This is my fourth week of creations for National Poetry Writing Month (or NaPoWriMo) which leaves only two more days of poems. (Each day Maureen Thorson posts poetry resources (worth checking out) and an optional prompt. I quite enjoy the prompts though don’t always have the time to engage them. I include the daily prompt after each poem and if i’ve not used the prompt i note this with “UNUSED.”). Given that I was on strike with CUPE3903 at York University for eight weeks, I found that writing a poem spontaneously (often inspired by intriguing prompts) to fit well with the storm of feelings that I had to deal with daily while still focussing on taking care of my son, walking the dog, doing groceries and laundry. While other kinds of writing have suffered, walking the picket line with my fellow union members has been a wonderful experience (weather aside) and we won.
I hope you enjoy this week’s attempts. (If you’re so inclined, I am publishing each of these daily on my tumblr - which i use as a commonplace book.)
APRIL 22, 2024
Life by Mondegreen
The Heptones sang
"Each is given a bag of tools
A shapeless mass and the book of rules"
Rocksteady and Reggae wove into
the soundtrack of my teen life as I
drove to school
back and forth across
the mighty St. Lawrence
leaving my murky childhood behind
for an unfolding future as enticing
as the land of faerie
Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Jimmy Cliff
and The Heptones' "shapeless mass"
which I heard as "shapeless knives"
and felt, as I had with more Beatles songs
than I can remember, and Cat Stevens, and
Pete Seeger, Pink Floyd that I had discovered
a truth about my life
that was advice, solace, bitter
sweet comfort in that time of daily escape
from a darkling childhood but also daily
return
Those "shapeless knives" explained
my inability, my helplessness
to carve my character as "shapeless"
as the "knives"
I have that bag of shapeless
knives still
they sit on a shelf
gather dust
reminding me
that i found
other stories
with which
to carve
a life
today’s optional prompt. This one comes from the poet and fiction writer Todd Dillard, who provided this idea on his twitter account a few months ago. The idea is to write a poem in which two things have a fight. Two very unlikely things, if you can manage it. Like, maybe a comb and a spatula. Or a daffodil and a bag of potato chips. Or perhaps your two things could be linked somehow – like a rock and a hard place – and be utterly sick of being so joined. The possibilities are endless!
APRIL 23, 2024
I Thought I Knew What Kryptonite Was
When I was ten
it was all capes and cowls
flying and fighting
oh, the flying... if only, if only
at 12 it was the villains
who this week?
how will they be vanquished?
all the bad guys were so bad
if only, if only
at 16 it was the story
odyssean, argonautical
where are you going?
what are you looking for?
at 20 the capes didn't cover
my heartache the cowl chafed
you lost your family, your home, your world
your sight, your silence, your sleep
you were a response
then i wondered
what made a villain what made
a hero?
i wept
now i am older
heroes, villains
most faithful
companions
with whom I learned
to fly
(optional) prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem about, or involving, a superhero, taking your inspiration from these four poems in which Lucille Clifton addresses Clark Kent/Superman.
APRIL 24, 2024
It Matters who Speaks the Truth
"But that's what the science says,"
says the son to the father
"Nonsense! Don't be ridiculous,"
says the father to the confused boy.
"But..."
"ENOUGH!"
"You did ask him,"
says the wife to the husband.
"Don't be as stupid as him!"
The dinner is finished
in Silence.
Confusion ties the knots
of Silence and everyone knows
to abide
He learned the safety of crowds
"Not in our name..."
"No Justice, No Peace"
"Another World is Possible"
Students march, sit, encamp
chant, sing, and listen
to each other
A Voice is raised against
The Silence
the silencing
the father who "will brook no...."
the mother who says,
"you know your father..."
But death Squads
and Salvadoran refugees
and publicly-funded
counter-revolution
Shameful infamy ignores
the MS St. Louis
State massacres, Biko's 'suicide'
New apartheids
Dirty Wars and East Timor
Colonial Mandates
"A Land Without a People..."
And in Gaza
button-pushed mutilations
the children die
the parents die
the journalists die
the cycle continues
And people say, "No! Look! See! Stop!"
And the father says....
And the mother says...
