Category Archives: Poetry

#26: Meditative Mowing

Here’s something new for the poem of the day, with only four more days to go: an audio performance!  I’m reading this poem into garageband using my Blue Yeti microphone.  I think it turned out pretty well.  Let me know what you think! Meditative Mowing Pay day was two days ago, and now, bills paid,Continue reading “#26: Meditative Mowing”

#25: The American Teenager Has A Theory About Walt Whitman

The American Teenager Has A Theory About Walt Whitman Looking for inspiration for his own portrait of the poet, referencing a famous drawing of Uncle Walt, hand on his hip, in a gesture of confidence, I’d say, with a kind of challenging and quizzical look in his handsome, young face, the boy says, Was WaltContinue reading “#25: The American Teenager Has A Theory About Walt Whitman”

#24: I Love and Hate You, O Internet

Because I could not find inspiration in today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo (a challenge to make an anagram poem from my name), I submit the following instead.  This is an animal called an apostrophe.  An apostrophe is a figure of speech that addresses an audience that cannot respond, either because it is a dead person, aContinue reading “#24: I Love and Hate You, O Internet”

#23: On Trying to Read Moby Dick Again (A Triolet)

Moby Dick has become my white whale, not that it’s bitten off my leg, but that it haunts me, taunts me, torments me, because this novel by Herman Melville has the distinction of being the ONLY book I truly love that I have not finished reading–after repeated attempts! It baffles me, because every time IContinue reading “#23: On Trying to Read Moby Dick Again (A Triolet)”

#22: It’s Earth Day

It’s Earth Day and I rode my bicycle to work, but that’s a thing I do almost every day. I allow myself a little smugness for making more than the obligatory nod. I can pat myself on the back for making the decision to live in the neighborhood in which I work, so a thingContinue reading “#22: It’s Earth Day”

#20: Owl and Cyclops

Today the NaPoWriMo website provided a seemingly random list of words, challenging us to incorporate five of them into a poem. I used all twenty-eight words on the list. And I used them in the exact order they appeared on that list, which worked surprisingly well! I didn’t know them all–I had to look severalContinue reading “#20: Owl and Cyclops”

#19: Monkey Bar Encounter

The assignment from the NaPoWriMo website today calls for a personal ad poem. There used to be a thing in one of our local rags called “chance encounters.” I don’t know if they’re still publishing these, but I found them compelling, and I always wondered how likely it was that the intended audience would everContinue reading “#19: Monkey Bar Encounter”

#18: Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken

Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken I know! I have an idea: Let’s pretend the schoolhouse is broken even though we know it’s not so that a tiny number of thinkers and bureaucrats, of which I am one, can invent and impose new rigorous standards on educators and students (because certainly those educators and studentsContinue reading “#18: Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken”

#17: The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters

The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters They’re just making stuff up. Here’s one that says that Li Po was Wang Wei’s evil twin, his doppelgänger, or that the two poets were, in fact, the same guy, a sort of Jeckyl and Hyde affair. Here’s another that says Li Po was drunkContinue reading “#17: The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters”