Prompt #01: No Narrative
Today’s prompt, to kick off our 30 days of poetry writing, is brought to us by poet Sage Cohen.
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Reveal Something Without a Narrative
My invitation today is to say something without actually saying it. To reveal something through a series of images, rhythms, and sounds that give us more of an experience of, or a feeling about, what happened rather than the actual facts, events and story line. The following questions are designed to help you get loose and wander into a scene or two in which you might want to include your reader.
* * * * *
How do you pray? If you don’t pray, what do you do instead – and how do you do it?
What should you have done?
What can a person die of?
What surrounds your house? How does it protect you or not?
Who left you?
How did they do it? What did their face look like as they left?
What were they moving toward, instead?
What do you want to say to God about this departure?
What do you want to say to the person who left?
Where did it leave you? Doing what?
(This prompt was inspired by Larissa Szporluk’s poem “Solar Wind.” I encourage you to find it and compare it to your poem once you have written yours.)
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Reminders for Participants: You can post your poem below in the comments, offer a link back to your site where the poem is posted, or comment about the experience of writing the poem (without actually posting the poem). If you’re going to comment on other participant’s poems, please remember that this is not a critique space — comments should be kept thoughtful and supportive. Lastly, remember you don’t have to use the prompt to write your poem — they’re here for your inspiration but they’re certainly not a requirement.
Let the Wild Poeming Being!
My effort for today can be found at http://feedingthegeek.tumblr.com/post/4255753817/conduit
April 1, 2011 at 2:29 am
Loved Conduit…for me it was an ocean vacation…the realization that there is no getting away from it…escape and repose can bring up memories that everyday life muffles..
April 1, 2011 at 11:42 am
Well, that was a bit terrifying! Lovely prompt, Sage, thank you. And good luck to all of us! Can’t wait to see everyone’s work.
Here’s a link to my poem:
http://nikkimagennis.blogspot.com/2011/04/not-without-poetry.html
April 1, 2011 at 3:25 am
Loved it thanks Nikki. Feel inspired
April 1, 2011 at 7:11 am
Well, this was very interesting. Sage, I couldn’t find that poem online anywhere, but I’m intensely curious now!
Here’s a link to my poem (note that some content of blog may be NSFW):
http://erobintica.blogspot.com/2011/04/mindful-day-1-poem.html
April 1, 2011 at 4:05 am
APRIL FOOLS
Shouldering headlands,
iris bursting to flame,
breakers smoking shoreward.
Whatever’s coming,
here it comes.
April 1, 2011 at 5:51 am
You rock sage!
April 1, 2011 at 7:06 am
500 Bulbs to Bloom in the Dark
Based on a TV report from Japan’s eastern Tohoku region
(damaged most severely by the earthquakes and tsunamis)
When people searched the ruins for signs of life,
a man was looking for other seeds of hope:
five hundred tulip bulbs he’d hung to dry
along the eaves of his deep-rooted home.
So small when imagined in the disaster’s shadow,
tonight they still remain to promise growth
and make him dream they’d bloom to bring tomorrow
back (all his clocks have been broken since he lost
his loved ones). We who share his dream shall follow
him forth, and bury our own bulbs to glow
another day: in many different hues,
complexities and forms, they’ll mark the roads
for everyone like the tender light of the moon
that is always there, and will become round soon.
* “Bulbs” here also refer to light bulbs, which are meant to represent all devices that use electricity. Reducing peak energy consumption is a requirement now in eastern Japan, since some of the power plants (including the Fukushima 1st) are not running.
I’ll be posting poems for those affected by the disaster and nuclear accident.
April 1, 2011 at 7:28 am
Kosuke. Your poem is the first great gift of this month, an anchor for all of us. I am honored by your gift.
April 1, 2011 at 8:14 am
Well Shanna – here is my humble offering.
http://bit.ly/hm63mk
April 1, 2011 at 7:30 am
That’s an amazing poem, Kosuke.
April 1, 2011 at 8:07 am
Nice to meet you all.
Thanks for the prompt.
