Poetry: Day 15

Today, I challenge you to write a poem that addresses itself or some aspect of its self (i.e. “Dear Poem,” or “what are my quatrains up to?”; “Couplet, come with me . . .”) This might seem a little meta at first, or even kind of cheesy. But it can be a great way of interrogating (or at least, asking polite questions) of your own writing process and the motivations you have for writing, and the motivations you ascribe to your readers.

Smile, haiku, Smile big
You are short but so poignant
Each word matters here

Poetry: Day 14

 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.

A Conversation With My Heart

Why do you ache, poor thing?
                 Lots of reasons...
Name one:
                 I'm going to stop beating some day
....
                 What! Does that surprise you?
Well... that's going to suck for me
                 Yeah, so... 
...
                 Just thought I would let you know
...
                You know, as a reminder to "live every moment," and all that
Ok...wow.
                It's not like I make the rules or anything.
I know, but jeez.
               Well, you can either believe it now or you can believe it later when it happens.
All right, all right.
               
                 

Poetry: Day 13

In keeping with the mysterious quality of the number 13, today I challenge you to write a riddle poem. This poem should describe something without ever naming it. Perhaps each line could be a different metaphor for the same object? Maybe the title of the poem can be the “answer” to the riddle. The result could be a bit like our Day One poems of negation, but the lines don’t need to be expressed in negatives. 

Sleepy, snoozy fur
Hides from barking, snuggles well
Claws, paws, whiskers, tail

Poetry: Day 12

And now for our prompt! Yesterday’s was a doozy, so today’s is much more laid-back (and optional, as always). It comes to us from Dr. Cynthia A. Cochran of Illinois College:
Here is a great prompt for anyone who likes to write descriptive prose but shudders at writing poetry–and it really works:
Describe in great detail your favorite room, place, meal, day, or person. You can do this in paragraph form.
Now cut unnecessary words like articles and determiners (a, the, that) and anything that isn’t really necessary for content; leave mainly nouns, verbs, a few adjectives.
Cut the lines where you see fit and, VOILA! A poem!

Growing up we journeyed by car
to the family cabin on Flat Head Lake each summer
We played on the dock, scrambled up and down
ladder cut my soft feet climbing up and down
Old wood stove, always cool, wondered how it
heated during the winter
The dock had initials carved in to it that
made my cousin realize her mother had been married before
The boats never worked but one could always
fish off the dock and never catch anything
The red rubber raft was always fun to push out
as it was tied to land and safe for the adults
to not need to watch us the whole time
Such fun memories of walking around
and throwing stones in to the lake

Poetry: Day 11

Today, rather than being casual, I challenge you to get rather classically formal, and compose a poem in Sapphics. These are quatrains whose first three lines have eleven syllables, and the fourth, just five. There is also a very strict meter that alternates trochees (a two-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed, and the second unstressed) and dactyls (a three-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed and the remainder unstressed). The first three lines consist of two trochees, a dactyl, and two more trochees. The fourth line is a dactyl, followed by a trochee.

It may be easier to hear the meter than to think about it – try reading this poem in Sapphics aloud to yourself, and you’ll see what an oracular tone it produces – the stressed beginnings of the lines produce a feeling of importance, while the unstressed syllables of the trochees keep the pace measured. Rhyming is optional, and if you begin to bridle at the strict meter, feel free to loosen it up!

I have no idea what to do
It doesn't make any sense
this doesn't have a rhyme or reason behind it
oh man, puts head down on desk

Poetry: Day 10

Today I challenge you to write an abecedarian poem – a poem with a structure derived from the alphabet. There are a couple of ways of doing this. You could write a poem of 26 words, in which each word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. You could write a poem of 26 lines, where each line begins with a successive letter. Or finally, if you’d prefer to narrow your focus, perhaps you could write a poem which focuses on a few letters, using words that repeat them.

A Bitty Cat
Dancing, Eating, Feasting
Goes Hog-wild over I.
Just Kitty Loves Me
Not Other People
Quests Real Snores
Tiny U Very Warm
X-tremelly loYal...Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Poetry: Day 9

Prompt: Today I challenge you to write a palinode. And what’s that? It’s a poem in which the poet retracts a statement made in an earlier poem. You could take that route or, if you don’t have an actual poetically-expressed statement you want to retract, maybe you could write a poem in which you explain your reasons for changing your mind about something. It could be anything from how you decided that you like anchovies after all to how you decided that annoying girl was actually cool enough that you married her.

I should never have said
"that teenager deserved what they got"
I should never have said
"your baby looked "a little down's"
I should never have said
"if we stay together"
I should never have said
"you have a big butt but that's okay I have wide shoulders"
I should never have said
"just buck up and be a man"
I should never have said
"I'll try harder next time"
I should never have said
"I hated you"
I should never have said
"sticks and stones can break my bones"
                 but words CAN hurt!

