Day Thirty #NA/GloPoWriMo

Day 30 Prompt: 

And now, here’s this year’s final (optional) prompt. In his poem, “Angels,” Russell Edson speaks of these spiritual warrior-messenger-guardians as if they were a type of endangered animal. Brief as it is, the poem is disorienting in its use of flattened diction, odd similes, and elliptical statements. Today, try writing your own poem that discusses a real or mythical being or profession (demons, firefighters, demonic firefighters) with the same sort of musing yet dispassionate tone.

Happy writing!

Proctor Divine of Forests and Vines

 

has either perished or still stood in line

outside an Office of Environment

of some progressive Government

in hemispheres East and West

waiting to collect her dues for keeping

the Green intact in the Blue planet

like a gambler who’s lost every penny

but insists there is hope—she will recover

all that’s lost to Greed

O! That word again—

starts exactly like green

but ends on Dead, Dread, Dumb.

 

The Proctor had resigned three generations ago.

Legends say, the skies had rumbled No,

Or was it  Know?

It’s up for debate.

 

That’s what we do.

We talk. Talk. Talk.

***

And it's a wrap up. Thank you dear readers for visiting my page. I'm grateful for your time and comments. 

Day Twenty-Nine #NA/GloPoWriMo

Day 29 Prompt: 

Finally, here’s today’s prompt (optional, as always). In “After Turning the Clocks Back,” Jennifer Moxley links present with past, using a few well-placed details to invoke both a sense of the daily “now” and a nostalgic sense of the speaker’s long-ago life. In your poem today, similarly compare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind.

Happy writing!

Trouble with Nostalgia is you can't touch it

 

Third time in as many weeks, another rejection

email blinks from the bedside table, unable to shake

the Covid habit of checking my phone seconds

after I wake up, I reach for the blue screen blinking

under the squiggles the filigree fingers of sunlight,

that reach through the crack

in our bedroom blinds, draw on the wall above the headboard.

Next to me, my love sleeps. He’s clutching precious five minutes past

Snooze. While the wrinkles on our pillow tango

with diamonds in the beams, I smuggle my complaint

into his arm, his back and say, another rejection.

 

The eggshells he was once forced to walk upon, 

whenever this happened before the long pandemic, 

before the health scare, before this war, 

have softened. They are mulch now.

 

He mumbles a sorry or maybe he’s asked what time

even though it’s been less than a minute since I read

the mail. And I chide him; I’m not your wall clock.

Touch, such a simple, everyday word. I lie in its

grace. Behind my closed eye-lids, the sun-kissed minutes

before we must rise to start our days, elongate like

a well-travelled tale, as if to say, why look to journals 

in far off places, or the distant past,

when here, in the now, in the day to day

acceptance lives in everyday words?

 

Day Twenty-Eight #NA/GloPoWriMo

Day 28 Prompt: 

And now for today’s (optional) prompt. Victoria Chang’s poem, “The Lovers,” is short and somewhat shocking, bringing us quickly from a near-hallucinatory descriptive statement to a strange sort of question, before ending on the very direct statement of a “truth.” Six lines, three sentences, and to top it off, a title that I think works for the poem but is only obliquely related to its text. Today, try writing a poem that follows the same beats: three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion.

Happy writing!

Electrotherapy

 

My yoga guru once told me

we store fear in our hips.

 

Does that mean all words, whether whispers

or mountains, weigh the same?

 

We insist on the full range of motion,

but forgiveness is an impulse.

Thank you for stopping by. 

Day Twenty-six #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 26 Prompt: 

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). The Latin phrase ars poetica means “the art of poetry.” It’s been a tradition going all the way back to Horace for poets to write poems that lay out – whether explicitly or obliquely – some statement about why the poet writes, or what they think poetry is. Here’s a very recent example, another that I had to study in school, and a very long, witty ars poetica by Alexander Pope. Today, we challenge you to write your own ars poetica, giving the reader some insight into what keeps you writing poetry, or what you think poetry should do.

Why Poetry?

Because the ego needs expression

and audience

Because I’ve been called

an empath

as if its’s a communicable disease

Because even though my mother was

part shadow, mostly sun,

the scorch marks drew ghazals

and Sufi songs

temple bells and tongs 

from sheathes so deep,

whispers turned petrichor

 

want’s wet kisses

for a dried-up world

cannot be written in fiction

 

Meera Bai chose poison

over a ban on her poetry

and “Kabir says this:

just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,

and stand firm in that which you are.”*

 

Turn, says my astrologer friend,

herself a storyteller,

Don’t bang your head against the relentless wall.

