#NatProWriMo2017

[dowrabeesmith]

Poetry Day Ireland is April 27th. So I reunited with my fellow fools for poetry today in Cavan Burren Forest Park for a walk, picnic and poetry writing. The dogs got walked, too. I shared NapoWriMo’s Day 23 challenge. Which is a form hitherto unknown to me. But, like haiku, it has an unrhymed, strictly defined format.

The elevenie contains five lines of eleven words. Line 1 is a single noun. Line 2 contains two words about what that item ‘does’, with line 3 telling the where or how of Line 1. Line for is supposed to convey the meaning of it all. And Line 5 winds it all up with a single word. Apparently, it is very popular for teaching German as a Second language!

Today’s challenge was to write a double elevenie.

Calf Hut

  Letting the Stones Speak

Rock

Stands still

Cavan Burren forest

Eon’s old limestone seabed

Erratic

  Megalith

Stands proud

Stone Age craft

Art the first impulse

Presence

  NaPoWriMo2017 Day 23 Poetry Day Ireland is April 27th. So I reunited with my fellow fools for poetry today in Cavan Burren Forest Park for a walk, picnic and poetry writing.

[dowrabeesmith]

Day 20 NatPoWriMo2017

Games…sport. I cringed this morning. Smith’s are not known for their sporting prowess. My sister and I have had conversations about how rules of the game makes a part of our brain freeze. Somehow or other, we have still managed to navigate this world. Although I have no clue what I can use for a featured image today!

Play Up

  I was never good at games

The rules numbed my brain

The part…

[dowrabeesmith]

The final day of Poetry Writing Month. I have thirty-two poems down for this April, most have been sparked by the prompt, even if they went a bit tangential.  I quelled at the diplodic verse and the ghazal, didn’t really get the clerihew or noctourne, but fell as much in love with the elevenie as I am with haiku. The final prompt for NaPoWriMo2017 is to write about something that is repetitive. Which is a good topic to return to again and again (!)

Ingress

  Cat’s paw patting

At the windowpane

Hovering on the sill

Neither in nor out

  Let me in!

Again and again

Prove to me

My liberty

  Admit nothing

Not appetite, nor love

Plush pelt,

Purr or head bump

  Stretch seductively

As an Ingres’

Odalisque

With her slave

  Always to hand

To come hither

Again and again

To open

  Admit

Enter the point where

Stars and planets

Will not collide

  They revolve

As thresholds can

In sleep

In dreams

  Watch how they

Admit you

Enter, then freefall

Elegantly onto cat’s paws

  odalisque

NaPoWriMo2017

NaPoWriMo2017

NaPoWriMo

NatPoWriMo2017 Day 30 The final day of Poetry Writing Month. I have thirty-two poems down for this April, most have been sparked by the prompt, even if they went a bit tangential. 

[dowrabeesmith]

The penultimate morning of a month of writing a poem a day, NaPoWriMo2017.  Today, the prompt asks us to take our favourite poem (what, only one?) and pick a noun. Free write around for five minutes. Then, construct.

It had to be a Mary Oliver. But which one? In the end, I realised the one that sings in my heart most is The Journey. And the noun I chose is the title word, since I have always had a fondness for those words with that jour syllable within. And I have also always loved the Irish farewell of ‘Safe journey, safe home.’

Sojourning

  Stillness within movement

Encased in the metal jacket

A bullet train, a jet plane

Propulsion towards barriers

Speed, customs, immigration

But now is the in between

Neither here nor there.

  The day opens, a fresh page

The hand moves across it

In transit

As plodding as Shank’s pony, sometimes

Loud and crowded as the Port Authority

Everyone everywhere is making

Their connection, like poetry.

Safe journey. Safe home.

Journey

Notebook

The Journey

NaPoWriMo2017 Day 29 The penultimate morning of a month of writing a poem a day, NaPoWriMo2017.  Today, the prompt asks us to take our favourite poem (what, only one?) and pick a noun.

[dowrabeesmith]

NaPoWriMo2017 Day 28

I have no stomach for the terse I told myself. I don’t want to do Skeltonic verse. It feels like writing with two left metrical feet.

So this is not Skeltonic verse, but somehow the words still came out a bit terse. Damn, those dipods! Anyway, the last of my notebook’s pages were filled today. I will have to open a new one for the last of NaPoWriMo2017.

To My Notebook

  Nearly full

First draft

Au…

[dowrabeesmith]

It is ironic that on Poetry Day Ireland today’s prompt threw me right back to my origins. That Proustian madeleine for me is a Hershey’s Dark Special chocolate bar. You can take the girl out of PA, but apparently  the woman’s stomach is still ensconced there. Like many translocated people, what we miss is the food of our childhood. I have resided in three countries, so today’s prompt “to explore the sense of taste” was pure nostalgia.

Happy Poetry Day Ireland, from Ireland, even if my stomach is still in PA (that’s Pennsylvania for those of you not raised in state.)

Do You Miss It?

  Do you miss it?

they ask. And I say, No!

  Which is not entirely

a lie. Here’s why.

  I may not be

a PA shoofly pie

  kind of woman.

And please! Hold the scrapple!

  But here’s the thing…

Streusel topping.

  On apple pie.

Cinnamon. Butter. Sugar

  It takes me home. Well,

no more. Maybe 40 years ago.

  I don’t miss it.

Or birch beer. Or Rolling Rock.

  But it lingers

On the palate.

  Like the taste of chawed

curl of silver birch bark.

  Penn’s Woods. And orchard

apple butter on toast.

  When they have me

on the slab, opening me

  they will find Marcellus

rock seam. It tastes

  of green. Or did,

before they got a craving

  for gas. Which spoils

the appetite for your supper.

