Today’s prompt comes again from napowrimo.net. A seemingly simple challenge, but it’s not, and made more difficult by being given James Wright’s poem as a sample.  Here’s the prompt description:

Day Eleven

On April 11, 2016

And now for today’s (optional) prompt! Today, I challenge you to write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does. I think of the “surprise” ending to this James Wright Poem as a model for the effect I’m hoping you’ll achieve. An abstract, philosophical kind of statement closing out a poem that is otherwise intensely focused on physical, sensory details.

I did try FPR’s astrological prompt, but that just wasn’t working for me, although I found the colour oracle version and the colour horoscope quite intriguing.  The forecast predicted some things I really did not want to think about, Instead, I went with my rather mundane morning routine, reading a little poetry, keeping warm…

Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii) (Wikipedia)

Cold Feet

Outside the rain hammers hard
against the windowpane, but here
inside my warm cocoon I stretch
cozy, wrapped in a new blanket,
its soft plush brushes against my palm
silky as a cat’s coat. It doubles down
to cradle cold feet, drawing away all chill.
Under my head, a downy pillow, two soft
cushions, and a neck rest prop my head
as I read another brilliant Bly poem
in Stealing Sugar from the Castle.
Today I didn’t attend a funeral.

Carol A. Stephen
April 11, 2016

Today’s IMPROMPTU prompt comes from Frank Montesonti:

“Find an erasure text from a usual source – the book rack at Goodwill, a newspaper, an old manual. When you approach the erasure text, however, don’t think that you are trying to uncover just one voice. Think in terms of creating a dialogue. Highlight some phrases or words in one color, then feel if there might be a response to those words somewhere else in the text. How many voices do you hear in the text? Two, three? If so, highlight them each in their own color. What is the conversation that is happening between the colors and in the text?

There might also be places where you feel the two voices overlap. In this case, since you are using primary colors, if you highlight the same words in two different primary colors, they create a new color, a secondary color representing a choral aspect of the erasure.

A fun aspect of this activity is that it can collaborative. Two or more poets can work on the same erasure project by handing a book back and forth and creating a conversation.”

For more about Frank Montesonti, and to view the whole post: http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/impromptu-9-frank-montesonti/

Here is the poem that emerged, each voice shown in its own  style:

What We Carry with Us

Bear witness.  We carry our own pain.
Hatred of the body is deep. Distrust
the process.

Experience the pain of women
consciousness going backward,
denial peeled away.

 you’re so tired. lie down.

 My tiredness profound,
I felt how good I was
at pushing down tears.

don’t ask for light.

 
And I wept for myself,
for my mother, for the endless grief
of losing two children.

 I felt my grandmother’s grief,
her mother died in childbirth
wailing for all women,
not my pain but the pain.

 I knew why I was on earth.
There are no mistakes, no other path,
no words beyond reason.
The veil between is thin.

Carol A. Stephen
April 9, 2016

My source text is the book, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Christiane Northrup, M.D. ©1994 from Bantam Books. pp. 640-641