Day 20 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2015

Day Twenty. Exactly 2/3 of National Poetry Month gone, or just about. At the end of today, the poems to be written will be half of what we've already written. Nonetheless, still 10 poems to go! Hang in there, friends who are writing poems. Robert Lee Brewer's PAD suggestion: "For today’s prompt, take the phrase 'My (blank), the (blank),' replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: 'My Dentist, the Torture Expert,' 'My Lunch, the Thing I Got Out of the Vending Machine,' 'My Father, the Comedian,' or 'My Life, the Punchline.'" Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today, I challenge to write a poem that states the things you know. For example, 'The sky is blue' or 'Pizza is my favorite food' or “The world’s smallest squid is Parateuthis tunicata.' Each line can be a separate statement, or you can run them together. The things you 'know' of course, might be facts, or they might be a little bit more like beliefs." Unfortunately, I had somehow read a prompt from 2013 this morning (I think I checked NaPoWriMo before Maureen had posted today's prompt). What I saw was: Today I challenge you to write a poem that uses at least five of the following words: owl generator abscond upwind squander clove miraculous dunderhead cyclops willowy mercurial seaweed gutter non-pareil artillery salt curl ego rodomontade elusive twice ghost cheese cowbird truffle svelte quahog bilious. I emailed that prompt to Alan and so he started off the day thinking about the wrong prompt. As did I. Anyway, here's Alan's intro: "Today, I treated prompts more like suggestions than instructions; I saw a list of words that appeared unrelated and accepted the challenge of including at least five of the words in the poem (I pretty much blasted through that requirement). I needed to write about something "I know," and respond to the structure "My ______, The _________." The list of words led to my thinking of a self-deprecating poem, so I am following that tradition, with allusions to Greek mythology, besides. P O E M   R E M O V E D while being submitted for publication.   Please come back later. The poem may return at some time in the future. Thank you!       Alan, quite a hard act to follow! Good job with the form — a Petrarchan sonnet — and the "I know" requirement plus the word list (cyclops, dunderhead, owl, willowy, mercurial, elusive, and rodomontade — seven). An adroit mix of three prompts: the two "official" ones for today as well as the one I accidentally resurrected from two years ago. Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Polyphemus (1802) I had an extremely busy and full day, so I wasn't able to write my poem until after seeing Alan's Greek-myth-infused offering. I decided to go with basically the same title but went in a more tongue-in-cheek direction while similarly skimming the Greek-myth connection. My poem is predictably more colloquial and — let's face it — maybe a bit silly. Blank verse, combining the two official prompts and the old word-list prompt: cyclops, dunderhead, willowy, svelte, and ego. My Cyclops, The Dunderhead Here’s what I know. In Homer’s Odyssey, Polyphemus the Cyclops was a doofus, a moron, an undisputed dunderhead. That doesn’t matter though, ’cause we’re talking about my Cyclops, my one-eyed brown dragon. What I know: mine’s also a first-class dunderhead, but willowy, svelte, and hard to put down. Although he’s got a giant ego and thinks he’s bigger than he really is, I also know Richard’s a stand-up guy. A world-class spelunker who’d give you the coat off his back. He’ll be your BFF for life. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won't you comment, please? Love to know what you're thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don't find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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