  So no. I don’t miss it.

Except, I guess, I do.

Evoking taste is a sure fire recipe for nostalgia. #NaPoWriMo2017. Happy #PoetryDayIrl It is ironic that on Poetry Day Ireland today's prompt threw me right back to my origins.

[dowrabeesmith]

Only a few more days left to NaPoWriMo2017.  I have written twenty-eight poems to date, having decided to dedicate April to etching a poetry writing groove in my neural network.  What I witnessed on the dog’s evening exercise was crying to be recorded.

Today’s prompt is to write about what might future archaeologist would make of our civilisation.  And although there is nod to the topic, I went off on a tangent, as is my wont. So this is sort of antidote to paleology.

Without Object

  I did not lift my smartphone

capturing that twilit glimpse –

A cygnet pair honking

their elation. First flight-

wings’ strength, sinew testing

their new form, span and rhythm.

Flap and landing plunge. Then glide

across lough towards sunset.

  If in future time they crack

the code of ancient silicon,

chip away all the data,

construct story around all

the photos, diary notes-

“Dentist, 3pm, Tony” –

excavating this midden

of the digital era,

what meaning will overlay

the absence of a record?

  This maiden flight of two swans

still wearing sooty plumage:

Sunset, shoreline, springtime, soul

The sound of their wild joy

The old dog’s response to their

call. Their lunge at lough water.

Moment without artefact.

Without object, what story?

NaPoWriMo2017 Day 26 Only a few more days left to NaPoWriMo2017.  I have written twenty-eight poems to date, having decided to dedicate April to etching a poetry writing groove in my neural network. 

[dowrabeesmith]

 NaPoWriMo’s Day 24 challenge turns to art for inspiration. But the prompt is very specific about the type of artwork to spur ink flow from pen across the blank page – marginalia.  These are the tiny scribbles where the scribe inserted something of himself. A commentary on the commentary. Many are cartoon like. Perhaps scriptoreum were a bit boring? But contemplating the dark ages mad me go a bit…dark…and ranty.

At the margins

  Scribbles embellishing margins:

hares racing down edges of pages,

pussycats popular down centuries,

rats riding cats, apes riding goats,

monkeys at cricket or rounders.

Here is a mermaid with merman,

but where is any real woman?

  Except in smut – lions licking maidens,

voyeur dragons salivating,

knights with swords drawn coitus interruptus.

There’s a cat – again – running away,

but not with the spoon over the moon

in its mouth.  A sow’s purse is proffered

to yet another woman – at last! –

  She is demurring. Women on broomsticks,

which might be more hum on sexual fun.

Nun marginalia- no wonder

convents, like cats, were popular.

How else to get a decent picture

of your gender on fine, vellum paper?

There are dragons in this bestiary.

  Not  a myth for medieval woman,

barely registering a mention in

the marginalia. Where to find

a woman acting normally? Maybe

holding a book instead of a penis?

Here is one brandishing her spindle

like a spear. Not in retreat, neither

  object of lust nor subjugated

by knights or by dragons or any beast.

Standing sentry by her spinning wheel.

Spinster, turn it! Make it whirl! Fly from

the margins now. Go forth and prick dragons

with your distaff, sending all the dragons

into one long, deep, thousand year sleep.

  NaPoWriMo2017 Day 24  NaPoWriMo's Day 24 challenge turns to art for inspiration. But the prompt is very specific about the type of artwork to spur ink flow from pen across the blank page - marginalia. 

[dowrabeesmith]

Happy Earthday. Today’s challenge is to write a geordic. “The original georgic poem was written by Virgil, and while it was ostensibly a practical and instructional guide regarding agricultural concerns, it also offers political commentary on the use of land in the wake of war. “

    Hymn to Gaia

  What shall we say

to the dying bees?

What shall we say

to the rising seas?

  What shall we say

to the mouths we feed?

What shall we say

as great Gaia bleeds?

  Once, we, with our bodies,

did give you worship.

Now, we, with our bodies,

practice global smash up.

  Go tell the bees, Gaia,

name each dying species.

Go tell the trees, Gaia,

shame greed and anarchy.

  What shall we say, please

to change this story?

What shall we say, please

to ensure Your glory?

  Go tell the bees, Gaia,

to not breathe the air.

Go tell the trees, Gaia,

to please hear our prayers.

  What shall we say

to all our grandchildren?

What shall we say

of our love of Mammon?

  How shall we say

we somehow lost their planet?

How shall we say

why its left so desolate?

  Go tell the bees, Gaia,

while some few are left.

  Day 22 NaPoWriMo2017 Happy Earthday. Today's challenge is to write a geordic. "The original georgic poem was written by Virgil, and while it was ostensibly a practical and instructional guide regarding agricultural concerns, it also offers political commentary on the use of land in the wake of war.

[dowrabeesmith]

Day 21 NaPoWriMo 2017

Day 21 NaPoWriMo 2017

This is today’s challenge:  “I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates overheard speech. It could be something you’ve heard on the radio, or a phrase you remember from your childhood, even something you overheard a coworker say in the break room! Use the overheard speech as a springboard from which to launch your poem. Your poem could comment directly on the overheard phrase or…

[dowrabeesmith]

Day 19 NaPoWriMo2017

Today’s challenge is to write about a creation myth. As I live not  a couple country miles from the Shannon Pot, the source of the River Shannon, it felt only natural to take as my source the Source itself. The poem is based on folklore about how Ireland’s longest river came into being.

Log na Síonna – Síonnan’s Pot

  It always begins with a woman

curious, brave

wanting to be wise

  Síonnan,…