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Marina (NaPoWriMary 9)

I started with Joanne’s link to O’Hara, and re-read “The Day Lady Died”, and then randomly looked at all the poems whose first line begin with M and found Pound’s translation of “The Seafarer”. And realized that I wanted to riff on it. So I began:

I sing for myself               words of my own making
to ride out rough times               in rough seas.
The chop and calm               become the same,
the current carries               pain and pleasure
equally away               and equally as fast.

but I am much too tired to keep it up. I want to come back to this one. (This makes the third poem I have swirling that is a translation of an existing poem, all in languages I do not speak.)

simple dreams we can believe in

Progress: Yesterday, a free verse thing, which can be salvaged into something, I think. We’ll see if that optimism survives the month. Today, the shortest poem I’ve ever written, at four words (five, if you include the title), but also possibly the best short poem I’ve ever written. (We’ll see if that optimism survives the month, too.)

Also today, two publications: “The Grave Marker” at Every Day Poets and “Cicadas” in the new print journal 42 Magazine. It’s a DIY culture meets literary high-brow meets the little magazine, sort of thing, and it’s pretty awesome. I especially liked L. J. Geoffrion’s story and Jo L. Gerrard’s poetry. Pick up a copy, and watch for their summer issue, in which I’ll be the feature poet. Sample issues are only $3.

Prompt for today: I’m going to make up one of my own, based on one described in 42 Magazine. Write a poem containing the following five words: pepperleaf; seeds; juice; amusement; woodpecker.

Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.

your mind an aviary

Progress: Terrible free verse with a few good lines today (of which the title of this post is one). Oh, well, I can’t be a genius all the time. I had an idea for tomorrow’s poem, which I’m going to sort of poke at nervously tonight in the hopes of getting some kind of start on it, since Wednesdays are bad writing days for me (bar trivia night – Barley House patrons, represent!).

Prompt for today: From the Speakeasy, “Write about being underwater.”

Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.

NaPoWriSilly

I do not want to write today
said little Peggy Ann McKay.
I have a life, or maybe tunes,
would rather sport and run with loons.
(Bad picture, there,
what do I care?)
I have a tic in my right eye
that makes my meter go awry.
My pencil’s wet, my pen is dry,
alliterations multiply.
My neck is stiff, personas weak,
you’ll hardly miss me when I sneak
some stolen words into my verse.
NaPoWriMo can’t get much worse…

NaPoWriMary 6

I think the last two days’ work has been too serious. Today, at Job 2, Clayton gave me this punchline (which, on another night, could have become a serious poem, and still might):

For a Botanist

Key this leaf.
Monocot? Dicot?
Its time of flowering?
Its neighbors in the field
or wood or coastline of the marsh?
The men who’ve walked
out of the rising sun
(their skin too pale
to know its rays)
have offered me my weight
in millet for these stringy stems
found roadside
as they entered my domain.
Ah, my kingdom…

Take Two (NaPoWriMary 5)

I was challenged to re-write yesterday‘s poem idea without a rapist, as they are, possibly, “easy antagonists”. (See “Mr Hyde’s Daughter”.)

So, I got about twenty lines in, building story, but don’t think I have the stamina tonight to finish. Violence is short-hand for many things but sister-speaking is a longer thing. More on this later.

Opening lines:

You went when the banners came.
Your war found me mid-field,
misbehaving, tongue-slip of your name
stilling the overseer’s slap. Magic