#NaPoWriMo 2021 Day Twenty-One

Partial View of My Window

Outside My Window

I watch the world pass by outside my window
Outside my window cars drive by with purpose
Outside my window people have places to go
Outside places to go while I stay home all day
Home all day doing laundry, mopping floors
Home all day cooking meals, washing dishes
Home all day scrubbing toilets, watching TV
Home all day reading books, passing the time
Home all day imagining life outside my window

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our (optional) prompt. Have you ever heard or read the nursery rhyme, “There was a man of double deed?” It’s quite creepy! A lot of its effectiveness can be traced back to how, after the first couplet, the lines all begin with the same two phrases (either “When the . . .” or “Twas like,”). The way that these phrases resolve gets more and more bizarre over the course of the poem, giving it a headlong, inevitable feeling.

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like this one, uses lines that have a repetitive set-up. 

Good afternoon and welcome to day twenty one of #NaPoWriMo where maybe being stuck inside for the better part of a year is starting to wear on me. Sunday I get my 2nd vaccine shot and I’m hoping the world can return to normal sooner rather than later. Not that I get out a lot in normal circumstances, I do watch the world outside my window more often than not but I’ve never been cooped up this long nor have we had such a decline of people visiting us. A little interaction with the outside world would be nice. Just be advised despite what the poem says, little housework is accomplished in April so it would be best to wait until May to pop in for a visit.

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#NaPoWriMo 2021 Day Sixteen

@Piper_Center #16 prompt

Same Shit Different Day

Last year we sheltered in place
And were told not to embrace
Many people left the workplace
As the virus began to outpace
Available hospital bed space

One year later… here we sit
Still putting up with the same old…

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And last but not least, our (optional) prompt. Because it’s Friday, today I’d like you to relax with the rather silly form called Skeltonic, or tumbling, verse. In this form, there’s no specific number of syllables per line, but each line should be short, and should aim to have two or three stressed syllables. And the lines should rhyme. You just rhyme the same sound until you get tired of it, and then move on to another sound. Skeltonic verse is a fun way to get some words on the page without racking your brains for deep meaning. It’s a form that lends itself particularly well to poems for children, satirical verse, and just plain nonsense.

Good afternoon and welcome to day sixteen of #NaPoWriMo where even though the prompt was supposed to be fun, nonsense rhyming, my brain decided it wanted to rack itself on the prompt anyway. I had a number of starts and stops going nowhere, so I decided to check the other poetry prompts circulating this month and with a little help from #PiperPoetryMonth at least I got something on paper. I’ve never enjoyed rhyming but a few lines is better than nothing.

Covid Journal – One Year and Counting

There is an online archive collecting stories about The Year of the Plague. It’s an interesting site to peruse and you may want to add your own story. This year has been somewhat easy on me; I never really stepped out of my house too often and on the plus side with all the virtual events I can go places and see people I didn’t have the opportunity to do before and all from the comfort of my home.

Rinky dink press

Yesterday after watching the Star Trek First Contact Day events and after cooking dinner (I figured homemade pizza would be appropriate) I attended the first Micropoetry Monday poetry reading. They had a great lineup of poets and I learned a couple new things. If you can, check out the reading next week – not sure how the pop-up readings work. But the link to the Monday readings are on the rinky dink press website.

2020 Drags On

Sunset to sunrise
Various photos taken
Reflect passing time

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  Shawn and me recreate “The Kiss”

Pandemic highlights
Graduation and then white
Coat ceremony

Cook dinner at home
Celebrate 24 years
Steak medium rare

Then to now challenge
Twenty nine years together
Highlight of my life

Carve cat on pumpkin
Veterinary student
Highlights skeleton

Couple canoodles
on overnight camping trip
down the road a bend

Quite a lot has transpired since my last post about our haircut outing. The summer in Phoenix dragged on; what else would one expect in 2020. We broke a record of 100+ degree days – 146! It finally dropped below 100 (barely) last weekend and Shawn talked me into an overnight camping trip to test out the van. Unfortunately because of the hot, dry summer, we could not have a campfire. The van does have a DVD player; so we whiled away the evening watching a movie instead.

I spent most of the hot summer hunkered down in the AC except in August when we took a family road trip to drop Robin off in Corvallis to attend the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine. Then in September we were able to watch the white coat ceremony over zoom. This month Shawn and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. Shawn bought some filet mignon and learned how to cook it to medium rare; he always preferred steak char-char and that was never my preference. And up in Oregon, Robin has already gone to a pumpkin patch and carved his jack-o-lantern.

#NaPoWriMo Poetic Review

Gretchen’s opinion of April 4 years ago

Pandemic

Covid
Shuts down country
Everyone stays home
Days begin to blend together
Virus
Brings economy to its knees
Can we reboot this year
Twenty-Twenty
Subpar

NaPoWriMo Prompt – And now for our (optional) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in the form of a review. But not a review of a book or a movie of a restaurant. Instead, I challenge you to write a poetic review of something that isn’t normally reviewed. For example, your mother-in-law, the moon, or the year 2020 (I think many of us have some thoughts on that one!)

Good morning and welcome to day twenty-seven of napowrimo. It just so happened that Gretchen’s review of April popped up in my Facebook memories today. I do believe she was growing tired of mom’s text replies coming in the form of haiku. Of course her not so rave review was also answered in haiku.

