National Poetry Month: April 30, 2015

Prompt: Today, I challenge you to write a poem backwards. Start with the last line and work your way up the page to the beginning. Another way to go about this might be to take a poem you’ve already written, and flip the order of the lines and from there, edit it so the poem now works with its new order. This will probably feel a bit strange (and really, it is a bit strange), but it just may help you see the formal “opening” and “closing” strategies of your poems in a new way!

 

I decided to go the revision route. Here is the revised poem. The original draft is below.  

Which one do you like better? I'd love to hear. 

Happy National Poetry Month!

Green (2)

down the river

a leaf

I will float

into the green

green world

I will bend

my body

into the wild

under shadows

of tree canopy

lichen

mown grass

corn stalks

I will wear

tree frog

warbler

cedar

chartreuse aspen

just before fall

soft underside

of mallow leaves

pea shoot

spring leaf

sagebrush

I will robe myself

Green (1)

I robe myself                                                

in sagebrush
spring leaf
pea shoot
chartreuse aspen
just before fall.
I wear
cedar
warbler
tree frog
soft underside
of mallow leaves.
I grace my self

with corn stalks
mown grass
lichen
shadows under
tree canopy.
When I walk out
into the wild
no one will see me.
I will blend my body,
fold myself

into the green,

green world.
I will float,
myself a leaf
down the river

National Poetry Month: April 29, 2015

Prompt: Today, I challenge you to write a poem in the form of a review. You can review either animate or inanimate things, real places or imaginary places. You can write in the style of an online review (think Yelp) or something more formal that you might find in a newspaper or magazine. (I imagine that bad reviews of past boyfriends/girlfriends might be an easy way to get into this prompt, though really, you can “review” anything in your poem, from summer reading lists for third graders to the idea of the fourth dimension).

Day 29: This started as a review poem, but turned into more of a rant. 

Poetry is going extinct, government data show.

             -- The Washington Post

Like God, poetry is said to be dying.

Proclaimed by an article

from the Washington Post

using statistics, 

America’s favorite weapon.

Readers decline in number,

poetry only slightly more popular

than opera, less desirable 

than knitting or jazz.

I bet the guy who wrote this 

doesn’t read poetry 

or go to poetry readings,

has never been to a slam.

Maybe he still resents memorizing

“Annabelle Lee” in fourth grade.

What should I tell that sixth grader

who told me she is a poet,

who sat scribbling lines in class yesterday?

Stop, don't bother, 

only 6.7% of all Americans

will care about your words?

No, I will say, "Let me read your poem."

National Poetry Month: April 28, 2015

Another combo today.

NaPoWriMo Prompt: Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about bridges. A bridge is a powerful metaphor, and when you start looking for bridges in poems, you find them everywhere. Your poem could be about a real bridge or an imaginary or ideal bridge. It could be one you cross every day, or one that simply seems to stand for something larger – for the idea of connection or distance, for the idea of movement and travel and new horizons.

My good friend Barbara Yoder taught me the technique of rolling a die whenever I become stuck in my writing.  Each number represents a word you can add to your writing to take it further or in a different direction:

1 = But -- add an obstacle

2 = So -- you make a decision

3 = If -- gives you more options/establishes stakes

4 = Or -- gives you options or alternatives

5 = As -- saying more

6= And -- generative/helps create scenes

For some reason, I thought about this today when I began to write about bridges.

Here’s what I came up with:

Decision

a bridge can add and to our lives

but only when we let it take us farther

if we cross to the other side

so we find what is there

there or we can stay where

we are as we figure out this what

National Poetry Month: April 27, 2015

I combined two prompts for today:

#1 NaPoWriMo Prompt: And today’s prompt – optional, as always — comes to us from Vince Gotera. It’s the hay(na)ku). Created by the poet Eileen Tabios and named by Vince, the hay(na)ku is a variant on the haiku. A hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words, and the third line has three words. You can write just one, or chain several together into a longer poem.

#2  Prompt from Julie Bruck’s Poetry Workshop through the SF Writing Salon: Have you ever been seized by the strangeness of a particular but common word--be it a noun,  a proper name, a verb, a personal pronoun, or even an article--and rolled it around in your own internal soundbox until it started to break loose of its original meaning?

When you get down in the sandbox with those words, you begin to discover all the surprising things that repetition can create, or the ways in which a proper name makes a great verb (see below), or how juxtaposition of the word in question with other words  can tease out multiple meanings from what might have seemed a self-limiting word.

