More than thirty years High school sweethearts' nascent love Grows stronger each day Two hearts beat as one Attraction returns tenfold True redamancy
Last week I combined a #haikuchallenge word – nascent with the #mmpoetrybattle theme – redamancy. And then I shared the poem with Shawn, because it works well for Valentine’s Day.
Check out all the poems featured in the #mmpoetrybattle week of 2/10/2023
Photo Credit – Memory Alpha
In search of solace
Before grief consumes your soul
Move to Nepenthe
A few days ago the #haikuchallenge word was Nepenthe and my readers know there was no way I was going to pass up writing about Star Trek. I loved seeing Captain Riker and Commander Troi together again. And later this week when Picard season 3 premieres, they’ll be reunited again. I can’t wait.
A little known fact in 1989 my mom bought my sister and me tickets to attend our first Star Trek convention. It happened to be on our 16th birthday in Buffalo, NY and Wil Wheaton was one of the stars in attendance. Needless to say, Kati was excited (I was too but Jonathan Frakes was my favorite. I had to wait until 1994 to see him at a convention). Still it was fun to go to our first convention and Kati stood in line to meet Wheaton. I never thought we would have the opportunity to keep seeing these characters on the screen over 30 years later. Back then the original cast had only been out 20 years past their television finale. Of course the fact The Motion Picture put TOS on the big screen and paved the way for TNG and all the other Star Trek spin offs, its longevity shouldn’t have been that surprising. As the third and final season of Picard is getting ready to air, my love for the franchise keeps growing. And the person Wil Wheaton has become is one of the reasons – his appreciation of Jonathan Frakes is also a big reason.
I just hope no one says, fire at will; because my family likes to pick on me whenever anyone utters that line in a Star Trek episode or movie.
Bills will not be here
Super Bowl fifty seven
Laudable season
Sunshine and blue skies
Chamber of commerce weather
Majestic weekend
Super Bowl 57 is this weekend here in Phoenix. I told Shawn we’re going to take advantage of having the big game close to home for photos. Last weekend we went over to the Goodyear Civic Square to take photos of the LVII sign – much more laid back than trying to get into the NFL experience in downtown Phoenix. No crowd or lines to contend with and I wanted to go before the big game, because on February 11th Goodyear is hosting a super bowl party there. It definitely will be chamber of commerce weather high near 80 tomorrow and they’re predicting 73 for kick off on Sunday.
Stuck in Wonderland
Queen of Hearts not junoesque
Yells, Off with her head!
Fall down rabbit hole
Kaizen – change is gradual
We’re all mad here
The last weekend in January we had a fun adventure with the Alice in Wonderland Experience in downtown Phoenix, following the map and clues created by cluedupp. After four hours we successfully freed Alice from the clutches of the Queen of Hearts. It’s a great way to spend time with family and get in your daily steps 3+ miles walking. I’ve purchased another scavenger hunt activity in Phoenix we’ll be embarking on soon.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
A R A
T milky white C
A film covers T
C lens over pupil S
E focus dulls T
Y stealing your H
E S I G
I was playing with the eye concrete poem this morning. I think I’ve found an edit that I like better than just a pupil.
The Awful, Bad, No Good Birthday Present
Happy birthday to me!
Wow!
It’s super bright out here
and cold!
Phew, that was hard work
but worth it!
I finally rid myself of that
pesky roommate.
Wait…
She followed me out here!
No!
Put her back!
Put her back, NOW!
I think I’m going to cry
NaPoWriMo Prompt – And here’s our prompt (optional, as always). In certain versions of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, various fairies or witches are invited to a princess’s christening, and bring her gifts. One fairy/witch, however, is not invited, and in revenge for the insult, lays a curse on the princess. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as a “curse” you’ve lived with (your grandmother’s insistence on giving you a new and completely creepy porcelain doll for every birthday, a bad singing voice, etc.). I hope you find this to be an inspiring avenue for poetic and self-exploration.
Good morning and welcome to day twenty-nine of napowrimo where I write of a birthday present I was trying to escape from – the evil twin. 😉 After all my hard work to be rid of my roommate, she followed me out. I didn’t know that was possible. I mean I had to share food with her for nine months; I thought I was finally free. Yes, it’s fun to pick on my sister. #Fearthefork Kati!
Cataractsmilky whitefilm coverslens over pupilfocus dullsstealing yourEyesight
NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today’s (optional) prompt is to write a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem. For example, May Swenson’s poem “Women” mimics curves, reinforcing the poem’s references to motion, rocking horses, and even the shape of a woman’s body. George Starbuck’s “Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree” is – you guessed it – a sonnet in the shape of a potted Christmas tree. Your concrete poem could be complexly-shaped, but relatively simple strategies can also be “concrete” — like a poem involving a staircase where the length of the lines grows or shrinks over time, like an ascending (or descending) set of stairs.
Good morning and welcome to day twenty-eight of napowrimo where I attempt to create a defective eyeball not sure I nailed this one, but I know how time consuming and tricky shape poems can be.
Tea Time h Kettle on o I remember tea M t pouring water into i cups set to steep l stir in sugar and k
My first time participating in napowrimo (2010) Tea Time turned into a tea kettle. And the first poem of mine Melanie accepted at Silver Birch Press was a concrete poem –
Monsoon Season
Neither of these poems came to be without a lot of editing. Today I was trying to design an actual eye, but nothing I had seemed to be working so I went with a simple eyeball. I wanted it to be more rounded like an actual ball, but then I realized I have an astigmatism so my eyeball isn’t perfectly round, right? And the strike through hopefully lends to how hard it is to see with cataracts. Okay I just asked Gretchen and she affirmed it looks like an eyeball – Eye of Sauron. But at least it’s eye shape.
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