#NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Twenty

#HaikuChallenge #CoffeeTime

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for today’s (optional) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food. It could be a favorite food of yours, or maybe one you feel conflicted about. I feel conflicted about Black Forest Cake, for example. It always looks so pretty in a bakery window, and I want to like the combination of cherries and chocolate . . . but I don’t. But how does the cake feel about it?

Good morning and welcome to day twenty of NaPoWriMo where I write in the POV of coffee. The #haikuchallenge word today is lose and my earlier version was –

Every morning
She trusts me to work magic
Lose her displeasure

I’m ambivalent over which version I like better. It’s funny because Gretchen wanted me to proofread one of her papers before she left for school yesterday, but she said I was sleeping. I told her she could have woken me up. She said I’d be grumpy (before coffee). Instead she just sent me an invite to google docs to proofread it while she was at school. Then the evil twin sent me her essay to proofread. Hey Kati, personal pronouns should not appear in formal essays! The evil twin has been long out of essay writing practice. There is no amount of coffee available for me to lose my displeasure at reading I, we, us in an essay. Coffee already has a big job in this house. 😉

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#NaPoWriMo 2018 Day Twenty-five

My children know I’m crazy

Beware sleep deprived
mom who will walk into walls
may trip over cats

Do not approach her
without sufficient coffee
may misinterpret

Do not approach her
if she holds a sharp object
may take fork to foot            😉

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). Today, we challenge you to write a poem that takes the form of a warning label . . . for yourself! (Mine definitely includes the statement: “Do Not Feed More Than Four Cookies Per Hour.”
Happy writing!

Good morning and welcome to another installment of #NaPoWriMo a day late. This morning I already accomplished buying airline tickets. 😀 WooHoo! All four of us will be shuffling off to Buffalo at the end of June. Gretchen’s last day of summer classes is June 28th but I’ve been waiting to hear about Rachael’s summer schedule – which is still up in the air. Whatever she ends up doing, she will just need the 4th of July week off, because she’s going on vacation.

I did start working on this prompt yesterday, but then Rachael made pancakes for breakfast; Shawn went grocery shopping (I had to put food away); and Gretchen found out her ACT score – 24. I told her it is a very good score, but she was all moody because it isn’t a great score and she felt like she did really well when she took the test. Her SAT is 1160 and everything I looked up yesterday said 24 ACT is comparable to 1180 SAT. I told her at least you are consistent. Still did not help. I looked up ASU stats; she doesn’t want to go far from home. Their website said any ACT score 22 and above is accepted. They will take as low as a 19. She is good, improving her score will help with more scholarship money but she doesn’t have to worry about being accepted especially if she keeps up her GPA. Still none of this improved her mood yesterday.

This morning there is no sleep deprived mom to deal with because I slept in – first day of teacher walkout. The high school campus is open for half the day, they’re dismissing students at 10:15, but do to the low number of teachers expected to show up; they are having a big tutoring, extra help session. Gretchen’s last day of Eng 102 is May 5th and she has a paper to write for that class and figured it would be good to stay home and work on it without being penalized with an absence. This afternoon after I’m done working, it’s back to the orthodontist to pick up her new retainer. And at some point I hope to get to today’s poetry prompt.

NaPoWriMo 2018 Day Twenty – three

Rice Krispies in bowl
start to snap, crackle and pop
when you pour the milk

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for today’s (optional) prompt! Kate Greenstreet’s poetry is spare, but gives a very palpable sense of being spoken aloud – it reads like spoken language sounds. In our interview with her, she underscores this, stating that “when you hear it, you write it down.” Today, we challenge you to honor this idea with a poem based in sound. The poem, for example, could incorporate overheard language. Perhaps it could incorporate a song lyric in some way, or language from something often heard spoken aloud (a prayer, a pledge, the Girl Scout motto). Or you could use a regional or local phrase from your hometown that you don’t hear elsewhere, e.g. “that boy won’t amount to a pinch.”

Good morning and welcome to day twenty-three of #NaPoWriMo; I hope everyone was able to eat breakfast this morning. Well my day 23 post is a day late and I’m writing before my breakfast and now I’m off to edit a resume before finishing this post. Okay I’m back. My brain really does not function well without coffee, but Rachael understood my confusion and was able to correct her resume. Anyway, on with poetry. Yes, I wrote a few haiku on twitter yesterday even though I didn’t get to this prompt. When I think sound, I think onomatopoeia. Am I alone here? And my mind has been on breakfast lately. Gretchen has been eating cocoa Rice Krispies for the past couple weeks; I’ve been hearing snap, crackle, pop in the morning.

Play cat mew on phone
child calls out to distressed pet
what cruel trickery

So yesterday’s #haikuchallenge word was trickery and I was contemplating onomatopoeia and when I looked it up, mew was an example they used. Sunday night Shawn played a cat video on his phone and Rachael went off looking for Chase; she thought he was the cat meowing. No clue it was playing on a phone; I can’t say I haven’t made similar mistakes. It’s funny when it’s not you though.

For my readers wondering why I started this post with breakfast on my mind. Well I still haven’t made the coffee, but The Haiku Chronicle on Poetry Pea had a breakfast themed podcast; head over and listen to Patricia talk about breakfast in haiku. Well as usual I have chores to do before I have to log into work. I’m hoping to be back at some point today for day twenty-four of #NaPoWriMo.

#NaPoWriMo 2018 Day Ten

Caffeine Fuels Day

Tuesday
morning starts slow
school on two hour delay
wake up to fix breakfast and lunch
Who functions without caffeine
Dad sent forth to buy more coffee
rich aroma fills house
brings mom to life
saves day

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Finally, here is our (optional) daily prompt. Usually, we take inspiration from our craft resource, but since our resource is about revision, we’ll go a bit further afield for this one! Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of simultaneity – in which multiple things are happing at once. A nice example might be Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died”, or this powerful poem by Sarah Green.