Find a word and s-t-r-e-t-c-h  it.  Don't know where to start? Pick your word and riff on it--do a free-write and repeat your word every time you get stuck. Just keep going. Once you have a draft of something, you can go back and expand the possibilities your word presents. Bat your word around. Tease it. Fluff up its hair.

Day 27:

spider

scurries past

carnelian her tail

she

spins carnelian

sun glistened web

what

I carnelian

her deft composition

planting

the flower

of carnelian desire

National Poetry Month: April 26, 2015

Today's Prompt:  Our last two prompts have been squarely in the silly zone – this one should give some scope to both the serious-minded and the silly among you. Today, I challenge you to write a persona poem – a poem in the voice of someone else. Your persona could be a mythological or fictional character, a historical figure, or even an inanimate object. Need some examples? Check out this persona-poem-themed issue of Poemeleon from a few years back.

Day 26:

“This is my letter to the world

That never wrote to me”

― Emily Dickinson

From Emily

Everyone believes my domain is simple.

Here in my white dress,

pen in hand, cool and unhurried.

What fire swells up inside,

words that shout to be set free.

No one understands.

Do they think I don’t desire

the world beyond these four walls,

yearn for a greater journey?

I open my father’s green atlas

tracing map lines.

I would wend my way

far from home,

but bird wings beating

in my chest won’t let me be.

Instead I write

my heart’s flight, trailing  

a silken thread.

National Poetry Month: April 25, 2015

Today's Prompt: It’s the weekend, so I’d thought we might go with something short and just a bit (or a lot) silly – the Clerihew. These are rhymed, humorous quatrains involving a specific person’s name. You can write about celebrities, famous people from history, even your mom (hopefully she’s got a good name for rhyming with).

I seem to be on a math kick...

Day 25:

Leonardo Bonacci or Fibonacci

Would have loved sunflower seeds in Karachi

He swooned over numbers so many

he would have munched much more than twenty

National Poetry Month: April 24, 2015

Day 24:  It seemed that every prompt I tried today did nothing for me, so I decided to go back to my current favorite writing trick: Haikubes. I chose 5 words to use in a poem.

Here is what I came up with: 

Brother

Before you arrived,

competition had no name,

the world all mine.

You quickly clapped

illusion away.

I learned the taste

of jealousy

in the salty folds

of your baby legs

as you chased

after my assurance

to catch as your own.

I learned the word rival.

Ever after would I check

over my shoulder

for your reflection,

but never did I think ask,

which of us started this?

National Poetry Month: April 23, 2015

Prompt: Today, I challenge you to take a chance, literally. Find a deck of cards (regular playing cards, tarot cards, uno cards, cards from your “Cards Against Humanity” deck – whatever), shuffle it, and take a card – any card! Now, begin free-writing based on the card you’ve chosen. Keep going without stopping for five minutes. Then take what you’ve written and make a poem from it. (Hat tip to Amy McDaniel for the idea!)

From Inner Child Cards: A Fairy-Tale Tarot

Little Red Cap

You with your long innocent hair

under that little red cap,

knitted by someone who loves you,

the tassel floating like flame behind.

Why have you paused on your way,

ignoring your mother’s warning?

I know the woods are tempting.

I could stop you if I wanted.

But maybe I’ll wait to see

if you take the wise path,

if you notice the birds

have to fallen silent

before that dark presence.

National Poetry Month: April 22, 2015

Prompt: Today is Earth Day, so I would like to challenge you to write a “pastoral” poem. Traditionally, pastoral poems involved various shepherdesses and shepherds talking about love and fields, but yours can really just be a poem that engages with nature. One great way of going about this is simply to take a look outside your window, or take a walk around a local park. What’s happening in the yard and the trees? What’s blooming and what’s taking flight?

Day 22:

Suburban Aviary

Bird poop on the back stoop means

the doves are back loving and laying,

so I look to find their twiggy nest

peeking from the eaves,

safe from the tabby cat

who uses our fence for her highway,

far from the raccoons who sleep

in the oak tree next door,

those raccoons who once visited us

while we sat outside eating sandwiches,

watching with their little flashlight eyes.

Now that I think about it

I haven’t heard much cooing

in the early morning lately.

Maybe this means the doves

are exhausted new parents.

All the birds are pretty quiet right now,

the juncos, sparrows and chickadees

must be building and nesting,

which makes the bluebird

I saw twice last week

an even more astonishing sight,

bright with rust collar and buff belly,

a true bluebird of happiness

because seeing him hop in the grass

that is exactly what I felt.

