#NaPoWriMo 2023 Day Seventeen

Dinner and Margaritas with Friends

Life Lessons in Agave and Opuntia

Life leaves nasty scars
Requires a delicate touch
Shot of tequila

Over twenty one
Just add prickly pear syrup
Shot of tequila

Enjoy time with friends
Until someone downs the worm
Shot of tequila

Lost shaker of salt
Prickly pear margaritas
Shot of tequila

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now, for our daily (optional) prompt! Begin by reading Sayuri Ayers’ poem “In the Season of Pink Ladies.” A pretty common piece of writing advice is that poets should know, and use, the precise names for things. Don’t say flower when you can say daisy. Don’t say bird when you mean a hawk. Today’s challenge asks you to write a poem that contains the name of a specific variety of edible plant – preferably one that grows in your area. (That said, if you’re lacking inspiration, online seed catalogs provide a treasure trove of unusual and charming names for vegetables, fruits and flowers. Here’s one to get you started.) In the poem, try to make a specific comparison between some aspect of the plant’s lifespan and your own – or the life of someone close to you. Also, include at least one repeating phrase.

Good afternoon and welcome to day seventeen of #NaPoWriMo where I was reminded it is haiku day. Of course I had to write some haiku. My first problem was an edible plant that grows in the desert?! But then I thought of prickly pear cactus and looking it up, I learned they are known as opuntia. Of course I also had to add a byproduct of agave. There are actually two edible desert plants in this poem. And the only mention of age is over twenty one, but since I borrowed a few words from Jimmy Buffet, it may allude to how over 21 we all are. 😉

Advertisement

Haiku in October

Celebrate our love
Frolic late into the night
Rainy Saturday

Since our anniversary fell on a Wednesday, Shawn and I did not go out to dinner until the weekend. I’ve been wanting to check out Barrio Queen in Avondale for a while and we finally had a good excuse. Then we went over to a friend’s house for a combined birthday and anniversary celebration.

Barrio Queen Avondale Oct 15, 2022

Toast – Salud Oct 15, 2022

This week one of my haiku is included in the Haiku Pea podcast – S5E20 In Depth. Thanks to Patricia for her continued hard work, sharing her love and knowledge of haiku.

My loyal readers will notice I wrote about the palo verde again. I do love how every April the green tree blooms yellow flowers of course the clean up is not so fun.

Backyard Oasis

#NaPoWriMo 2022 Wrap Up

Good morning and welcome to May 1st. The evil twin tried to tell me it was May already yesterday. But I told her it was still April. I completed 29/30 prompts. I missed day 3 because we were busy with family and the glosa form is a large undertaking. I did sort of write a glosa on April 8th. If you count the #HaikuChallenge poems on Twitter, I still wrote more than 30 poems this month.

Backyard Palo Verde

After I wrote my cento haiku yesterday, I realized it would pair well with the palo verde as it blooms yellow flowers in April. I have written poems about the palo verde in our backyard almost every year. I realized I didn’t write one this year. Of course now the yellow flowers are dropping and making a big mess. After I posted my photo to Instagram, Shawn worked on some cyanotype. He did one of my eye poem and then he combined my poem with his photo.

Collaborative Cyanotype

That was an interesting project. FYI Shawn exposed the first one for 5 minutes. The video he watched about it recommended setting it in the sun for 7-8 minutes. Shawn figured we were working with the Arizona sun so he cut it down to 5, it was too dark and you couldn’t see the poem. He then shortened it to a 2 minute exposure.

NaPoWriMo Wrap-up – All of this year’s posts and comments will remain up and available for your perusal, and I will leave this year’s list of participants’ site up until we begin our housecleaning early next year in anticipation of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2023 — which will be the project’s twentieth year! I can hardly believe how it’s grown since 2003, when it was just me writing poems by myself in my bedroom, to the present day, when there are participants all around the world!

#NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Thirty

They fell like the leaves
hours that float idly down
Nothing gold can stay

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now – our final (but still optional!) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show where every line originated. A cento might seem like a complex undertaking – and one that requires you to have umpteen poetry books at your fingertips for reference – but you don’t have to write a long one. And a good way to jump-start the process is to find an online curation of poems about a particular topic (or in a particular style), and then mine the poems for good lines to string together. You might look at the Poetry Foundation’s collection of love poems, or its collection of poems by British romantic poets, or even its surprisingly expansive collection of poems about (American) football.

Good afternoon and welcome to the final day, day thirty of napowrimo where I write a cento haiku. I do like short poetry forms and this morning, nothing gold can stay popped into my head. When I realized it was 5 syllables I thought maybe I could write a cento haiku.

Falling Leaves and Early Snow – Kenneth Rexroth
Blizzard – William Carlos Williams
Nothing Gold Can Stay – Robert Frost

Anyone who has been reading my month long contributions knows I tried my hand at a cento on day twenty-two: Kisses. I’m not sure it reads as a whole very well. But Gretchen had to write a cento for one of her classes and I thought I’d give it a go. Maybe this small poem connects better. Let me know. And thanks for joining me on the wild ride that is April.

