The Stafford Challenge, Day 14

Fun stuff happening in the Stafford Challenge facebook community! Today, the poet RJ Clarken wrote a poem using the AI word doglificate. Another poet, Holly Jahangiri, suggested that all the Stafford Challenge poets should write doglificate poems. Here's mine! It's an acrostic spelling out doglificate, with only one word per line. (An acrostic is a poem where the first letter of each line, reading downward, spells out a message.) Doglificate RJ Clarken’s AI advice: “Don’t be a scientist. Doglificate your love life.” A one-word-per-line acrostic Dogs offer gleeful lives, intense, free, incidentally contradicting AI triplicate errors. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] And now for visual interest, here's me with my daughter's beagle Penny. We're doglificatin'! Photo by Renee Lukehart Wilkie Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 19 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2023

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “We've already written poems related to smell and to sound, so let's keep the senses fresh with another sensory poem. For today's prompt, write a taste poem. ” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “One common feature of childhood is the monsters. The ones under the bed or in the closet; the odd local monsters that other kids swear roam the creek at night, or that parents say wait to steal away naughty children that don’t go to bed on time. Now, cast your mind back to your own childhood and write a poem about something that scared you – or was used to scare you – and which still haunts you (if only a little bit) today.” Today, I'm writing an aswang poem. The aswang is a mythical Philippine monster that comes in many forms: shapeshifter, ghoul, vampire, and others. In this poem, I bring you a manananggal, a woman who splits herself at the waist, with the top half growing wings and flying into the night to hunt. Both prompts again, though my parents never told me stories about aswang, unlike other Filipino parents. I discovered the aswang through reading. "Taste" is incorporated into the poem both through a mention as well as through form. Horror Story The manananngal lifted into the Air, her leathery wings Shimmering against the stars Twinkling in the heavens. Every light in the dark town Twinkled as well, constellations Above and below. She hovered Softly outside an open window, The pregnant woman breathing Evenly in her bed, unaware. The monster slipped her tongue, All ten feet of it, into the window Snaking slowly. She could almost Taste the woman’s amniotic fluid, Ever so sweet and pungent. Then, a few minutes later, the Aswang flew silently away, Sated, satisfied, full of new life. The next morning, a miscarriage, Everyone would call it, so sad. The aswang then turned back into An ordinary woman, living her Safe, uneventful life in plain sight: a Tame girl hardly anyone noticed. But Every night she was a fierce hunter. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             "Aswang" by sweett00th on deviantart.com I don't know if you noticed that each stanza above is an acrostic, where the first letters in the five lines spell out "taste." I have just finished a novel-in-poems about an aswang couple, where the woman is a manananngal like the monster in this poem, and the man is a weredog. Many of the poems in the book have appeared in the blog over the last few Aprils. Wish me luck: the book is out, looking for a publisher. Alan's poem today is equally scary! But in a different way. :-D Medicine When we were barefoot summers long, our mother got prescriptions just for prophylactic use—we took “worm medicine” for months. Its taste was artificial cherry—red as plastic, awful stuff—I’d drink glasses of water just to wash it down. Our mother’s love could force us kids to face our fears once she could corner us inside the house. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 23 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2021

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: Write “an appointment poem. My first thoughts with appointments conjure up visions of doctors, dentists, and parent-teacher conferences. But there are also business meetings and romantic dates.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another. This could be as simple as using a line or image from another poem as a jumping-off point, or it could be a more formal poetic response to the argument or ideas raised in another poem. You might use a favorite (or least favorite poem) as the source for your response.” Mashing up both prompts today in a small ditty after Emily Dickinson (Johnson 927). Here I'm using her go-to, common meter, either hymnal stanza or ballad. Her poem that begins "Absent place — an April Day —" is written in hymnal stanza, slant rhymed, but I'm employing a ballad, more fully rhymed. In the Katoski Greenbelt — beginning with a line      from Emily Dickinson Absent place — an April day without one appointment. No class, no Zoom, no doctors — just the present moment. Here, in these quiet woods I have an appointment — meeting a sprawl of wild bluebells chorusing an indigo chant. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I actually did go for a walk this morning in the Katoski Greenbelt, a park in Waterloo, Iowa, and shot this photo as well as many others of the bluebells I found there. Alan worked with both prompts today, responding to "Under Ben Bulben" by William Butler Yeats with an acrostic Petrarchan sonnet. The line he's playing with is the last bit in the poem, and conceivably the speaker's very last stone utterance. Horseman Considering his soul secure in Christ, Assuming his salvation was secure Since ministers had told him he was pure Through his repentance, sins he sacrificed Against his inclinations; what enticed Could trap him, he was careful. He was sure Of every temptation that might lure, Lamenting the restraint he exercised. Dying before he died by many years, Erroneously thinking joy is sin, Yet going through the motions of the good: Engagement, marriage, even fatherhood Of reservation; he could not begin, Never loving fully, hellbent in fears. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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National Poetry Month / NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2021

