photo poem

PAD 2020 – Day 19

/ mannixk / Leave a comment

My poem today is still in process, so instead I’m posting it as a photo poem. Today I used the NaPoWriMo prompt  to write a poem based on a “walking archive.” What’s that? Well, it’s when you go on a walk and gather up interesting thing – a flower, a strange piece of bark, a rock. This then becomes your “walking archive” – the physical instantiation of your walk. Because of current quarantine circumstances, I did an “around the house” item retrieval instead. My written poem will also incorporate the Poetic Asides call to include the words bump; embrace; fixture; howl; lonely; resolve.

Isolation Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunt

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NaPoWriMo – Day 4

/ mannixk / 2 Comments

The Poetic Asides prompt today asked for a “case” poem, and NaPoWriMo.net focused on the importance of nouns in poems, especially when trying to convey an abstract idea. I’m not sure what I wrote here actually meets either of those challenges, but maybe. I saw a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s briefcase, circulating online today because of the 50th anniversary of his assassination. The short poem came quick as a response. A few words that can in no way encompass all the emotion inspired by one photo.

 

still-open briefcase

it’s the hairbrush that gets me.
too personal. like knowing the particular
cadence of a heart when your
ear’s pressed against a bare chest.

the newspaper, read and reacted
or kept for a later, quiet moment,
bare feet up on the sofa, giving in
to the heavy pull of rest.

but the book, tucked there like a message
in a lunchbox. don’t forget. I’m thinking of you.
still. it takes strength to love, true, but it’s there.
a second after the shot or fifty years later,
when you need it most.