Day 25 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2019

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that:             • Is specific to a season             • Uses imagery that relates to all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell)             • Includes a rhetorical question, (like Keats’ ‘where are the songs of spring?)” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, write an exile poem. Exile is a noun, a verb, and an American rock band from Richmond, Kentucky. A person, animal, or object can be exiled. But people and animals also exile others — or even exile themselves.” I decided I would try to incorporate the exact rhetorical question Maureen used as her example. Keats’s word “spring,” Robert’s idea of exile, and Maureen’s suggested focus on a season reminded me of the recent winter we had, at least here in Iowa, an exile to the North Pole, it sometimes seemed. So then, to mash up the prompts, I just had to incorporate all five senses. I wanted to keep it short, maybe an alternating quatrain with two rhymes. Well, the poem ended up being twice that length — an envelope quatrain attached to a couplet quatrain (no alternating, after all) — though I was able to keep it to just two rhymes. What I succeeded in keeping small was the line length: tetrameter instead of my more customary pentameter. Okay, here goes. What Last Winter Felt Like Each day dawns white — snowbanks and sky a featureless blank. The wind keening like a banshee, the frigid air tasting of ice, smelling of ice, and my skin feeling like stone. So why are we exiled, trapped in this dry desert tundra? With a frozen tongue I ask, Where are the songs of spring? —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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