This is my second week of creations for National Poetry Writing Month (or NaPoWriMo). 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 a parenthetical “UNUSED.”
I highly recommend a daily practice of producing art. Whether visual, literary, musical, sculptural, photographic, etc. Anything is good. A poem-a-day works for me. I also make ‘zines and love doing collages. Also puppets. And, thanks to Thée and Taliesen, cosplay. Our house is a veritable art studio. But you needn’t be as extreme and nerdy as all that.
One of my favourite statements about art is one by French philosopher Michel Foucault (jump to the end of this paragraph if you just want to get to it). His ideas of the formation of our selves as subjects is something I have been struggling to understand for a long time. I’ve made a wee bit of progress. He wrote about both “technologies of the self” and “arts of the self” and I have not found, in his work, a clear statement of the difference between these (and they may well be synonyms). But i find it useful to to treat them as different. Thus I take technologies of the self to refer to those practices/techniques we apply to ourselves in order to conform to dominant culture (in all its massive contradictions). Arts of the self, by contrast, are those practices/techniques we apply to ourselves in order creatively to invent or reinvent ourselves. Foucault refers to this as the “aesthetics of existence” but that seems like such a mouthful compared to “arts of the self.” So i’m sticking with the latter. I believe this is what Foucault is referring to when he writes, “What strikes me is the fact that, in our society, art has become something that is related only to objects and not to individuals or to life. That art is something which is specialized or done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object but not our life?” (in On a Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of a Work in Progress in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (NY: The New Press, 1997) p. 261.)
One of my favourite Foucault essays is Self-writing (in Ethics: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, Vol. 1. (Paul Rabinow - Series Ed.). NY: The New Press, 1997, pp. 207-222) which I frequently assigned in the graduate popular education class I taught for almost 20 years. There were always a few students for whom this article was a revelation. Perhaps not the easiest read, but well worth it to reflect on the role of writing (and, by extension, any art practice) as a process of self-formation. Foucault also identifies in this essay the origin of commonplace books of which I am a big fan. It is both through the art I have always practiced in my life and reflecting critically and creatively (with the help of philosophers, artists, and friends - especially dian marino and Corita Kent), that I have come to believe in the value of having a daily practice. Do (or did) you have one? Or have you ever thought of starting one? I have started and stopped and restarted many times. Which is also by way of saying that it needn’t be daily. But at least something regular that you can return to again and again. Discipline is good but can take time to develop. I would love to know what your thoughts are or what experience of this you have had. Please feel free to use the comments section to share your thoughts.
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 8, 2024
Litany and Threads
Seven thousand kilometers
centuries, millennia
of survival and struggle
triumph and loss and
countless small moments
of joy and grief
conquerors' greed
theological corruptions
mountains of madness
traversed by poor farmers
whale hunters surviving disease
genocidal colonialism
a boy is born
weaving this Bittersweet litany
seven generations of threads
reaching into the troubled past
living into a loving future
(optional) prompt for the day takes its inspiration from Laura Foley’s poem “Year End.” Today, we challenge you to write a poem that centers around an encounter or relationship between two people (or things) that shouldn’t really have ever met – whether due to time, space, age, the differences in their nature, or for any other reason.
APRIL 9, 2024
Ode to a d20
The dungeon master says
"roll for that."
You are launched
by a hopeful player
imagining a plan
a pathway to victory
vanquishing, revealing,
defending, rescuing...
"oh 20-sided die and
gods of fate and fortune..."
the icosahedron
most circular of the
polyhedral dice
rolls and rolls and
settles
on a "1"
"Natural 1 fails bad,"
intones the DM.
What power you hold
in your 20 seats
to determine fate.
Was this your purpose
millennia ago -
Egyptian and Greek diviners
rolling for judgment?
Do today's gamers' groans
at playful misfortune
echo the forgotten
screams of lives lost
to a poor roll of a die?
Today you judge
imagined futures
a tool to chart a course
through storied worlds
of wonder and horror
are you so different from
the sailor's astrolabe
and sextant
used to navigate
oceans and their imagined
leviathans and countless
terrors
while seeking to plunder
the treasures of others?