#NaPoWriMo 2021 Day Thirty

National Poetry Month Poster 2018

Write Your Way Through April

Watch rhyme and meter
Count syllables carefully
April poems sprout

Write every day
Poems will accumulate
As we say farewell

Write daily poems
Another poetry month
Ends until next year

How did we get here
Sweat, blood and perseverance
Last day of April

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our final (still optional!) prompt. Today’s prompt is based on a prompt written by Jacqueline Saphra, and featured in this group of prompts published back in 2015 by The Poetry Society of the U.K. This prompt challenges you to write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place. It could be a real place, like your local park, or an imaginary or unreal place, like “the bottom of your heart,” or “where missing socks go.” Fill your poem with sensory details, and make them as wild or intimate as you like.

Good morning and welcome to day thirty – the final day of #NaPoWriMo 2021. Hopefully I gave you the recipe for a successful NaPoWriMo. When I wrote the post about my past participation, I realized in March of 2014 I posted previous napowrimo poems as a count down to April because they were not on this blog. On the last day of March 2014 I posted the first poem and the last poem I wrote in April 2012. I hope everyone feels they had a successful April 2021. I actually wrote at least one poem a day this year, something I have not succeeded at the last couple years; I considered that a success. I also had a haiku featured in the 100th episode of the poetry pea podcast. And a pleasant surprise, the haiku I submitted to the Poetry Illuminated project was included in the ebook the City of Goodyear put together. I’m still amazed they only received a total of twenty submissions.

All this was accomplished while going out and purchasing a new fridge; having the fridge delivered; finally convincing Shawn a corner breakfast nook table would be perfect in our kitchen (said table will be delivered today); getting my second Covid vaccine shot and the misery that ensued. I do feel my rewrite of Row, Row, Row Your Boat was kind of a cop-out as it’s only two lines, but I’m also impressed I was able to create anything in that delirium. And yes a minimal amount of housework was also done. Now we bid a fond farewell to this April. I hope to keep up my poetry writing the rest of the year – not on a daily basis but at least a few times a month. Last year I did not write too much poetry past April at all.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by my blog on a daily basis this month. I appreciate you reading and liking my posts. For some reason the post of The ASU class of 2020 I wrote last April has been my most popular one. Maybe because graduation season has rolled around again? But why would people be interested in a graduate from last year. And what would seem apropos for the last of April, today is the last day for the spring semester at ASU, and Gretchen has to complete and hand in her poetry portfolio today – the last assignment for her term. Yesterday Robin got his first Covid vaccine now that classes have wrapped up for Gretchen, we need to get her pokes scheduled.

#NaPoWriMo 2021 Day Nineteen

Me and My Dad

Eighty

Birthday
Marks time
Another year older
Additional creaks and groans
Eighty

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And last but not least, our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a humorous rant. In this poem, you may excoriate to your heart’s content all the things that get on your nerves. Perhaps it’s people who tailgate when driving, or don’t put the caps back on pens after they use them. Or the raccoons who get into your garbage cans. For inspiration, perhaps you might look to this list of Shakespearean insults. Or, for all of you who grew up on cartoons from the 1980s, perhaps this compendium of Skeletor’s Best Insults might provide some insight.

Good afternoon and welcome to day nineteen of #NaPoWriMo aka my dad’s birthday. So yes I went off script and I wrote an elevenie since my dad is German it made sense. I guess you could read a small rant into the affects of aging. But other than that it’s just a silly little birthday poem. Our new fridge arrived today and reminded me I needed to call my dad. It is preprogrammed; we have yet to personalize it. And this was the home screen.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

After the delivery person left, I grabbed the phone and told my dad, Our fridge reminded me to call you. Once I talked to my dad and we got all the food into the new fridge, I tuned into the poetry pea podcast. Today is the 100th episode and Patricia read one of my haiku. I started listening to it on spotify on my iPhone and a notice popped up, we see there is a Samsung speaker near by would you like to listen from it. Umm…no thank you not quite sure I’m ready to listen and watch programs on my refrigerator. Gretchen got up and came into the kitchen and said, Mom’s listening to the weird lady reading haiku again. (Sorry Patricia.) And a couple minutes later Patricia said my name, both Shawn and Gretchen were like…OOO. Really I learned from the last public listening party to keep my poetry listening private unless there is a reason to share.

So this is how my week began. How is everyone else doing?

#NaPoWriMo 2021 Day Seventeen

Moon in Arizona night sky

Moon gains prominence
Darkness falls over desert
Lone coyote howls

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now, our (optional) prompt. I’ve seen some fairly funny twitter conversations lately among poets who are coming to terms with the fact that they keep writing poems about the moon. For better or worse, the moon seems to exert a powerful hold on poets, as this large collection of moon-themed poems suggests. Today, I’d like to challenge you to stop fighting the moon. Lean in. Accept the moon. The moon just wants what’s best for you and your poems. So yes – write a poem that is about, or that involves, the moon.