National Poetry Month: April 21, 2015

Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is an old favorite – the erasure! This involves taking a pre-existing text and blacking out or erasing words, while leaving the placement of the remaining words intact… Erasures can feel almost like a game – carving new poems out of old texts like carving statues from blocks of marble — and so they take some of the anxiety out of writing. They can also lead to surprising new ideas, as the words of the original text are given new contexts.

Day 21:

This erasure poetry is dedicated to my sister Lana who told me last weekend her favorite number is e.

National Poetry Month: April 20, 2015

Today, I challenge to write a poem that states the things you know. For example, “The sky is blue” or “Pizza is my favorite food” or “The world’s smallest squid is Parateuthis tunicata. Each line can be a separate statement, or you can run them together. The things you “know,” of course, might be facts, or they might be a little bit more like beliefs. Hopefully, this prompt will let your poem be grounded in specific facts, while also providing room for more abstract themes and ideas.

Day 20:

What I know

Like trees,

we should root ourselves

into the earth, snuggling deep,

but not forgetting to reach

our limbs high into the air,

stepping on tiptoe if need be,

but stretching up, up

to reach clouds water-laden,

then cradling them

with abundant love

so rain washes down upon us,

wetting our hair and skin,

nourishing our bodies,

filling us

until that clean fire

comes to burn

us away to ash.

National Poetry Month: April 14, 2015

For today's offering, another haiku:

winds rise high tonight

no rain only dry leaves that

rustle like fire

National Poetry Month: April 13, 2015

In keeping with the mysterious quality of the number 13, today I challenge you to write a riddle poem. This poem should describe something without ever naming it. Perhaps each line could be a different metaphor for the same object? Maybe the title of the poem can be the “answer” to the riddle. The result could be a bit like our Day One poems of negation, but the lines don’t need to be expressed in negatives.

Bedtime

Running from my capture machine

of paper cup and envelope,

she scuttled under the bed skirt.

Now she lies in wait for that first opportunity,

to scurry back up the white sail of sheet

flapping over my huge body.

Covered up to my chin, I dread she will pounce.

Both of us wrapped in our own fears.

I know she just wants somewhere

to light, to spin, to grow fat and contented.

She has made a bad choice, the wrong turn.

I’ve done it myself many times.

Trapped in a tomb of her own making,

dust-covered carpet and shadows,

she won’t come out.

Soon she’ll molder to dust herself.

I could try to find her, but know I won’t.

National Poetry Month: April 12, 2015

NaPoWriMo Day 12 Prompt: It comes to us from Dr. Cynthia A. Cochran of Illinois College:

Here is a great prompt for anyone who likes to write descriptive prose but shudders at writing poetry–and it really works:

Describe in great detail your favorite room, place, meal, day, or person. You can do this in paragraph form.  Now cut unnecessary words like articles and determiners (a, the, that) and anything that isn’t really necessary for content; leave mainly nouns, verbs, a few adjectives.

Cut the lines where you see fit and, VOILA! A poem!

Utica Street

white clapboard house

green shutters

upstairs downstairs kind

fence gate overlooked alley

backyard bursting

apple tree purple Concord grapes

garden patch tomatoes

green beans corn

humid air laden

wasps bees hovering

fruit sticky split by summer rain

cherry tree my cherry tree

so old most grew

far from reach bird nibbled

pink spring blossoms

then sweet tartness

rosy hearts picked sun warm

over chain link fence

rows of other yards

rows of houses marching

front porches shaded

by white-blossomed bridal bush

swing sets squatted

in patchy grass rough-mown

dogs barked we romped

slid down slides

legs pumping

we flew through air

National Poetry Day: April 11, 2015

NaPoWriMo Prompt: Today, rather than being casual, I challenge you to get rather classically formal, and compose a poem in Sapphics. These are quatrains whose first three lines have eleven syllables, and the fourth, just five. There is also a very strict meter that alternates trochees (a two-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed, and the second unstressed) and dactyls (a three-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed and the remainder unstressed). The first three lines consist of two trochees, a dactyl, and two more trochees. The fourth line is a dactyl, followed by a trochee.

Well, I certainly can count syllables, so my poem qualifies on that count (pun intended). However, as for the trochees and dactyls, I gave up. Lazy modern poet...

Lesvos

That day I first saw Sappho’s island of birth, 

Greek sun rose hot even at dawn’s blue hour.

Scrub covered hills rolled

outside the dust caked car window. I drove on,

clutch crabby and grumbling like an old woman

stumbling on gravel.

To the sea I sped, past signs I couldn’t read.

On to the Aegean where Sappho had first

penned poems of love.

