Today’s NaPoWriMo.net prompt called for a way to “derange” yourself by experiencing something strange, like this animated version of “Seductive Fantasy” by Sun Ra and his Arkestra, and then writing the poem. What resulted for me is, still in progress, so I’m not sharing yet. It’s already more abstract than normal, but half the fun of poetry month is experimentation.
I have barely written a single creative word since last April. Yet here I am, on the eve of National Poetry Month, feeling something like…enthusiasm?…to tackle another poem-a-day challenge. As in previous years, I plan to use prompts from both NaPoWriMo.net and my local poetry group’s 30/30 challenge in order to generate the poems. I aim to write something every day, though not necessarily post here every day. If pandemic life has taught me one thing, it’s the importance of embracing both uncertainty and flexibility.
The prompts traditionally begin on March 31st in preparation for a productive April. Today’s “early-bird prompt” asked writers to spend a few minutes looking for a piece of art in the online galleries of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. After finding something that piques interest, study the photographs and the accompanying text to inspire your poem.
I chose this photo, more for the title of the piece and the description than the actual image. Then a draft came out. Whether or not I will ever shape the poem into something more is a six-months-from-now decision, after the words have settled.
Cosmetic Vessel in the Shape of a Cat
Where cosmetic implies to beautify
improve the face not just of the body
but of things as they seem
impress with transformation
superficial dusting that somehow
makes me feel more here
the shape of a cat is some classic ideal
grace unmatched but mystery too
the way the lithe muscles of a back
in motion, toward prey or affection
convey a power I have yet to hold
how a vessel is a place to contain
something utilitarian, necessary
or simply coveted and kept
a swift vowel switch and
vassal I become to perfection
I decided to take stock this morning and look back at what I wrote this month. 36 poems and 7 starts (that may turn into poems at some point). I even like 4 of them! Most of the poems I’ve gone on to publish in journals or anthologies have started from seeds planted during these poem-a-day challenges.
I recently submitted a revised version of my poetry manuscript, and the majority of poems in it also started from the monthly challenges I’ve completed in previous years. I realize prompts don’t work for every writer, but they have been an amazing motivator for me, and also help me explore writing in new forms or about different topics than I’m normally drawn to.
All of this to say, even in the midst of one of the most stressful and disorienting months I’ve ever experienced, poetry has been a respite. I know it always will be.
To anyone who has read or commented on my work this month, thank you! I am grateful. I always write for myself first, but it’s encouraging to know something I’ve created and shared resonates in some small way with someone else.
Next comes editing and revising. A different kind of fun! But not until June. The words need time to age and settle a bit. First I plan to read more of the poems others have created this month, and dig in to the MANY poetry books I’ve purchased in the last several weeks. I firmly believe every day is better with poetry, but never has that seemed truer than now.
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com
For the final day (woohoo!) of Poetry Month, I followed the NaPoWriMo prompt asking for a poem about something that returns.
What Comes Back
Some returns require nothing —
geese, poplar leaves, sunrise —
but our attention.
Other returns demand such faith:
phone call from a doctor
child taking their first solo bike ride
teenager late home from a party
lover gone away on business, mid-winter
cat, escaped out the door left carelessly open
A sense of safety,
normalcy,
oblivion to danger.
A feeling, warm in the chest,
that just as the grass greens,
the apple trees blossom
happiness will come home to its heart.
Photo by Wendy Wei on Pexels.com
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt called for a paean to the stalwart hero of the household: your pet. I know there are people out there who write meaningful poetry about their cat, dog, or goldfish, but I am clearly not one of them. I adore my cats (Isaac, today’s poem star, and Jean-Guy, the shy guy of my house) and probably take more photos of them than I do of my kids. Yet it was difficult to put that affection into words.
Isaac
We worried
that your penchant for hissing
when you’re touched not just so,
that your sharp claws
which you refuse to have trimmed,
that your insistence on jumping
up and on anything,
that your preference for being
on a lap, no matter the welcome,
would cause lashing out of
a bruised cat-ego
once the baby arrived.
What a happy surprise
when you jumped into the crib
to nap with the newest member
of the family you believe you lead,
purrs audible over the baby monitor.
What a beautiful gift
to see you still take every chance
to cuddle next to that child,
ten years later.
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt asked poets to describe a bedroom from their past. It served as a good prompt to combine with the Poetic Asides call for a “look back or don’t look back” poem. The first place my mind looked back to was the room I slept in when I visited my grandparents as a child.
Visiting
Four of us
crammed in the small bedroom at the Cook Street house,
afterthought lined with wood paneling.
Adjunct to the crowded porch where Grandpa kept his freezer full of meat
and Grandma kept her boxes of unused Avon products,
bought to appease her persistent neighbour.
My brother, notorious snorer, got the living room couch,
but Grandpa and Grandma thought they were treating my sister and me
to the thin mattress on the floor, giving Mom and Dad the luxury
of the spare double bed in the very same room. A small window
that opened halfway, only deliverance from the stale space.
I couldn’t stay on my side of the mattress, so my sister kicked. We both yelled.