Pivot.

See! A whole blue sky, some clouds,

blades of grass

heel, toe, heel, toe, heal

there…

that’s poetry.

 

 

*Quote from Kabir’s translated poem, I Said To The Wanting-Creature Inside Me

 

Day Twenty-Four #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 24 Prompt

Finally, here is our (optional) prompt for the day! In her poem, “The Flying Nightdress,” Mandakranta Sen describes something fantastical and strange that occurs while the rest of the world is asleep. The imagery of the poem is dreamlike, but the situation it describes is otherwise presented quite straightforwardly. Today, we challenge you to write your own poem that takes place at night, and describes something magical or strange that happens but that no one is awake (or around) to notice.

Happy writing!

The disappearing Dunes

 

What with the recent chatter

of ceasefire and peace

talks

the city took enough melatonin

to glue apart fit and full

so, when the dunes caravanned in

loosely

draped over camels’ backs

as if they were promises

(they could be mistaken for promises—

lying as languidly as they did on so many backs)

but, no one was awake

 

no one noticed

in the silence that digs in between the muezzin’s

calls

in the darkest hour

on camel’s backs, the dunes moved in

like stealth does, first a blip

then only tankers

 

by now, all the erstwhile sleep-deprived

had slumbered inside into the

deep

outside, the camels rose, like camels do

awkwardly slow at first

then erect like tall grass,

a wind like no wind ever seen or heard

whooshed down the streets, the souqs and the siqs

and all the erstwhile sleep-deprived

by now in their dewy-sleep

clutched their duvets and their sheets

closer to their chins

as if it were the cranked-up AC

to be blamed

for goose bumping

their dreams

 

the tighter they gripped

the quicker they slipped

Dunes so big, they past-tensed

like dunes do, a grain at first

then total disregard

for lines

in clenched fists

 

This picture was made in the Rann of Kutchch in 2017

Day Twenty-three #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 23 Prompt: 

And speaking of forms, today’s (optional) prompt takes its inspiration from Kiki Petrosino’s loose villanelle, “Nursery.” Try your hand today at your own take on a villanelle, and have the poem end on a question.

If memory serves me right, this is my first finished villanelle. Sticking to a form is not my natural habitat when it comes to writing poetry. I resist it. I hope this poem is worthy of your time. Thank you. 

 

In which a gardener’s best friend upends the status quo

 

You wriggle naked in my shovel—

no legs, no togue, no teeth.

Softly, too slowly like a puzzle

 

through earth, dirt, claying nubble,

every muscle a wave you breathe.

You wriggle naked in my shovel.

 

Sun-shy, you glisten a river, O crinkle

and loosen rocks, before you sheathe

softly, too slowly like a puzzle.

 

Quietly, you churn many a mottle,

turn the axis to spring, to seed, to weave

you wriggle naked in my shovel

 

like the veins of wings of a rebel eagle—

too restless, too savage to scathe

softly, too slowly like a puzzle.

 

How, I ask from the dark end of my tunnel,

like the Buddha, you offer light for the damp earthly wombs to bathe

yet, wriggle naked in my shovel

softly, so slowly like a puzzle?

Day Twenty-one #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 21 Prompt: 

And here’s today’s prompt (optional, as always). In her poem, “Names and Nicknames,” Monika Kumar reminisces over various nicknames she has been given, the actual name her mother gave her, and the way both names and nicknames indicate a claim and an intimacy at once. In your poem for today, we challenge you to write your own poem in which you muse on your name and nicknames you’ve been given or, if you like, the name and nicknames for an animal, plant, or place. For example, I’ve always been amused at the fact that red trillium (a rather pretty wildflower that grows in the woods near my house) has several other common names, including the bizarre “stinking benjamin.” The plant grows very short and close to the ground, so I’ve never actually leaned over far enough to get a whiff and see how merited that sobriquet is!

