Tag Archives: National Poetry Month

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 5 a Three-Fer

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NMP-BANNER-DToday I have a poem for each of three challenges, the NaPoWriMo.net, Poetry Super Highway, and the Impromptu #5 from Found Poetry Review.

 

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At NaPoWriMo

The daily prompt challenges us to consult seed catalogues and seek out heirloom plants as inspiration for a poem today.  I chose the suggested tomato plants, for the reason given: the names are so wonderful.  Here is my poem, Heirloom:

My source is an Ontario location, in order to use plants that I could actually grow here in the Ottawa area http://www.terraedibles.ca/index.html

 

HEIRLOOM 

Various heirloom tomato cultivars

Various heirloom tomato cultivars Wikipedia)

 

No one there is who does not love tomatoes
is what Frost should have said each spring,  as gardeners
turn to catalogues and dream their August dreams.

No Belgian chocolate for me, instead an Amazon Chocolate,
full of flavour in its flattened oval, sliced on a plate
beside the yellow-red streaks of Allegheny Sunset.

Ghosts in the shadows, silver-sheened leaves
of this year’s  prize Angoras garnish a summer salad:
yellow Apricots jostle Azoychkas and just ripe Banana Legs.

Believe It or Not, every one of them tomatoes.

Carol A. Stephen
April 5, 2016

(first line paraphrases  Robert Frost’s Mending Wall)

 

At Poetry Super Highway, today’s prompt was a fun write, encouraging us to write a Creation Myth poem for a kitchen item.  Here’s my attempt, a Creation Myth for Oatmeal.

 

CREATION MYTH: OATMEAL

In the beginning was the Flake,
flat, without colour. Flake needed substance,
to cling to its brothers, to form a greater whole.

Oatmeal directly from the packing.

Oatmeal directly from the packing. ( Wikipedia)

With the first rains from the heavens, each Flake knew joy.
Each Flake swelled into greatness as it welcomed
the worshipping moisture.

But the Flakes were not yet whole.
Their joy soon dimmed as they floated
without substance upon the waters.

Behold, the rain passed away and there came the sun.
And a second time each Flake swelled but
joy was elusive.

And the Flakes dreamed they must know water and warmth
together. They consulted Oracle who told them verily
to seek out the Lord High Bowl, that they must cluster there.

And the Flakes sought out Lord Bowl, and climbed inside
Bowl’s vessel. For the first seven days, they waited. The eighth day
the heavens opened and behold, there fell a sun shower.

Rain poured down into Bowl. Sun heated Bowl till it glowed.
And Flakes were transformed. On the ninth day Bowl beheld
Oatmeal and it was good!

Carol A. Stephen
April 5, 2016

Breakfast of raspberries, blueberries and oatmeal.

Breakfast of raspberries, blueberries and oatmeal. (Wikipedia)

High Fiber Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies. (Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, the Found Poetry Review prompt, today from Sarah Blake, calls for a poem that follows the rhythm of a song.Found Poetry Review

At first, I was imagining I’d need a month to even start to tackle this one. Until I remembered the blues.  It may be a bit of a shortcut, copout or cheat to go with that, since it is a rather simple form. But it’s what I went with and on a day when the thermometer has slipped well below zero (Celsius) the lyric is appropriate!

English: Comparison of Centigrade (Celsius) an...

Centigrade (Celsius) and Fahrenheit thermometer scales (Wikipedia)

Weather Blues

 

Don’t want that chill wind hangin’ outside my door
Said I don’t want that chill wind hangin’ outside my door
Bringin’ me blue fingers like it done before

It brings me the shivers, it brings me cold feet
Yeah, it bring me the shivers, an’ it bring me cold feet
Cold bringin’ me down when the weather ain’t sweet

Don’t want that chill wind hangin’ round my door
No, I don’t want chill wind hangin’ round my door
If it ain’t good for springtime, don’t want it no more

Wind blows in the mornin’, and all afternoon
I said it blows in the mornin’, and all afternoon
It ain’t good for springtime, and it ain’t good for June

Fridays it blows in, blows all weekend too
yeah Fridays it blows in, blows all weekend too
Come Monday morning, man, colour me blue

Don’t want that chill wind hangin’ outside my door
Said I don’t want that chill wind hangin’ outside my door
Bringin’ me blue fingers like it done before

 

Carol A. Stephen
April 5, 2016

 

 

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 4 FPR Impromptu Le Jazz Hot

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Day 4 from Found Poetry Review comes from Woody Leslie:

WordBlocks http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/impromptu-4-woody-leslie/

We’re given the following steps to create our WordBlock.

  1. Write a word.
  2. Make a list of other words that are related to this word, in meaning or in spelling.
  3. Combine these words into one wordblock sharing letters. (See pictures for example)
  4. Keep rearranging, adding, or subtracting words until you have a wordblock you like aesthetically both visually, and linguistically. A wordblock rarely looks great on the first try. Wordblocks have vast potential both handwritten, and typeset either digitally or with moveable letterpress type.
  5. Your wordblock can stand alone as a one-word poem, or be placed in a sentence. Try stringing multiple word blocks together. The result is a sentence that provides multiple ways to navigate it.

