Today is marathon day! I only do the 12 hour marathon now as staying up late is just not in my vocabulary any more. I finally have a breather to catch up on today’s poems. I’ll try to continue to post on the hour once I catch up!
I bent my head down to sniff the cowboy hat pushed tightly down onto her forehead.
My belief was that it was not true.
I leaned back in my chair. Her mousy scribbling scratched the paper. I watched the fog roll down the mountain into the valley.
I yearned for rain.
Gray clouds made a good argument for it. I wanted to be enveloped in their soft dark hands, keeping me safe from childhood monsters under the bed.
There was hope.
I smelled the lemon in the carafe sitting on the table. Pouring the last bit into my glass, I made a note to ask for a refill the next time I saw the waiter.
Scratching.
She would finish soon.
Wondering if we would be able to leave in the thick gray curtain I saw from the front window, mist hiding the shops across the road, I watched the woman with her poodle in her bag stepping out the door off the curb into the gray abyss.
Boom.
Water poured down the windows and flowed into the curb down the street passing the sewer not wanting to leave its path I imagined it flowing into the houses filling up the basements to the top of the stairs where bottles of homemade beer floated like dinghies lost at sea.
“More water, please,” she ordered him, and returned to her notebook.
A swift hand grabbed the carafe, almost in the same space and time placed another down. A pirouette. He was practiced.
I bent my head closer to hers. My belief was that it was not true.
She must be getting close I leaned over to see her scribbling. I could never read it, even if it wasn’t upside down. But she would read it to me.
I never knew if she was reading what she wrote. Or changed the words as she read along. Or was just telling me another story she thought I wanted to hear.
Today, the scent of rain, and gray clouds eating the sun, I really couldn’t smell if she wanted to be alone.
Maybe it was just hope. Or the rain.
…..
I haven’t been able to keep up with daily writing. However, our writing group met yesterday and I decided to devise a prompt pulled from several different sources. The group was none too pleased and I was a bit of a whip cracker a few times. But in the end as we finished, the group broke out into a self applause. That has never happened in the ten plus years we have been meeting. We felt good about our writing.
Here is the long and complex prompt. And below it are the prompts I used. There were parts that everyone in the group used and then ones that we each individually chose and used. And, of course, as always, one can write what they wish to write sans prompt. We are a delightful group!
Prompt:
Name a type of hat – group shout out – cowboy hat
A childhood monster – our own
Name an object in this room – group shout out – carafe
Choose one and no FOMO. I only read the list once. From NaPoWriMo.
5. Construct a sentence with one of the above words – our own 6. During the twenty minute writing period, I instructed the group to use this sentence in the first seven minutes.
Then I stopped the group once at seven minutes and once again at fourteen minutes and instructed the group to end whatever sentence we were writing, even if it wasn’t the end of the sentence, and to place a period and end it.
I then instructed the group to write down the above sentence we each constructed with the word we chose.
At the final bell, I asked everyone to write a contradiction of something they wrote earlier.
Opening line: “You smell like you want to be alone.”
My Prompts:
cowboy hat
monster under the bed
carafe
Belief
My belief was that it was not true.
I really couldn’t smell if she wanted to be alone.
Opening line: “You smell like you want to be alone.”
A little boy and his grandma A bus ride in celebration A joyous reward For hard work well done
He was excited and my mind raced back to the days of cowboy shows and sheriffs saloon brawls
TV offerings in my childhood
The jingling of spurs boots hitting the dust the click then the shuffle off to jail
Restitution
I’m breaking those images ingrained from long ago of criminal and hero what it means to make a mistake be sorry forgive
And I wonder
On that bus ride an innocent gift from grandma of my TV years to grandson of justice today
how do we elevate forgiveness and compassion in simple acts of love
….
Today’s prompt: “And finally, our (optional) prompt for the day. This prompt challenges you to play around with the idea of overheard language. First, take a look at Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “One Boy Told Me.” It’s delightfully quirky, and reads as a list, more or less, of things that she’s heard the boy of the title – her son, perhaps? – say. Now, write a poem that takes as its starting point something overheard that made you laugh, or something someone told you once that struck you as funny. If you can’t think of anything, here’s a few one-liners I picked out of the ever-fascinating-slash-horrifying archives of Overheard in New York.
• So I asked my priest, and he said “I think you should see other people.”
• Don’t say “no” to drugs. Say “no, thank you.”
• You smell like you want to be alone.
• Oh hi! We were just speaking very poorly about you!
I struggled with posting this one, but decided a little humor is okay.
TMI? Sea Shanty day at NaPoWriMo. It’s 2:30 in the morning, so this is it. Sorry. Not sorry.
Dog Poop, A Land Shanty
What do you do with a dog who won’t poop? What do you do with a dog who won’t poop? What do you do with a dog who won’t poop? Early in the morning.
Dad’s up first, so he rises. Dad’s up first, so he rises. Dad’s up first, so he rises. Early in the morning.
What do you do with a dog who won’t poop?…
Mom’s turn next, so she rises…
She eats everything in the yard…
Call the vet to find relief…
Pumpkin purée that’s the answer…
Back to bed we’re very grumpy…
That’s what you do with a dog who won’t poop. That’s what you do with a dog who won’t poop. That’s what you do with a dog who won’t poop. That’s what you do with a dog who won’t poop. Early in the morning.
Your ashes on my mantle sit. Your stained and dirty collar as its base. “Let’s play,” the pocket holding tags dangles down, chained no more to me, but in my heart you stay.
Four months since you are gone, my everyday breath still catches, tears roll down reminding me of my “Soul Dog.” Our daily ballet, of your protection, my soft kiss binding
us forever. You sent her quickly finding me a new warm heart to love and cherish. Your departure just a pause, spellbinding our hearts forever and will not perish.
