Day 17 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2020

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “write a poem that features forgotten technology. Maybe it’s a VCR, or a rotary phone. A cassette player or even a radio.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “write an exotic poem. Set your poem in an exotic locale. Or maybe write about an exotic person, animal, or technology. And remember that your everyday things may be exotic to someone else. Honestly, I’ve found poets are a breed of exotic creature whenever I’m in a room full of ‘normal’ adults.” My poem today — a sonnet made of seven couplets, a Clarean sonnet — considers "trusty old tech" and "exotic new" tech in the face of COVID-19. Remedies Ice licking the windows? We’ll pack a sweater. Snow drifting across the driveway? Better break out the snow shovel. In June when sirens scream of tornadoes, we troop to the basement. Back in the ’50s and ’60s when highway deaths were increasing, we invented seat belts. But now we’ve got a new insidious threat: deadly invisible foe that flies on our breath. All our sweaters and shovels, sirens and seat belts — all that trusty old tech — just can’t help. Can we invent exotic new machines? Microscopic nanobots cruising our veins, hunting the virus? An avant-garde vaccine? Don’t know what, but we better do it soon. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I really appreciate Alan's poem today because it draws from the music I grew up listening to. I Was Exotic and Far Away and had an orange plastic transistor radio that received only AM frequencies from the stations in town, one of which played music in the top 40 format so that I heard a lot of pop and rock songs about people who wrote letters or waited for letters. People would write disc jockeys at radio stations and ask them to play favorite songs. People would plead with postmen to double check their mailbags for letters from faraway loves. Some would get a letter and drop everything to get a plane ticket because a plane was not fast enough to return to a lover. Later, I would write letters to a girl who lived across town, even though I saw her every day at school, just so she had something that said how I felt, something to keep in a drawer. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Did you recognize songs in the poem? Fun to connect up the titles. Stay safe out there, everyone! 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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