Day Two ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2021

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today’s prompt, I want you to answer the question, ‘What does the future hold?’ Then, make your answer the title of your poem and write your poem. Your answer could a general idea about the future like ‘Robots Will Rule the World’ or a more personal thing like ‘Veggie Pizza and Sweet Tea.’ Even if it’s not in your title, I’m hopeful the future holds a lot more poeming.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “In the world of well-known poems, maybe there’s no gem quite so hoary as Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken.’ Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about your own road not taken — about a choice of yours that has ‘made all the difference,’ and what might have happened had you made a different choice.” Alan’s poem today addresses the NaPoWriMo prompt, speculating about the speaker’s “own road not taken.” Willi My high school German teacher decided I should earn an MBA. I’d be rich, he thought, a happy man in my hometown, all the banks inviting bright young men to keep the books on others, count their worth, hold their deeds, and live a ledgered career, count their wives and children as assets, join big churches and make it all balance. If I had realized then that the girl I would write poems every single night for was reading them all to her boyfriend just for laughs, then I would own the bank that crushed the competition, buy myself some judges, put some fool in the senate, and then despise myself just as my cousin Bryan does, who took that man’s advice and had no better nature. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I am writing today’s poem using both prompts, but not vis-à-vis my own life. As some of you may know, I am writing a novel-in-poems about aswang, mythical Philippine monsters. Several of the poems have appeared as April compositions in this blog over the last few years (to read them, click here). You can also read ten of these poems in the Making the Novel website here. In the plot of the novel so far, two aswang lovers, Clara, a vampire, and Santiago, a weredog, move from the Philippines to the US where aswang are not known, and try to live as ordinary humans. After they have a son, Malcolm, who turns out also to be an aswang, Santiago fights in WWII and is killed. Eventually, Clara works as a horticulturalist-in-training, concentrating especially on medicinal plants. Today’s poem — a triolet — picks up there, where Malcolm, a young man, has just been told by his mom that they will be returning to the Philippines.   Malcolm on Going to the Philippines with Clara Mom and Dad have been this way before but for me it’s a trailblazing path. Never been to the Philippines where Mom and Dad were born. But soon we are going “home,” says Mom. Where she can share with people her life’s knowledge and myth. Mom and Dad have been this way before but without me. Now it’s my true blue path. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Finally, speaking of triolets, there’s a board game called Triolet, I discovered today, which looks like scrabble but with numbers instead of letters. Might it be a “word” game for mathematicians? A 3D sudoku-of-sorts? Anyone played it? Or know of it? Tell us below, would ya? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

NaPoWriMo / PAD 2021 • Pick a day: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30