For some reason, not apparent to me, this memory came to the fore after I read the prompt today. It was a busy day and I had an hour to write and post. This article does a decent job of explaining the cultural and political context of the Hijra community in India: The History of Hijras: A Glimpse Into Queerness on the Other Side of the World

Hijra (etymology: Arabic roots meaning separating from one’s kin)

 

I was five when I chanced upon a

new word— so full of respect, it trembled

in my aunt’s eyes like

terror

last seen

in a film when the villain appears on screen

 

I hadn’t touched terror yet

I didn’t know its shape

but they wore it like kajal in their eyes—

all the women, even my grandmother

terror 

gathered in their whispers like

vermillion imprisons the sky, silent first, then a storm

in the courtyard

 

the day after my uncle brought his new bride home

the Hijra came to bless the newlyweds

 

I was too little, too protected

to be allowed to witness the fuss

my imagination filled in all the cracks

and raised a fall-proof wall

where every stone chanted:

Do not trust them. Do not trust them. 

They lift their skirts.

They go naked.

Fear them for they curse.

Trade grains and sarees for their blessings

but other them most of all…

lingered long after the

courtyard was gone

like the left-over smoke-smell

of incense after sandalwood ashes

 

Last year, the Hijra came to bless my nephew

and his new bride

by now, I was deemed old enough to participate in the talks

the talks went on for over an hour

the hijra women grew louder and then one of them

did what was expected of her

she lifted her skirt

 

To save myself the burning shame,

I turned to look upon the one standing next to her—

their older, calmer guru, Ma—

an idol of stillness so deep.

a knowing shimmered and leaked from her

like nothing I have seen,

like the poet Kabir’s Akshar ki Chot

a wound made by a word,

a wounded word

a word wounded—

in a temple, she’d be worshipped

under a banyan, she’d be Buddha

in a song, Dolly Parton’s Jolene

 

She spread out her aanchal

I filled it with rice

 

A roll of dice,

in another lifetime,

she could be me, and I her

 

Day Twenty #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 20 Prompt: 

For today, try writing your own poem that uses an animal that shows up in myths and legends as a metaphor for some aspect of a contemporary person’s life. Include one spoken phrase.

Notes: In Hindu tradition, Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, the symbol of wisdom, is always shown with his loyal servant and vehicle, Mooshak, the mouse. Ganesha’s mouse represents the restless, desiring mind—small but capable of great destruction if not guided by wisdom. And the laddoos he offers symbolise the surrendering ego.
 

 

Day Nineteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 19 Prompt: 

And now for today’s (optional) prompt. The word florilegium refers to a book of botanical illustrations of decorative plants and also a collection of excerpts from other writings.  In her poem, “Florilegium,” Canadian poet Sylvia Legris gathers together many five-lined stanzas that describe flowers but also play with the sounds of their names, their medical (or poisonous) qualities, and historical aspects of herbalism. Today, pick a flower or two (or a whole bouquet, if you like) from this online edition of Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers. Now, write your own poem in which you muse on your selections’ names and meanings. If you’re so inclined, you could even do some outside research into your flowers, and incorporate facts that you learn into your work.

Day Eighteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 18 Prompt:

Finally, here’s our prompt for the day (optional, as always). When I was growing up, there was a book of poems in my house (I believe it was The Best Loved Poems of the American People) that was heavy on long, maudlin, narrative poems with lots and lots of rhyme – the sort of verse that used to be parodied on Bulwinkle’s Corner. As the twentieth century rolled in, poems like this were relegated to the status of stuff-schoolkids-were-forced-to-memorize, and they plummeted even further into our cultural memory-hole as learning poems by heart fell out of educational currency. But while some work in this style is extremely cringeworthy (I’m looking at you, “Bingen on the Rhine”), they can also be very fun to read. Take, for example, Sadakichi Hartmann’s “The Pirate,”  or Alfred Noyes’s “The Highwayman.” The action is dramatic, there’s lots of emotions, and the imagery is striking.

Today, we don’t challenge you to write all of a long, dramatic, narrative poem, but we invite you to try your hand at writing a poem that could be a section or piece of one. Include rhyme, include unlikely and dramatic scenes (maybe a poem about a bank robbery! Or an avalanche! Or Roman gladiators! Or an enormous ball held by mermaids, where there is an undercurrent (hee) of palace intrigue!) Basically, a poem with the plot of an opera (evil twins! Egyptian tombs! Star-crossed lovers! Tigers for no apparent reason!)

Happy writing!

Day Seventeen #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 17 Prompt

And now for our (optional) prompt! Sergio Raimondi’s poem, “Today Matsuo Basho Cooks,” plays on the following haiku by (you guessed it), Matsuo Basho:

Crimson pepper pod!
Add two pairs of wings, and look—
darting dragonfly.

For today’s challenge, write a poem in which you respond to a favorite poem by another poet.

