Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo, Day 25: A Cento (Which Doesn’t Mean it Has 100 Lines)

How Long the Years Grow

Into the dangerous world I leapt,
like strings of broken lyres.

Again, when have I ever not loved?

I summon you now,
the happy genius of my household,
from a kingdom that bullies, and hectors, and swears.

And within the pane-lit windows,
the ghosts swarm.

Skin remembers how long the years grow.
Let’s ask a poet with no way of knowing:

Did I have to be born?

With many, many thanks to the following poets:

William Blake, Thomas Hardy, Derek Walcott, May Sarton, William Carlos Williams, Philip Freneau, Bill Knott, Rae Armantrout, Naomi Shihab Nye, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Mattathias (as translated by David Rosenberg).

OK, putting in the links took longer than writing the poem …

A cento is a poem made entirely of lines borrowed from other poems. For mine, I went to poets.org and navigated to their index of poems appropriate for various holidays. I grabbed a line from one poem for each holiday listed there. I did this mostly in order, except that I flipped Chanukah and Christmas because the line I found for Chanukah was an especially killer ending, and I just didn’t like the poem as much without the flip in the last two lines. I also made a few changes to punctuation and such, where needed for sense.

I had fun with this. Was it … cento-riffic? Maybe. Maybe it was.

Oh, and also, P.S.: I forgot to say thank you, thank you here to Vince Gotera for featuring one of my poems from a few days back, on his blog, The Man with the Blue Guitar. I was honored and thrilled, and you should visit him posthaste!

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NaPoWriMo, Day 24: A Lipogram (Which is Not a Poem about Fat)

My Stars

you wallow
in a sky
just past
my hair

I touch
I cry
I hold

why
do you
ask this:

what I am,
what words
I own, and

who follows,
who wants?

you know
I am solo,
without

a paramour,
a companion,
a buddy,
a pal.

no, nothing
but you.

nothing
but you,
my stars.

Note: A lipogram is a poem in which the poet avoids using a certain letter. The classic choice for English speakers is to avoid the letter “e,” so that’s what I did. Oh, also … I’m happily married and do have some other buddies and pals, too. The speaker here is not me — so, no need to worry … or recommend that I check out eHarmony. And finally … Eeeeeeeeeeee! That was fun.

OK, not quite finally … I’m linking to dVerse for its Open Link Night, which is every Tuesday. Thanks for the tip, Anna!

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NaPoWriMo, Day 23: Let’s Get Ekphrastic

Phone Books in Strange Towns

thin, yellow
rustle between
fingers.

hotel room
nightstand,
a guide to

where I am,
what businesses
prevail here,

where pizza
comes from
if I order it,

where to get
a car fixed
if I had one.

street names,
area code,
territory.

sometimes
there are
white pages,

too; I scan
for last names:
do I know

anyone here?
does anyone
know me?

most times,
now, there is
no book

in the drawer
other than
the Bible,

sometimes
the Mormon
testament.

Gideons
have answers,
place them

like crumbs,
but no one
leaves me

the path
I most want
to follow.

 

 

OK, only sort of ekphrastic …. Truthfully, I don’t like ekphrastic poems much — either writing or reading. (But if you wrote one today, I’m sure it’s terrific.) There are some really great examples, some ekphrastic poems that really do work on their own. But all too often, the sense I get — again, both as a writer as a reader — is, “Ehh, you kind of had to be there.” The word is a problem, too: For some reason, “ekphrastic” has always sounded like a painful, gassy condition to me. So, I kind of thumbed my nose at today’s prompt … but I really do love to see a phone book when I travel on business. They’re not works of art, certainly, but I decided to celebrate them anyway.

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NaPoWriMo, Day 22: Write about a Plant

Needles Interweaving

Fifteen Christmas trees later and
a crack opens up in the earth,
swallows them whole.

