Author: mannixk

PAD 2017 – Day 13

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The NaPoWriMo prompt today asked for a ghazal. I’ve never written one before, though I’ve enjoyed reading many. Sometimes I find repetition in forms off-putting, but that’s not usually the case when I read ghazals. I used the Writer’s Digest family prompt to give me my subject, and kind of free wrote from that. This seems so far from done, but I do think (hope) it will be something I come back to.

 

Ghazal: Sister Memory

 

Take me there again, with a nose full of home memory,

puff of lemon dish soap, cigarette smoke haze in my memory.

 

Each of us carries one, sometimes many, clenched in our fist,

moulded by pressure, the certain shape of our memory.

 

My sister recalls an action scene, shot wide in CinemaScope,

a drama I can’t recall, or one I’ve scrubbed from my memory.

 

Another moment, snipping wild baby’s breath from a roadside,

holding bouquets too big for our hands, sun bleached memory.

 

One we both need, smudged like a fingerprint, we try to recover with dust.

Using our own sharpened pencils to colour the edges of the memory.

 

I tend to write a lot of family poems. Awhile ago I had the extreme pleasure of receiving feedback on some of my writing from Red Deer poet and author Kimmy Beach. I showed her a poem about my Mom, with towels being a sort of symbol for comfort. She said it reminded her of a poem she’d written for a friend, called “Most Trusted Remedy.” The emotion in it is just beautiful, without being too familiar or sentimental. I love this poem.

PAD 2017 – Day 12

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Guilt is the theme of the Writer’s Digest prompt today. As bad as it feels sometimes, guilt is also one of the most wonderful of emotions in its ability to help us be loving, kind people. It’s a regulator of the heart and the head, which is maybe why my micro poems today all used “heart”, though I didn’t set out for that to happen. Did a bit of combining with the NaPoWriMo prompt to use alliteration and assonance too, though not as overtly as I sometimes do.

Guilt

1.

heavy heart

keeps heavy eyelids

wide open

 

2.

gulped down

then bubbling up

like heartburn

 

3.

pacifist heart

patters with pleasure

when the tyrant takes one

to the face

 

4.

sharing the burden

the heart

the mind

 

Jenna Butler is one of my favourite Alberta writers. I was fortunate enough to take a workshop with her last fall, and was amazed at how she seems to speak in poetry, even when she’s just telling a story.  There is some effortless alliteration in her short, stunning poem “This Rain.”

PAD 2017 – Day 11

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Oh, sonnets. I really do love a good one, both classic and modern.  And I really, really can’t write one. But no better time than the poem-a-day challenge to try new things. Here’s my treacle-filled (kids will do that to you) take on today’s Writer’s Digest prompt to compose a sonnet:

 

To Our Girl

 

You arrived on a sunlit summer day

Lilac morning, soft after howling night.

Round eyes alert, learning how to convey

the bliss of being, the journey to light.

How soon we knew you, felt our hearts entwine.

Yet the fear took hold, snaked under our skin,

the burrowing worry passed through blood lines.

How we learned to nurture, let you begin.

The temptation to cling, to hold you tight

but you leap into a world uncharted.

Each time you return, touched by delight,

imagination sparked, independence started.

Seven years of wonder, watching you grow.

All we’ve discovered, so much yet to know.

 

Sometimes a sonnet by name is no sonnet at all, yet tries to be more. I’m posting this, “Sonnet #1” which is really not the best thing famed Alberta poet Robert Kroetsch ever wrote. Why post something “meh” by a man who wrote so many wonderful things? Because it makes me feel better to know that great writers still produce bad writing from time to time. And I still think it’s fun poem.

 

 

PAD 2017 – Day 10

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Travel was the theme of the Writer’s Digest prompt today. I clicked on that just after reading about another airline debacle, and another instance of physical force being used before reason or communication. I watched the video of a man being dragged from a flight, and listened to the outrage by some of the passengers. Yet, like people often do in these situations — like I would probably do in this kind of situation — people mostly sat by and watched. Interesting how we as humans are sometimes aggressive when we should be calm, and passive when we should take action.