Cancel poetry
in April impossible
haiku are catching

Lol! Apparently I used Gretchen’s poetic review as inspiration for my poem on April 28, 2016. The final days of national poetry month also coincide with the last week of the spring semester. This has been one strange freshman year for Gretchen and senior year for Robin, and I’m not all too sure things will be back to normal by the fall semester. Robin’s cap and gown have arrived along with the summa cum laude honor cords. I will at least be able to share some great graduation photos on this blog. Other than that this year has not gone according to plan.

#NaPoWriMo Digging

 

Backyard Seating Area

Tortoise’s Summer Residence

Outdoor Life

Temperatures start to rise
backyard Oasis
now a hot desert
black sunshade hangs over
morning coffee stop
blocking bright yellow sun
how long will this heat last?

Tortoise digs in the
rich brown dirt
moving into his summer residence
triple digits will most likely
stick around til September
ends                 green
bougainvillea thrives

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Because it’s a Saturday, I have an (optional) prompt for you that takes a little time to work through — although you can certainly take short-cuts through it, if you like! The prompt, which you can find in its entirety here, was  developed by the poet and teacher Hoa Nguyen, asks you to use a long poem by James Schuyler as a guidepost for your poem. (You may remember James Schuyler from our poetry resource for Day 2.) This is a prompt that allows you to sink deeply into another poet’s work, as well as your own.

Good morning and welcome to day twenty-five of napowrimo. I read the prompt before I went out to my morning coffee spot. I’ve been sitting out there enjoying my coffee almost every morning since Shawn set up the table and bench at the end of March. He put a black sunshade over it yesterday. This morning as I sat and watched the dog and tortoise I was in a little cocoon. The second photo is of Speedy’s summer residence, notice the hole behind the fallen chair. He moved back into his other residence over the winter and just began digging out his summer home earlier this week.

Anyhow this is life as it occurs in my backyard. I’m not quite sure it answers the prompt exactly but it’s what came out of my free write. It’s almost noon here and I pretty much spent my morning writing, so I have to get going on housework.

 

#NaPoWriMo Eeyore Acrostic

   

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Today’s prompt (optional, as always) asks you to write a poem about a particular letter of the alphabet, or perhaps, the letters that form a short word. Doesn’t “S” look sneaky and snakelike? And “W” clearly doesn’t know where it’s going! Think about the shape of the letter(s), and use that as the take-off point for your poem.

Good afternoon and welcome to day twenty-three of napowrimo and I decided to go off prompt. It just didn’t seem to speak to me not as much as Eeyore does anyway. And now I’m trying to mess with the formatting to get the letters to line up how I want. We’ll see if this works.

#NaPoWriMo Idioms

Me sporting my quarantine haircut 

Les carottes sont cuites!

Coiffure
homespun trimming
Razor sheers off ragged mop
Laugh at how the carrots are cooked
Haircut

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Our (optional) prompt for the day asks you to engage with different languages and cultures through the lens of proverbs and idiomatic phrases. Many different cultures have proverbs or phrases that have largely the same meaning, but are expressed in different ways. For example, in English we say “his bark is worse than his bite,” but the same idea in Spanish would be stated as “the lion isn’t as fierce as his painting.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to find an idiomatic phrase from a different language or culture, and use it as the jumping-off point for your poem. Here’s are a few lists to help get you started: One, two, three.

Good afternoon readers and welcome to day twenty-two of NaPoWriMo and me showing off my quarantine haircut. Yes, on Saturday I let Robin take a razor to my hair. The hairdresser uses a number 4 blade; how hard can it be mom? Well I should have kept him away from the bangs. I was told it was because my head was tilted, but the hairdresser is suppose to insure their client is looking straight ahead. I’m still not sure how they got this short; I did say bangs are hard and I like them just above the eyebrow. I really have no idea how they were cut as the scissors were never near my eyes.

Oh well both Robin and Gretchen were like, you’re just going to have an awkward phase mom. It’s a good thing I’m stuck at home and no one can see me. 😉 Except I just posted a picture of the do with a face mask my mother-in-law made. It’s actually not the first bad haircut I’ve had and on the plus side this one was free. I’m pretty sure it will grow out sufficiently to be fixed by an actual hairdresser once the stay at home order is lifted.

#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 DEAR Day

 

The book that began my love for reading

Gretchen’s reading care package from Changing Hands Bookstore

DEAR Day

Drop everything and read a good book
in celebration of Cleary’s birthday
Find a quiet place where no one will look
Drop everything and read a good book
Lose yourself and let the pages sink their hook
into you as the story unfolds stay
Drop everything and read a good book
in celebration of Cleary’s birthday 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – For today’s prompt (optional, as always), I’d like to challenge you to write a triolet. These eight-line poems involve repeating lines and a tight rhyme scheme. The repetitions and rhymes can lend themselves to humorous poems, as well as to poems expressing dramatic or sorrowful moods. And sometimes the repetitions can be used in deceptive ways, by splitting the words in a given line into different sentences, and making subtle changes, as in this powerful triolet by Sandra McPherson.

Good morning readers, guess what day it is? One of my favorite days of NaPoWriMo day twelve also known as Beverly Cleary’s birthday or DEAR Day. And I’ve gotten pretty good at celebrating the day in poetry before going off to read.

So both Gretchen and Robin have been venturing to the mailbox the past couple days, anxiously awaiting their reading care packages from Changing Hands Bookstore. There was one extremely big envelope in yesterday’s mail addressed to Gretchen. It was so big, Robin figured it was a twofer and his book was also included. Alas it was not to be, Gretchen received a massive book that actually piqued all of our interest.

Since DEAR Day also landed on Easter this year, I can’t exactly drop everything but I will find some time to read today. I hope all my readers do too. 😉