NaPoWriMo Day Thirty – Farewell

Farewell to Silence

A proper send-off
A fond farewell
Farewell to rhyming
Farewell to April
April showers bring May flowers
April thirty days I wrote
Wrote in verse
Wrote the long and short
Short can infuriate
Short lines begin to climb
Climb a tree
Climb a mountain
Mountain goat
Mountain trail
Trail of tears
Trail ends here
Here we go again
Here and now
Now we are free
Now is the winter of our discontent
Discontent to stop
Discontent to continue
Continue writing poetry
Continue to wax
Wax on wax off
Wax away the hours
Hours spent in seclusion
Hours wane until I fall
Fall head over heels
Fall into step
Step lively
Step up or fall behind
Behind in the polls
Behind the eight ball
Ball rolls down hill
Ball filled with hot air
Air grows stagnant
Air carries off your dreams
Dreams of being rich
Dreams of better future
Future is uncertain
Future is not written
Written in stone
Written words read aloud
Aloud one hears the truth
Aloud one cries for silence
Silence too great an expectation
Silence is golden
Golden…
Expectation…

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our final (yet still optional!) prompt. Today, as befits the final poem of NaPoWriMo, I challenge you to write a poem of farewell. It doesn’t have to be goodbye forever — like I said, NaPoWriMo will be back again next year. If you need a little inspiration, you might find some in perusing this selection of goodbye-and-good-luck poems from the Poetry Foundation website.

Happy writing, everyone, and good-bye, and see you next year!

Yes, I’m still playing with the blitz poem.  I find it interesting.  Yesterday I told my oldest I swore in my poem, but since I was quoting Shakespeare, I figured it was okay.  Then she said, “screw your courage to the sticking place”.  😉 I’m so proud of my girl.  I asked her how she knew I quoted MacBeth.  She didn’t but she loves this quote and the MacBeth rap.

 

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-eight Fit to Diaper

Change

Cool Arizona breeze brush rumps
Hanging out for good cause
About seventy baby bums exposed
Numbers raise awareness
Great Cloth Diaper Change
Eco-friendly world record to break

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now our (optional) prompt. Today I challenge you to find a news article, and to write a poem using (mostly, if not only) words from the article! You can repeat them, splice them, and rearrange them however you like. Although the vocabulary may be “just the facts,” your poem doesn’t have to be — it doesn’t even have to be about the subject of the news article itself. Happy writing!

West Valley View – this is the article I gleaned my poem from.  Online you can’t read the whole story.  Saturday families came out to participate in a cloth diaper change to break the guinness world record for the amount of cloth diapers changed at same time.  And to show cloth diapers are friendlier to the environment.  We will have to wait and see if the record was broken.

 

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-Nine – Blitz Poem

Dog Has Rule

Sick as I am
Sick as a dog
Dog off its leash
Dog eat dog world
World in turmoil
World wide web
Web does entangle
Web of lies
Lies star-crossed lovers
Lies of omission
Omission of forethought
Omission leaves out
Out of time
Out in the cold
Cold shoulder
Cold as Hell
Hell freezes over
Hell on Earth
Earth turns to dust
Earth is our home
Home away from home
Home is where the heart is
Is it time to weep
Is this working out
Out damn spot out
Out of my mind
Mind thinks logically
Mind over body
Body is grotesque
Body of evidence
Evidence must compel
Evidence yields proof
Proof of betrayal
Proof of life
Life is complicated
Life worth living
Living in my own little world
Living in a glass house
House built on a cliff
House of cards
Cards stacked in a deck
Cards playing solitaire
Solitaire is a lonely affair
Solitaire turns into a crowd
Crowd packed in like sardines
Crowd follows mob rule
Rule with an iron fist
Rule of thumb
Thumb…
Fist…

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now our prompt (optional, as always). This may remind you a bit of the “New York School” recipe, but this prompt has been around for a long time. I remember using it in a college poetry class, and loving the result. It really forces you into details, and to work on “conducting” the poem as it grows, instead of trying to force the poem to be one thing or another in particular. The prompt is called the “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman.

Yes, I am missing a day.  I tried writing a poem on a news story, but I couldn’t find one that inspired me.  I will try to catch up and write one later.  This is a Blitz Poem.  I’ve been wanting to write one for awhile.  The “Twenty Little Poetry Projects” made me think stream of consciousness and so I thought a blitz poem would be a fun substitute.

