When my parents were going out, the house stank of perfume and cologne, aftershave and hairspray, a suffocating amalgam of indescribable smells found nowhere in nature, but pleasant somehow to my young nose, a festive, anticipatory smell of dancing and booze and card games and the precursor for me to a fast food dinner, beingContinue reading “#117: Date Night”
Tag Archives: National Poetry Writing Month
#116: Pants on Fire
I hate teaching and I hate my students. I’m terrible and they’re terrible. What they say is true, that those who can’t teach end up teaching– and that’s me. And my colleagues, they can all just go to hell for all I care. None of them are good company; nor are they good teachers. I’veContinue reading “#116: Pants on Fire”
#115: Terza Rima (A Complaint Ending In Banana)
I’m sorry about this one. Written late in the day when the brain is mush, it’s a terza rima, a form invented or popularized by Dante and bastardized by the English: 3 line stanzas in iambic pentameter with a “chained” rhyme scheme that ends in a single line chained to the middle rhyme of the lastContinue reading “#115: Terza Rima (A Complaint Ending In Banana)”
#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)”
#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)”
#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”
Embarking On Yet Another Forced Creativity Experience
Happy National Poetry Month! Beginning tomorrow (this is no April Fool’s joke), I will attempt for the second year in a row to participate in the NaPoWriMo challenge of writing a poem a day for the entire month and publishing each poem here on the blog site. I promise, no cheating; I will not be publishingContinue reading “Embarking On Yet Another Forced Creativity Experience”
#100: Serious About Poetry
I have just now reached my personal goal of writing 100 poems in a year! I know poets who have written a poem every day for a year, so this may not be the most amaze-balls news of the world, but it’s amazing for me. I think it’s a personal best, a personal record. I’veContinue reading “#100: Serious About Poetry”
100 Poems by April
The title of this little blog post, I realize, is deceptive. Please know that you will not find included herein 100 poems by a person named April. Rather, it is my hope and goal (hence, this public announcement) to write my 100th blog poem by April 1. My rationale is, initially, silly. In April ofContinue reading “100 Poems by April”
michael jarmer 