Scotch pine become Douglas fir,
Douglas to Fraser, not that big
a leap when everything is

changing so much, converging,
needles interweaving; everyone’s
Christmas is pretty much the same:

That was the year you got your
bike, wasn’t it? We all got bikes
that year or a different year, or

something else. We all have the
pictures, one tree or another,
some type of dog, maybe a cat,

a mother, a brother. None of 
these is as special as we thought;
it turns out that we were all

part of a set. But the trees were
real, at least as far as they knew,
seeded in rows like corn and then

cut, brought in to stand still and
bear witness, stunned, as we all
breathed that same stale air.

 

 

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NaPoWriMo, Day 21: Hay(na)ku

An invented form: One word for the first line, two for the second, three for the third. And repeat, if desired. For anyone who’s ever been second (or third) best …

 

Afterthought

I
am not
your best girl

but
I am
the one who

is
with you
here, right now.

Should
we go
to the dance?

I
am wearing
my best dress

though
I know
I am second

best,
or third,
in your eyes.

You
bought me
a wrist corsage

anyway.
I love
it even though

it’s
wilted and
was an afterthought,

the
last one
in the case.

 

 

 

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So … What Do I Do in May?

NaPoWriMo is humming along … I can’t believe we’re on day 21 already. Because I’m also doing Robert Brewer’s Poem-a-Day Challenge, this has been a very busy and fun month. I came late to NaPoWriMo, and during the time when I was catching up, I realized that while writing Facebook posts or articles for my real job, I was thinking about things like line breaks and rhyme.

By the end of this month, I will have written 60-some poems that are all posted on blogs — this one and Brewer’s. So … what does that mean? I do like to submit for publication, and editors seem to be all over the map as far as what they consider to be “previously published” and thus, dead on arrival as far as they’re concerned. I knew this. I posted anyway. 

The thing is, posting poems scratches some of the same itches for me as publication does. Some … but not all. In fact, in terms of feedback and connection with other writers and … get this — people who like poetry but don’t write it themselves — posting has proven to be a way more effective itch scratcher than the whole submit-and-wait routine.

But … I do like having the imprimatur of someone else’s approval. I do, I do, I do. “Someone else,” as in an editor who sifts through however many submissions and selects what he or she considers to be the tippy-top, best of the best, creme de la creme, ne plus ultra (or … “This one would go well with that other one we accepted from someone else.” or … “This one’s OK and would fit the funny little space we have on page 5.”). You get the picture. I am an approval hound. I love (LOVE!) blog comments, but I also love (LOVE!) acceptance letters. 

Even if I am, in terms of future publishability, throwing away 60-some poems this month, I would never say that’s a waste. It feels somewhat thrilling, in fact, to gleefully toss out something that is so precious (in terms of the labor that goes into each one, and the fact that each is a singular event that will never happen again).

Also, I have found some editors here and there who don’t consider blog posts to count as publication. In recent months, I’ve submitted some of my November Poem-a-Day efforts, always disclosing that they were posted on Brewer’s blog. Results have been mixed … but then, they always are.

Still, I’m not sure what I’m going to do once this double-challenge month comes to a close. I don’t think I can keep posting as frequently as I have been, but I don’t want to pull way back and stop posting poems altogether, because it has been immensely gratifying to connect with an audience, read other poets’ great work, and feel a lot less isolated as a poet than I did before. 

On a related note, I have a pressing need to get a chapbook published. I’m at a stage where I’m somewhat reliably getting individual poems published here and there — which is so gratifying, but it’s starting to feel a bit scatteredy. And then, on the blessed day when my contributor’s copy arrives in the mail (for most poets, including me, this is also known as “payday”), I look at the other bios, and *everyone else* has a chapbook or two, or a full collection. Or seven of them. 

I wonder … should I put most of my energy in May into pulling together a chapbook? I would still want to submit individual poems here and there, as the spirit moves me, but it might be fun to sloooooow doooooown, take the time to consider past works, and really focus on putting together something cohesive.

On a somewhat related note — because in chapbooks, it’s understood that some/many of the poems will have been previously published — I wonder what makes sense as far as how often to post poems here? I do post each Wednesday at Brewer’s blog, even during non-challenge times. Maybe once a week here, too, and then I’ll hoard any others that I write next month, and thus resume being at least a little bit coy about this whole thing?