 

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-seven Picture Perfect

Terrorizing Mom all day
Restless monster feet

Sleeping peaceful through the night
Little angels sweet

 

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our prompt! Our early-bird prompt this year (on March 31) was an ekphrastic poem. This is something similar — a poem written from a photograph. There are four below, one of which I hope will catch your fancy. But if you’ve a particular photo in mind that you’d like to use, go right ahead. Happy writing!

 

As you can see from the photo, my angels aren’t so little anymore.  They both still have restless monster feet though.  My oldest will be 16 in less than a month.  At least she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to get her feet on a gas petal.  For those interested this is a coin poem. It shows the flip side – day, night; restless, peaceful; monster, angel.  Unless of course you’re a Doctor Who fan in which case an angel is a monster.

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-six Curtal Sonnet

Ode to St. Hubert

Saturday morning struggle with rhyme
Look up sonnet accosted by math
Can numbers help me wax poetic
An octave has eight lines, but here I’m
Writing six to stay on curtailed path
Then divide by two quite frenetic

But wait, there’s another knot to fray
The final quatrain adds aesthetic
Instead of four lines it starts to stray
Adding a half to earn my wrath
with arithmetic

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today’s prompt comes to us from Vince Gotera, who wrote his “family member” poem for Day 20 in the form of a curtal sonnet. As Vince explains, the curtal sonnet is shorter than the normal, fourteen line sonnet. Instead it has a first stanza of six lines, followed by a second stanza of four, and then closes with a half-line. The form was invented in the 1800s by Gerard Manley Hopkins, who used it in his famous poem “Pied Beauty”. So for today, I challenge you to give the curtal sonnet a whirl. It doesn’t need to rhyme — though it can if you like — and feel free to branch out beyond iambic pentameter. Happy writing!

I hope everyone read the prompt. I did not; the link for Pied Beauty caught my eye, and I clicked on it.  I think it was too early in the morning, because I couldn’t grasp the rhyme scheme so I googled curtal sonnet.  Let me tell you, it was definitely too early for THIS. I was an English major NOT a mathematician.  However, math has been a subject of note in this house of late.  My oldest will be a junior in high school next semester.  Because of her excellent grades, her school will pay for her to take four college courses each semester next year.  She wants to earn her AS with her high school diploma, but to do that she first had to place into MAT 151.  Upon retaking the placement test at the college, she scored a 56.  Well above the needed score for MAT 151 and apparently it’s become a competition to beat her score.  One of her classmates looked up the patron saint of mathematics for those interested in the title of my poem.  Praying to the saint wasn’t helpful.  He only scored a 53. Yes, he got above the needed score for the course he’ll be taking, but it didn’t beat my daughter’s score.

However none of this matters because after I figured out the rhyme scheme for the curtal sonnet, I read the rest of the prompt – It doesn’t need to rhyme.  Serves me right to get distracted by pretty, shiny links. 😉

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-five Anaphora

My Last Straw

My last straw rhyming to a beat
My last straw trying to repeat
Anaphora may be last straw
As this poem persists to gnaw

My last straw cadence keeping count
My last straw easy to miscount
Eight syllables without a flaw
As this poem persists to gnaw

My last straw only five days more
My last straw repeating phrase tore
Away this verse… leaving it raw
As this poem persists to gnaw

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our (optional) prompt. Anaphora is a literary term for the practice of repeating certain words or phrases at the beginning of multiple clauses or, in the case of a poem, multiple lines. The phrase “A time to,” as used in the third Chapter of Ecclesiastes, is a good example of anaphora. But you don’t have to be the Old Testament (or a Byrds song) to use anaphora. Allen Ginsberg used it in Howl, for example. This post by Rebecca Hazelton on the Poetry Foundation’s blog gives other great examples of anaphora in action, from Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech to Homer Simpson. So today, I challenge you to write a poem that uses anaphora. Find a phrase, and stick with it — learn how far it can go. Happy writing!

As the poem states, five more days! I don’t think I’ve reached my last straw yet, but come May 1st I’ll be doing a happy dance. For today this may not be my best work but it is written and keeping on is what counts.

