Progress: Just finished a pantoum ostensibly about peaches, inspired by a few lines from Bessie Smith’s “Mama’s Got the Blues.” I’m now only one poem behind.

Prompt for today: Dash30Dash’s Sunday Bloody Senryu.

Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.

Progress: Well, I’ve been sick. I even took yesterday off work, and I have to be really sick to do that, since – as a temp – I don’t get sick time, and (instead of writing poetry) slept and tried to keep my electrolytes up.

I had written a poem about cheese (after the G.K. Chesterton quote that’s been going around twitter: “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”) and a poem about my husband’s body parts, so I’m up to 16 poems written this month putting me two behind. Now that I’m feeling human again, I intend to try my hand at some more poems about food.

Prompt for today: I’m rather taken with Read Write Poem’s prompt from yesterday: missing something, or something missing. If that doesn’t work for you, you can always write about cheese.

Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.

Day 15:

I’ve been trying to get in the habit of writing for an hour or so in a coffee shop in the morning.  I work from home and I’m finding I need some kind physical-spatial work/writing/rest-of-life delineation.  There are a lot of coffee shops within a few blocks of my house.  So far the one I went to on this day is at the bottom of the list.  Sorry, Waves.  I spent the time revising (I really enjoy revising, most of the time–I know many writers don’t like it so much, but it’s one of my favourite things) road trip poems in preparation for…

Day 16:

First installment of my new writing group.  This is the first thing of the sort that I’ve done since finishing my MFA.  There are 5 of us, all poets (among other things) with various interests, levels of experience and degrees of being established.  We looked at everything from concrete poetry to a job posting.  It felt great x 10000 to spend some focused time with writers and talk and think about writing again.  The plan is to meet every month, and I’m stoked.  Having that small externally-imposed deadline to force gently encourage me to write isn’t a bad thing, either.  For my part, I tabled revisions of the first three road trip poems.  That was fun.  One of the other writers had brought a poem about snow geese, too.

Day 17:
Finished formatting and printing out submissions for 5 journals and a chapbook publisher.

Progress: After I posted yesterday, I wrote a pantoum in praise of avocados, and the better part of a poem about oranges, so I’m taking tonight off, eating half-price Easter candy and watching bad television.

All righty, well, I’m feeling good because, after a few days of food poisoning, and then another few of parental visiting for the holiday, I’m back on the poem-a-day wagon. I actually collected a few fragments during my off days, so it wasn’t a complete loss – and now I’m feeling peppy and ready for more poems! I might even write another one today!

It reminds me a little bit of dieting – even if you blow it by eating pepperoni pizza and a sundae in one night, you can always go back to your virtuous skinless chicken breast with apple the next day.

Progress: The object poem went so well yesterday that I decided to try another today, and I’ve just finished “An Argument Against Brussels Sprouts.” I think I may do a whole series about food. This is fun. Please feel free to suggest foods about which I may have unexpected depths of pathos and/or passion. Next up: avocados! (In case there’s any question, I am pro-avocado.)

Prompt for today: Read Write Poem is doing where you come from.

Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.

Okay, if four words is now the bar :), I’m golden:

Bring the delusions back.
I ache from staring
into what I am, the quick
and soft and limited
which touches cold and limitless.
Wonder conquers fear
but only dreams can bring me sleep.

Also, I updated WordPress, ladies; please let me know if something breaks while you’re posting.

Progress: I wrote nothing yesterday, because of Barrister’s Ball (like prom for law school), which was fun. I’ve caught up today, using a prompt from the Speakeasy (“Define yourself“) and another from Writer’s Digest (“Write a poem about an object“). My defining-myself poem is only okay, and not very inspired, but the object poem is pretty good, I think. It’s called “An Argument in Favour of Blueberries,” because I recently found out a friend of mine doesn’t like them, and was all, “WTF is wrong with you, lady? They’re blueberries! How can you not like them?” I had no idea I was so strongly pro-blueberry.

Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.