Welcome, everyone, to National Poetry Month . . . our annual April poetry celebrations. This is the TENTH year in a row I’ll be doing NaPoWriMo and Poem-a-Day, since 2012. I even published a collection of these April poems in my 2019 book The Coolest Month. Check it out! I’m very pleased to have my old poetry sidekick, Thomas Alan Holmes, writing poems here this month again. Last April, when I welcomed Alan to the blog, I said,“the coronavirus pandemic is keeping us sheltering at home, so why not write a few poems?” Well, it’s a little better now, folks. We’ve got vaccines and the national project to vaccinate is running great. Anyway, welcome back once more, Alan! For you new readers, Alan and I look at the daily April prompts put out by Maureen Thorson at NaPoWriMo.net and Robert Lee Brewer in his blog Write Better Poetry (formerly called Poetic Asides) and write a poem inspired by one or both of the prompts. If that doesn't work, we usually “go rogue,” as Alan puts it, writing a poem without regard to the prompts. Okay, allons-y!   Robert Lee Brewer’s first-day Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, write an introduction poem. Introduce yourself, introduce a friend, or introduce a stranger. If you don’t wish to introduce yourself, consider writing a persona poem (a poem in which you write from someone else’s point of view like Emily Dickinson or a bumblebee). Of course, you could also introduce a problem, solution, or just a situation. Have fun with it!” Maureen Thorson’s Day One NaPoWriMo prompt: “I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by this animated version of ‘Seductive Fantasy’ by Sun Ra and his Arkestra. If you don’t feel after watching it a little bit like the top of your head’s been taken off, and your thoughts given a good stir — well, maybe you are already living in a state of heightened poetic awareness!” Above we have a still from the Sun Ra Arkestra video recommended by Maureen. Parts of this film reminded me of the great Filipino pool champion, Efren Reyes, whose unearthly billiard skills make him, according to some experts, the greatest pool player of all time. In today’s poem, I am merging the two prompts in an acrostic, where the first letter of each line, read together going down, spells out something. Seductive Fantasy Pool  S un Ra’s animation introduces  U s to a psychedelic multiverse of N acreous opalescence and light.  R ainbows of melting shapes   A re the soft flowing bedrock.  A t times these spheres and planets R esemble doughy billiard balls, K icking off a fantasia:  Introducing E fren Reyes! Only he could play these S oft pool balls, carom and careen across T he sky’s velvet felt expanse and R everse pockets. Play on, Brother Bata, A nd show us you’re the Magician here too! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan worked with only one of the prompts today. He told me, “I managed the ‘introduction’ part but will not attempt to claim that the renewal theme of that Sun Ra video influenced the notion of new beginnings in this poem.” Daytrip Elopement Those three hours we drove back to my daddy’s house—our place in Holly Pond back over the state line, two-lane road from Iuka, Mississippi, I thought about Beta Club and how mad Momma would be when I dropped out on Monday, making me go in instead of letting me stop going and start life. My Mr. Holmes, now I was Mrs. Holmes, leaned over for a kiss, with me right next to him, carseat big as a sofa, Sunday clothes so handsome, that skinny boy. My sister ran in and out, and Daddy stood on the porch in tears, relieved to see us, hugged my neck. He called him “Son.” —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? We would love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 23 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2020