A magic wand that conjures
possibilities from probabilities
you also impose limits
randomizer, skill-limiter
you are a god of
creative constraint
enabling constraint
Raymond Queneau
and his OULIPO collaborators
might have loved you deeply
Great clarifier of
the chaotic wilds of
diluvial choice
In your muteness
you do not instruct us
how to live yet it is
by your result that
we live at all
You give our imagination
the shape
it needs to be born
into the phenomenal world
at all
As the pencil is
for the writer
so you are the tool
of the gamer
the world-crafter
Did the Gobaun Saor
the Wondersmith
carry a sack of dice
to raise the ancient
cities of Murias, Falias,
Findias, and Gorias
that housed the hallows -
spear and sword and stone
and cauldron -
With you we forge
the path through perilous
choices that we might
find again the hallows - forged
of imaginarium - that finest
of elements that is the
birthright of every child
the secret to the most
enduring hallow of all
"Once upon a time...."
Arbiter of success and failure
you are both feared and praised
though you are mere
humble teacher
for your choices
for good or ill
cannot take from us
the indestructible freedom
known to both the Stoics of old
and a laughing, bespectacled
survivor of genocidal horror
that we can
choose our response
so
the dungeon master asks,
"How do you want to do this?"
Our prompt for today (optional, as always) takes its inspiration from Pablo Neruda, the Chilean-born poet and Nobel Prize Winner. While he is most famous in the English-speaking world for his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, he also wrote more than two hundred odes, and had a penchant for writing sometimes-long poems of appreciation for very common or mundane things. You can read English translations of “Ode to the Dictionary” at the bottom of this page, “Ode to My Socks” here, and “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” here.
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own ode celebrating an everyday object.
APRIL 10, 2024
Tanka
eight point three minutes
light and heat from sun to earth
the devoured sun
cold darkness covers the earth
then wondrous mother returns
prompt (UNUSED): And now for our optional prompt! Ezra Pound famously said that “poetry is news that stays news.” While we don’t know about that, the news can have a certain poetry to it. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on one of the curious headlines, cartoons, and other journalistic tidbits featured at Yesterday’s Print, where old new stays amusing, curious, and sometimes downright confusing.
APRIL 11, 2024
ARTIFACTS OF PAST AND FUTURE
Graffiti of the 80s
Sprayed on a bank: CHURCH.
Sprayed on a church: BANK.
If voting could change the system, it would be illegal.
Can I have a future, please?
Have we woken from the nightmare of capitalism yet?
Will there even BE seven more generations?
Billboards of the 2040s
Fire danger level is very high so control your spicy thoughts
Remember to share the air and breathe less
We give you the best price for your dreams
We promise to pay minimum wage if you commit for five years
Collective living is building a brighter shared future
Graffiti of the 2050s
This way to a tomorrow of plenty... just kidding
I had hope once but then I ate it
Despite everything, the seasons still happen and the stars shine
Do you remember ice cream, cuz i'd kill for some right now!
Never stop telling stories
Poets know past, present, and future
Have we won the game of life yet?
"Once upon a time..." is the road to healing
So, is this the rock or the hard place?
Do you remember when the guy screamed, "Soylent Green is People!!!"
Doubleplusgood chocolate rations coming this week
Stories are weapons of mass destruction
Stories are the most powerful medicines ever created
optional prompt for the day honors the “ones” in the number 11. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write either a monostich, which is a one-line poem, or a poem made up of one-liner style jokes/sentiments. Need inspiration? Take a look at Joe Brainard’s poem “30 One-Liners” or Frank O’Hara’s “Lines for the Fortune Cookies.”
APRIL 12, 2024
Legacy
People didn't always used to be
so small
My grandmothers
for instance
used to be GIANTS
One of them
was born on the Green Isle
where they say
she was the small one but
when she was still a girl
and needed a fancy dress
for a party her brothers
made fun of her and called her
a runt she just
reached up to the sky
and plucked her some stars
from Brigid's Mantle
popped those flaming lights
on her dress, one, two, three
thank-you very much and
went to the party
She decided she wanted
to see the world but
her brothers said stay home
learn to cook and clean
like a proper girl
My grandmother made herself
a basket went to the lake
waited for Spring and
the swans
She talked to the swans,
because you could talk to birds
and animals in those days
She asked for a favour
the swans said sure but they
needed the lake made bigger
for their kids
My grandmother knocked down
a tree, carved out a shovel
dug the lake bigger
the swans said, "Where
do you want to go?"
"East," said my grandmother
hooked her basket to
four swans
flew east "take a right
at the fjords of Norway
head to the first range
of mountains you see."
