Day 15 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2014

Day 15. The halfway point. What can I say. Sad if we think about National Poetry Month as ending. But it's also got 15 good days to go yet, right? Bravo! Keep writing a poem a day, friends. And keep coming back here to check out ours. Robert Lee Brewer has a "two-for-Tuesday" prompt today: love poem and/or anti-love poem (Poetic Asides). Maureen Thorson suggests using terza rima (NaPoWriMo). "I hope," Alan says, "I hope Vince will recover from the shock that I combined the two poetry prompts today. If his mustache suddenly turns white, it's my fault." My Undergraduates Don’t Get Toni Morrison In Morrison’s Beloved, Sixo walks past thirty miles between two suns to see the woman that he loves. In classroom talks I learn priorities. “Is it just me,” one asks, “or is it nuts to go so far?” “It’s fifteen miles a night,” I say, “to be with one he loves more than his life.” Their car- eased lives make them mismeasure miles. “We all should walk it in two long nights, tops, North Star for bearings should we miss the path.” “I’d call that reckless,” someone says, “the chance he took that he’d get caught.” There’s coughing in the hall, and I dismiss them for the day. They look at me as lost; they click online and get delivered their desires. “This stupid book,” one says, who might feel love but hasn’t yet. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes     [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Book Cover, Beloved by Toni Morrison Oh . . . so that's what happened to my mustache. I was wondering. Good job mashing up the two prompts, Alan! From me today, a musical collage, or maybe a montage. Or whatever, whatsit. You decide. Guitar matrix of metal cross-pieces and sharp steel shine vibrate musical wood shaved into fine curves curlicues channeling bronze shimmery line waves downbeat upswing staccato fingertip jive hard plectrum bee-sting swift sustain alive vermillion green bruise echoes rise purple sheer dive ultramarine lava flows love love muse almost so close —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] It's got the word "love" in it for Brewer's prompt, or half of it anyway, 'cause I couldn't work in "anti-love" without getting clunky. Seems to me pretty clearly on love, though. Thorson's terza rima is there, in a haiku sonnet shape. And here's a little visual noodle doodle too.  ヅ Won't you comment, please, friends? To make a comment, look for a blue link below that says Post a comment; if you don't see that, look in the red line that starts Posted by Vince and click on the word comments. Ingat, everyone.   ヅ

POEM-A-DAY 2014 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Day 29 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2013

Day 29. Couldn't find much of interest about the number 29, except to follow up what I said yesterday. 29 is the number of days in the month of February 25% of the time.   ;-) Moving on to National Poetry Month concerns. Maureen Thorson's prompt today: write a poem that uses "at least five words in other languages" (NaPoWriMo). Robert Lee Brewer's prompt: "take a line from one of your poems (preferably one of your April poems), make it the title of poem today, and then, write the poem" (Poetic Asides). I tried all day to make these two prompts work, together or apart. Searched my April poems for a suitable line or phrase to make into a title. No luck. The "other languages" notion in Maureen's prompt led me to a vaguely remembered scene in the university dorm where Kathy and I met, but no "five words in other languages" except for place names, at best. No way this poem is done, pretty much an early draft. An unrhymed haiku sonnet. Anyway, here you go. Fate First time I saw you, Kath, was at an Eigenmann tenth floor meet-up thing. International and grad students' dorm "blind date." Kuwait, Tennessee, Afghanistan, Rome — name a place, we were from there. I glimpsed your brown mane, your freckles, green eyes shyly turned when you saw me. First time our eyes met . . . turquoise and brown slid apart then locked: destiny, kismet. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Pretty raw. I'd love to hear if you think this sonnet could be a keeper. Let me know in a comment, please? Look for a blue link below that says "Post a comment"; if you don't see that, look in the red line that says "Posted by" and click on the word "comments." Ingat, everyone.   ;-) POEM-A-DAY 2013 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Day 15 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2013

Tax day, everyone. Hope you didn't forget!   ;-)   Also, "the ides of April." And exactly halfway through National Poetry Month. Can you believe how quickly it's gone by? From NaPoWriMo HQ, we get Maureen Thorson's challenge: "write a pantun. Not a pantoum." From his blog Poetic Asides, the poem-a-day HQ, Robert Lee Brewer suggests, "write an infested poem." Although there are surely many ways to merge these two prompts — zombies! — I decided today not to follow the prompts, as promising as they are. An ironic decision because I published an essay on the history of the pantun and the pantoum in the book An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, edited by Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes. You can see part of this essay in the Google books preview of this anthology. Anyway, here is today's non-pantun, non-infested poem . . . a sonnet: After Dashing Home Through a Rainshower Thirty Years Ago Rainy light filtered through those gauzy, sheer curtains. Kath, when you entered the bedroom, wearing only rainwater sheen, I fell in love again. Such a cliché, my bookish mind says, but it’s true. You slipped me a shy glance with those green-blue eyes, slid into bed with me. In rain-streaked light, you closed my eyes, kissed each one. We live there still . . . fragile memory. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] This love sonnet is, more specifically, a terza rima haiku sonnet, a form I invented in 1978 or thereabouts. The 14 lines are made up of four linked haiku followed at the end by a couplet of 7-syllable lines, so that the last two stanzas together are, at least in syllabics and lineation, a tanka. I should say that haiku and tanka are invoked here only in shape, not in spirit. Only in form, not in meaning. With regard to the sonnet per se, there is no volta or turn, which in a traditional sonnet occurs either at the beginning of the 9th line or the 13th line. Anyone have a suggestion for what I might call this form? Some name more graceful than "terza rima haiku sonnet." All right, 15 poems down, 15 poems to go. Won't you comment below, please? Look for a blue link that says "Post a comment"; if you don't see that, look in the red line that says "Posted by" and click on the word "comments." Ingat, everyone.   ;-) P.S.  I forgot to announce last week that the North American Review Blog published my colleague Rachel Morgan's interview in The Next Big Thing poetry series. Congrats, Rachel! POEM-A-DAY 2013 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30