Your stately paw and side-eye glance, heavy sigh, my Soul Dog. My Bean. My sweet Benny.
……
First, and foremost, I must thank from the depths of my heart the peeps at NaPoWriMo. They chose my poem “Prismojen” from from Day 8, to be the featured poem for today. I am deeply humbled. And a great thank you to all who read and posted their words of support. I a deeply grateful.
Today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo. “Finally, here’s our prompt for the day (as always, optional). We’re calling today Sonnet Sunday, as we’re challenging you to write in what is probably the most robust poetic form in English. A traditional sonnet is 14 lines long, with each line having ten syllables that are in iambic pentameter (where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable). While love is a very common theme in sonnets, they’re also known for having a kind of argumentative logic, in which a problem is posed in the first eight lines or so, discussed or argued about in the next four, and then resolved in the last two lines. A very traditional sonnet will rhyme, though there are a variety of different rhyme schemes.
Today, sonnets are probably most commonly associated with Shakespeare (who wrote more than 150, and felt very little compunction about messing around with the form, at least to the extent of regularly saying “who cares” to strict iambs). But poets’ attention to the form hasn’t waned in the 400 years or so since the Bard walked the fields around Stratford-upon-Avon and tramped the stage-boards of Merrie Old England. Take a look at this little selection of contemporary sonnets by Dennis Johnson, Alice Notley, Robert Hass, and Jill Alexander Essbaum. You’ll notice that while all of these poems play in some way on the theme of love, they are tonally extremely different – as is the kind or quality of love that they discuss. Some rhyme, some don’t. They mostly stick to around 14 lines but They’re also not at all shy about incorporating contemporary references (the Rolling Stones, telephones, etc).
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own sonnet. Incorporate tradition as much or as little as you like – while keeping in general to the theme of “love.”
My mother threw a sauerbraten at my grandfather once I remember the Sunday afternoon But I didn’t know what precipitated it
The chunk of meat slapped against the wall It’s juices running through her fingers It was an unusual meal My nose was unaccustomed to the spices My grandfather picked it up sliced a few pieces and dutifully ate it as I watched from my bedroom door
I was six years old I could taste my fear
Mom picked up her keys and purse and drove to a motel in Colorado Springs for some days. I can’t remember how many, but I remember the feeling of unknowing
She just threw it at him Because he complained and she worked so hard to make something special just for him So she threw it at him in despair of not being she felt like she never was I understand that now
In the still night I could hear her hollering through the phone From some hotel far away My grandfather asleep in his bedroom Me in mine And Dad listening Holding the receiver away from his ear sitting on their pullout couch bed in the living room We lived in the back of my dad’s TV repair shop Which was my grandpa’s shoe repair shop first She lived there her whole life until I was 18
Who knew a sauerbraten
Could cause such an explosion
“Prismojen.” Shaking her head my grandmother said then pointing to her head when my father told her what happened I knew what she meant
The crazy woman of delusion
In my bed, a stone, not comfort
I flew away But only in my dreams
Little girl, a name she never grew out of, An only child Six years old She was only an observer And she would grow up Eventually To understand Know
The hospital welcomed her I remember those days some days I can’t remember how many Visits just like in the movies Cold with green walls windows into rooms doors that locked lots of shiny green tile and stainless steel
And she was quiet for a long time after the explosion
Prismojen
Peter the stuffed bunny from the Easter basket as tall as I was comforted me when she was gone even now I’m sitxy seven
Sauerbraten and cold green walls
…….
This happened with today’s prompt. I didn’t see it coming.
Each stanza is an answer, in order, to the 20 “little projects.”
“The prompt is called the ‘Twenty Little Poetry Projects, ‘ and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman. And here are the twenty little projects themselves — the challenge is to use them all in one poem:
1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.”
Revel in the joy of friendship. Play with Mala. Eat a beautiful meal. Take a good long walk counting my blessings. Paint a beautiful picture. Write a poem. Be happy.
Above all, remember I am perfectly made in the image of Love.
Good Friday, honoring my place and purpose on Earth.
Tauntings depend on the day you choose to hear them, not so quaint passing voices
Let them be the segue dare
Depose them, YOU dare THEM cruise right by them
Line your house instead with arias
just imagine
…….
Today’s prompt always stops me. ‘Choose a poem in another language that you don’t know. Read the poem thinking about the sound and shape of the words, and the degree to which they remind you of words in your own language. Use those correspondences as the basis for a new poem.”
Its hurts my brain Every. Single. Time. No matter how hard I try, my brain refuses to be loose with it. Others find it delightful fun. I am in angst. I’m too concrete. And I give up and ignore the prompt.
But with the encouragement of a few artistic friends, I soldiered on today.
Michael – The nature of inspiration…?
Sepha – Hmm, that in itself might be your prompt!
Catherine – Perhaps a conversation with the myth of inspiration! Or with angst!
Here is the poem I used. I did not read the English translation until I completed my poem.
dramaturgia do mundo by Francisco Mallman
tanta coisa depende de quantos passos voce consegue dar depois de cruzar linhas imaginarias
Then I wrote down the words I heard and saw that reminded me of something in English:
Too Much Drama
Taunt cause depends day quaint Passes voice can segway dare Depose dare cruiser Line house imagine arias
From that, it led me here:
Tauntings
Tauntings depend on a day you chose to hear them not quaint passing voices Let them be a segue dare depose them, you dare them cruise right by them Line your house, instead, with arias, just imagine
And the original Portuguese poem in English:
dramaturgy of the world by Francisco Mallman, translated from Portuguese by Robert Smith
so much depends on how many steps you are able to take after crossing imaginary lines
I guess I didn’t let the prompt taunt me this year.
To Create... 