The swans left her
in a field of daisies
She heard about an
old lady who knew things
my grandmother said
that she wanted someday
to be an old lady who
knew things so she could
teach her daughters
how to live in
the changing world and her sons
to be good men
She found the old lady
living in a house
on chicken legs
Baba Yaga welcomed her
never having met
a giant from the emerald isle
they became friends
My grandmother made a comb
for Baba Yaga's goats
Baba Yaga taught my grandmother
secrets and gave her a comb
for protection
on her continued journey
my grandmother heard a woman crying
she was sad for having lost
her cloak of feathers
she lived with a kind man and they
had a beautiful boy
my grandmother said I will watch
the boy and you rest
from your sorrows for a moment
My grandmother and the boy
looked for perils in the forest
and lost treasure after finding
a little golden ring playing
hide and seek
the boy bumped the corner
of the cottage dislodging a brick
revealing something shiny
the boy reached behind the brick
and drew out a golden feather
my grandmother told him to run
give it to his mother who
came in a rush slowly
she reached her hand into
the hollow in the wall
drew forth
a cloak of golden feathers
she held the cloak gently
caressed her boy's cheek
she asked my grandmother
to look after her boy
to find her in the Mountains
of the Moon
she donned her feathers
taking flame
the Firebird flew north
singing a song so her boy
would know her love and know
they would be together again
All business my grandmother
told the boy they
had work to do
found a proper big tree
knocked it down
carved a mortar from
the widest part
from the largest branch
carved a pestle
Walking three times round
the mortar widdershins
they climbed in
My grandmother knocked
the side of the mortar
with the pestle
three times they flew
over fields and forest
rivers and valleys
They saw a timber castle
where a family of wolf people
shared their hospitality
and stories
continuing on they
saw a young woman and
helped her find a castle
where lived a great bear
they saw a great mass
of people travelling looking
for a new home
My grandmother told them of
the fjords of Norway
Arriving at the mountain
of the firebirds the boy
and mother reunited
they gave my
grandmother a golden feather
so her daughters would
always know freedom
and beauty
and justice
optional prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that plays with the idea of a “tall tale.” American tall tales feature larger-than-life characters like Paul Bunyan (who is literally larger than life), Bulltop Stormalong (also gigantic), and Pecos Bill (apparently normal-sized, but he doesn’t let it slow him down). If you’d like to see a modern poetic take on the tall tale, try Jennifer L. Knox’s hilarious poem, “Burt Reynolds FAQ.” Your poem can revolve around a mythical character, one you make up entirely, or add fantastical elements into a real person’s biography.
APRIL 13, 2024
Cherita
Bewildered, he sat listening, watching
his mother's helplessness stopped his ears
her self-pity and sly threats took his sight
he could still smell the cotton and clean linens
taste the pancakes and bacon
knew blindness and deafness to be the price of love
optional prompt (UNUSED) for the day asks you to play with rhyme. Start by creating a “word bank” of ten simple words. They should only have one or two syllables apiece. Five should correspond to each of the five senses (i.e., one word that is a thing you can see, one word that is a type of sound, one word that is a thing you can taste, etc). Three more should be concrete nouns of whatever character you choose (i.e., “bridge,” “sun,” “airplane,” “cat”), and the last two should be verbs. Now, come up with rhymes for each of your ten words. (If you’re having trouble coming up with rhymes, the wonderful Rhymezone is at your service). Use your expanded word-bank, with rhymes, as the seeds for your poem. Your effort doesn’t actually have to rhyme in the sense of having each line end with a rhymed word, but try to use as much soundplay in your poem as possible.
APRIL 14, 2024
“Faith Beforehand”
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true. - William James , Is Life Worth Living?
We are 8 billion
on our way to 10
Precious lives living
at the expense
of other precious lives
There is so much work to be done
And no time to lose
So
Live as if the spring will always bring renewal
Live as if humans learn to share the earth
Live as if we have successfully turned back extinctions
Live as if we have overcome isolation and loneliness
Live as if we have learned to care for each other
Live as if we have learned that we have learned that we need each other's care
Live as if our cities are oases of art and beauty
Live as if we can see the wonder of the night sky again
Live as if we know the names of the people who grow our food
Live as if violence against women is a distant memory
Live as if everyone has a place in which to live with dignity
Live as if we have learned that we are all connected
Live as if we have learned to ask for help when we need it
Live as if the world we dream is already here
And,
of course,
take up the work