It’s taken me a while to pull together a full collection, but it’s coming, and it’s coming this year! I couldn’t wait though, to share the cover, because it’s so beautiful!
Coming later this year…
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Category Archives: Poetry
NaPoWriMo Prompt 20
Day Twenty On April 20, 2022
“….And now for today’s (optional) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food. It could be a favorite food of yours, or maybe one you feel conflicted about. I feel conflicted about Black Forest Cake, for example. It always looks so pretty in a bakery window, and I want to like the combination of cherries and chocolate . . . but I don’t. But how does the cake feel about it?”
Eggs, Being Weird
Scenario: Breakfast.
Eggs on the plate, sunny-side up. Bacon,
stretched out alongside. Eggs don’t like it.
****
“Why you always crowding me?” they ask.
“You’re too crisp, likely to poke a hole in
my big sunny-yellow eye! Getcher own space!”
***
“And, yo, you! Toast! Dried-out pieces
of flour and water! Need butter and jam
for any hint of taste!”
***
“But us, we eggs are versatile, tasty, good
hot or cold, fried, poached or omelette-ified!
And we’re not weird, even for snacks!”
Carol A. Stephen
April 27, 2022
NaPoWriMo Prompt 18
Day Eighteen On April 18, 2022 “…Last but not least, here is today’s prompt (optional, as always). It’s based on Faisal Mohyuddin’s poem “Five Answers to the Same Question.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.”
Five Answers to Something
Cotton socks, black, white
and tan, pairs for all occasions
***
tee shirts, all the colours of the rainbow
long sleeves for winter, short for summer
***
fleece pajamas, two pairs, with nightgowns
some with pants too, some without
***
sweatpants, grey, purple, navy, wheat,
sweatshirts, grey, white, and lighter grey
***
sweaters, striped and plain, wool and polyester,
thick stitch and thin, every kind for every sort of weather.
Carol A. Stephen
April 18, 2022
NaPoWriMo Prompt Seventeen
Day Seventeen On April 17, 2022
“…here’s our daily (optional) prompt. This is a fun one – it’s a prompt developed by the comic artist Lynda Barry, and it asks you to think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you.”
****
Well, I’m mostly a cat person, so…but there is one dog, lives next door. Still a puppy, but the voice is well-developed by now.
No Life for a Sled Dog
Mornings, early, he’s let out
into the yard near my kitchen window.
Not much to amuse him: a water bowl, bricks,
planters filled with dirt to scratch in.
***
He whines. And whines. Then breaks into a howl:
the kind of sound you hear out in the woods
when there’s wolves about. He holds a note
like an opera star: high-pitched and sorrowful.
***
Dog’s too big, too full of energy for a townhome.
He ought to be out running, not tied up in a sparse
yard. Not held on a short leash when it’s walk time.
I feel sad to hear him sing his dog song.
***
Evenings, he accompanies the piano I can hear
through the living room wall. Sometimes the sound
rises to the bedroom, but faint, and I wonder what
the words might be if he had words to sing.
Carol A. Stephen
April 17, 2022
Quillfyre 