Category Archives: daily prompt

The Ocean

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Day Zero of NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). Or is it NaPoWriMo eve? I shall endeavor once again to meld with my muse and meet the challenge of writing a poem a day for the entire month of April.

Our first (Early Bird) prompt from NaPoWriMo.net is to 

Pick a word from the list below. Then write a poem titled either “A [your word]” or “The [your word]” in which you explore the meaning of the word, or some memory you have of it, as if you were writing an illustrative/alternative definition.

From the list (which I won’t reproduce here) I chose the word “ocean.” Hence:

The Ocean

Bestower of bounties:
one may fish for a feast
or dive to the depths 
plucking pearls from the peace.

Betrayer of boys
setting sail on the seas,
seduced by the Sirens,
then besieged by the beast.

Mantra of mindfulness,
mysterious muse,
meandering metronome,
hewer of hues.

Destroyer of destinies,
splitter of seams,
shattering ships and
drowning brash dreams.

Thunderous thralls turn to
tranquil translucence.
Balmy or bawdy,
a nymph or a nuisance. 

Such is the kaleidoscope,
the ebb and the flow.
We are moored to this tempest;
mind, body and soul.

First Lines

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Yesterday’s poetry prompt over at the dVerse blog was to revisit the poems we wrote last year, and using the very first line of 11 poems (one chosen from each of the first 11 months of the year), combine them to make a new poem. The title of the poem is to be the first line from a poem written in December.

Since I barely wrote more than 11 poems, there wasn’t much (any) choice of lines to select. Hence, I humbly present my “found” poem: 

Winter Resolve Reigns

When first we breached primordial ooze.
April buds curling
New buds dripping cold rain

Little cherub on mama’s lap
Sweet Violets in the garden grow.

It’s been a dry summer.
Cut boards apart, then reassemble.
Whose parking lot, I have no clue. 

A lazy rain beat symphony
Boots sinking deep in mud-browned melting snow
Oh, to yet be young

The full set of rules for this particular writing challenge:

Poem Style:
• write a ‘Found’ poem from your own Jan-November 2023 poems
• write it as an 11 line list/catalog poem
OR
an 11 line verse poem (with or without stanzas)

Poem Structure:
• choose from one poem per month
• select ONLY the first line of the very first verse of your chosen poems
• select your title from the 12th month or any of the previous months’ first lines
• if you’ve posted less than one poem per month for Jan-Nov 2023 then choose a month where there is more than one to make up the 11

Poem Rules:
• your 11 lines can be written in any date order
• you must keep the original word order
• you may only change the tense or personal pronouns
• you may add a conjunction or a preposition for continuity
• minor erasure at start or end of the original line is allowed
• enjambment can be helpful

I had two useable lines left over:

Shall I compare thee to an iced latte? 
and 
A pig, a dentist and a cup of hot spiced wine.

I think I chose wisely.

Note to self: write more poetry this year.

Alphabetical April

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Day Eighteen of National Poetry Writing Month! Today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo.net:

write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. You could write a very strict abecedarian poem, in which there are twenty-six words in alphabetical order, or you could write one in which each line begins with a word that follows the order of the alphabet. This is a prompt that lends itself well to a certain playfulness. Need some examples? Try this poem by Jessica Greenbaum, this one by Howard Nemerov or this one by John Bosworth.

My offering: 

April 
buds curling,
dense earth frees 
ground-harbored insects.
juncos, kits, larvae; 
Mother Nature opens,
poetic quatrains rustle,
spring’s timely unfolding,
verdant waves, 
xenial youthful zeal.

Beyond Compare

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Day Fourteen of National Poetry Writing Month. The muses at NaPoWriMo.net have given us this prompt for today:

…write a parody or satire based on a famous poem… take a favorite (or unfavorite) poem of the past, and see if you can’t re-write it on humorous, mocking, or sharp-witted lines. You can use your poem to make fun of the original (in the vein of a parody), or turn the form and manner of the original into a vehicle for making points about something else (more of a satire – though the dividing lines get rather confused and thin at times).

Since I too get rather confused (though seldom thin) at times, this prompt is a perfect fit. The poem I chose to work with is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? For those of us who are bard-challenged, I will post Shakespeare’s version below. But first (since I control the quill), here is my rendition:

Sonnet 4: Shall I compare thee to an iced latte? 