Poets, during non-NaPoWriMo times, how often do you post poems on your blog or someone else’s? And how does that compare with the number of poems you hold back? Those of you who are playing the same game of Publication Poker that I am — as opposed to essentially self-publishing everything via your blog — what has your experience been, vis a vis the viability of poems that you’ve posted?

Many thanks to all of you … for all the comments and poems and good times this month, and also for any thoughts regarding your blogging/submitting cycle between one NaPoWriMo and the next!

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NaPoWriMo, Day 20: Notes During Transit

I didn’t play it as straight as I have been with most of these prompts. I had an experience today that I really wanted to write about. In a way, I was traveling, and so was the other person involved …

Detours

Travel through the glass doors
out to the walk that overlooks
the river, in which there are

police boats beginning to
circle, near the water taxi,
which has gamely put down

its ladder and a life ring,
as if whoever is in the river
could grab hold, scramble

aboard, find safety through
the mist and cold, the heavy,
heavy water that called to him

from the bottom, as it has
called me, too, if I’m honest;
I have calculated such things

as how much it would hurt and
for how long, and how long it
would be before anyone knew.

And what happens then? Now,
there is a diver with something
in his arms, something draped

across the front of his wetsuit.
Something becomes the jumper,
dragged onto the deck of the

police boat, where an officer
leans over him, up and down
on his chest, the unmistakable

rhythm of CPR. Ten minutes, or
fifteen, since I first came out here,
stopped on my way between one

thing and another, lower level
to twentieth floor, cut through
the lobby. But I took a detour

today, to go out to the river,
wrap my sweater around me,
wonder how cold the water is,

how this will end, what it means
that I came out here instead of
continuing on and up. The man,

in black clothes, is wrapped in
a white blanket, hauled onto a
yellow stretcher for a journey

I’m guessing he didn’t want.
He’s taking a detour between
his plan and its end; whatever

else happens, he won’t die
this morning at the bottom of
the river while all of us watch.

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NaPoWriMo, Day 18: A Lullaby

I think I’ve written more rhyming poems in the past couple of weeks than in the past couple of decades before that. I don’t think it’ll ever be my mainstay, but it’s fun now and then — and probably good exercise, too.

Hush Me

hush the earth
hush the pond
hush each stem
and each frond

hush the sky
hush the road
hush each frog
and each toad

dim the lights
close the blinds
hush my heart
hush my mind

 

 

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NaPoWriMo, Day 17: Epistolary Letter Involving Many, Many Elements

Episiotomy? No, epistolary. Meaning, in the form of a letter to someone. Or in this case, to something. I was supposed to write a letter to an inanimate object and incorporate at least four of these elements: 

1) a song lyric
2) a historical fact
3) an oddball adjective-noun combination (like red grass or loud silence)
4) a fruit
5) the name of a street in your neighborhood
6) a measure of distance

If you’re not from around here (the U.S., that is), you might not immediately know what object I’m addressing. Also, I tried this again tonight and enjoyed the results. I actually prefer the chicks (maybe because they’re, I don’t know, more iconic?), and I think the heat should be low, not high. Just like when you toast marshmallows, you want more of a slow, controlled burn — unless you happen to like a totally charred outside and solid inside (and if you do, hey, that’s none of my business). Anyway … here’s the poem already.

 

The Thrill is Gone

Dear Marshmallow Peep,
I used to love to skewer and roast you
over the flame of our gas range.

But this year, you taste too sweet.
The thrill is gone, baby. The thrill is gone away.
You’re like a rotten apple: Cloying. Sick.

I bought fifteen of you at the CVS
a block from where I work; I’m glad I didn’t
go all the way to the one on Kenwood.

I wouldn’t walk a mile for you, Peep—
not even the long-short miles that make up
my shaggy orbit. People used to believe the sun

orbited the Earth. I no longer revolve around you,
Peep. Not that I ever did, but still, there was 
something about you as you sizzled and melted,

gnarled and charred, something about your
crispy shell, creamy inside, something about
post-Easter chicks pierced and flambéed.

I don’t know what happened. If I could reignite
the fire inside me, I would. It was nice to desire
something so small, so attainable as you.

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