For lack of a better title, mine is Home
April 1, 2011 at 8:21 am
I didn’t follow the prompt as I already had the idea when I woke up this morning. Unfortunately, I’m not thrilled with the result, but that’s what revision is for.
http://dorlamoorehouse.com/2011/04/01/napowrimo-day-1-4/
April 1, 2011 at 9:00 am
Pingback: Poem-a-Day #1 « Shanna Germain
Damn! I’m such a narrative poet by nature. But I tried not to write a narrative — I swear
Loving all these poems already today!
Here’s mine:
http://yearofthebooks.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/poem-a-day-1/
April 1, 2011 at 9:15 am
Greetings to all! Thank you for this space. Sage, this prompt opened a vein, and this poured out all at once:
Grazie
Eyes straining for that disappearing shore
cannot linger long enough to hold it,
dear ones buried and living, bones and flesh,
familiar words no longer heard,
the land walked on unfamiliar
to feet made rough by trails through
hardship and promise;
if one had a head like Janus, looking
forward while looking backward,
then it would be plain—for love
of us, who and what we are, and could
become, the faces of sorrow
can smile, and troubled hearts find peace.
April 1, 2011 at 9:35 am
Pingback: A poem a day for April « Tony Linde
Mine (not responding to the prompt) is at: http://goo.gl/aPvv8.
April 1, 2011 at 9:55 am
My first poem of the month: http://www.artsroundup.com/wp/?p=2807
April 1, 2011 at 10:11 am
This short form is a Fibonacci, after the Fibonacci sequence.
http://lanijo.com/poetry/upon-hearing-news-my-mothers-death
April 1, 2011 at 10:57 am
First poem of the month:
http://ouroborosandbackagain.tumblr.com/day/2011/04/01
April 1, 2011 at 10:58 am
A link to me poem:
http://puzzleddragon.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/poem-a-day-april-2011/
April 1, 2011 at 11:01 am
Here is mine. I’ve been doing something similar for a few years at my blog. It started as a project for my thesis and sort of snowballed. I’ve been writing a poem every day for three years. Which sounds really long when I write it or say it out loud.
Happy Poetry Month!
At Breakfast 4/1
There is a puddle of copper reflecting the sky
Everything in the universe becomes charcoal before our eyes
My finger in the coffee swirls the cream into a universe of two
Ice glides against the window making that sound that ice makes
You are sitting there staring at a cinnamon roll
All melting separating on ceramic pulling itself apart
We are waiting for it to speak to us to tell us something about something
April 1, 2011 at 11:27 am
I’m too chicken to post this on my blog! I’ll revise in MAY!
I am committed to a poem a day, thanks in advance for the prompts!
Red lips on the phone
4/1/11
I saw the taillights moving away
like a dart
flying away from us, away from me.
The eruption was later, never face to face.
Rankle of conversation gnawing
until we were chewed through.
Here is when I missed you:
A review in the paper, that film we saw
No, the tire didn’t blow
he was beaten, beat to death.
It’s as clear as the coast in tag,
clear as cheers in July.
Damn if I didn’t miss you again.
A salad course after dinner
a spoonful of cheese
buttoned boots
whites in the laundry
and the choke of cat hair,
what’s the matter with dogs?
Today the tug of a splinter
fucking French antiques
We bought them knowing they’d never fit
The frames, the ironing boards,
tossed like tumbleweeds black from thaw.
It’s never about what it seems.
Tomorrow I might want to call
but won’t.
I’ll have something to make you laugh.
I know
The sugar water’s empty but I’m still
standing here with my hummingbird heart.
April 1, 2011 at 11:28 am
Pingback: departures « Prose Posies
Not the nice light poem I was expecting to write: departures
April 1, 2011 at 12:14 pm
One Thing Leads
In the beginning
Lilacs / Perceptions / Light Sabers
Scene two
Dead Winds / Murder /Flabbergasting
Middle-story
Sanitation / Insect Wedding / Night
Penultimate
Ink / Seedling / Phonograph
Ending
Bone / Innumerable /Butterscotch
Fade
Dog Shit / Kiln / Malignancy
April 1, 2011 at 12:14 pm
I found this site through someone’s site and thought this prompt was intriguing, not sure if it’s correct, but I did enjoy writing it.
Hello to some new faces here. Happy NaPoWriMo!
Pamela
April 1, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Tender
Blackbirds in slow light
on the lawn, see
his name is just a whisper
every morning, inhale
exhale
a quiet bow
inhale, exhale
hollow
loose shoulders,
bent neck,
Into his hands,
twenty minutes
aglow.
April 1, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Crap
how many syllables is
a haiku
?
Is it 5-7-4, what would that be?
16?
No, I think it’s 17
wow
One too few
Well, Yeah. I guess that’s that.
One too few
shit
I liked that one
April 1, 2011 at 3:51 pm
The haiku’s art
you’ll never glean
if you can’t count
to seventeen.
–Alan Alda
April 1, 2011 at 8:11 pm
I’m usually a rare bird by today’s standards, a rhyming poet, but this one was inspired this morning.
My first poem of the month:
http://otherwaysofspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/04/fearful-dawn.html
April 1, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Papers Served
I’m a dumb
mute, folded in
as symmetrical
a position a
body can find,
ESP my sins
to Jesus, want
to jive and contort,
mold new shapes
of words.
My mother
guards her abode
with angels.
I ask for a code
to lock all the doors.
Both could keep father
out but mother muted
the papers. It was written
he is no longer
her husband.
I think he first
stepped toward
a payphone, slipped
a few dimes,
and a nickel short,
heard only a hum.
Then he folded
the pages in half,
walked as a dumb
brute with two coins
and a faith to find.
At first, he made me
long for a season
I hate, tucked back
in the huddle and blind.
Instead I grasped
the winter, let it seep
into the marrow of my bones,
beat it out with my blood
April 1, 2011 at 6:31 pm
I had a harder time with this than I thought, but I finally found my inspiration. Here’s my entry:
http://thegermoftheidea.blogspot.com/2011/04/flatprint.html
April 1, 2011 at 7:36 pm
This took a little longer than I thought because I was eating two Carl’s Jr sandwiches and had to keep pausing to wipe myself off.
http://portlandrunner.blogspot.com/2011/04/ditch-poetry.html
April 1, 2011 at 8:18 pm
She loved the sea
and was mine
She still travels me.
Weighs me down
I wanted to know someone had all my answers
she gave only questions
she found life amusing, and
unbearable
four times
and then a fifth.
I was hers
April 1, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Better late than never….
Misconceptions fly
and dance about
Fueled by my own desire
for some utopian accord
I lost hours in these seconds with you
http://feebleattemtpts.blogspot.com/2011/04/poem-day-day-1-late-of-course.html
April 2, 2011 at 10:49 am
Today’s haiku:
Beheading a fish:
metal scales, dark-feather gills,
blood so red, so cold.
(I wrote this on 4/1, but put it in the wrong comment list–my apology)
April 2, 2011 at 1:27 pm
nice.
April 2, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Hi everyone, I’m a little late finding you, but wanted to post my offering for today: http://jacquezyon.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/poem2-winter/
April 2, 2011 at 3:49 pm
white shoulder softness
smooth supple shadowed hair
so much desire
April 2, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Here is the one I wrote for Day One. Has nothing to do with this prompt….just prompted from my own life:
http://jamesestes.tumblr.com/post/4277100959/corner-pocket
April 2, 2011 at 10:34 pm
I wasn’t sure what exactly the prompt was prompting for, so I “cheated” and googled Solar Wind. I suppose it influenced the outcome of my poem, but it was a wonderfully free poem, not like many I write.
My partner said it was far above the others I wrote in the last three days…
Thanks, Sage! The prompt did work for me.
I found the Solar Wind poem here, along with a Mary Oliver poem:
http://wolfcrownandcatbutt.tumblr.com/
April 3, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Better late than never! Here’s my poem, Questions on Unbinding a Girl:
http://www.fictionaut.com/stories/kirsty-logan/questions-on-unbinding-a-girl
April 4, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Everything I ever wanted
Given to another
Without my consent
April 6, 2011 at 7:29 pm