Mom scolding us to be quiet, while Dad slept on. Oblivious.
They lived too far away to make quick trips,
so we’d spend a week of nights in that tiny space, darker than my dark
at home, I was even a little grateful for my sister’s closeness.
In the morning, awoken by chickadees in the caragana shrub,
the scent of Grandpa frying last night’s ham, I liked being the first
one to open my eyes. To sneak off the mattress, navigate the
tiny path, strewn with off-cast blankets, my Dad’s slippers,
to make it to the door. Opened it slow as syrup, to quiet the creak.
Today’s Stroll of Poets prompt asked for an “altered state” poem. Not surprisingly, my busier-than-usual mind went to a place of questioning and worry.
BrainWhys
Therapist says
You rely too heavily on the ordinary mind.
As though I possess a back-up, extraordinary mind,
tucked in my purse, or hidden somewhere inside me.
Leftover brain of a vanishing twin.
But I curb that bit of sarcasm.
I’m paying to listen, receive, as well as talk.
In the ordinary mind, she continues, we can become stuck,
ignoring the usefulness of
altered states, like mindfulness.
A non-verbal mode. Just here.
Leaving the present
at that very moment,
against all advice, I wonder
why we’ve become hard-wired to think
in ways that so often erode our happiness?
Why just being is something we need to be taught,
prodded into practicing?
Why does “consciousness” sound like
“constant mess”?
Why does my ordinary mind
have so many damn questions?
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was an interesting one, and could prove fruitful on days when I have more time. Still working on my draft for the CV2 2-Day poem contest, so the daily April poem is taking a bit of a backseat. But I did a little experimenting with the prompt, which asks writers to fill out an almanac entry for the day, then use it as a springboard for the poem. The almanac questions are listed above the poem, with my responses. Then the short poem I wrote below. Obviously I didn’t put all the responses in there, but it still ended up a little everything-but-the-kitchen-sinky.
Almanac Questionnaire
Weather: Crazy wind
Flora: tulips braving spring; blowing trees
Architecture: Bungalows
Customs: coffee; toast; news; try to write; more coffee
Mammals/reptiles/fish: 2 cats, 4 humans; a hurried house spider I met in the laundry room
Childhood dream: to be a teacher
Found on the Street: winter’s leftover grime
Export: grief – get it outta here
Graffiti: my daughters’ sidewalk chalk drawings
Lover: Thankfully, yes
Conspiracy: only my own self-sabotaging procrastination
Dress: black leggings and a Fight Evil With Poetry tee
Hometown memory: walking by the weir
Notable person: Justin Trudeau
Outside your window, you find: kids’ toys tossed about
Today’s news headline: Don’t rely on herd immunity to reopen economy: Tam
Scrap from a letter: …doing better than expected…
Animal from a myth: unicorn
Story read to children at night: Charlotte’s Web
You walk three minutes down an alley and you find: a broken wine bottle; daffodils sneaking through fence boards
You walk to the border and hear: silence
What you fear: something happening to my kids
Picture on your city’s postcard: Broadmoor Lake
Whether Outside
Steady roar of wind, like the din of a moving ocean.
Out the window I see trees arced like waves, a loose strand
of Christmas lights left on the neighbour’s bungalow flapping against the roof.
I’d like to ask this belligerent wind whether it could carry my grief and anxiety away
with the clouds of street dust. Toss it around like my daughter’s pail of sidewalk chalk.
Clear my brain of all this worry rubble, thoughts mulled and twisted so often they’ve turned
to pebbles. The kind that find their way into your sandals when you walk down the alley,
searching for defiant tulips and daffodils who’ve snuck through fence boards. The kind that
distract you so much, you wonder whether you’ll ever see those flowers blooming again.
Photo by Photo Collections on Pexels.com
This weekend I’m participating in CV2‘s 2-Day poem contest, where poets have 48 hours to compose a poem using 10 given, and often challenging words. It’s the fifth time I’ve participated, and it never gets old. But it does mean I have a bit less time to devote to the regular poem-a-day challenge. So, today’s poem is a quickie inspired by the Stroll of Poets prompt to write about something “in the margins.”
The Wizardry of Some Poems
searching the margins
for the invisible ink
that makes them magic
Photo by Mohammad Danish on Pexels.com
I used my local Stroll of Poets prompt today to come up with a poem that contains anaphora (deliberate repetition in the first part of the sentence), and combined it with the Poetic Asides prompt calling for a poem that includes nature.
Almost Normal
Normal, daily walk to check the mail,
the reluctant groan of the hinge on my front door,
the neighbour’s dog alert-barking at my movement.
Normal, the steady trickle of melt water,
crows cawing and soaring in a clear sky,
the shhhhhhh of leftover leaves rustling in a tree.
Normal, the teenager slapping a puck against his garage,
an older man raking his newly exposed lawn,
two small girls happy-screeching in a backyard.
Not normal, arriving at the mailbox,
staying two metres back while another woman collects her envelopes
fearing what else she, or the postal worker who delivered this, carry.
National Poetry Writing Month
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