NaPoWriMo

PAD Challenge – Day 6

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I heart ekphrastic prompts, so I was pleased to see the Poetic Asides prompt today was to write  a poem inspired by one of three images, or one of your own choosing. I picked Michelangelo’s First Painting (The Torment of Saint Anthony). Apparently he painted this when he was 12, which is pretty darn cool. It was also his own interpretation of a similar engraving by artist Martin Schongauer, so kind of ekphrastic in its own right. Lots of amazing imagery in here, but it was something about a boy painting a “good guy” battling all those fierce “bad guys” that got me thinking this way:

Superhero Sketch

 

Picture Michelangelo at 12, on the cusp of manhood,

bored with school and daydreaming in doodles.

Sketching superheroes in beards and robes,

not steel-jawed or muscle bound,

but mighty all the same.

Ordinary men doing extraordinary things.

And he, learning the world like we all do.

Drawing the lines between right and wrong.

Struggling to stand tall,

even with all those demons on his back.

 

michelangelo_first_painting-221x300

The NaPoWriMo prompt is also one of my favourites…poetry about food! I’ve written a few of my own in the past, but none as wonderful as “Peas & Barbies” by Catherine Graham, presented here by poet Lisa de Nikolits.

PAD Challenge – Day 5

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I was able to weave two prompts together today: the Poetic Asides two-for-Tuesday assignment to write about experience/inexperience, and the NaPoWriMo prompt to find inspiration in the names of heirloom vegetables. I had tomatoes on the brain, as well as memories of my Mom.

Tomato Aspirations

 

I dream of a garden of nightshade delights, edible wonders, plump and luscious

painting a triptych of wooden garden boxes every hue of red, orange and yellow.

I dream of my Mom’s tomato plants, wending through the white boards

of our backyard fence, or pressed into their metal cages, like buxom women

chastened by corsets.  In August, they’d lean and bow, ready for the curtain to fall,

ready for rebirth in her crock pot and jars, in salsa and sauce, relish and paste.

 

I turn to the catalogue for advice. The names alone sow seeds of imagination:

the stately Principe Borghese, at its best basking and baking in the sun.

The mighty Neptune and Martian Giant —tomatoes bold enough to grow

where no tomato’s grown before. There’s the extravagant Marglobe VF,

with a moniker like a sports car and  priced six times higher than every other plant.

Picture it staked  on a plot all its own, Esq. etched at the end of its custom gold nameplate.

 

But who am I kidding? I’m a greenhorn, not a green thumb. I live on the Prairies.

I need hardy, pragmatic plants, not opulent show-offs. I need the Glacier tomato, cold

weather ready with its thick skin and ruddy face. I need the no-nonsense  Large Red Tomato,

frank but fruitful. Straight shooter of the soil . Give me produce, not pretense, baby.

Give me enough sun, rain and patience to see me through the season.

Give me just one juicy globe, that I can hold up high, as I brag to the sky,

Mom! Look what I made!

 

I did like the prompt suggested by the folks at This Is Not A Literary Journal to harvest words from the signs you see, and will certainly try that another day. The mention of the word “signs” reminded me of the superb There Were No Signs by Irving Layton, which you can listen to here.

PAD Challenge – Day 4

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I love odes. I suppose most poets or poetry lovers do, but I confess I have never been very good at writing them. An ode to something indulgent is the prompt over at This Is Not A Poetry Journal today, and though I wish I could indulge, the ode-thoughts just aren’t coming at the moment. I was reminded of poet Elizabeth Zetlin’s ode to that loved and hated mark of punctuation: the apostrophe.

The NaPoWriMo prompt gives a nod to the famous Eliot line about April being the cruelest month, but I already covered my thoughts on that a few days ago. However, I do have a month that I view as the cruelest: February. Last year, at the start of March I wrote a rally against February, and a praise of March (almost an ode?), which you can read here, if you’re so inclined.

Finally, the Poetic Asides prompt to write about “distance” had me thinking micro-sized again, so here are my small words for a large space:

 

wishing on stars

distant train whistle

brings us down  to earth

 

 

PAD Challenge – Day 3

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poplar hoar frost

I’ve got a prompt meld going on today between the Poetic Asides suggestion to write a Three _____ poem, and the This Is Not A Literary Journal challenge to “write what the trees know,”  Here’s what grew:

Three Things Our Poplar Tree Knows

 

That when hoar frost swaddles

its bald branches, the day will be

defined by silence. Words we’ve used

so often to sting, turn soft and

crystalline on our tongues.

 

That the damp cloak of decayed leaves

still draped on the grass at the start of

spring, will smell both fetid and fresh.

The contrast and symmetry that used

to define us.

 

That its softening middle, the spongy

bend of boughs once strong and rigid,

are not reasons to mourn. Heart rot,

a harsh name for the feeling inside:

change. Touch the caramel-coloured

conks embellishing its trunk.

Listen when it tells us

the great  beauty of loss

is clarity.

 

The tree prompt made me think of Trees by Bliss Carman. I, too, am in praise of “goodly trees in the springing sod.”

Lastly, the NaPoWriMo site suggests a fan letter poem to a celebrity. I’ve composed many gushing letters in my brain to Trent Reznor, but never attempted to put them to paper. Perhaps a project for this afternoon….whilst listening to NIN, of course.

 

Poem-a-day (PAD) Challenge – Day 2

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I’ve got three prompts going for the second day of NaPoWriMo, and all it’s amounted to so far is one micro-poem, but there are other ideas whirring around.

The prompt over at the Poetic Asides blog was to write a “he or she said” poem. There’s a an active community of talented and encouraging poets who frequent this blog, so it always a good destination — especially mid-April when the energy and inspiration reserves maybe getting low.  For this I did complete a micro-something that may grow into something more:

Clear

He said there was

a storm in his head

as long as he

could remember, but

the first time

he kissed her

the sky cleared

and stayed that way

as long as she

was his.

 

I’m hoping something interesting will come of the This Is Not A Literary Journal Prompt to “write the lie you used to believe.” Perhaps something fun, or witty.

Today, April 2, also would’ve been my Mom’s 73rd birthday, so the NaPoWriMo.net prompt to write a “family portrait” poem is quite fitting. Before my Mom’s death, and certainly since, I’ve written much about family and her specifically. I don’t know if this is a well that will ever run dry, and for that I’m grateful.

Lastly, I’d like to invite any willing readers to check out this link to one of my favourite poems by one of my favourite poets: Lorna Crozier’s Fear of Snakes. I love everything about this poem, but each time I read it, it’s the opening line that gets me. The imagery and rhythm are just stunning.