The knot loosens
(optional) prompt for the day is another one pulled from our 2016 archives. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it. This will work best if you just start with a line of poetry you remember, but without looking up the whole original poem. Or you could find a poem that you haven’t read before and then use a line that interests you. The idea is for the original to furnish the backdrop for your work, but without influencing you so much that you feel as if you are just rewriting the original! For example, you could begin, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” or “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” or “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster,” or “they persevere in swimming where they like.” Really, any poem will do to provide your starter line – just so long as it gives you the scope to explore.
APRIL 25, 2024
The Sage Said Questions Unite...
Who are? Who is? What is? Which?
Is each life a question? Or a journey
from question to question?
A question needs a questioner
a who - who is this who
and from where is the question born?
The stomach perhaps?
Perpetually hungry coyote so full of tricks
Sancho Panza all belly and wise wit
Where will food be found today?
Perhaps the psyche
the call to contemplation
a search like any search for treasure
only a search for an answer or is it
the search for the right question
Let's ask Marcus Aurelius
or The Cat in the Hat
Does a question want for an answer?
Does it reach for its fulfillment or
annihilation?
Is it drawn forth by a scent of pastry?
a sweet ache in a neglected tooth
an absence of an answer
to an unasked question
Value, hunger, oh yes, still hunger it
never sleeps
mosts and likes carved away
from that big dense block
or was it egg? Egg? EGG?
of is-ness
And if A question
the Question before all questions
exploded the Mundane Egg into into all all
all that is
If that question-of-all-questions was
Why?
then
What then?
What then?
What?
optional prompt for the day. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on the “Proust Questionnaire,” a set of questions drawn from Victorian-era parlor games, and adapted by modern interviewers. You could choose to answer the whole questionnaire, and then write a poem based on your answers, answer just a few, or just write a poem that’s based on the questions. You could even write a poem in the form of an entirely new Proust Questionnaire. We have a fairly standard, 35-question version of the questionnaire laid out for you below.
APRIL 26, 2024
The book of freedom begins
with a family's fearful flight from
the soft shackles of oppressive
tolerance ever watchful, waiting
armed and ready
for the singular signs of the swift
unfurling of freedom's wings
sweeping away from earth
aching and breaking hearts flying
to a new home, warm hearth
gentle earth and welcoming land
that has known its own losses
holding out healing hands
bread, wine, and wisdom
(optional) prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Traci Brimhall’s poem “A Group of Moths” provides a great example of these poetic devices at work, with each line playing with different sounds that seem to move the poem along on a sonorous wave.
Your poem doesn’t have to be as complex as all that, though. Just pick a consonant or two and a vowel and dive right into the wonderful world (hey, there’s some alliteration / consonance / assonance right there) of sound.
APRIL 27, 2024
Memento Somnium
doors slammed shut before my curious feet
chimaeras and griffins guarding the gates
still i sought my way through all obstacles
seeking secrets that skittered into hiding
cobwebs and grime from neglected stories
consigning beloved pasts to darkness
and the silence of forgotten graveyards
if labyrinth is the game, give me twine
i will know this map of the darkened world
i will gather the secrets, learn their names
i will find others lost in this twisting
turning world of sorrows, old regrets and
together navigate fearful hazards
opening the doors of wonder at last
optional prompt: Today we’d like to challenge you to write an “American sonnet.” What’s that? Well, it’s like a regular sonnet but . . . fewer rules? Like a traditional Spencerian or Shakespearean sonnet, an American sonnet is shortish (generally 14 lines, but not necessarily!), discursive, and tends to end with a bang, but there’s no need to have a rhyme scheme or even a specific meter. Here are a few examples:
Wanda Coleman’s American Sonnet (10)
Terence Hayes’s American Sonnet for the New Year
Ted Berrigan’s Sonnet LXXXVIII
If you’d like more specific instructions for how to get started, Write 253 has a great “formula” prompt for an American sonnet, which you can find here.
APRIL 28, 2024
Sijo
Starry sky, bright company on our journey through the heavens
Galactic clusters travel growing closer in the darkness
Silent frog disturbs the still lake, heaven's mirror rippling
You've been busy, Chris! I have missed your poems all these days but I'll try catch up.
I really love the sonnet and the sijo 🖤