old, bus terminal.
You admired the new digital destination board,
the ever changing roads around this space,
and smiled when you saw the old, familiar
bus stands. I am here to remind you

of this love. Of the attraction of home,
of the importance of roots –
and no matter how bad you think it’s got,
at least you’re not stuck forever
at the Bus Station, waiting.

Apr24

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 24

Posted on April 24, 2022 by Nina Lewis

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Read the full post here.

Our featured participants – Rhyme and Reason and Xanku.

Our featured online magazine – Miracle Monocle, Jessica Barksdale’s “Zoo Story,” and Coleman Childress’s “Broken Cabins on the Beach.”

Prompt: Hard-boiled detective novels are known for their use of vivid similes, often with an ironic or sarcastic tone. Novelist Raymond Chandler is particularly adept at these. Here are a few from his novels:

A few locks of dry, white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock.
Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.
From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile… use just one, or try to go for broke and stuff your poem with similes.

I read today’s prompt whilst I was out in the garden planting seeds. Rhyme and Reason wrote a thought-provoking poem.

The kind of blot
That none forgets,

A contrast to featured poem from Xanku– Front by Xan.

Mind you
my address is
on the front of
my house but
my front door is
not

I loved the exploration in this one and that ending… perfect!

JESSICA BARKSDALE’S Zoo Story

was an intriguing poem, a force of poem which pulled me right in. A fantastic opening couplet:

Let’s not think about bears, or anything cute (and dangerous)
like a marriage, a first husband, and how things go wrong.

you once married to a bear

and now a giraffe, mother to a chimp, a steadfast rhino, stepmother
to a moth and a gecko, daughter to nocturnal beast undiscovered.

COLEMAN CHILDRESS

Next I read Broken Cabins on the Branch.

The furrowing of branches, of hardwood, of sun.
your hands statuary with tranchelight

There’s some beautiful imagery in this surreal poem.

PROCESS NOTES:

‘Write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile.‘

Before I had a clue about subject I went here to read some similes to get my evening brain working! I just had a quick glance over the list. I thought I would create 1 simile and then as I started to write I decided to incorporate more (not to total saturation).

I wrote the poem and made several drafts/ playing mainly with the white space. I have something I think I can work on and found myself not just writing similes but making links to traditional nursery rhyme characters and these two well known figures.

We demarcate with love
like Romeo and Juliet,
although –
we’re not star-crossed
and don’t have a balcony.

I have used two similes but have chosen to share this part with you instead.

Apr23

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 23

Posted on April 23, 2022 by Nina Lewis

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Read the full post here.

Today’s featured participant is Jane Dougherty Writes.
Our featured online magazine today is *Peach Mag*, among the work that they’ve recently published, I’ll point you to Ai Li Feng’s “echolocation” and Bob Sykora’s “Crying on the Exercise Bike While Watching *The Great British Bakeoff*, February 2021.”

Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay. They also have a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms. Here’s her “Tok e n Loss,” “Blue China Doorknob,” “Houdini,” and “Crustacean Island.”

Morning questions by Jane Dougherty – a poem packed with ponder and wonder.

Deep night time dark is full of song,

I loved the beginning of echolocation by Ai Li Feng.

The faint scent of fabric softener in every fold

of sky.

In my dreams, I am not afraid of light,
and every truth that it forces me to tell. What I mean to say is that the dark

allows us to be anything, even beautiful.

And what a cracking title Bob Sykora‘s poem has Crying on the Exercise Bike While Watching The Great British Bakeoff – talk about specific! A powerful example of using repetition well, an enticing cascade poem.

The cake turned out poorly.

Someone is going home. The layers

crumbled.

I pedal faster and get nowhere.

Crumbling. Overcooked. Crying,

Because next week your baking

won’t be judged. Because the cake

was perfect when you practiced.

PROCESS NOTES

Coming to today’s prompt very late and tired. So we will see what happens.

Write in the style of Kay Ryan – “Tok e n Loss,” “Blue China Doorknob,” “Houdini,” and “Crustacean Island.”

First I had to read / listen to the example poems. I had my subject in mind at least – just had to attempt the write. I may have to revisit to get the wordplay but used short clipped lines and wrote more in the style of Kay Ryan than myself.

Sleep-smiles
come
when you’re
dreaming
of angels.

Apr22

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 22

Posted on April 22, 2022 by Nina Lewis

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Read the full post here.

Today, our featured participant is Jessie Lynn McMains.

Our featured online magazine for the day is Five South. Among their recently published poems, I’ll point you to Alina Stefanescu’s “The Home is Six Hens Which Never Lay Eggs” and Erin Carlyle’s “Moon Landing.”

Prompt: I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things.

