Day Six ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “I’d like to challenge you to write a variation of an acrostic poem. But rather than spelling out a word with the first letters of each line, I’d like you to write a poem that reproduces a phrase with the first words of each line. Perhaps you could write a poem in which the first words of each line, read together, reproduce a treasured line of poetry? You could even try using a newspaper headline or something from a magazine article.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, take the phrase '(blank) in the (blank),' replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: 'Poem in the Pocket,' 'Skin in the Game,' 'Money in the Pot,' and/or 'A Devastatingly Good-Looking Person in the Mirror.'” Maureen's prompt today is akin to the golden shovel form. The typical golden shovel quotes a text by placing each word of that earlier text at the ends of the lines in the golden shovel poem. This form was invented by Terrance Hayes, named after the epigraph of Gwendolyn Brooks's poem "We Real Cool"; in fact Hayes's first two golden shovels were based on that iconic Brooks poem. In Maureen's prompt, the quoted words appear at the beginning of the lines rather than the end, which has been called a reverse golden shovel. My poem today merges the two prompts and also works with Brooks's "We Real Cool" in homage to both Brooks and Hayes. P O E M   R E M O V E D while being submitted for publication.   Please come back later. The poem may return at some time in the future. Thank you!                 Image by axonite on Pixabay Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 27 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2019

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “I’d like to challenge you to ‘remix’ a Shakespearean sonnet. . . . You can pick a line you like and use it as the genesis for a new poem. Or make a ‘word bank’ out of a sonnet, and try to build a new poem using the same words (or mostly the same words) as are in the poem. Or you could try to write a new poem that expresses the same idea as one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, pick a direction, make that the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. There are so many directions: north, south, up, down, left, right, over, under, etc. But there are also more specific directions like ‘Across the Way,’ ‘Through the Woods,’ and ‘Beyond the Clearing.’ Or give directions like ‘Clean Your Room,’ ‘Tie Your Shoes,’ or ‘Get Over Here.’ ” Merging both prompts as usual with a golden shovel riffing on Shakespeare’s (in)famous send-up of romantic conventions on how to describe one's love in Sonnet 130. The golden shovel is a poetic form invented by Terrance Hayes; his poem “The Golden Shovel” riffed on Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool” by using the words of her poem as the endings of lines in his poem, in order. Actually Hayes’s poem does this twice with Brooks’s text! Many poets have imitated Hayes and thus the golden shovel form was born. My inspiration was today’s snow . . . snow! I notice that my language in this poem is different, perhaps because I am being influenced by Shakespeare's expression. I'm not trying to be particularly Shakespeare-like, but definitely there's an atypical feel to my writing here.

From the North, She Cackles

a golden shovel concocted
from the opening line of
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130

Ye gods, I cannot even believe my
eyes: Lady Winter in her harsh mistress’
role has returned and contemptuously eyes
us with sardonic humor. Snow clouds are
spitting out flakes today and nothing
of spring seems to remain, just like
an assassin dusting off a victim. The
Ice Dominatrix has slain Apollo the Sun!

—Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]

Snow photo I took today . . . late April!

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

Day Seven, friends. We've gotten to a week, and roughly a fourth of National Poetry Month. Two days ago, a sixth of the way through, yesterday a fifth, and now a fourth. It's going by much too fast, don't you think? Today's prompts are simple, uncomplicated. At NaPoWriMo.net, Maureen Thorson suggests a love poem to something inanimate. At his Poetic Asides blog, Robert Lee Brewer's prompt asks for a self-portrait poem. Mixing the two prompts again ... here you go, a couple of tankas. Bass jewel blue body recurved fiberglass bow strung with five metal lines deep translucent sheen mirrors my face: I am the guitar fingers boom thunder through your gut : the neck lightning music the arrow flash through golden air : bliss : fire its face : the guitar is me —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's Alan's intro to his Day Seven poem: "Well, somebody lucky named 'Kathy' got a poem dedicated to her when Vince wrote 'Since a New Spring' for Day Four. And, then, Vince got me to thinking about 'golden shovel' poems, and 'Since a New Spring' has a lot of visual images in it, so I decided I would try it again. As you can see, the last word of each line imbeds Vince's poem. I hope it works." Dividing the Curio Cabinet for Vince Gotera When she lived, we thought it was junk. Voices soft, we touch what she forbade, each silvery trinket, the ceramic German children dodging rainshowers, huddled under a giant umbrella, some advertisements, like the Sherman-Williams plaque of paint covering the Earth, an image hidden now but reawakened from more associations with our young mother. As I remember and you both ask again about the crystal vase in which she placed first blooms, announcing spring, the valentine sunblanched to magenta one of us made in second grade, we can’t help laughing. And here, the remnants of her pearly Nativity scene, where Joseph and Mary lean like lovebirds together over an empty manger, the 45 of “Sing a Song,” autographed by Richard Carpenter, slipped into a Webster’s Collegiate to keep it safe, the periwinkle dish remaining from her girlhood tea set (or from her sister’s), my Halloween picture captioned “Indigo Montoya” because I misunderstood Princess Bride. As skies turn twilight, we find among the delicate old keepsakes newer flea market stuff, the blue velveteen box containing lacquered Ben Wa balls, tinny cantatas played by a glued-together music box, a purring toy cat with a sound chip in it, albino salamanders cast in a Lucite paperweight, and tigers screenprinted on reproductions of old Auburn football tickets. I’d gently put them, too, away, and quietly, no lie needed to cover her desire for curios; down at the flea market, she could afford a pretty thing, and it didn’t matter what it was for. Let a feathered roach clip nestle against a sterling baby spoon, a Jimmy Carter peanut with a Green Man beer cozy. She saw fine gossamer tissue in the webbed wings of hologram dragons. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes     [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan, it definitely works. This poem really has the heft of actual objects, of lived experience — especially the 45 slipped into the dictionary and the misunderstanding of Princess Bride. Thanks for the dedication to somebody lucky named Vince. I'm so impressed 'cause "Since a New Spring" had 33 words in it! Sorry I had a "the" as the fourth word. Perhaps a curio that looked like a "the"? A sibling's clay school project, bookends that had a "the" for the left one and an "end" for the right, say. Great poem! Friends, won't you 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 starts "Posted by" and click on the word "comments." Ingat, everyone.   ヅ