Poetry: Day 8

And now our (optional!) prompt: keeping to the theme of poetry’s value, Wallace Stevens famously wrote that “money is a kind of poetry.” So today, I challenge you to write about money! It could be about not having enough, having too much (a nice kind of problem to have), the smell, or feel, or sensory aspects of money. It could also just be a poem about how we decide what has value or worth.

The things most valuable usually are things
cat burglars would leave behind:
Countless journals scrawled in from childhood
Photographs, both old and new
Data of our home-made films while backpacking Europe
children's books to flip through
paintings of mom's, now the only copies

What does not have worth?
TVs, computers, various devices
appliances to make the life easy
to take the focus away from the things that really matter:
family, love, passion, joy, health...
Hearth

Poetry: Day 7

Today’s (optional) prompt springs from the form known as the aubade. These are morning poems, about dawn and daybreak. Many aubades take the form of lovers’ morning farewells, but . . . today is Monday. So why not try a particularly Mondayish aubade – perhaps you could write it while listening to the Bangles’ iconic Manic Monday? Or maybe you could take in Phillip Larkin’s grim Aubade for inspiration (though it may just make you want to go back to bed). Your Monday aubade could incorporate lovey-dovey aspects, or it could opt to forego them until you’ve had your coffee.

Haiku: Mondays

shine, first sign of light 
I stretch, I snuggle deep down
Mondays come too soon

Poetry: Day 6

Today’s prompt (optional, as always) is a variation on a teaching exercise that the poet Anne Boyer uses with students studying the work of Emily Dickinson. As you may know, although Dickinson is now considered one of the most original and finest poets the United States has produced, she was not recognized in her own time. One reason her poems took a while to gain a favorable reception is their slippery, dash-filled lines. Those dashes baffled her readers so much that the 1924 edition of her complete poems replaced some with commas, and did away with others completely. Today’s exercise asks you to do something similar, but in the interests of creativity, rather than ill-conceived “correction.” Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it! (Not sure where to find some Dickinson poems? Here’s 59 Dickinson poems to select from).

Adapted from "A Bird, came down the Walk" by Emily Dickinson

A little robin bird, flew down, came down,
the walk he did not know I saw him alight on the earth.
He bit an angle worm in halves and ate the fellow raw,
and then he drank a dew from a convenient grass.
Soon he hopped sidewise to the wall to let a beetle pass,
he glanced with rapid eyes that spied all abroad
they looked like frightened beads, scanning, seeking.
I thought he stirred his velvet head like one in danger
Cautious, I offered him a crumb of biscuit and he,
unfurled his feathers and took wing, gliding him softly
home to his wife and babes.

Poetry: Day 5

And now for today’s prompt (optional, as always). Love poems are a staple of the poetry scene. It’s pretty hard to be a poet and not write a few – or a dozen – or maybe six books’ worth. But because so many love poems have been written, there are lots of clichés. Fill your poems with robins and hearts and flowers, and you’ll sound more like a greeting card than a bard. So today, I challenge you to write a “loveless” love poem. Don’t use the word love! And avoid the flowers and rainbows. And if you’re not in the mood for love? Well, the flip-side of the love poem – the break-up poem – is another staple of the poet’s repertoire. If that’s more your speed at present, try writing one of those, but again, avoid thunder, rain, and lines beginning with a plaintive “why”? Try to write a poem that expresses the feeling of love or lovelorn-ness without the traditional trappings you associate with the subject matter.

SonNOT 18
(Inspired by the movie "Gone Girl" and survivors of domestic violence)

Shall I discuss thee with my lady friends?
Thou art more cruel with vile temperament:
Rough times do shake the rosy buds each day,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime heated is the marriage to fear,
And often rose his rage complexion high;
And every pain from fist sometime must hide,
By chance, or fear that hides her, under here
But thy eternal spirit shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st:
Nor shall Death bag thou by his angered hand,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So women live with this and must give light to it.

Poetry: Day 4

Today I challenge you to write a fourteener. Fourteeners can be have any number of lines, but each line should have fourteen syllables. Traditionally, each line consisted of seven iambic feet (i.e., an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, times seven), but non-iambic fourteeners also exist. The fourteener was popular in 16th and 17th century England, where it was particular common in ballads, but it also is the form in which “Casey at the Bat” is written. The form is versatile enough to encompass any subject matter, but as the example of “Casey at the Bat” shows us, it is particularly useful in narrative poetry, due to the long line and the step-like sense of progression created by the iambs.

