Everyday Poetry

Day 19: " In her poem, “ Florilegium ,” Canadian poet Sylvia Legris gathers together many five-lined stanzas that describe flowers but also play with the sounds of their names, their medical (or poisonous) qualities, and historical aspects of herbalism. Today, pick a flower or two (or a whole bouquet, if you like) from this online edition of Kate Greenaway’s  Language of Flowers . Now, write your own poem in which you muse on your selections’ names and meanings." I've picked my favourite (the daffodil),  my daughter's (the rose), and my  mum's (the freesia).  Like us, they wouldn't make a coherent bouquet, but singly they are all rather special. Legris doesn't name the flowers in her verses and I've followed suit, hoping their identity is obvious from the description.  As an additional clue each verse begins with the first two letters of each flower.  Dancing in the breeze, faces demurely lowered, Pure unadulterated joy in a swathe of sunlit gold,  A s...

Day 18: "Take inspiration from  dramatic narrative poems such as  Alfred Noyes’s “ The Highwayman .” The action is dramatic, there’s lots of emotions, and the imagery is striking.  We invite you to try your hand at writing something that could be a section or piece of such a poem. " This is way out of my comfort zone! Dramatic narrative poems have a whole structure of their own. The Highwayman has 15 syllable lines and a rhyme scheme of aabccb. Well, you gotta love a challenge, and whilst there's no pirates, bank robbers or mermaids, there's plenty of emotion and drama. The girl she is a hurricane, a force both fierce and wild, You'd think she was a changeling, not the common human child, She'll be completely charming for an hour, become enraged the next, You'd never think it possible,                                                       ...

Day 17: " write a poem in which you respond to a favorite poem by another poet." The difficult part is choosing which of my favourites to respond to! In the end I settled on a poem I enjoyed yesterday:  Elizabeth Boquet's The Blues , which in turn is after Wendy Cope's Some More Light Verse ", both excellent poems. My poem is more by way of self encouragement than a reflection of achievement.   You can do it! You have to try. You have to walk. You put it off. It's only talk. You say you will. You know you won't. You pretend you want to, but you don't. You sit for hours. You get quite stiff. You sigh and dream. You live in 'if'. You have to move. No pain no gain. But standing hurts. You sit again. You know there's nothing left to do, But grit your teeth and push on through. You try one day. You walk for ten. The next day twelve. You try again. You try so hard. You don't give up. You reach twenty, and speed up. You still hurt. You still ...

Day 16: " Try writing a poem in which you describe something that cannot speak, and what it has taught or told you." This prompt brought to mind the image I turn to whenever I'm stressed out: in a dentist chair, having a medical procedure, whatever. It immediately floods me with calm and i will be forever grateful to my ex-husband for suggesting it to me as a useful technique,  as I lay there on that Portuguese beach so many decades ago.    In a weird coincidence, after I'd written this I discovered that I wrote about this same thing exactly two years ago in a response to a Napowrimo prompt, which shows this specific memory is still strong even if my short term memory is failing!  Refuge I carry with me a blessing. A memory Of sand-worn, sun-bleached azure slats Will summon the peace of a drowsy moment Basking in slightly-too-hot, but longed-for sunshine, The smell of sardines over an open flame, The laughter of children on the breeze. Conjured, it can drown any pres...

Day 15: "  K. Siva Reddy’s poem, “ A Love Song Between Two Generations ,” weaves together repetitions, questions, and unexpected similes with plain language. The overall effect is both intimate and emotional, producing a long-form meditation on what love is, what it means, and how it acts.  Today, we’d like you to write your own poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners." My poem deals with love we have for our animal companions, who are just as much a part of our family as our human relatives.  Portal She's telling me of her golden retriever  Chewie, Named after Chewbacca, and twice as furry. An old man now, he stalks stiffly across the screen,  Noses her hand, huge eyed. She tells of vets visits, Of accidents in the night, of lumps and tests, and worry. She hugs him tight, once for herself and once for me,  Our own issues on hold while we share unspoken memories,  Sorrow and a...

Day 14: " Poetry is an ancient art, and one that revisits themes that existed thousands of years ago – love, nature, jealousy. But that doesn’t mean that poets live in a sort of pre-history unaffected by technological advances. Emily Dickinson wrote about  trains , and I’m rather charmed by  this 1981 poem  about the “incredible hair” of actors on television. In a more recent example, Becca Klaver’s “ Manifesto of the Lyric Selfie ” draws inspiration from the contemporary drive to document everything in digital photographs. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that similarly bridges (whether smoothly or not) the seeming divide between poetry and technological advances." Well, my poem just had to be about gaming! My grandsons and (to a lesser extent) my granddaughter are hooked on Roblox games, and disappear up to their rooms straight after lunch whenever I'm visiting on a Sunday.  Hopefully it's not just an excuse to get away from boring old Granny!  Generati...