Category Archives: Writing Challenges

NaPoWriMo 2018 Two Sylvias Press DAY 6

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Have not been able to do the prompts every day, so in the spirit of catch-up, for Two Sylvias prompts:

Day 6 was to build something in the sky or on another planet

The View from Here

nothing but sky: to the left, to the right,
and sky in between. Unending
palette of deep blue.

There should be poems, longhand, written
in cursive across the horizon, each line rising
upward like the scroll of words in Star Wars.

Every day a new selection. Every day
a poem by Robert Bly. Each poem would scatter
seeds down, and from the seedlings, flowers.

Each petal inscribed with lines of verse.
Today I read from a dark purple tulip,
tomorrow, a  periwinkle campanula blossom.

Between the flowers, pink granite rocks,
cut from an outcrop of Canadian Shield.
Wet and sparkling under a different sun.

GARDEN

Carol A. Stephen
April 6, 2018

 

NaPoWriMo 2018 April 9, 2018

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I am a few days behind, but here is Day 9. I will be going back to earlier prompts later to catch up!

 

Day Nine On April 9, 2018 from NaPoWriMo

And now, without further ado, our (optional) prompt for the day. In his interview, Smith mentions “ants roll{ing} epic” – a rather charming image! In honor of it, we challenge you today to write a poem in which something big and something small come together. Happy writing!

 

How Do You Save a Migaloo?

 

Something big and something small
something that’s not here at all—

Is it big gerfuffalumps,
a toobedoo, or two?
Perhaps a herd of buffalo
chasing a small migaloo?

Oh, you must tell me what to do!
Should I save the migaloo?
Tiny creatures, tiny eyes,
not a single tail but two!

Shall I climb up on the back
of the giant gerfuffalump,
harness a team of toobedoos?

I never can decide!
Should I sled—
or should I ride?

A gerfuffalump might step on her
and no one trusts a toobedoo,
the buffalo are nearly there
time to get out of my chair

I raise my stick, I scare them off.
I wrap poor migaloo in a cloth,
take her home and feed her sweets,
sugar cakes and salty treats.

In her own sweet migaloo way
she smiles at me.
It makes my day.

Carol A. Stephen

NaPoWriMo 2018 Two Sylvias Press prompt for April 5

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Running behind yesterday, so for today the April 5 prompt, which was to start with a personal issue or problem and relate that in some way to nature. I remember fields in Italy in August, masses and masses of sunflowers, and the way they turn always to face the sun.

Winter Imagines Spring

 

Each day the air leaches moisture
draws deeper lines into my face,
the left cheek mapped in dark
spots like small brown
lakes, dry as desert sand.

I imagine a farmer’s field gone
to seed in autumn, all brown
branches and faded flowers—
summer’s beauty just a memory
their petals ground to dust.

Yet, come Spring, see
how the streams freshen. Snow
melt-water cascades
down mountains, pools
in the dry lake beds, the fields
turn green with seedlings, their
faded blooms cast off as new ones
form their tiny buds.

By August, the field is alive again
with yellow petals and dark centres
of each sunflower as it turns
its head with the hours
to catch the sun.

from wikimedia commons under creative commons licence 2.0 Maremma Toscana Date 25 June 2005, 10:57 Source Maremma Toscana Author Giovanni from Firenze, Italy

Carol A. Stephen, poem for April 5, 2018

NaPoWriMo April 5, 2018

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NaPoWriMo Day 5

The prompt for April 5, 2018 reads as follows:

“Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like the work in Translucence, reacts both to photography and to words in a language not your own. Begin with a photograph. Now find a poem in a language you don’t know (here’s a good place to look!) Ignore any accompanying English translation (maybe cover it up, or cut-and-paste the original into a new document). Now start translating the poem into English, with the idea that the poem is actually “about” your photograph. Use the look and feel of the words in the original to guide you along as you write, while trying to describe your photograph. It will be a bit of a balancing act, but hopefully it will lead to new and beautiful (and possibly very weird) places.

photo credit Norm Swaebe

 

 

Half Human

These branches, their crooked bends
shaped by water, touched by the wind
and river drift
rest here just a moment.

Echo the shape of arms shading
under a tent of tree bark,
a being half tree, half human passing judgment
on us here.

Nothing written in your wood.
Nothing that whispers your name.

 

Carol A. Stephen

 

I used a poem written in Portuguese, which can be read in both languages at the link below.  I did not include it here to ensure no copyright infringement.

© 2011, Karinna Alves Gulias
From: Maria de Graça
Publisher: Editora Multifoco, Rio de Janeiro, 2011

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/23326/17172/Karinna-Alves-Gulias