I started with the word Jazz, because I was already thinking about hot colours for my NaPoWriMo.net post, to write about the cruelest month for which I chose September. I’ll share that here before going back to the blocks!

Day Four  NaPoWriMo

On April 4, 2016

First American edition of T.S. Eliot's The Was...

First American edition of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In his poem “The Wasteland,” T.S. Eliot famously declared that “April is the cruelest month.” But is it? I’d have thought February. Today I challenge you to write a poem in which you explore what you think is the cruelest month, and why. Perhaps it’s September, because kids have to go back to school. Or January, because the holidays are over and now you’re up to your neck in snow. Or maybe it’s a month most people wouldn’t think of (like April), but which you think of because of something that’s happened in your life. http://www.napowrimo.net/ (Be sure to visit there for links to other poets and for the chosen poets for today.

 

 

 

PHOTO: CAROL A. STEPHEN

PAKENHAM, ON. FALL 2015

Here’s my attempt at a September poem.

What Month’s More Cruel than September? 

 The world’s awash in brilliance, hot colours of September
jazz tones like fire. With shades like that, it should be summer.

Instead—

fall raises its cold cruel head, chill winds blow east to
bring the whole show down around our feet.

September.
Its fading song the first harsh notes of the death
that is late fall. Even the frigid white of winter
is not so cruel as the sudden slip into late September.

Carol A. Stephen
April 4, 2016

 

 

So, then, from the word Jazz, I created a list of words:

Jazz  HOT red licks, rhythm
riffs riffin’ improv
backbeat bebop blues blow

vibes licorice stick trombone
horn clarinet jam jammin’ jive
Chicago syncopation  syncopated
New Orleans  Dizzy Miles Wynton.

I decided to make a Wordle to illustrate my block of words, so I needed to copy the words over a few times to highlight the main ideas.  I played around with colour, font and layout for a bit, then went with this:

wordle 3

 

My sentence or poem:

Le Jazz Hot

Hot jazz syncopation
the rhythm the rhythm
mean reds slide to yellow
blow orange blow blue
sweet licks from that licorice stick

Carol A. Stephen
April 4, 2016

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 3 FPR Impromptu

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NMP-BANNER-DFor Day 3 on FPR, we have a prompt about Creative Staring from Nico Vassilakis.

http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/impromptu-3-nico-vassilakis/ and a helpful interview with the poet, shared by James W. Moore, fellow challenge participant: http://bodyliterature.com/2014/02/24/what-is-vispo-an-interview-with-nico-vassilakis/ 

While I am not a follower of Vispo, in the spirit of community I decided to give this a go once, but I warn, I am not artistically inclined, so my poetry will always be through the written word. Here then, my attempt to portray the ocular auras that are the form my migraines take, and which have been visiting with the weather changes we’ve been having the last couple of weeks here in the Ottawa area:

Migraine Translations

 

English: This is an approximation of the zig-z...

example of zig-zag visual disturbance experienced as a migraine aura. (Wikipedia)


What Is Postmod   ism?

Is the aim of mod     aily life and of thought organic?

 Does the passa       be charted between

heterogen   us languages

belong to a differ      der of cognition?

 

Would it         al synthesis?

What            autiful?

What     said to be art?

 

What do         ck of reality signify,

free from na        w historic interpretation?

 

How to mak    isible

somethi     ich cannot be seen?

 

What the   the postmodern?

What pla     oes it occupy

in vertig   us questions

hurled     e rules?

 

What spa    ezanne?

What obj     icasso,

image     arration?

What     upposition Duchamp?

 

What i  stmodernism?

 

 

 

 

 

 

NaPoWriMo April 2, 2016 FPR Impromptu Living Like Wrinkles

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FPR Prompt for Day 2 by Collier Nogues

“This prompt is modeled after that project. You can start with any piece of junk mail or advertising, or any legal document or bureaucratic form (it’s tax time!). Choose a few sentences. Remove the nouns. Replace them with:

  • words from a poem you’ve abandoned
  • words from one or more poems you love (by anyone, yourself included)
  • any other source that works

From there, work what you’ve got into a poem. This prompt can be a throwaway prompt to generate a few lines, or it can become the engine for a situational poem”  http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/impromptu-2-collier-nogues/

Here’s my attempt:

Living Like Wrinkles

 

Invisible reached epidemic proportions April 1st,
11 million people living down the street with blank eyes.
Another diagnosed every three faces.

English: Teme-bozu (the ghost of a blind man, ...

Teme-bozu (the ghost of a blind man, with his eyes on his hands) from the Hyakki-Yagyō-Emaki (Wikipedia)

Every blank eye needs a needle-prick and many others.
Skin is a member of that team, registering with every old lady
cast down to count cracks. As well as they possibly can,

many people live like wrinkles in old skin, play metal on metal.
A critical grind the cornerstone of crooked smile.
Each day people need invisible knowledge of the smaller mind.

Carol A. Stephen
April 2, 2016

 

Sources: excerpt from an article, World Health Day focus on diabetes encourages taking charge to live well.  http://www.diabetes.ca/newsroom/search-news/world-health-day-focuses-on-diabetes?feed=CDA-Latest-News-RSS

and

remix with words from the poem Invisible, Carol A. Stephen, first published in Arborealis, A Beret Days Book, by the Ontario Poetry Society, Feb. 2008

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