Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Day Ten ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day


Today, Robert Lee Brewer once again offers a “Two-for-Tuesday” set of prompts: "forest poem" or "tree poem." Do one or the other, he says, "Or you can dive right into the metaphor separating the two."

Catherine gives us a clever little send-up of Emily Dickinson's "I never saw a moor" today; her poem even sports its own fake Johnson number, no less. And, of course, there's a tree!

10.

I didn't do my chores
Instead I climbed a tree
And when my mother came to look
She quickly spotted me.

I found it very odd
Since I was only seven
That she thought I should be taught
To clean the dirty kitchen.

—Draft by Catherine Pritchard Childress     [do not copy or quote ... thanks]

Over at NaPoWriMo.net Maureen Thorson mentions "a quote usually attributed to T. S. Eliot: Good poets borrow; great poets steal." For Day Ten then, she says, "let's stick to plain old stealing by writing poems with their first lines lifted from other poems."

Maureen bringing up that Good Poet / Great Poet business reminds me that this quote (which isn't exactly what Eliot really said) leaves out perhaps the most important category: the Bad Poet. And even more important than that: the VERY Bad Poet.

So, in honor of all BAD POETS and VERY BAD POETS, I offer this little ditty neither Maureen nor Robert probably saw coming. (Or maybe they saw it coming all too well.)

In Memoriam My Dog Edgar Allan
With sincerest apologies to Joyce Kilmer and
the Little Bunny hopping through the forest
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

But I know I have seen a bee
That chased my dog right up a tree.

Now, he was tough, that little bee,
And I was glad it wasn't me

But Edgar Allan foo-foo'd, see?
And THAT, my friends, is Poe-in-tree.

—Draft by Vince Gotera     [do not copy or quote ... thanks]

Didja notice how I got both "tree" and "forest" in there? Whoo-eeee! Not to mention of course stealing Joyce Kilmer's most popular opener. I was almost tempted to sprinkle in some dashes and capitals to mash up Dickinson with Poe, Kilmer, and Little Bunny Foo-Foo! But even I have my limits — though I can imagine some people saying they wouldn't have thought so.

Our featured blog today is No Vacation from Speculation by Jessica McHugh. On April 5, an enterprising facebook member created "Bad Poetry on Facebook Day." Jessica pounced on this opportunity to use "bad poetry" as her prompt for Day Five and wrote several hilarious Bad Poems, some on the facebook event page and others on the blog. Classic. Jessica is a well-known speculative fiction writer who has written horror fiction, alternate history, and epic fantasy, publishing ten books in the last three years. As you will see from her blog, Jessica is also a fine poet . . . she doesn't only write bad poems!


Okay, friends, we're 1/3 through the month. Who'd a-thunk it? Leave a comment below, won't you? I got rid of that word verification malarkey today, so it's much easier to comment. Ingat.


POEM-A-DAY 2012 • Pick a day in April: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30


5 comments:

Patricia Fargnoli said...

hi Vince....love your bad poem....made me smile this gray morning

Kerridwen said...

I quite liked the first poem... Climbing trees should be part of a child's day, not kitchens! ;)
Also, I read about the Eliot quote, and I am glad he didn't actually actually mean it exactly like that. :)
I'm also participating, but need to catch up.. Only 4 poems so far ;) (You can see them here: http://thetigerssterne.blogspot.co.uk/p/30-poems-in-30-days.html)

Susan said...

Without NaPoWrMo I woulda never found your site, which is so much fun that I will subcribe and follow your directions asap. My own somber attempts are here: http://susanspoetry.blogspot.com/. If you visit and leave a comment, I'll try to show some giddy delight in poems of the future!

Janine Bollée said...

Hiya Vince,
Top of the pops in the NaPo pages today. Well done.
Liked your pun fun.

You may want to take a look at this blog which would fit so well in your list:http://chromapoesy.com/2012/03/31/ice-floe/ where Anna Montgomeries mixes music, video and words in a lovely setting.

Vince Gotera said...

Pat, Kerridwen, Susan, and Aprille ... thanks so much for your generous comments. Sorry I'm responding SOOO late! Hope you're all well. And that NaPoWriMo was generous to you too.




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