And now, for our prompt (optional, as always). This one is called “in the window.” Imagine a window looking into a place or onto a particular scene. It could be your childhood neighbor’s workshop, or a window looking into an alien spaceship. Maybe a window looking into a witch’s gingerbread cottage, or Lord Nelson’s cabin aboard the H.M.S. Victory. What do you see? What’s going on?

NaPoWriMo

The triangular skylight 
Faces upward and onward
Deep darkened endless sky 
It makes us think we are alone
They’d like us to think fondly
Of these domes in which we live
On this cold comforting planet 
Eternal poppies and hooting owls
Long sleepfull nights
Days full of curious jewels, uncovering
Liminal spaces that weave between
Our fingers and toes 
But I find the window they
Boarded up
Lower than the knees
Of even the youngest citizens
Black like the wall
But chipping paint reveals its
Decades-long secret
A window fit for a mouse

On my belly I peak through
And see the blue dot
That once held my great grandparents’
Dreams, accessories,
kitchen utensils 
All in that tiny marbled star 
I press my thumb against
The glass
Erasing its existence
With my small body
For hours I play: reveal,
Cover, reveal, cover
I feel an ache and think,
Why am I homesick
For a place I’ve never been?  

Our prompt today (optional, as always), is to write a poem that poses a series of questions. The questions could be a mix of the serious (“What is the meaning of life?”) and humorous (“What’s the deal with cats knocking things off tables?”), the interruptive (“Could you repeat that?”) and the conversational (“Are those peanuts? Can I have some?”). You can choose to answer them – or just let the questions keep building up, creating a poem that asks the reader to come up with their own answer(s).

NaPoWriMo

Why can’t I leave the house without it?

Sleep without it?

Feel safe without it?

The buzzing blue light

Tantalizes your brain cells.

How do I rid myself of the guilt

When I don’t respond now, now

Now?

You don’t.

Why do I feel a buzz in my back pocket

When it’s in the other room? 

It becomes a part of you…

Will my eyes pop out of their sockets

If I stare and scroll all night?

Perhaps.

Will my thumbs break off like lousy carrots?

Your non-opposable thumb ancestors

Would be ashamed. 

Why do I feel depleted when the battery is low?

You’re an empathizer.

Why do I get anxious when I can’t find it?

When it dies?

When I’ve lost the charger, too? 

…

Hello?

Where’s my phone?! 

In today’s (optional) prompt, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by an entry from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The entries are very vivid – maybe too vivid! But perhaps one of the sorrows will strike a chord with you, or even get you thinking about defining an in-between, minor, haunting feeling that you have, and that does not yet have a name.

NaPoWriMo

At night I drift into
A world of ice and fire
Of mad queens
Heinous violence
And palpable love  

I wake up dazed
And ringlorn*
Cold cereal flows down 
My throat
As the pit in my stomach 
Craves dangerous destiny
And life-or-death decisions

Even without white walking
Winter brutality 
There are known enemies
In this world 
Call them racism, viruses,
Climate disaster
We have no epic battleground
On which to fight them
No script to polish off
Our character arcs 
Never knowing whether we transformed
Whether we got what we deserved 

I wear no crown
I swear no oaths
But in my dreams
I sip rose milk with the moon
And listen for the sweeping flight
of the dragon’s tune



*ringlorn: adj. the wish that the modern world felt as epic as the one depicted in old stories and folktales—a place of tragedy and transcendence, of oaths and omens and fates, where everyday life felt like a quest for glory, a mythic bond with an ancient past, or a battle for survival against a clear enemy, rather than an open-ended parlor game where all the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/ 

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a parody. Besides being fun, writing parodies can be a great way to hone your poetic skills – particularly your sense of rhyme and sound, as you try to mimic the form of an existing poem while changing the content. Just find a poem – or a song – that has always annoyed you, and write an altered, silly version of it*

NaPoWriMo

12pm, waking up, snoozed my alarms
Gotta be dressed, coffee in hand 
Gotta log-on to zoom (zoom) 
No one will see me pantless
So don’t feel stress 
Gotta mute myself (mute myself) 
Gotta stay awake

Set-up with my cool background
No one needs to know 'bout my burial ground
Of tissues, of masks, and lots of socks (socks)
Did I actually mute myself? 

It’s Monday, maybe Tuesday
Gotta stay awake either way 
Everybody’s looking forward to a nap, nap 
Wednesday, Thursday 
Not staying awake
Some things I just can’t shake


*Inspired by the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black. The obnoxious lyrics can be found here: https://genius.com/Rebecca-black-friday-lyrics 

Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is to write an “occasional” poem. What’s that? Well, it’s a poem suited to, or written for, a particular occasion…The poem you write can be for an occasion in the past or the future, one important to you and your family (a wedding, a birth) or for an occasion in the public eye (the Olympics, perhaps?).