Fly the Friendly Skies

 

Origins come up on planes.

Where are you from?

Are you flying home?

Stories offered, across

an armrest or an aisle.

A three-hour community,

at least for this leg.

The way we all lick pretzel salt

from our fingers, smile politely

at young parents wearing

twins on their bellies,

take our eyes off our books,

iPads or phones when the attendant

stands to talk about oxygen.

We breathe this air together,

recycled and flowing .

We stay sitting together,

when one of us is picked.

Dragged off before take-off.

 

The Alberta poem I thought of today manages to put a smart, political spin on the thrill of traveling to a place you’ve always dreamed of visiting. Check out Edmonton writer Ben Freeland’s “New Orleans is Clawing at My Bones.”

PAD 2017 – Day 9

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Can’t believe it’s already the ninth day of National Poetry Month. NaPoWriMo central suggested a 9-line poem for today, and I took that suggestion, but not the added challenge of writing in a particular form or rhyme scheme. I also combined it with the Writer’s Digest prompt to start a poem with “So”.  There is much talk where I live about the devastating wildfire that ravaged Fort McMurray last year, so that’s what inspired this poem.

 

So This Is What’s Left

 

There are still magpies, warbling in the morning.

Along the river trail, mayflies speckle a bench.

Vagabond black bears rove the empty streets.

Crooked line of pines untouched

at the western edge of the city.

Haze has released its hold on the sky.

On this block, the Gallagher’s birch tree,

scorched but standing. The highest point.

In spring, yellow tulips will peek through the rubble.

 

Some poets, like Edmonton’s Lisa Martin, have an astounding ability to bring beauty to themes of loss and suffering.  Listen to her read “On Being In Love” from her latest book Believing is Not the Same as Being Saved, and read the great article and interview below.

PAD 2017 – Day 8

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Panic is the prompt of the day over at Writer’s Digest, and I’m feeling it a little now, as I’ve bit off more poetic pie than I can chew this weekend. I’m committed to these daily prompts, but also signed up for CV2 Magazine’s 2-Day poem contest, and a beading workshop this afternoon, and have to get my kids to dance and sportball too, then have to work tonight. How many hours do I think there are in a day? But sometimes the pressure, and even the panic, are what I need to get moving. I decided to mix the panic prompt with NaPoWriMo’s call for a poem with repetition, so here it goes:

The Big Fall

 

It spreads faster than lice in a preschool,

soon we’re  trembling, sweating,

holding our hands to our chests

to slow the galloping hearts.

Don’t panic, don’t panic, relax, relax.

But it’s not as simple as that

when we’re stuck in fight, flight or freeze,

that feeling in our lungs,

like we forgot how to breathe.

Don’t panic, don’t panic, relax, relax.

Is the room on a tilt? Whipping round

like a top, can we make it stop? Ask

to get off? If we hold hands will it slow,

bring the blood back? Halt the attack?

Don’t panic, don’t panic, relax, relax.

Is this really it? The poets, they’re liars,

crazy romantics, but I need you to kiss me,

‘cuz if we’re both going mad, loopy

and falling, we’ve gotta go together.

 

Maybe falling in love isn’t the usual kind of panic, but I think many of the symptoms are the same. I’m also not sure if today’s Alberta poem is a love poem, but I see that when I look at it. Check out  the beautiful “For Kristen” by Calgary visual poet derek beaulieu.

PAD 2017 – Day 7

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Discovery is the theme of the Writer’s Digest prompt today. There’s a thick fog outside today, and one in my head too after a night of restless sleep, so not sure how coherent these mini efforts are, but maybe I can discover something bigger from them later.

 

treasure hunting

the robin

unearths the worm

*****

garbage day

crows uncover

leftovers

*****

spin class

revealing

new muscles

*****

discovery

the shadow

on the x-ray

*****

Edmonton poet Ray Rasmussen is a master of haiku, senryu, haibun and haiga. If you love the Japanese forms as much as I do, I encourage you to explore his wonderful website.

