#114: Seven Questions and a Statement (A Sonnet)

The suggestion for today was to write a poem consisting of nothing but questions–until the very last line, a statement.  It’s a reversal of an assignment I remember from  last year which resulted for me in a poem called “Six Statements and a Question.”  This year, I’ve added a little edge to the task: in honorContinue reading “#114: Seven Questions and a Statement (A Sonnet)”

#113: The Child House

The Child House is so called because the children in this building outnumber the adults about thirty-seven to one. Inside over a thousand big children are busy (or not) at some purpose which often remains mysterious to them, but never- theless is perceived by many to be of some importance. Many of the kids love theContinue reading “#113: The Child House”

#112: Ambiguity Racing

Our next entry in the NaPoWriMo festival of fun is a thing called a “replacement” poem. You wiki-search a common noun for a physical thing, copy and paste some text–and then the real fun begins–replace each occurrence of the physical thing-noun with an abstract noun like love or sorrow or happiness.  I chose my all-timeContinue reading “#112: Ambiguity Racing”

#110: Shameless Self-Promotion (An Advertisement Poem)

The NaPoWriMo website today suggests that we try an advertisement poem. That’s an actual thing, apparently.  As an example, the NaPoWriMo curator provides Exhibit A: Said Farmer Brown Who’s bald on top “Wish I could Rotate the crop” Burma-Shave So rather than create a poem advertising Burma Shave or a made-up product or some thingContinue reading “#110: Shameless Self-Promotion (An Advertisement Poem)”

#109: A Poem from Randomly Generated Song Titles

We wanted something more Pastoral but ended up with the Mother of Violence singing Mr. Blue’s Theme surrounded by the luminous Lights of New York. Nothing But Time, we thought, Great. No longer following the tao, Stuff is Way now, no sign today or any time soon of a True Original, no glowing Blue Moon, only aContinue reading “#109: A Poem from Randomly Generated Song Titles”

#108: The Love Song of Bernard Von Scuttlesby

The prompt today from NaPoWriMo is an assignment that I have already done when I mistakenly ripped off the structure and form of a John Berryman poem as my “golden shovel.” I redeemed myself that day by creating a bonus poem based on the William Carlos Williams gem “The Red Wheelbarrow.”  I wish I would haveContinue reading “#108: The Love Song of Bernard Von Scuttlesby”

#107: Ode To Vinyl

  The love poem for my dear wife is forthcoming, especially in light of all she’s been through lately.  Need some time to get it right, though, so, today’s assignment from NaPoWriMo is to write a love poem for an inanimate object. Here’s to another love: Ode To Vinyl I was 23 and bought theContinue reading “#107: Ode To Vinyl”

#106: O Lorde

O Lorde, everyone and their dog is giving you kudos not only because your music is terrific but lately because of a tweet. You posted two pictures of yourself both taken from the same day and the same performance and one of them was photoshopped and the other was not. People thought this was braveContinue reading “#106: O Lorde”

#105: Life, Friends, Is A Golden Shovel and So Much Depends Upon (A Corruption and a Correction)

OMG.  The assignment today from NaPoWriMo was to do a clever little thing called a “golden shovel,” wherein you write a poem for which ALL of the ending words for each line of your poem are taken in total from some other famous poem–so that, a person reading your poem could read the original famousContinue reading “#105: Life, Friends, Is A Golden Shovel and So Much Depends Upon (A Corruption and a Correction)”

#104: Lunes for the Loon

Today’s poem is a variation on the Japanese Haiku, but instead of counting syllables, 5-7-5, we count words, 3-5-3. A lune can be, like a haiku, a single one stanza poem, or lunes can be strung together to form a longer poem. For no better reason than for the sound of it (which is asContinue reading “#104: Lunes for the Loon”