I started as always with the featured site. Firstly, WOW at Jessie’s site, I never did tumblr and I think I missed out!

Untitled (American Windows) by Jessie Lynn McMains is an amazing, powerful poem. The depth of detail and her voice in this poem grabbed me, I was hooked from the opening line. This poem holds its impact. It is a force. How ‘falling’ is described… left me winded!

Here are some lines which stunned me and stopped me:

smoke-
wreathed over coffee by the window-glass, blurred beneath
the bare-bulb glare in the Howard Johnson’s basement,

I’d remember him, how if I could make our own
windows, our America, they’d have the broken bottle-glass,
drought-dry grass, blur of headlights, sun-warmed suburban
aqueducts,

a bouquet of construction-paper
stars,

What a beautiful reading experience to start today!

I then read the poems from Five South. Starting with The Home Is Six Hens Which Never Lay Eggs by Alina Stefanescu, I have to say I loved the title. The unravelling narrative is encaptivating and I read it several times reading different stories in.

the trusted friendship of crimson azaleas.

I listened to Moon Landing by Erin Carlyle, it’s an intriguing poem.

It had a key

made of little raised markings—broken

beer bottles, but no way to land

on the moon.

And for once, I have the perfect starting point for today’s prompt to use repetition. I love Jericho Brown‘s poetry and his invention of the Duplex form (which works really effectively as long as you feed the right subject and incredible lines)… it does however, take some time to get this right and I have some scribbled notes of a poem which was tasked to be a Duplex, I am going back to that page today to see if I can weave some magic in.

Duplex —a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues—

Whilst I go and work on my poem, I will leave you with Jericho.

PROCESS NOTES

I absolutely love writing a Duplex, but it takes a while to get my engine ready. Today I found absolute alchemy. Some medical notes I had been holding onto (living with incurable, chronic diseases) and the form of repeated lines. It wrote itself for 6 couplets so I only had to find 1 line. I am pleased with the result and think it will join my body of work.

It is a poem about thought adjustment and it was an incredible experience writing it!

Compress difficulty into love,

Apr21

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 21

Posted on April 21, 2022 by Nina Lewis

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Read the full post here.

Happy end of the third week of Na/GloPoWriMo 2022, everybody!

Featured participants Poet Voice and Orangepeel.

Featured online magazine The Night Heron Barks. I’ll point you to Michael Montlack’s “At 23” and Adrie Rose’s “The Flower is Haunted By.”

Today’s prompt is one I got from the poet Betsy Sholl… write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.

I loved the first featured poem, Kielbasa Speaks to the Vegetarian of Polish Descent by Jacquelyn Markham, which was packed with food but actually for me was all about those Grandma’s. Wonderful.

Brussels Sprouts Make Their Case by Bruce Niedt, combines prompts from NaPo & Write Better Poetry. A brilliant humorous sprout poem.

I listened to At 23 by Michael Montlack, a beautiful, reflective poem.

At 23 love was inevitable as the sun
on a windowsill. Days disposable.
Nights thinly disguised afterlives.

Then I listened to The Flower is Haunted By – Adrie Rose. Powerful poem.

Wooden trays filled

with slabs of moss, little caskets
limned with plush greening,

I also read The Knife, Sharpened by Adrie Rose. A story I know well.

The Night Heron Barks is a beautiful journal which I will be going back to delve into and read.

PROCESS NOTES

I started at the end of the prompt with an unanswerable question and then it seemed natural to follow in reverse. There is one piece of stunning art which has never left my mind, I have jobs I remember that I no longer have, so that was just a matter of choice. Friend was harder, mainly as social media has put us all back in contact, but I got there.

I wrote the whole prompt out as a free write and then decided which words/phrases to pull into the final poem (or the first draft of one, at least). The whole result felt a little disparate initially and the poem felt too long. After some form it felt more connected. I realised I should have added the question at the end to tie it together better. I spent some time considering this change.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Extracts from each of the prompted sections:

how different our lives were,
how unalike our mothers. It was that night
I started to understand.

creatures of habit – same day,
same time, same order.

I let the image light my head
with its glory,

Apr20

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 20

Posted on April 20, 2022 by Nina Lewis

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Read the full post here.

As of today we are two-thirds of the way through Na/GloPoWriMo 2022.

Today’s featured participants… in response to Day 19’s “command” prompt, Jessica McWhirt brings us a tough but tender elegy, while Elizabeth Burnham provides us with a meditation on the role of the poet.

Our featured online journal for today is Diode. In their newest issue, I’ll point you to Heidi Seaborn’s poem “upon seeing an elephant seal in front of my house in West Seattle” and Michael Robins’ “If One Has a Mind That Way.”

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food. It could be a favorite food of yours, or maybe one you feel conflicted about.