Day Sixteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 16 Prompt: 

And last but not least, here’s today’s optional prompt. In “Ocean,” Robinson Jeffers delivers an almost oracular, scriptural description of the sea not just as a geographical phenomenon, but a sort of being – old, wise, profound, and able to teach those who want to learn. Today, try writing a poem in which you describe something that cannot speak, and what it has taught or told you.

Happy writing!

Thank you for visiting and for your lovely comments. 

Day Fifteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 15 Prompt

And now for our prompt (optional, as always).  K. Siva Reddy’s poem, “A Love Song Between Two Generations,” weaves together repetitions, questions, and unexpected similes with plain language. The overall effect is both intimate and emotional, producing a long-form meditation on what love is, what it means, and how it acts.  Today, we’d like you to write your own poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners.

 

Thank you for stopping by and for your comments.

 

Day Fourteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 14 Prompt

And now for our (optional!) prompt. Poetry is an ancient art, and one that revisits themes that existed thousands of years ago – love, nature, jealousy. But that doesn’t mean that poets live in a sort of pre-history unaffected by technological advances. Emily Dickinson wrote about trains, and I’m rather charmed by this 1981 poem about the “incredible hair” of actors on television. In a more recent example, Becca Klaver’s “Manifesto of the Lyric Selfie” draws inspiration from the contemporary drive to document everything in digital photographs. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that similarly bridges (whether smoothly or not) the seeming divide between poetry and technological advances.

Happy writing!

Thank you for stopping by.  

Day Thirteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 13 Prompt

To get started with today’s prompt, first read Walter de la Mare’s poem “A Song of Enchantment.” Then, John Berryman’s poem “Footing Our Cabin’s Lawn, Before the Wood.” Both poems work very differently, yet leave you with a sense of the near-fantastical possibilities of the landscapes they describe. Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny strip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.

Happy writing!

Arunachal

Ajoh 

Day Twelve #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 12 Prompt: 

 Amarjit Chandan has a pretty wild biography, but his poetry is often focused on place and memory – with his hometown of Nakodar appearing repeatedly. His poem “Uncle Mohan Singh” recounts, with a sort of dreaminess, a memory of the titular uncle playing the accompaniment to a silent film. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.

Happy writing!

Notes:

When death is imminent, Hindus place the person on a clean mat on the floor as it is believed that it helps the spirit to reconnect with the earth's energy for a smooth transition to the next life.  

Day Eleven #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 11 Prompt:

And now for today’s (optional) prompt! Erasure poetry — also known as blackout poetry — is written by taking an existing text and erasing or blacking out individual words. Here’s a great explainer with examples, and you’ll find another here. Some folks have written whole books of erasures/blackouts, including Chase Berggrun’s R E D (which is based on Dracula), Jen Bervin’s Nets (which is based on Shakespeare’s sonnets), and what is one of the grand-daddies of erasures as a form, Ronald Johnson’s Radi Os (which is based on Paradise Lost). Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own erasure/blackout poem. You could use a page from a favorite book, a magazine, what have you. It can be especially fun to play with a book you don’t know, particularly one that deals with an unfamiliar topic. If you’d like to go that route, maybe you’ll find something of interest in the thousands of scanned books at the Internet Archive? Feel free to maintain the whitespace of the original text (as is traditional for erasures/blackouts . . . if anything can be called traditional about them) or to pluck words/phrases from your chosen source material and rearrange them.

This was a fun prompt. My first erasure poetry. I wish I had the time to upload images of the photocopied page. It's a mess. 

I asked the husband to pick a page from Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries. I bought a copy of the novel  a few years ago, but haven't managed to read it yet. So, the text on the page was new. 

From page 390 of The Luminaries

 

My shade summoned to a shilling séance

I expect to evade, forestall time

to spy upon

a very lonely world—

unable to touch

or altar it

 

In New Zealand native tradition,

the soul, when it dies, becomes a star

 

Perhaps, I will

moleskin and serge

the prospect of panning for gold

not ready to begin

new life

 

 

Day Ten #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 10 Prompt: 

In his poem, “Goodbye,” Geoffrey Brock describes grief in three short stanzas, the second of which is entirely made up of a rhetorical dialogue. Today, write your own meditation on grief. Try using Brock’s form as the “container” for your poem: a few short stanzas, with a middle section in which a question is repeated with different answers given.

Thank you for stopping by and for reading my poems. This photo was taken a while back in the Seychelles.