The optional assignment from the napowrimo website: Today, I challenge you to fill out, in no more than five minutes, the following “Almanac Questionnaire,” which solicits concrete details about a specific place (real or imagined). Then write a poem incorporating or based on one or more of your answers. It took me longer than fiveContinue reading “#205: Lord Capulet Takes an Almanac Questionnaire”
Tag Archives: National Poetry Writing Month
#204: During Act Two, Capulet Writes A Poem
I know what’s coming. It’s happened before, as if in a loop, in exactly the same way each time and it never ends well. But I’m always surprised: the shouting in the streets, the alarm, the subsequent chaos, my wife charging into the fray screaming bloody murder over the death of nephew Tybalt. And I’mContinue reading “#204: During Act Two, Capulet Writes A Poem”
#203: Capulet Speaks of His Daughter’s Grief
Today’s assignment from napowrimo is to write a thing called a san san (three three in Chinese), a form that incorporates a particular rhyme scheme pattern coupled with the repetition of three images three times throughout the eight line poem. That’s a mouthful. It was difficult. In fact, I failed somewhat with the form. My poemContinue reading “#203: Capulet Speaks of His Daughter’s Grief”
#201: ABC Shakespeare
This may be obvious to anyone paying attention, but I have of late had Shakespeare on the brain. It’s a pattern with me, I think. The last time I took on a role in a Shakespeare play the same thing happened: my entire creative output became infused by the bard. Trying to write songs inContinue reading “#201: ABC Shakespeare”
#199: A Poem from Director’s Notes
A Poem from Director’s Notes (for Michael Mendelson) Move the language forward. Move the language, lift the language. To whom are you talking? There are only three possibilities: the earth, the gods, or another human being. If it happens to be a human being, ask yourself: how do I feel about the person I amContinue reading “#199: A Poem from Director’s Notes”
#198: On the Edge (a book spine poem)
For today’s book spine poem, I find these gems in the green room during another 10 hour rehearsal for Romeo and Juliet. I’m feeling particularly inspired. It could be a two poem kind of day. On The Edge The classical monologues and scenes for women, by women telling tales with all the timing in theContinue reading “#198: On the Edge (a book spine poem)”
#197: Lord Capulet Speaks of the Unspeakable
Note: Here’s a persona poem in which the speaker is aware of his author/creator and for which the writer/actor slaved all day to make the damn thing rhyme and then asked one of his fellow actors to take a picture of him as Lord Capulet. Also, this poem responds to the napowrimo optional prompt in a kindContinue reading “#197: Lord Capulet Speaks of the Unspeakable”
#196: The Actor’s Nightmare
He stirs in the middle of the night, suddenly certain there are speeches in the play that he’s missed, didn’t even know were his, and on which he has not yet begun to work–days before dress rehearsal. In his sleep these lines appear with vivid specificity; he can hear the words and see the typeface and they seem every bit as realContinue reading “#196: The Actor’s Nightmare”
#195: Curtains
I hold her body in my arms, dead and not dead, my child and not my child. I am Lord Capulet and Kate is Juliet. In life we are virtual strangers, but on stage, I hold her in my arms and under the hot stage lights I weep for her death, or close to it. IContinue reading “#195: Curtains”
#194: On the Occasion of Working an Eight Hour Teaching Day and then Moving Directly to a Five Hour Rehearsal for Romeo and Juliet and Not Having Time to Write a Poem
In this moment I sit in the green room and write a poem when I should be working my lines.
michael jarmer 