After reading Day 20 all I can think about is cake! It took a while to reset my brain to poetry! Although…

Cake + Poetry = the perfect combination!

Yesterday, I actually had some time to spare and read lots of poems other people had written for Day 19, so when I discovered today’s poem was the incredible Grandma by Jessica McWhirt, I was thrilled. Jessica’s poems was one I read yesterday which is still sitting inside me. Stunning, succinct work. And that ending! WOW!

Then I read The Poet is a Mirror by Elizabeth Burnham, which felt like a kaleidoscope experience as you read it, as the imagery twists and turns over multiple versions of the same truth.

locking herself in a round white room 
where her black-ink words and her blue-ink words and her red-ink words 
all ripple and roll from floor to ceiling 
til the once-blank walls are smothered in kaleidoscopic thought.

I then read the poems from Diode. Heidi Seaborn’s poem “upon seeing an elephant seal in front of my house in West Seattle” – it reminded me of whales in the Thames, a surreal incident, a cracking poem.

Your torso turned, long as a drift boat, … Your bark breaking my perfect line.

I read Data too, which I very much enjoyed. Clever. Then I read Michael Robins’ “If One Has a Mind That Way.” I have enjoyed these short prose poems, Michael had me at his opening line (because of the use of little);

The sun each morning burns its little weight.

Some flower paints the tongue or returns the name of the one you loved.

The opposite of a promise fills the air,

I read Letters from Portland too.

Diode is on the list of journals to go back and read when I get a chance to. These past few days have been busy offline and today I am squeezing in a workshop, a meeting and an event online too.

I felt today like I’d rather keep reading poetry than write it and then I scrolled up and saw/remembered the cake – so grabbed a coffee and dived in!

Starting with a list of favourite foods… now which one was I going to anthropomorphize? I couldn’t release my brain from shackles of cake, so I found this website and set about choosing which cake! And there in the very first picture was my answer!

When we were born my parents planted a tree for each of us in the garden, mine was a plum tree and most years it yielded a hefty crop for us (and our neighbours). We’d have a freezer full of plums throughout the year and make all sorts of scrumptious delights but never a Plum Cake. So there’s the basis for today’s poem.

Today, I am gifting the whole poem again. I have to credit the title to this wonderful site I found.

The Value of Patience

We were one of the first fruits you humans
domesticated. I don’t know of the wild days,
there were no relatives old enough to pass
those stories forward. You feasted on my ancestors,

sucked them to the stone. You baked – they watched
you through the kitchen window with your mum.
My family tree is a long line of crumble,
did you never think of cake?

Perhaps your parents thought plum too rich
for your young palette. Not one Christmas
did we adorn that table, not even the year
you were joined by fourteen relatives.

And all those who fell in action, left to rot
on patio stones the colour of Battenburg.
See? Your life was cake. We can never deny
our roots, the strands of us. The core remains

forever. I know you still feel the stone in yours.
Do you wonder how different it could have been,
if only you’d baked a cake with us? Until today,
you’ve probably not given it a thought.

You’d pick us every summer, marvel at our wax bloom,
eat several fruits before you made it back inside,
you’d carry a bowl of firm, juicy ovals carefully
to the tap, wash us and pat us dry. You were smiling,

happy. Innocent, ready. You still feel like a child today,
but not a joyful one. If you must dwell in the past,
find the pleasant lines, protect your future self with them.
And eat prunes, your future-future self will thank you.

Apr19

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 19

Posted on April 19, 2022 by Nina Lewis

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Read the full post here.

Our featured participant today is Ute Kelly, who brings us a lyrical and mysterious response to Day 18’s “five answers” prompt.

Today’s featured online journal is The Cortland Review, I’ll point you to Justin Janisse’s “Missing You, Expensively” and Grace Q. Song’s “Birthday.”

Today’s challenge is to write a poem that starts with a command. It could be as uncomplicated as “Look,” as plaintive as “Come back,” or as silly as “Don’t you even think about putting that hot sauce in your hair.”

I found the link takes you back to Day 18. I found the poem by Ute Kelly here.

I read/listened to the suggested poems from The Cortland Review:

Justin Jannise

Missing You, Expensively

This poem really touched me.

Grace Q. Song

Birthday

There is something very compelling about hearing a poet read their own work. This one nearly had me in tears. Both of today’s poems have spoken to me deeply.

Our separate lives bookmarked

my grandmother, her hair
blown and bed-white,

We want her to thaw,
but who can return again and again
without consequences.

and we begin to sing, our voices like ravens,
trying to find each other in the dark.

Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com

I started with collecting imperative verbs whilst thinking of commands and life’s instructions. I thought about small children learning (possibly because I saw Billy Connelly Does… Fatherhood last night), computer coding and instruction manuals. My brain fired off in multiple directions and stuck like silly string on several ideas. So I decided to carry them for a bit longer before sitting down to write, knowing that the initial few ideas aren’t always the best subjects.

