National Poetry Writing Month – Page 13

#446: I went without a drink, days: sixty-five

Welcome to day eight of sonnet mania and the effort on my part, during this most hallowed of months, National Poetry Writing Month, to write a new sonnet every day for thirty days. Before we dive in, a few introductory notes. Here’s another convention of the traditional sonnet that some readers may not be familiarContinue reading “#446: I went without a drink, days: sixty-five”

#445: We really should have seen it up ahead . . .

Day 7 of Sonnetnado! Let’s talk about rhythm for a second. For the uninitiated, a sonnet, along with being 14 lines long and following a rhyme scheme, also follows a rhythmic structure we call iambic pentameter, which is a 10 syllable line with five accents, the stressed syllable follows the unstressed, so tapping outContinue reading “#445: We really should have seen it up ahead . . .”

#444: Don’t ask me why. I cannot meditate . . .

I think I have exhausted all of the portmanteau slang I can think of: sonnetpalooza, sonnetmageddon, sonnetpocalypse–so we’ll have to try something new. Welcome to day 6 of the festival of sonnet, a sonnet-storm of 24/7 sonnets, all sonnets, all the time. I’ve said this before–I am not a traditionalist or a formalist. I amContinue reading “#444: Don’t ask me why. I cannot meditate . . .”

#443: Of building and construction I have had . . .

The sonnetpocalypse continues on day 5 of National Poetry Writing Month. Here’s a home improvement sonnet with a dangling unrhymed couplet–because I can. Another note of interest, at least to me, is that the rhyming couplet at the end, before the dangler, uses an archaic phrase that I have always been fascinated by—the adverbial phraseContinue reading “#443: Of building and construction I have had . . .”

#442: I named my undergrad creative thesis . . .

Welcome to sonnetmageddon, day 4. Not even 1/6th of the way through the month, I have a sense of something taking shape in the way of a connective thread, beyond the repetition of this formal structure, the sonnet. Just four poems in, it might at this point be pretty oblique–so I mention it here justContinue reading “#442: I named my undergrad creative thesis . . .”

#441: The bug for travel does not sit with me . . .

Welcome to day 3 of my sonnetpalooza. All sonnets, all the time. 24 hour sonnets. I’m feeling pretty groovy about my progress. I find myself, even, a bit ahead of schedule. As of this third day, I have composed five of these babies. The jury is out about whether I will post more than oneContinue reading “#441: The bug for travel does not sit with me . . .”

#440: These are the worst dogs we have ever had . . .

Welcome to the second day in the festival of sonnet, wherein, I have determined, in celebration of NaPoWriMo, to write a sonnet every day during the month of April. The dilemma always during National Poetry Writing Month, whether you are doing your own thing or following the lovely prompts offered by the NaPoWriMo website, isContinue reading “#440: These are the worst dogs we have ever had . . .”

#439: The poet Larry Levis said or wrote . . .

Greetings! Happy April Fool’s day. Far be it from me, though, to play a prank on you, dear reader. So, I begin today holding true to the self-challenge of writing 30 sonnets in 30 days in celebration of National Poetry Writing Month. For this first one, I have decided to be faithful to the ShakespeareanContinue reading “#439: The poet Larry Levis said or wrote . . .”

NaPoWriMo 2023: A Sonnet Festival

Don’t ask me why, not just yet anyway, but I am moved this year as I anticipate the first day of National Poetry Writing Month to veer away from my annual practice–not by skipping it, or by doing something different, like working on prose, for example, like some fiction writers do in the fourth monthContinue reading “NaPoWriMo 2023: A Sonnet Festival”

#438: Human Nature (a cento on April 30, 2022)

As it is the very last day of April, hence, the last day of National Poetry Writing Month, I kind of wanted to go out with a bang–to do something ambitious. That’s the worst way, FYI, to begin a writing thing. “Today I am going to do something great” is a path to abject failure.Continue reading “#438: Human Nature (a cento on April 30, 2022)”