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P.S. Added on 8 April 2014: blue bass, blue shirt, blue shades, blue 2012.

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

Hello, everyone. Yesterday, on Day Five, we were a sixth of the way through the month. Today, the numbers switch places: on Day Six, we are a fifth of the way through. Interesting, huh? Okay, with no further ado, let's turn to today's poetry suggestions. Robert Lee Brewer: "For today’s prompt, write a night poem. Vampires and werewolves? Cool. Clubbing and saloons? You got it. Lovers together alone? Right. Ex-lovers alone on their own? Sure thing. You figure out your night poem–and, yes, (k)night poems are fine too." (Poetic Asides). Maureen Thorson: "Take a good look outside your window" and write down nouns, colors, and verbs from out there, then use the "whole list of words . . . to build a poem, mixing and matching as you go." (NaPoWriMo). In order to mix these prompts, I faithfully waited for night to fall. Then I looked out my window, and here's the poem the universe gave me this night.   ヅ Night Through My Dining Room Window Glowing squares of tan and bright ecru shiver in black air, like cellphone screens shimmering fire. Paving stones levitate above invisible ground, stone gray smeared with dark mossy green. Lampposts are tall matchsticks striking their Saturn yellow and Venus blue haloes against violet sky. The university’s campanile, on the horizon, along with nearby pine trees, scrape clouds, secret rocketships set to soar forever among stars and nebulas. The jungle gym, royal blue and hot-wheel orange by day, sprawls now, a chameleon-skinned octopus or friendly technicolor spider. Forest green picnic table dreams of kids laughing and somersaulting near its shiny bent-metal elbows and knees. “Nothing is happening,” sings a five-year-old girl to a new baby brother. Everything is well. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here is Alan's intro for today's poem: "Vince was feeling so good about writing a 'golden shovel' poem yesterday that I thought I would try one, but I was in a fix, because I felt that Gwendolyn Brooks's 'We Real Cool' had already gotten adequate representation. However, my colleague Catherine Childress once wrote a solid parody of it: The English Professors Five at El Charolais We real neat. We Go eat. We Munch chips. We Leave tips. We Write verse. We Might curse. We Shoot bull. We Get full. —Draft by Catherine Pritchard Childress    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] "El Charolais (named for a breed of bull — it's a French breed brought to Mexico for a while — the Mexicans at the restaurant pronounce it El Char-uh-Lice) is the favorite place for many folks in our Department of Literature and Language at East Tennessee State University, and, unfortunately, many more men go on these lunches than do women, although we regularly ask our women colleagues to go with us. In that spirit, this poem invites more of our colleagues to accompany us to lunch (if Catherine doesn't get this hint, I'm flummoxed)." Bull Session with respect to Gwendolyn Brooks and Catherine Pritchard Childress When we gather at El Charolais when we can get away for company, the real experience of colleagues, not the neat and documented meeting minutes. We make jokes about it, but before we go we recognize we want more than to eat some tasty food. We want to gossip. We will see young parents steal a hurried munch and pacify a restless child with chips as each of us has done. Sometimes, if we feel shoptalk guilty, just before we leave we’ll act the fool in case the workday tips to utter shit once we get back. If we avoid discussion of the stuff we write, that means we don’t extemporize our verse with beer and habanero sauce, and we all share the superstition that we might, describing drafts, bring down the dreaded curse of writer’s block. Please come with us, and we will mask affection as we do, just shoot the breeze with thoughtful pause, our big white bull temptation to a happy place where we, communing, yearn to share what chance we get to laugh and plan, more than our bellies full. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes     [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Such a treat to have Catherine's poem on the blog today. You may recall that in 2012, she was my poetry partner in the blog during National Poetry Month. Love the slapstick of Catherine's parody of Brooks above and then Alan's subtly humorous tribute to both "We Real Cool" and "Professors Five." Brava and bravo to the two of you. I'm also glad to have the cultural thread that joins today's post with yesterday's — a Mexican thread — first, the axolotl, and second, El Charolais cattle. Charolais Bull by Wilfredor (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons Won't you 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 starts "Posted by" and click on the word "comments." Ingat, everyone.   ヅ

