Monday, April 01, 2013

Let the Poem-a-day Rumpus Begin!

Today kicks off National Poetry month and one of the activities I've done for the past few years has been to write a poem-a-day during the month of April.  So, today is April first and so the poem-a-daying begins!  This year, a few of my friends are going to be joining me.  If you read this and think, man, I want to do that too! Then hop right in!  Here is the prompt for the first day (courtesy of the lovely poet and promptess Lisa Cihlar):

1. Not another happy ending, I'm sick and tired of happy endings.

So, what to do to write a poem in a day?  Here's what I do.  I look at the prompts first thing in the morning.  With the prompt in mind, it's easier to think like a poet all day.  Then, sometime during the day carve out a small window of time and write whatever has come to mind down. When you poem-a-day, you are only creating drafts, so there is no pressure! 

So dive in and check in later today to see my attempt at a draft! Once you write your own draft post it as a comment to this blog, or to my facebook post (or keep it to yourself if you want to and just let us know you completed your poem for the day). 

Here is my poem for the day:

Hyacinths


Flower sprung of sandy soil and fresh blood
how you bloom a room alive. With bright head
lulled over with abundance. There are days
when I believe in happy endings--
fog lifts leaving green hillside glistening.
A few deer come into view their heads bowed down
to the possibility of understanding
earth's buried secrets. But doubt is like that.
Here I am carried away by the scent
while underneath the sandy soil your
dark roots tangle, and grasp--trying to hold
on to belief, or the false promise of spring.

7 comments:

Nicole Callihan said...

http://nicolehefner.blogspot.com/2013/04/day-1.html

carol dorf said...

Not another happy ending, I'm sick and tired of happy endings.

In Notorious Cary Grant doesn't tell
Ingrid Bergman that he loves her until
she lays on her death bed, poisoned
by her Nazi mother-in-law and too short
husband. Otherwise the romance subplot
(or was that the plot) would have disintegrated --
not that there was much chemistry between them,
though there was plenty of kissing. I suppose

the point was the party girl redeemed by service
to her country which includes an arranged
marriage to a man deemed unsuitable along
numerous dimensions, not to mention
the horrid mother-in-law. Is being carried
out of the death-house a happy ending?

Eventually, perhaps. If she lives.

carol dorf said...

Your poem is lovely -- I like the way you buried the prompt.

Athena said...

The Fairy Tale Saint

arrived with her basket of goodies
her forest scent her relatives all in a row

gave herself up to the authorities
without even an argument

three times she knelt three times she cried
three times the hooded man nodded in approval

such weeping and wailing afterwards
no one lived long enough to witness her beatification

godmothers everywhere tucked the story
below their sleeves beneath their kerchief

children on playgrounds free from grownups
call out evermore to one another off with your head

Athena said...

That was Athena. Not sure how to get it to indicate it was me?

Iris Jamahl Dunkle said...

Wow you guys! These poems are so good!

Unknown said...

Against the Grass

Her body, in the grass of the park,
is like the Great Depression.

How the skin hangs against the emaciation,
sallow like the starving calf I once pitied
as I leaned against a barbed wire fence.

Her body is misplaced amongst the children's toys.
Is spread-out in a mess of blankets and tangled hair.
Matches the distance foothills, their emptiness.

Idling at the stop sign, I stare, I stare, I stare.
Automatic, I turn to the park.
The instinct to look for the happy ending that was never there…

Looking for the face of my mother
But finding just another transient stranger.

A.Kirby13