NaPoWriMo

Raise your glasses

to stability,

Cheers to love lasting 

It’s what our family needs,

has never had

A heritage of newspaper ad love,

sparks flying at AA 

All to become broken-glass affairs

Now, highschool sweethearts

stand before us and say,

Till death do us part

And we believe them

We’re fueled by hope alone

because we have never witnessed

this before

It will not be 

a simple stubbornness against 

breaking sacred vows

It will be a fierce commitment to

be different than our parents

just as our own children will

crave divergence from our mistakes 

Rebels beget rebels 

But first, let us show them 

Respect, laughter and

embarrassing displays of affection

So they know

it’s not just for special occasions

that we love

Today’s (optional) prompt is a fun one. Find a factual article about an animal. A Wikipedia article or something from National Geographic would do nicely – just make sure it repeats the name of the animal a lot. Now, go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could be something very abstract, like “sadness” or “my heart,” or something more concrete, like “the streetlight outside my window that won’t stop blinking.” You should wind up with some very funny and even touching combinations, which you can then rearrange and edit into a poem*.

NaPoWriMo

Curiosity’s perfume can be carried for miles
eventually and inevitably reaching 
its receiver’s antennae
Once the receiver hits an air pocket 
containing the irresistible aroma
they fly up into the sky in a zig zagging dance 
colliding into another pocket of mystery
like popping bubbles
and freeing secrets
The chemical trail is followed back again
to Curiosity 
as the cycle continues 
in shadowy spirals 





*Inspired by this bit from a NG article: “The female moth’s “perfume” can be carried for miles, eventually reaching the pheromone receptors on a male’s antennae. When he hits an air pocket containing the chemical, he’ll fly upward and zig zag until hitting another, following the chemical trail back to the female.” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/pheromones-bee-queens-rule-cats-stay-calm 

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*

NaPoWriMo

To arrange one’s self 
For external sources is
Exhausting --
Tidying your tears 
And bandaging your brain 
But if we kept the dust in the open
It would be the big, pink elephant in the room
Humans can’t look away from chaos
Or difference
And humans don’t like to be the source of
Gawking 

I would know
I am human, after all  



*In response to: “Knocks on the door” by Maram al-Massri, tr. by Khaled Mattawa. Can be found here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/70039/all-good-slides-are-slippery 

In a prompt originally posted this past February, Poets & Writers directs us to an essay by Urvi Kumbhat on the use of mangoes in diasporic literature…Following Poets & Writers’ prompt, today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.

NaPoWriMo

If being a little girl 
was a place
It would be a red-bricked mansion
Windows full of ghosts
Bushes of blue rhododendrons 
And the sweet taste of honeysuckles

Such a small amount of sugar
paralleled against stale cookies,
toothpaste, and candy vitamins
Overpowered and humbled
childish whims 

Delicacy was the name of the game
A slow pull on the bloom to
reveal nectar sweet enough
to ward off the evil intentions
of the hundred year old home
Never meant for children to grow up in

A conveyor of delight as thin as thread
And a bead of nectar obeying
the laws of gravity
Must be quick 
If you want to get a lick

And now for our (optional) prompt. Have you ever heard or read the nursery rhyme, “There was a man of double deed?” It’s quite creepy! A lot of its effectiveness can be traced back to how, after the first couplet, the lines all begin with the same two phrases (either “When the . . .” or “Twas like,”). The way that these phrases resolve gets more and more bizarre over the course of the poem, giving it a headlong, inevitable feeling. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like this one, uses lines that have a repetitive set-up.

NaPoWriMo

Pulled by the past, I make the same mistakes
Pulled by the present, I step on the brakes
Pulled by the future, I plant a strong tree 
Pulled by all three, I am dizzy as can be 
Not in control, no not at all 
Let’s count to three and see who falls 
One
Two
Three
Pulled by the skin of the knees
Pulled by the edge of the coat
Be the last one to vote 
For the state of your throat 

Our (optional) prompt for the day is to write a sijo. This is a traditional Korean poetic form. Like the haiku, it has three lines, but the lines are much longer. Typically, they are 14-16 syllables, and optimally each line will consist of two parts – like two sentences, or a sentence of two clauses divided by a comma. In terms of overall structure, a sijo functions like an abbreviated sonnet, in that the first line sets up an inquiry or discussion, the second line continues the discussion, and the third line resolves it with a “twist” or surprise

NaPoWriMo

Where can I go when I don’t know how I came, ancestry lost 
Grandparents unknown--stuck in the cosmos--paths never crossed 
Whole vessels of unclaimed creators, what am I waiting for?