My mother died in January four years ago now
my father's birthday marked the same day, strange coincidence?
I wish there was a phone to call the dead where they could (would?)
pick up and answer - one way Collect - What a priceless gift!
Tell her about yoga and teaching and kitty is sick
hearing her laugh, pain-free, and ask the questions I now hear:
How are you doing? What are you up to? How's things up there?
And at the end of the call from my mom we would then say:
I love you and I miss you so much, Goodbye mom, Goodbye!
Thank God I got to tell her the night she quietly left.

Children all over the Earth lose moms and dads but I just
think about my mom. I don't weep for every mom, just mine
Sitting, making dinner (I never tried the split pea soup)
Telling stories over again (I never wrote them down)
Annual summer trips to her childhood home where we laughed,
relaxed with her parents - Grandpa welcomed mom when she died
Grandma and I stayed behind to bleed, to cry, to go on
as those who have loved and lost and forgiven the world that
too young, too soon many generations of ancestors
Premature is always the response from those left behind.

Tomorrow is Easter and I will spend it with family
In my heart I will float back to Cindy Place as a child
Mom will call me to dinner and I'll race down the long hall
There she will be, the Easter ham, sparkling cider too
I'll not know what to do but sit, break bread and toast the Lord
that put mom on this Earth even if it weren't long enough,
but thankfully short enough for her to avoid pain, panic
Tears spill at the table, but I will laugh too as we say:
Thanks be for the time we had and the memories I'll save
together at the round table with mom eating dinner.

Poetry: Day 3

Prompt: Today, I challenge you to take your gaze upward, and write a poem about the stars. You may find inspiration in this website that lists constellations, while also providing information on the myths associated with each one, as well as other salient information. Your poem could be informed by those myths or historical details, by the shapes or names of the constellations, or by childhood memories of seeing them. Any form or style will do.

It's just one life
Go, explore the stars and miss no one world
The final courtship to strange civilizations born before
To seek Zion requires a voyage of freedom
Continuing to exist boldly with a new enterprise and a new venture
are the new frontier for these dead who seek spaces where it has gone

*Found poem written from the Star Trek: The Next Generation opening monologue.

Poetry: Day 2

Prompt: Today’s prompt is a poem of negation – yes (or maybe, no), I challenge you to write a poem that involves describing something in terms of what it is not, or not like. For example, if you chose a whale as the topic of your poem, you might have lines like “It does not settle down in trees at night, cooing/Nor will it fit in your hand.” Happy writing!

It’s never away from a child's mind.
It doesn't move in next door and play drums.
Do not mistake it for thirst: a bad sign.
Warm stones do not fill it. A long face
stares out through the curtain. Do not forget!
Or send your cans, packs, bags or bins away-
Not all of it! Empty, none, zilch...regret.
Third world, that world, not this (our world) we say.
Absent, vacant, lonely cupboards are bare.
Poor Jack Sprat; he wasn't alone. Can't chew
gum - that poor substitute, unworthy fare.
The whole hole of my belly, only fume.
Food doesn't pay the rent or cut or hit.
It will not punish or hate...Don't you see?
Many mouths have nothing to show for it.
Life ain't so peachy when you're hungry.

Poetry: Day 1

Sample Poem: Essay by Natalie Eilbert
Prompt: Today, why not try writing your own poem that begins “I guess it’s too late to live on a farm”? Or if you already live on a farm, why not “I guess it’s too late to live in the city”? Or, if you’ve lived on both farms and in cities, perhaps it’s too late to live on a boat or in the mountains or on the moon or in an underground missile silo?

I guess it's too late to do Colorguard
performing, being special, good at it
no one understands us, comprehends us,              
I guess it's too late to be out with girl friends 
until one in the morning, laughing and 
falling over and catching rides home, safe

I guess it's too late to be catching the 
eye of that mystery guy and think if 
he notices me, hips, lips, my new Docs
I guess it's too late to go on a date 
with one person who does not notice me
the thrill of the performance, on and off

I guess it's too late to play loud Janet
spinning flags and jump in to cars, muddy 
that's the way love goes, overnight parties,
band trips and field trips, inside jokes galore,
gossip, games, stories, pranks, fights, makings-up
I guess it's too late to do Colorguard

  

Goings on

A ton has been on my plate lately. I began yoga teacher training school in October 2014 and will be finishing up the teaching at the beginning of March. This is been a wonderful treat into the world of yoga and to also give me more education into my passion. Though I will continue to teach English for now, it's nice to know that I might have other options in the future.

I will be participating in the national poetry writing month this April. My blog will appear on the website NatProWriMo found at http://www.napowrimo.net/about/

Check it out to read other aspiring poets. This will be my first time participating in the 30 days of poetry write.