I should have studied some verses to recite,

but my throat ran dry. Words flew away, cinders

orange against blue.

National Poetry Month: April 9, 2015

NaPoWriMo Day 9: Our prompt for the day (optional, as always) plays of our resources. Today, I challenge you to write a visual poem. If that’s not specific enough, perhaps you can try your hand at a calligram? That’s a poem or other text in which the words are arranged into a specific shape or image. You might find inspiration in the famous calligrams written by Guillaume Apollinaire. And a word to the wise — the best way to cope with today’s exercise may well be to abandon your keyboard, and sit down with paper and pen (and maybe crayons or colored pencils or markers!)

This form made me think of writing concrete poetry with my middle school students, so I tried to channel that energy.  Since I'm no visual artist, be kind to my awkward swirl. Ironically, attending the first meeting of a poetry class kept me from posting earlier!

National Poetry Month: April 8, 2015

Today is the eighth day of the  NaPoWriMo challenge, and that is truly what it is for me today.  Here it is Wednesday of the first week back after my Spring Break, and tonight I have to go to a school board meeting. I've stayed up too late every night since I got back from my vacation, so I am already tired and cranky.  
Obviously these are not the ideal conditions to write a poem, so at the moment I feel myself dried up. However, when in doubt haiku can come to the rescue! I'm still writing one a day (462 so far since 1/1/14) so this will be my poem of the day:

Day 8:

milky way streaking

through star dotted sky swept clean

then the moon rises

National Poetry Month: April 7, 2015

NaPoWriMo Prompt: So today, I challenge you to write about money! It could be about not having enough, having too much (a nice kind of problem to have), the smell, or feel, or sensory aspects of money. It could also just be a poem about how we decide what has value or worth.

Day 7

Money

At home she sees kids on the street everyday,

but here in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower

shining over her shoulder,

she can’t watch them sitting, hands outstretched.

She asks for a euro, thinking perhaps, it equals a quarter.

I don’t tell her it’s more than a dollar.

 “Tonight is too cold for someone to sleep hungry,” she says,

and I am filled with the light of her

as she bends, dark hair swooping over her face,

dropping the coin into his waiting palm.

National Poetry Month: April 6, 2015

NaPoWriMo Day 6: Today’s prompt springs from the form known as the aubade. These are morning poems, about dawn and daybreak. Many aubades take the form of lovers’ morning farewells, but . . . today is Monday. So why not try a particularly Mondayish aubade…

Monday Aubade

Four of us to get to school, four bowls of cereal or scrambled eggs,

Mom from table to stove, from one need to the next.

Dad long gone, having drunk his coffee and climbed into his truck

driving off into pre-dawn darkness.

Monday when beds stripped of weekend lay empty,

school books gathered and sneakers lost, then found.

Dawn peered over the trees across the farm field,

birds chattered in the oak outside the kitchen window.

Four squabbles, milk spilled on the plastic tablecloth,

dog under our feet searching for scraps.

My mother’s face grim-set.

Soon the fat yellow bus would arrive for my brother and me,

soon my sisters would make their way to school down the street.

Soon the house would fall hushed except for clicking

of doggy nails across the kitchen floor.

Now I wonder what my mother did.

Would she sit and watch the day come awake,

just sit with coffee cup nested in her hands?

Completely still,  gazing out at her garden before she shook herself out

and cleared the plates to set in soapy water.

National Poetry Month: April 5, 2015

Today's NaPoWriMo Prompt: Find an Emily Dickinson poem - preferably one you've never previously read  - and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it!

Gulp! Who am I to tamper with the great Emily's words? I didn't follow the directions completely...

Day 5: 

Before I got my eye put out – (336)

by Emily Dickinson

Before I got my eye put out –

I liked as well to see

As other creatures, that have eyes –

And know no other way –

But were it told to me, Today,

That I might have the Sky

For mine, I tell you that my Heart

Would split, for size of me –

The Meadows – mine –

The Mountains – mine –

All Forests – Stintless stars –

As much of noon, as I could take –

Between my finite eyes –

The Motions of the Dipping Birds –

The Morning’s Amber Road –

For mine – to look at when I liked,

The news would strike me dead –

So safer – guess – with just my soul

Upon the window pane

Where other creatures put their eyes –

Incautious – of the Sun –

Dear Emily #33

the sun

comes up

fueling morning’s

amber road

it is mine

to look at when

I like

it is mine

to share

with dipping birds

or other

creatures
mountains 
meadows
forests
are mine

the sky
of stintless stars

has split
my heart in two