Shall I compare thee to an iced latte?
Thou sadly in cup holder dost not fit.
While coffee stains can really ruin my day,
I can control the spillage with one sip.
Sometimes you can be cold as latte’s ice,
Complexion like milk curdled in the sun.
I think it’s fairly safe if I surmise
Your pull date has already come and gone.
My latte won’t last long enough to sour
Nor lose its taste if ice begins to melt.
I tend to drink it up within an hour
The liquid sloshing gently ‘neath my belt. 
   I hope this verse has not offended thee.
   So long to you and your oft bitter tea.

And Shakespeare’s sonnet:

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Muse

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A new April morning, a new prompt for a poem.
My thoughts had gone hither – or was it thither? – to roam.
And so I zipped off a quick five-seven-five,
to keep my NaPoWriMo challenge streak alive.

I tapped the blue button to publish my poem.
At just that same moment I heard a loud groan.
“Oh, hey there, Muse.” Quickly, I closed laptop lid.
“Too late!” Muse cawed smugly. “I see what you did!”

“You can toss words like salad; even frost them like cake.
Count the syllables,
divide lines, but it still does
not a haiku make.”

“You thought you could do this Na-Po-gizmo sans me.
But this faux form space filler shows an obvious need.
I’ve sat on that bookcase ‘tween Webster and Roget,
my rhyming riffs roiling and ready to play.” 

“Are you through with the pep talk?” My sarcasm seethed.
“I’ve muddled through without you, although not with ease.
A sonnet on sunshine, triolet carved with care,
and a shanty so swashbuckling you can smell the salt air.”

“You’ve been absent for months now, with nary a sneer.
My quill pen has molted;  a goner, I fear.
My blog has been starved, on it’s penultimate gasp, 
the only sound left: a lone cricket’s rasp.”

“I took a hiatus,” Muse confessed with chagrin.
“But I did it for you, so it’s hardly a sin.
In the Andes I found adverbs; (in Morocco, great stew;)
In Europe, interjections like, ‘Ach!’ and “Mon Dieu!”

“Just stop!” I admonished. “Your excuses are worn.
But at least ‘twixt us two today's poem has been born. 
Perhaps you will deign to remain here awhile?”
“Just like the old times,” Muse agreed with a smile.

Day Twelve of National Poetry Writing Month. The prompt from NaPoWriMo.net:

… write a poem that addresses itself or some aspect of its self (i.e., “Dear Poem,” or “what are my quatrains up to?”; “Couplet, come with me . . .”) This might seem a little “meta” at first, or even kind of cheesy. But it can be a great way of interrogating (or at least, asking polite questions) of your own writing process and the motivations you have for writing, and the motivations you ascribe to your readers.

I didn’t quite follow the prompt, but hey, my muse isn’t always cooperative. Other posts featuring Muse:

Waking the Muse

Bookends (Slaking the Muse)

Sea Shanty

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It’s Day Ten of National Poetry Writing Month, and today’s challenge from NaPoWriMo.net is to write a sea shanty.

these are poems in the forms of songs, strongly rhymed and rhythmic, that sailors might sing while hauling on ropes and performing other sea-going labors. Probably the two most famous sea shanties (at least before TikTok gave us The Wellerman) are What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? and Blow the Man Down. And what should your poem be about? Well, I suppose it could be about anything, although some nautical phrases tossed into the chorus would be good for keeping the sea in your shanty. Haul away, boys, haul away!

So here we go! 

This shanty I’ll be singin’ you
is somewhat false but mostly true
and of no consequence to you,
I’ll tell it anyhoo.

Where ocean meets the beachy land
a ship was snared upon the sand,
a vessel maybe tall and grand,
I never really knew.

    Yo ho, she’s stuck there still,
    now barely more than rust and krill.
    Tho waves come tugging at her sill
    her sailing days are through.

The Peter Iredale she was named,
from Liverpool her owner came,
the Beatles hailed from there the same,
though none the other knew.

In nineteen oh six she came ‘round
for Portland, Oregon she was bound.
a northwest squall pushed her aground,
but didn’t harm her crew.