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

Okay, friends, it's Day Five today: one-sixth of the way through National Poetry Month and the first weekend. Get to work on your poems, everyone!   ヅ "[W]rite a discovery poem," prompts Robert Lee Brewer today. "The narrator could discover an object, a person, an animal, a dishonorable deed, or any number of things. Poets can focus on the discovery, examine the aftermath, or even just mention it in passing" (Poetic Asides). "Today I challenge you to write a 'golden shovel,'" urges Maureen Thorson. "This form was invented by Terrance Hayes in his poem, "The Golden Shovel." The last word of each line of Hayes’ poem is a word from Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem "We Real Cool." (NaPoWriMo). In her post today, Maureen has more suggestions: for example, writing from other small poems, such as "Watermelons" by Charles Simic. Okay, taking on both prompts at the same time today. Wish me luck! Discovery — A Golden Shovel after Terrance Hayes and Gwendolyn Brooks Friends, what can we discover if we think only about what's real? Or worse yet, what's cool? No, no. let's stretch our minds. We can look beyond right and left. Forget all we learned at school. Geometry, civics, chemistry we detested in high school. There lurk old bugaboos and heartbreaks. Late friends, relatives, and enemies we had forgotten have died. Let's strike out into perilous wilderness, straight into rapacious light of the sun we take for granted every day. Let's sing of flames and waterfalls, saints and sin. Seek the exotic, delicate axolotl we have glimpsed only on the internet. Thin tall sequoias. Rare Tanqueray Malacca Gin. Whatever elegance and bright glory we can chase. Rockabilly and acid jazz in the voluptuous summer daze of June. Fiery spaceships. Icarus wax wings. We need to jump without looking. If we die we die. Let's live, live, live . . . and soon. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Okay, that's my best shot at a "We Real Cool" golden shovel today. I need to live with the poem longer — days, months, a year — and let it simmer. I've been after my student poets lately to eschew the abstract and embrace the concrete, but here I am with lots of abstraction, so not practicing what I preach very well today. Anyway, here's my golden shovel for now. Hope it works well enough for the nonce. Are you maybe wondering about the axolotl? It's a Mexican salamander that's pretty amazing looking. Okay, now on to my NaPoWriMo buddy Alan's poem for Day Five. He says, "I'm playing with the non-Greco-Roman mythology idea again, deciding to add another tale of the adventure of Coyote, English adjunct instructor, and dragging Raven into it." All right . . . double tricksters! Coyote Asks Raven for Assistance in Grading Freshman Compositions Coyote, adjunct, teaching comp, distressed, his essay pile a week behind, the grading grind depressing him to tears, aroused by gentle tapping, stood to find friend Raven, one whose confidence in every sense enthused the Trickster trapped by rubric, syllabi, and work. “Oh, Raven, help me, please!” Coyote cried, “Good friend, to grade so many essays makes me fall into despair. How might I find relief?” His head cocked to one side as if to view the matter with clear sight, coy Raven said, “Give them all A’s, and no one will complain.” Coyote thought and then replied, “Some don’t deserve those grades and might become through my neglect school teachers, judges, priests, physicians, university administrators—no!” Friend Raven then suggested fire. “No good!” Coyote yelped. “They turned them in by Internet; I could recover files.” “Then line them on the sidewalk. I will flap my wings, and those that do not move deserve the A’s because they’ll have more weight.” Coyote found no flaw and lined the essays on the ground, and Raven’s wings beat hard to blow them far away. “Stop! Stop!” Coyote cried. “I’ll never find them, blown away! I have to print the batch and start again to get my work done right. I was a fool to follow your advice.” “Indeed, you were,” replied his friend, who flew beyond Coyote’s reach and cawed at compositions, good and bad. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes     [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Excellent poem again, Alan. Reminds me of the old joke among composition teachers of throwing essays you're grading down some stairs: the further an essay falls the higher the grade because obviously that essay has some substance.   ヅ   You could even label each step with a grade, starting with A at the bottom step. I also appreciate how Raven and Coyote hearken back to Native American trickster mythologies. And the subtle connection with Poe is fun too. I thought Raven would say "Nevermore" at some point! Friends, won't you comment, please? I'd particularly like to hear what you think of my golden shovel. Or what your own ventures have been with this form. Alan would love to get some feedback on Coyote and being an adjunct college instructor. To 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" and click on the word "comments." Ingat, friends — take good care.  ヅ

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