Day 27 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2019

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “I’d like to challenge you to ‘remix’ a Shakespearean sonnet. . . . You can pick a line you like and use it as the genesis for a new poem. Or make a ‘word bank’ out of a sonnet, and try to build a new poem using the same words (or mostly the same words) as are in the poem. Or you could try to write a new poem that expresses the same idea as one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, pick a direction, make that the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. There are so many directions: north, south, up, down, left, right, over, under, etc. But there are also more specific directions like ‘Across the Way,’ ‘Through the Woods,’ and ‘Beyond the Clearing.’ Or give directions like ‘Clean Your Room,’ ‘Tie Your Shoes,’ or ‘Get Over Here.’ ” Merging both prompts as usual with a golden shovel riffing on Shakespeare’s (in)famous send-up of romantic conventions on how to describe one's love in Sonnet 130. The golden shovel is a poetic form invented by Terrance Hayes; his poem “The Golden Shovel” riffed on Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool” by using the words of her poem as the endings of lines in his poem, in order. Actually Hayes’s poem does this twice with Brooks’s text! Many poets have imitated Hayes and thus the golden shovel form was born. My inspiration was today’s snow . . . snow! I notice that my language in this poem is different, perhaps because I am being influenced by Shakespeare's expression. I'm not trying to be particularly Shakespeare-like, but definitely there's an atypical feel to my writing here.

From the North, She Cackles

a golden shovel concocted
from the opening line of
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130

Ye gods, I cannot even believe my
eyes: Lady Winter in her harsh mistress’
role has returned and contemptuously eyes
us with sardonic humor. Snow clouds are
spitting out flakes today and nothing
of spring seems to remain, just like
an assassin dusting off a victim. The
Ice Dominatrix has slain Apollo the Sun!

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

Snow photo I took today . . . late April!

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Ingat, everyone.  ヅ 

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