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-four – Masonry Concrete

Masonry

Building up walls
Concrete slabs
Stonework
Bricks
Craft layers to shape

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now, our (optional, as always) prompt! Peter Roberts has been participating in NaPoWriMo for several years now at his blog, Masonry Design. He has the charming and odd distinction of having only written poems about masonry. Today, I challenge you to do the same (for one day, at least), and to write a poem that features walls, bricks, stones, arches, or the like. If that sounds a bit hard, remember that one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems was about a wall. Happy writing!

I was browsing the Internet yesterday and found Teacup Dictionary Poem.  It looked like fun and I haven’t written a concrete poem for napowrimo yet.  When I told my husband today’s prompt was to write a poem on masonry, he said, You should write concrete. Ha!  Masonry – Concrete.  He knew there was a poetry form called concrete, but he did not know it was another name for a shape poem.  I told him if my idea worked it would be a masonry concrete poem.  But I doubt anyone wants to drink out of a brick teacup.

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-three Phonetic Translation

Hit no more ocean
Hit no more you’re a mess
Ask nigh coo
You want more your nigh
My no want more me way

99 The Retired Emperor Gotoba (Website)

Hito mo oshi
Hito mo urameshi
Ajiki-naku
Yo wo omou yue ni.
Mono omou mi wa.

How I regret my fallen friends
How I despise my foes!
And, tired of life, I only seek
To reach my long day’s close,
And gain at last repose.

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today’s prompt (optional, as always), is an oldie-but-a-goodie: the homophonic translation. Find a poem in a language you don’t know, and translate it into English based on the look of the words and their sounds.

I was actually able to write a phonetic translation without looking at the actual translation under the tanka.  As you can see, my translation is nonsense.  But after reading the English translation I composed a verse that makes more sense.

 

Experience life
Travel across the ocean
Check off bucket list
Don’t grow old sitting at home
Wear sunscreen without regret

 

This was inspired by Gotoba No In and my friend, Wendi Mitchell who shared this song yesterday.

 

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-two – Ae Freslighe

Fourth Quarter Blues

 

School days often zip by fast
Report cards a student’s woe
Fourth quarter will whip my class
Who has time to lament so?

 

April we are taught to rhyme
Writing poetry in verse
My attempt is thought no crime
Could this poem have been worse?

 

With only one verse to go
The teacher hands out cool praise
Causing some to curse blue though
Perhaps there are good school days?

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our (optional) prompt! Today, I challenge you to write a poem for children. This could be in the style of a nursery rhyme, or take a cue from Edward Lear or Shel Silverstein. It could rhyme — or not. It could be short — or not. Happy writing!

Summer Vacation is only a month away!  Rachael’s last day of school is May 16th! Gretchen’s is the 23rd! We are in the fourth quarter blues – WAY TOO MANY projects due.  Good grief someone turn off my rhyme!  This is an old poem I reworked to fit the end of the school year and napowrimo.  I hope there are English teachers out there teaching poetry this month.

On another note, I have sweet chocolate truffles to reward me for all my April rhyming.  Thanks to @tspoetry I won Hebert Candies and they are YUMMY.  Check out Love, Etc. over on the tspoetry website.

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-one – New York School

Orange Rose

October twelfth nineteen ninety-six
Traditional Columbus Day
Taking photos on the steps
Albright Knox Art Gallery
Rockwell Hall – Alma mater

On top his shoulders risqué kicks
Traditional pose? No way
Toasting in high spirits affects
Memory: Orange rose fallacy
A mere seventeen years later

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today’s prompt is to write a “New York School” poem using the recipe found here. The New York School is the name by which a group of poets that all lived in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The most well-known members are Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch. Their poems are actually very different from one another, but many “New York School” poems display a sort of conversational tone, references to friends and to places in and around New York, humor, inclusion of pop culture, and a sense of the importance of art (visual, poetic, and otherwise).

Yesterday my wonderful husband brought home a bouquet of orange roses.  His wife gave him undeserved credit.  I thought he was being romantic; I had orange roses in my wedding bouquet. Wow, our wedding roses! 😀 He looked at me as if I were alien.  No, I didn’t like the tulips.  He likes orange roses.  Hmm… I wonder if there’s a reason for his preference.  So I was thinking about my wedding even though my anniversary is six months away.  And despite the common fallacy, there’s more to New York than the city. My poem today has Buffalo, NY references. I write what I know.