Welcome to the very first day of National Poetry Writing Month, 2024, the goal of which is to write a poem every day for 30 days. I have nearly lost count at this point of the number of consecutive years I have participated in this ritual. I venture to say twelve. For twelve years in a row I have written a poem every day during the month of April. This year, because I am a glutton for punishment, and because I want to finish a book I started in 2023, and because I want to do some other experiments as well, I have made a totally non-binding pledge to write TWO poems a day, one of them following the prompt of the day (or not) from the NaPoWriMo website, and the other continuing with the project I started for myself last year, to write a sonnet every day during the month of April.
So as not to throw off my numbering system, (the number in the title of the blog entry being the number of total poems I have posted on the blog), I will post the two poems as separate entries, a bonus (or an annoyance) for the good folks who subscribe to this site.
Here’s the first one, a poem in response to a prompt to recount the plot, or part of the plot, to a novel I have read a long time ago. The prompt asks, further, that I do not revisit or look up the novel, but that the poem be based solely on my recollection, however imperfect. So here goes:
The First Novel I Ever Read
The first novel I ever read
from front to back was probably
Where the Red Fern Grows.
All I remember is that it was about
a kid and his dogs.
Or was there only one dog?
At any rate, one or both
of these dogs end up dead
in some tragic turn of events
that I cannot remember.
Were they poisoned, accidentally
shot? Were they attacked
by a rabid animal, purposefully
shot, put to death on account
of rabies? I don’t know.
But I do know that
the death of that dog
or those dogs is the only
thing that stands out now
some fifty years later
about this novel.
And I bet dollars to donuts
that it’s the only thing adults
my age can remember about
the thing unless they’ve
reread it in recent years.
Was it a good book?
I cannot say.
My gut tells me that it
was simply a very effective
vehicle to make children weep
over the death of imaginary dogs.
Good practice, one might say,
for the inevitable, heartbreaking,
and cyclical experience of a
life with real ones.
michael jarmer 
I love this. I thought about using this book too, but all I could remember about it was it was about a boy and his dogs and the dogs died. My fourth grade teacher read it to us a chapter at a time and she couldn’t get through it without crying, but she did voices for all the different characters, and I remember that more than I remember the story itself.
Yes, that is a clever ploy! Insightful poem 🙂