PAD 2017 – Day 6

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Writing about sound is difficult, but when it works I think it can be one of best kinds of evocative, sensory writing. Today’s Writer’s Digest prompt asked for poems inspired by sounds. The NaPoWriMo prompt called for poems that examine a thing in several different ways, like the wonderful Wallace Stevens poem “Thirteen Way of Looking at a Blackbird.” Here’s my attempt at seven ways of thinking about, and hearing, sirens.

Seven Sirens

 

1.

As children we’d try to pick out each one,

quick woo-woo-woo of a police car,

shrill staccato blast of the fire engine,

the scream of an ambulance,

wailing up and down the scale.

Like knowing which emergency to fear

would earn us a badge.

 

2.

we tilt our heads

like dogs following a sound

like cats curious

for catastrophe

 

 

3.

four firefighters jump on

as the truck pulls away,

a hollering siren,

a rallying cry.

 

4.

Sticky summer night

they screech in

through our open window.

Not everyone’s as safe

as us together.

 

5.

flat out

on the inside

of an ambulance

the bawling siren

cries for you

 

6.

siren song

irresistible distraction

distressing reaction

 

7.

I tell my daughter

about sirens — nymphs of the sea,

their songs said to be dangerous.

I tell my daughter

that sometimes our voice

is our only defense.

 

Today’s Alberta poet certainly knows how to use sound in his writing. Please take the time to watch, and listen, to Calgary poet Richard Harrison sharing poems from his book Big Breath of a Wish which chronicles his daughter’s discovery and acquisition of language.

PAD 2017 – Day 5

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So many possibilities for today’s Writer’s Digest prompt to write about an element on the periodic table. The first element I thought of was copper, and it immediately reminded me of my Uncle Leif — a man of small stature and mighty character. I sort of combined that with today’s NaPoWriMo prompt to take inspiration from Mary Oliver, and incorporate some of the world’s natural wonder into your writing. Not sure there’s a lot of Mary in here, but the title is based on her poem “The Uses of Sorrow.”

The Uses of Copper

 

Arrive at the farm in autumn

when the amber sun sets early

over aurous fields, and stories

fall from his chapped lips

like water from a rusty pump.

You’ll know him by his dusty ball cap,

wind worn skin, and the copper wire,

welded crooked, ever round his wrist.

He’ll swear it shoos the arthritis away,

helps the blood flow, wards off colds.

He’ll show you the verdigris on the wire,

how it’s leached green onto his skin.

Elemental magic that shields him through

frigid winters, keeps him growing, going

like the rolling prairie grass.

 

Today’s Alberta poet is Edmonton’s Julie C. Robinson. With family and prairie roots on my brain, I thought of her beautiful poem Family Tree.

PAD 2017 – Day 4

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There was some prompt harmony today between the Writer’s Digest suggestion to write a beginning or ending poem, and the POETRYisEVERYTHING prompt to write a poem in the voice of an extinct animal. The first that came to mind was passenger pigeons, because I find their story both interesting and terrible. There were an estimated 3-5 billion in North America before European contact, and by the early 1900s, none were left in the wild. The last known passenger pigeon, Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden in 1914. Here’s a stab and a start to a poem that could be the beginning of something bigger.

 

Chorus

 

We remember the whir of  a thousand wings, the way

each of our bodies read the bodies at our sides.

Sky wave rolling from one cluster of oaks to the next,

we poured into valleys to rest and to feed.

 

How rapid the change from a few violent blasts,

to a thunder of rifles, the snag of nets,

the bite of flames and grey dust in the nests.

How hollow the wind without us.

 

Taking a historical perspective on Alberta writing today with Icelandic-Canadian poet Stephan G. Stephansson’s “Seasons in Alberta.” I love the imagery in here, and the line: For her own amusement alone / she teases the four winds