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “write a poem about a particular letter of the alphabet, or perhaps, the letters that form a short word. Doesn’t ‘S’ look sneaky and snakelike? And ‘W’ clearly doesn’t know where it’s going! Think about the shape of the letter(s), and use that as the take-off point for your poem.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “take the phrase ‘Social (blank),’ replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles could include: ‘Social Distancing at the Grocery Store,’ ‘Social Media Trolls,’ ‘Social Club,’ and/or ‘Social Distortion.’ Heck, flipping the script to come up with a title like ‘Ice Cream Social’ would totally work too.” My poem today is an acrostic. If you don't know what that is, just read straight down on the left side, only the first letter in each line. I'm following both prompts today. In fact, I'm starting with what Maureen wrote above, “Doesn’t ‘S’ look sneaky and snakelike?” Social Distancing . . . Yeah, Right S . . . all S’s . . . they’re sneaky and snakelike. O h, they want you to think they’re like I’s. C lear, tall, upright, hard. They say, “Yeah,  I am an I. I am a skyscraper. You can trust me.” A ctually, you can’t. They’re still S’s. They’re not L eaders. They think they are. They started this D istancing baloney. So they could be out front  I n charge of everything and everyone. Bull S hit, I say. It’s a Democrat secret plan, buddy. T rump is onto it. He’s not putting up with shit, A nd we shouldn’t either. The doctors, they’re N ot I’s, I tell ya. They’re S’s, every single one. C an’t trust ’em. Now Trump, there’s one real  I . . . we are too. You and me, both I’s. We’re N ot putting up with this fake news virus crap. G o on out and party. Yeah, all good. No fear! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan's poem today takes on a similar approach with the letters going down the page (though not as an acrostic) but almost animating the letters with their own personalities. Social The “S” suggests we’ve not completed the infinite loop and remain hanging like an             unmet high five and down low, separated, badly rendered as some old clichéd             attempt to walk like an Egyptian for a sodden high school reunion, but “O” is all and nothing at the same time, an expression of wonder, a call, a             preparation for a poetic apostrophe, but complete, although one might argue that             it considers itself all-in-one on its own, though empty, as the “C” somehow fails, either empty and spilling out, or empty and agape, ready to             bite into the “I,” which stands rigid, unyielding, and hardly belonging in the word “SOCIAL”             at all, in visual opposition to the “A” in its heroic posture, not the intrusive wide-seated stance of a U. S. Senator in             an airport but the steady, braced stand emphasized by serif feet, accompanied by the “L,” which offers an empathic gesture to the future, forearm extended, palm up             with slightly curling fingers, a genuine invitation even a newly whelped puppy             can recognize, slightly wagging its tail like this word, whose last third offers the             only friendly part. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare! And Happy Shakespeare's Birthday, everyone! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 17 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2014

Day 17. Less than two weeks to go before the end of National Poetry Month. What do you think, friends? Should we keep writing a poem a day after the end of April? Robert Lee Brewer's prompt for today is "write a pop culture poem" (Poetic Asides). Maureen Thorson prompts us to "write a poem in which you very specifically describe something in terms of at least three of the five senses" (NaPoWriMo). Here's my best shot at combining these two prompts. I'd be interested to know what you think, because it's part art history, part art performance. I think. (An "acrostic," by the way, is a poem where the first letters of each line spell out something, reading downward.) Sixties Art Acrostic Haiku Pop Art exploded Out of the bourgeois banal. Painter Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans Upstaged commercial “fine” art. Lichtenstein’s dot-scapes Transformed comic strips Uniquely into huge lives. Roy, Andy . . . to them Everything was pop. Blue storm clouds scudding across Evening, sharp lightning Arcing in bright forks. Thunder rumbling loud like rock Slides on distant cliffs. As rain falls hard, your Lips open, your outstretched tongue Licks air, sweet. Silver Dulcet chimes sound. Did Oldenburg’s pop happenings Ever duplicate Such simple beauty? I know I’m being unfair To Pop Art. So what? —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] The movement of this poem pretty clearly reveals what happened as I wrote. I originally wanted to spell out "pop culture" á là Brewer but after I wrote "Everything was pop" (a line I like quite a lot), I realized I hadn't fulfilled the Thorson prompt. So I had to extend what I was spelling out and the poem took on a little confrontational edge while simultaneously becoming more lyrical, strangely enough. Does it work, do you think? Comment below, maybe? Andy Warhol, "Campbell's Tomato Juice Box" (1964)         Roy Lichtenstein, "Drowning Girl" (1963) Alan's intro for his poem today is short but eloquent: "A baby embodies hope." Naming   for Virgil Wren “Love conquers all things, so we,   too, shall yield to love.”   —Virgil You won the first minute, the first peep you made, and you’re lucky to have such a poetic name, so I hope that you take full advantage of it and laugh off the joke when you learn that “VW” is a popular brand. I’d appropriate that coincidence as soon as possible. I’d learn to draw the logo and make it my standby signature. I’d tuck a towel into the back of my t-shirt collar, like a cape, strip down to my Underoos, strike my hero’s stance, hands on hips, and proclaim myself “Captain Fahrvergnügen.” When other people caught on and started calling me “Beetle” and “Bug,” I’d laugh along with them. Later, when you’re older and edgy, think about “Verge,” how your friends will clip your name and make you sound as if you are always on the cusp of change, keeping folks in constant anticipation. What a gift! And when you’re a man and people say “Virgil” while looking you straight in the eye, there will be some, maybe just one, who will know when it’s welcome to say “Wren” instead. Of all your gifts to come, listen to how people offer again this name in all its permutations, and receive it, again, with love from its first givers. Yield to that love, little conqueror. It’s no surrender. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes     [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Lovely poem, Alan. I'm sure little Baby Fahrvergnügen will treasure it in future years when it will make more and more sense to him. 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. Go check out some pop art. Or test drive a VW.   ヅ

