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Featured participant GibberJabber, which brings us a many-lettered appreciation of the beverage that gets so many of us out of bed in the morning.
Today’s poetry resource is the Poets House Digital Initiatives page, where you’ll find links to live-streamed poetry readings, online exhibitions of poetry broadsides and trading cards, and a daily, kids-themed poetry and story-reading series.
Today’s prompt is a fairly simple one: to write about a particular fruit. But I’d like you to describe this fruit as closely as possible. What does it look like, how does it feel, how does it smell, what does it taste like, where did you find it, do you need to thump it to know if it’s ripe, how do you get into it (peeling, a knife, your teeth), do you need to spit out the seeds, should you bake it, can you make jam with it, do you have to fight the birds for it, when is it available, do you need a ladder to pick it, what is your favorite memory of eating it, if you threw it at someone’s head would it splatter them or knock them out, is it expensive?
I didn’t make it back online yesterday, I was exhausted and asleep by 7 PM, so fresh from a 10 hour sleep, I am plugging the gaps.
I never quite believe it when we reach the final week of NaPoWriMo, this prompt is for the final Friday in 2020 NaPo challenge! There’s so much happening in the world right now that this wasn’t quite the immersive experience I have had before, it was a good distraction and has offered some useful resources and ideas and a couple of decent poems have been written which wouldn’t otherwise exist, which is always a thrill.
I also get the sense of writers pulling together, the creative community has been a mass of support and heart during this pandemic and thanks to the generosity of others, I have been kept buoyant during self-isolation.
I am making a promise to myself to enjoy the final NaPoWriMo week. To relish it, sit with it and spend quality time with it.
I enjoyed the Coffee (Routine Morning) poem, clever and universally accessible. I liked the line artwork too.
I already follow today’s poetry resource – Poets House on Twitter, but I have not visited the website for a while, rich pickings here and I will be back when I have more time to indulge and enjoy. I chose just one link to chase https://poetshouse.org/event/poetry-cinema-made-in-harlem/ I don’t think I can access this after the live link I have Part 2, but in scrolling down the page I found audio of poetry readings and so had a listen instead.
Rosamond S. King, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Sean Henry-Smith, and Erica Hunt present a collaborative performance of Philip’s epic book-length poem Zong!. Introduction by Poets House Program Director Paolo Javier.
‘Whatever good you are looking for – you will find it. Take that good.’
I am glad today’s prompt made me check into Twitter because I was looking forward to something I discovered last week and because I no longer know which way is up, hadn’t realised it was the 25th today (24th for this NaPo/post/prompt).
https://www.brainpickings.org/the-universe-in-verse/
This event has been running since 2017, you can watch some of the archived videos online. There is an annual Science Festival based in Cheltenham that had a gathering of poets that I was part of years ago and it was an interesting addition for both sides. There has never been a time in my life when humans realise how closely connected we are with the universe, how we are not actually in charge of all that’s around us. That there was so much of it in existence before us. That we are all atoms. I wrote that ^ just before I read this on Brainpickings:
as we face its fragility together — a world of hostages to a submicroscopic assailant, a world of refugees from ordinary life, struggling for safety, sanity, and survival of body and soul.
I also discovered this m ss ng p eces, they’ve launched a wonderful kindred project titled TOGETHER — a series of conversations with inspired and inspiring humans about how we live through these disorienting times. Check it out. They helped stitch together hours of film for the Universe in Verse Project.
That was the biggest tangent so far!
When I read the prompt I was a little disappointed – but only because I had written a fruit poem the day before in a workshop and it is one that I am still gathering in and didn’t want my brain to have to confuse itself with a second one – but then as I was sitting with that thought, a good one sprang to mind. And because of that workshop I already have the questions and expansion from the fruit/imagination ideas inside me -at my core – (excuse the pun)!
awritersfountain 