Good Evening and welcome to day ten of #NaPoWriMo. As stated in the poem, it was another slow start to the day. Gretchen had a two hour delay again since she wasn’t required to take the AzMerit test. I used the last of the coffee yesterday morning and made Shawn go out and buy more coffee this morning. Then I had a couple starts and stops with today’s prompt. Before you know it, I had to clock into work. The prompt had to wait until after dinner. But I finally worked something out today. One third completed; two thirds to go. I hope everyone is accomplishing their poetic goals this month.

Morning Ritual

Coffee
Water brews
Down into carafe
Every morning I drink
Life

NaPoWriMo Prompt Day 30! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something that happens again and again (kind of like NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo). It could be the setting of the sun, or your Aunt Georgia telling the same story at Thanksgiving every single year. It could be the swallows returning to Capistrano or how, without fail, you will lock your keys in the car whenever you go to the beach.

Good morning everyone and welcome back to the last day of napowrimo. After today we will return you to your normal programming. Wow! This is year seven for me. And I was only late on one prompt, not too bad. In case you are curious about my first national poetry month writing, it was through read, write poem and the anthology featuring a poem from all the poets who completed thirty poems in thirty days is over on issue. My poem is on page 43.

Now I shall bid farewell, I must go drink some life and get my Sunday moving.

NaPoWriMo Halfway Point

Father
old, crotchety
aging, graying, waxing
born seventy-six years ago
Grandpa

NaPoWriMo Prompt Day 15 – Because we’re halfway through NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that reflects on the nature of being in the middle of something. The poem could be about being on a journey and stopping for a break, or the gap between something half-done and all-done. Half a loaf is supposedly better than none, but what’s the difference between half of a very large loaf and all of a very small one? Let your mind wander into the middle distance, betwixt the beginning of things and the end. Hopefully, you will find some poetry there!

Welcome back to day 15 of NaPoWriMo. I veered off topic for today’s poem, because just past the midway point in April, April 19th, is my dad’s birthday and the birthday card had to go out in the mail today. But do not fear, I jotted this little poem before I had to go out this morning.

Morning rush, out the
door before finishing cof…
Here I sit

NaPoWriMo Day 14

Conversation Before Caffeine

What are you doing?
I don’t know.
I’m glad you don’t know.
You are
Where is the coffee?
If you don’t know 
how would I?

Beware! Sleep deprived
Mom without coffee.
Listen to her carry on
step by step instruction
to herself
Early and often…
conversing before caffeine.

My children know I’m crazy

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our optional prompt! Today, I challenge you to write a poem that takes the form of a dialogue. Your conversant could be real people, or be personifications, as in Andrew Marvell’s A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body, or Yeats’ A Dialogue of Self and Soul. Like Marvell, and Yeats, you could alternate stanzas between your two speakers, or perhaps you could give them alternating lines. Your speakers could be personifications, like those in Marvell and Yeats’ poems, or they could be two real people. Hopefully, this prompt will give you a chance to represent different points of view in the same poem, or possibly to create a dramatic sense of movement and tension within the poem.

We are almost half way done with April. One may think I’ve just begun to converse with myself. Not to worry this is a common occurrence often. When the girls have friends over, they are amused to hear me carry on in the kitchen cooking dinner. Yes, these conversations occur even after caffeine. My Little One got the stickers in the picture at a school book fair. She was particularly proud of the top one.

Of course to add to the insanity of April, I signed up for the How Writers Write Poetry 2015 MOOC which started yesterday. One of the assignments was to write a quatrain. I used my riddle poem since it had four lines. They also reused Robert Hass’s talk from the first course over the summer on sketching poetry. He talked about question/answer. I used this with the #haikuchallenge word on twitter (glance) to come up with a haiku.

Acrostic riddle
Will answer pop with a glance
Left letters bolded

The problem with this second MOOC though is they are using a different website. For me and many of the other students, trying to navigate the forum to post assignments is complicated. And personally I have my mother-in-law here. She is moving here but having complications of her own with closing on a house. In the meantime it puts her in my house, and I have to be sociable can’t keep myself locked away writing and reading poetry all day.

Minute – WEMon Haikuchallenge

Eight millimeter
camera films three minutes
war torn Vietnam

First Draft Book Bar mug
No minute gift, fuels writer’s
Imagination

The WEMon challenge is to write about something utterly insignificant.  The #haikuchallenge word on twitter today is minute. For my first response I used the denotation of time.  The Little One will be reading Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai, and she did not know we had footage of when her grandfather was in Vietnam.  I dug up the VHS tape yesterday and digitalized it.  Then I used the adjective definition of minute for the second haiku.  Of course with no in front, it shows I do not view my coffee mug as utterly insignificant. 😉

Monday Morning Silence

My house overflows with high tech devices, we have officially entered the 21st century.

A few years ago my husband had said, Why keep up with the Jones?

Now my house is a minefield littered with iPods, iPads, and iPhones aplenty.

 

Oh how I miss the days when it was quiet and still

And I was not tethered to electronics, tracking my every move

The quiet of old pierced with pings in every trill.

 

Why keep up with the Jones, he had said.

I saw no reason to argue his point

Now there is no rest in bed.

 

Could someone please tell me why

The world feels they must

be on a tie?

 

Leave me alone

Turn off

Phone

 

 

It’s past 9AM on a Monday and all is silent in my house. Everyone except me is still in bed. Yes, I was awakened by the phone. But it happened to be the landline. Now I’m enjoying my peace and quiet with a cup of coffee.