Good afternoon and welcome to day seventeen of #NaPoWriMo aka haiku day because 17 for the seventeen syllables in a haiku. So when Maureen said write about the moon, I knew I could stay on prompt and come up with a haiku. I even used the #haikuchallenge word today gain.

I also learned a couple years ago from Patricia over at poetry pea that a renku pays special attention to the moon. And is mentioned in the fifth stanza. Here is the link to the renku I contributed to over at poetry pea. Please go have a read and if you enjoy it, consider contributing to the current renku verse. And finally here is another haiku I wrote last month about the moon.

Smoke takes to the sky
Rising out of chimenea
Blocks moon’s radiance

Now apparently mom has to put on her editing hat. The semester is drawing to a close and papers are due and mom gives her editing skills away for free.

#NaPoWriMo An Ode On Saturday Morning

The Rosebush

Copious buds bloom
Petals lay bare on sidewalk
Nothing gold can stay

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Our optional prompt for the day also honors the idea of Saturday (the Saturdays of the soul, perhaps?), by challenging you to write an ode to life’s small pleasures. Perhaps it’s the first sip of your morning coffee. Or finding some money in the pockets of an old jacket. Discovering a bird’s nest in a lilac bush or just looking up at the sky and watching the clouds go by.

Good morning and welcome to day eighteen of napowrimo where my ode to the rosebush looks suspiciously like a haiku with a borrowed line no less.  Here is the link to read Robert Frost’s poem. I grabbed the link from poets.org as they are running a shelter in poems series, asking readers to share poems they are reflecting on while we are sheltering in place. My favorite Frost poem, A question, doesn’t seem to be in their archives. I used it on a previous napowrimo for a golden shovel.

Yesterday we ventured outside headed off to the mailbox. Robin’s reading care package from Changing Hands Bookstore seems to be MIA. As we walked down the sidewalk, Robin was hit in the face by a flying object and exclaimed, What was that? Gretchen responded, I think it was a petal from the rosebush. They’re all over the sidewalk. Yes, it was pretty windy yesterday and rose petals were dropping off and flying away. On top of being hit in the face there was no book in the mailbox. 😦 Maybe today will be a good mail day.

#NaPoWriMo Obsolete Technology

Vietnam footage
sits forgotten in closet
8 millimeter

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Our prompt for the day (optional, as always), asks you to move backwards in time away from such modern contrivances as podcasts. Today, I challenge you to write a poem that features forgotten technology. Maybe it’s a VCR, or a rotary phone. A cassette player or even a radio. If you’re looking for a potential example, check out this poem by Adam Clay, which takes its central metaphor from something that used to stoke fear in the hearts of kids typing term papers, or just trying to play a game of Oregon Trail.

Many moons ago, my mother gathered up all the old 8 millimeter movies my dad made (mostly of Christmases) and had them transferred to VHS tape. The guy that did it, set the movies to music except the Vietnam footage. He said adding music didn’t seem appropriate. My mom had copies of the tape made for all four children. Mine pretty much sat in the closet until Gretchen was reading Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai in eighth grade. I pulled the tape out; yes, we stilled had a working VCR and I recorded it to digital so she could share it with her class.

Speaking of technology, I was just enlisted to call my hubby’s phone. We are so dependent on modern day technology, we’re lost without. He is off in search of groceries and the shopping list is on the phone.

Pea TV Moment on Haiku Day

Good morning readers and welcome to day seventeen of napowrimo also known as haiku day because of seventeen for the 17 syllables in haiku. Please excuse the interruption of today’s prompt. I will get to it later. But first I wanted to share this Pea TV Moment Patricia over at poetrypea was kind enough to accept. She has compiled quite a few haiku moments from some talented poets. Please go over to her website and check them all out.

I must make a confession. I have spied the hummingbirds feeding on the aloe often. I wrote the haiku, hoping I would be able to capture one moment on video. I should know better as the photos of the hummingbirds at the aloe I’ve posted have been borrowed from my children. Well a few weeks ago, we were sitting at the kitchen table for dinner. My whole family was aware of my quest, and we spotted a hummingbird skimming the aloe. The first attempt did not get enough footage. But a few minutes later a hummingbird was back, Gretchen said, give me your phone, Mom. So Gretchen was actually the one who successfully filmed the hummingbird. She just showed me another video she took last night on her phone. A hummingbird was actually sitting and resting on one of the aloe stalks. She said it must have been there for a good ten minutes because when she first spotted it, she didn’t have her phone. She raced down the hall to her bedroom, grabbed her phone, and the hummingbird was still on its perch.

March and April are always a good time of year to watch the hummingbirds feed. As you can see, the aloe really enjoyed our wet winter; they bloomed exceptionally well this year. Farther down the row of aloe closer to the front yard is where the rosebush is planted. It now has over a dozen buds in bloom. Shawn and I went for a walk yesterday and he said the rosebush really seems to flourish in death. Good grief. But he does have a point. If our rosebush had 3 or 4 buds in a year (at separate times) I thought it was nice. It really has taken off this spring for some reason.