    Yo ho, she’s stuck there still,
    now barely more than rust and krill.
    Tho waves come tugging at her sill
    her sailing days are through.

No craggy coastline is to blame,
No pirates set the ship aflame.
A barren beach, it’s pretty lame,
still nothing they could do.

A century and more it‘s been
The masts at low tide can be seen,
The bow lists towards the waters green
Her sailing days are through.

    Yo ho, she’s stuck there still,
    now barely more than rust and krill.
    Tho waves come tugging at her sill
    her sailing days are through.

Sonnet Sunday

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Day Nine of National Poetry Writing Month! Today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo.net:

We’re calling today Sonnet Sunday, as we’re challenging you to write in what is probably the most robust poetic form in English. A traditional sonnet is 14 lines long, with each line having ten syllables that are in iambic pentameter (where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable). While love is a very common theme in sonnets, they’re also known for having a kind of argumentative logic, in which a problem is posed in the first eight lines or so, discussed or argued about in the next four, and then resolved in the last two lines. A very traditional sonnet will rhyme, though there are a variety of different rhyme schemes.

My attempt:

For the Love of Springtime in Colorado

Boots sinking deep in mud-browned melting snow,
sweatshirt peeled off and knotted at my waist.
Spring’s dichotomy in Colorado.
Wool socks, sun shades; my rucksack packed in haste.

Crabapples bloom, spent petals drifting down.
Snow lingers where protected by thick shade.
As winter seeps into the thawing ground,
summer will drop like curtains on a stage.

I trek on, heedless of sign and season.
Despite spring breeze or autumnal bluster,
ubiquitous blue skies transcend reason.
I suck the thinning air, my strength mustered.

Toes white with cold, face tanned by sun, I smile.
Springtime in the Rockies keeps one agile.

And click here for a throwback to a previous sonnet I wrote.

Tap Dance and Termite Jig

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Image from kndpng.com
My brain is a jigsaw puzzle, with
gangly termites jigging on the pieces.
I saw it with my own ears! So puzzling.
Fred Astaire and the six jiggers.
Tap shoes on high volume,
jackhammer cane dance on my
frontal lobe.

Ginger Rogers on the sidelines, 
drinking Jack Daniel’s from a 
Texas-sized jigger.
“Mon Dieu,” Her voice the soft breeze of innocence. 
“Tastes like circles. Gnarly, to say the least.”
“Smells like ginger,” responds the jigger.

“Looks like a talking jigger.” 
Fred slides up the bannister to join them.
“Cut!” shouts the director. 
“What evs,” says Fred.
He peels a banana.
Did he turn off the coffee pot this morning?

My brain is a satin pillow.
Every time I lay down, the door bell rings. 
[The poet pauses. What will Mags write next?] 
The sun will rise tomorrow,
wreaking havoc on my termite-jackhammered brain. 
But all’s well that starts terribly! 

Scene fades.
Fred in his tux; ginger in the jigger.
By Merian C. Cooper, Lou Brock – https://archive.org/details/flying_down_to_rio, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2262169
Not jigging termites, but some great Irish dancing.

Day Eight of National Poetry Writing Month. The writing prompt from NaPoWriMo.net is a hum dinger, and I remember it from a prior year’s NaPoWriMo.

The prompt is called the “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman. And here are the twenty little projects themselves — the challenge is to use them all in one poem: 

1.  Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

To read how I responded to the prompt in 2020, click here.

Funeral

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Little cherub on mama’s lap, 
surrounded by strangers,
crammed into narrow pews
in a room she does not know.

No color, no toys, no talking. No joy. 
She squirms, but just a little.
Everyone stands in unison.

An organ plays, slow and plodding.
Grownups sing, low and droning.
She doesn’t recognize this song, 
but music! Music is a familiar friend!

She listens, watching mama’s lips move.
The hymn ends. She knows what follows music.
She claps her little hands together 
and gives a cheerful, “Yay!”

The congregation laughs.
Thank God for laughter amidst sorrow, and
thank God, too, for toddlers who 
haven’t yet had to learn 
the somber intricacies of mourning.

Day Five of National Poetry Writing Month! Our prompt today from NaPoWriMo.net talks about the “juxtaposition between grief and joy, sorrow and reprieve,” and asks us to:

write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment – or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate.