The month of April is NaPoWriMo! and so i’ll be writing a poem every day this month, most often using the prompts they offer, each day. This year I decided to share them here on the blog.
Poem #1: Prompt: try to write a poem based on a book cover: We Will Not Cancel Us
we don’t cancel us,
in the future.
we can’t afford to, and
our coding has learned
not to.
our life is circled around
a slowed-down-way,
ushering in we-ness.
our practices, simple
yet deep.
inclusion of breath, body,
the beyond…
always in remembering.
dreams shared, the awake kind, and
from sleep.
pain and joy
given seats at
the table large enough
for all.
adherence to the
laws of nature.
the blue jay calls
we pause.
the wind yawls
we listen.
someone is hungry
we act.
we will not cancel us-
our unspoken truth.
poem #2: Prompt: surrealist questions and answers, make a poem of the answers.
Look to the center of a bird’s chest.
The unseen is more true than the seen.
At the very center lies the dna blueprint.
Look to the stars, and the space between them.
I am like the warming sun after a cold swim.
Poem #3: Prompt: Find a shortish poem that you like, and rewrite each line, replacing each word (or as many words as you can) with words that mean the opposite.
i am running into a new year, Lucille Clifton
I am stuck out of the past
the new years hold forward
like stale air
that I can’t hold onto
like a weak grasp like
none of my new lies and
it won’t be easy to grasp
what you didn’t say to yourself
about yourself
when you were old
and less old and less old than that
even less old but
I am stuck out of the past
and I don’t care about what I hate and
I stay to unforgive me.
poem #4: Prompt: write a triolet (a certain kind of poem formation)
Come on inside, when you’re ready.
depth is awaiting, a resting place.
The breath will take you, slow and steady,
come on inside, when you’re ready.
Maybe a burn, a grip, some grace
the spinning stops, and you are tended.
Come on inside, when you’re ready.
depth is awaiting, a resting place.
Poem 6: Prompt : a poem in a language you don’t know, thinking about the sound and shape of the words, and the degree to which they remind you of words in your own language. Use those correspondences as the basis for a new poem.
inspired by Bernardim Ribeiro’s In the Face of So much Change (original below)
Another tomorrow, sound
courses through the square,
divining experiences,
the tao settles all
A concrete jungle disengaged,
you, and me, we tango into the night
fast, and then slow
we flow, just like the tao
yes, and now we’re paired sound,
within a maze within a square
we cry, through our experience
there’s no denying, we’re within adventure
Antre tamanhas mudanças
que cousa terei segura
duvidosas esperanças
tão certa desaventura
Venham estes desenganos
do meu longo engano e vão
que já os tempos e os anos
outros cuidados me dão
Já não sou para mudanças
mais quero uma dor segura
vá crer as vãs esperanças
quem não sabe o que em aventura