I went to visit family this morning and inherited a manual, perhaps that’s a sign for this prompt!

I also like the idea of misusing instructions. Or substituting the wrong verb. Both methods I have played with before. It’s exciting going to the page and not really having any idea what will come out (which is basically my NaPoWriMo experience in a nutshell! I also liked – “Don’t you even think about putting that hot sauce in your hair.” from today’s prompt.

I opened the almanac at a random page and LOST IN THE WILDS appeared first in my line of sight!

Obviously published before mobile technology, but signal doesn’t always work in rural areas and these are the sorts of skills which died out with the last generation. The archaic nature is the appeal and this advice would definitely aid survival (especially if you have packed a mirror/knife/whistle and a flare/smoke signal and are wearing a watch. Which until the arrival of Fitbits (other brands are available), people weren’t wearing watches, instead relied on their phones to let them know and stopped wearing watches. After years of this – working where the phone is not allowed to be switched on, your internal cavewoman clock ticks in!

Photo by Hrishikesh Deshkar on Pexels.com

Wow, a history and poetry prompt! Thinking about this also made me remember a news story earlier this month about snowboarder Tim Blakey, who survived after falling 15ft into a crevasse. And then I glanced at the time on my laptop and realised this rabbit hole has taken an hour! Time to go and write the poem!

PROCESS NOTES:

I ended up having an hour of great fun with this prompt, producing a Found Poem which starts with a command. And today – you get an entire poem!

Reflective

Whistle to this usual day,
give mirror smoke,
keep moving.

Blast impulse wild –
find a way to stay put
in a pause.

And here are some progress shots!

What really shocked me was this book is from 1994! I was convinced I was looking at something from the 80s… I don’t remember the mid 90s being this outdated! Off to feel old! Happy Writing!

Apr17

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 17

Posted on April 17, 2022 by Nina Lewis

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HAPPY EASTER!

Read the full post here.

Our featured participant for the day is Poem Dive, a poem responding to our curtal sonnet prompt.

Today’s featured online journal is Plume, which has published more than 120 issues since 2011! Archives are available, too, making Plume’s website a great place to discover new-to-you poets and poems. From their latest issue, I’ll point you toward David Wojahn’s “Threnody: December 2020” and Alan Shapiro’s “Sweet Nothings.”

A prompt developed by the comic artist Lynda Barry, and it asks you to think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you.

What your lens saw is a beautiful curtal sonnet, which explores through gorgeously sensory images, a relationship with a father. There is a lot said here, which is unspoken. Beautiful.

I read several poems published in the latest issue of Plume:

The Wars Between the Wars Between the Borders that Were Not There by Cecilia Woloch, Lilies in Proust, Y & Master by Tomaž Šalamun,

I listened to MEMOIR by Rigoberto Paredes before heading to the poems we were pointed towards.

Threnody: December 2020 by David Wojahn I also read Sylvia Plath’s Tarot Deck Sold at Auction to Anonymous Bidder for 200K by David Wojahn because I couldn’t resist such a title! And finally Sweet Nothings by Alan Shapiro.

Photo by Chevanon Photography on Pexels.com

Process Notes

I still have yesterday’s Curtal Sonnet to tackle, but now my brain is full of dogs I have known. I looked at the prompt and as it suggests timings have decided to tackle it later this evening when I have more time and hopefully, a mind which will focus better!

I finally managed to catch up with yesterday – the curtal sonnet.

NaPoWriMo 2022 ~ Day 16

Post updated

And now I am sitting with today’s doggy prompt: 10 mins to list as many dogs as you can. Now wonderful things happen with a prompt like this one if you stay in the time. (I set a countdown timer) and four minutes in my internal gremlin suggested I couldn’t possibly think of enough dogs to fill the next 6 mins, but I ignored it and carried on and before I knew, I had listed at least 10 dogs I’d completely forgotten about! I managed to list over 40! And that’s without a memory which has just flooded back to me after a stay in Scotland on Easdale Island, where at the time there were 33 human inhabitants and the population was far outweighed by dogs!

Of course our family dog, Mir, was first on the list and subsequently got underlined my penultimate memory was a huge dog which belonged to a very tall family! I am unsure whether I will ever do anything with this poem, due to the personal nature of the content. I may edit/censor and release… who knows.

It is my longest Napo poem so far. Which isn’t a surprise when you have set the counter to 15 minutes! I have played around a little with form (as in presentation). I will continue. Here is a stanza:

Whether it ever Houdini-ed, like ours,

or if it was well trained and obedient

with little aspiration for escapology.