Day 28 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2020

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt is his usual "Two for Tuesday": 1. “Write a look back poem and/or . . .” 2. “Write a don't look back poem. Because some folks just want to keep their eyes on the road ahead.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt comes from the Emily Dickinson Museum, based on a reminiscence by Dickinson's niece Martha: “Describe a bedroom from your past in a series of descriptive paragraphs or a poem. It could be your childhood room, your grandmother’s room, a college dormitory or another significant space from your life.” Today's curtal sonnet is again an episode in the aswang novella project. This poem mashes up all three prompts, not only showing (and redecorating) Clara's bedroom but also incorporating both of the Brewer look back and don't look back themes. New Day: Clara's Bedroom On Sunday morning, I fixed up our bedroom, taking Tiyago’s clothes out of the closet finally, boxing them up to give away. I put vases of lilies and nasturtiums on the dresser, and laid a new bedspread, yellow, discarding the old quilt, green and gray. Holding the photo of Tiyago, uniformed, I smiled, looking back to our golden days at home, eating halo-halo at the market. For Malcolm’s sake, I must now look forward                 to new nights and days. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Halo-halo, the quintessential Philippine fruit dessert And here is Alan's poem today mashing up the bedroom and look back prompts. Bravo, Alan! My Favorite Bedroom My favorite bedroom was in our last home in Tuscaloosa, the town house we had while I was writing my dissertation, teaching comp and lit, and flirting with you. I don’t remember anything except some hot afternoons when rain broke the heat, we’d open windows, lie down together, and lose long hours. I could, if you like, describe every other bedroom, mine and ours, I’ve had; that townhouse bedroom in Tuscaloosa, though, is nothing but you and some thunderstorms, warm breath and wet heat. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I have a second poem today that I actually wrote before the one above. I thought I was going rogue this time with the following COVID-19 poem, but a few hours after finishing it, the aswang poem above using today's prompts started bubbling up. As Georgia’s Massage Parlors Reopen Rearranging letters in COVID-NINETEEN yields INCENTIVE DONE, as in we stayed home, so we can be out and about now, but really, can we? DIE CONVENIENT is another anagram. Personally, the letters seem vindictive — I NEED NOT VINCE — and also predictive in unflattering fashion: VINCE END ON TIE. Which means, I think, either way I’m going to die. It would seem there’s no path to domesticate this pandemic somehow. The word virus has its roots in “snake venom, slimy juice, poison,” and so we just have to face it. Until we have a vaccine, read my lips: Lockdown is the easy apocalypse. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] This is a Pushkin Sonnet, also called an Onegin Stanza because Alexander Pushkin invented it to be the basic unit of his novel-in-verse Eugene Onegin. This sonnet form begins with a Shakespearean alternating quatrain (abab), followed by a Clarean couplet quatrain (ccdd), and then a Petrarchan envelope quatrain (effe), and finally a closing couplet (gg), which could figure in any of those three sonnet types. I do depart from the Pushkin format, however, because I use pentameter rather than Pushkin's tetrameter, and I also dispense with his pre-ordained pattern of so-called masculine and feminine line endings. It occurs to me now that, since I am writing a novella-in-verse, I should probably write some Pushkin sonnets for that project. Maybe tomorrow! 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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