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For Jim and Jeremy

This is the second time a poetry reading by my buddy Jeremy Schraffenberger has elicited a post on the blog. Jeremy gave a Final Thursday Series reading last night at the Hearst Center for the Arts. Just like last time, Jeremy performed other people's poems along with his own — A. R. Ammons, Anne Sexton, and James Hearst — always such a genuinely nice gesture that broadens the idea of what a poetry reading is and can be. (Yup, echoes of Dana Gioia Gioia Gioia).

In any case, the inspiration for this post is that in the Q & A session after his reading, Jeremy mentioned that two of his preferred forms were the acrostic and the sonnet. It just so happens I once wrote a poem combining those two forms: an elegy for another buddy, Jim Hiduke aka Dr. Grammar.

Elegy

— an acrostic sonnet for Jim HiDuke

Frost once called his poems "little bits of
Order"— smoke rings wafting in a darkened
Room, the pen glinting in lamplight, sweet love.

Jim would sketch, scratching a woman's face on
A grocery slip, a face like rain in sky.
Morning drizzle, clean swing, white ball arcing,
Edges the green, a yard from the hole, just shy,
So close, always so close. The fish of legend

Hooked, almost in the boat, then the line . . . snapped.
In the darkened room, that trout would resurrect,
Dull shine snagged now on a line of words — grammar,
Unity, syntax — Jim's days always carved, shaped,
Kindled, like Jack London's last match, last cigarette,
Earning love, life through tight devotion to order.

—	Vince Gotera, from the Dr. Grammar website. First appeared as a memorial to Jim in the North American Review (2004).

Jim Hiduke was my colleague at the University of Northern Iowa. He died of a heart attack at his home on 17 November 2003. Although I have heard that he ran his classes like boot camp, Jim was always kind to me when I was a junior faculty member at UNI. He would often stop in at my office and we would exchange Hoosier stories — Indiana, that is. We would talk of fishing and golf, and he was always welcoming to me on those topics although I am neither an angler nor a golfer. Jim achieved international fame as Dr. Grammar, offering a website with "Rx for your writing ills." He would often say about grammar, fishing, and golf: "I live for this stuff!" Thanks for being a good friend, Jim.

Below: Jim in persona as Dr. Grammar

In posts on this blog, I usually talk about craft and technique. Today, however, let's keep the focus on Jim and Jeremy. Suffice it to say that since the poem is an acrostic, you should also read down the page: look at the first letter of each line. In terms of "sonnet-ness," it's a hybrid. 'Nuff said.

Jeremy, thanks for a magical reading: a marvelous evening of excellent poems and also excellent patter with just the right touches of humor. You really know how to work a room. I wish you the best of luck in your career as a poet and also as a professor at UNI. I hope that I — now a senior faculty member, yikes! — have been as good a friend to you as Jim was to me when I was a newbie.