Saturday, April 3, 2021

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


For Poem-a-Day, Robert Lee Brewer suggests: “For today’s prompt, write a communication poem. All poems communicate something, I know, but I’m thinking of different ways people can communicate: text message, letter, signs, and even speaking dialogue. Of course, there are forms of communication as well, because people love communicating.”

At NaPoWriMo, Maureen Thorson says: “This one is a bit involved, which is why I’m giving it to you on a Saturday. Today, I’d like to challenge you to make a ‘Personal Universal Deck,’ and then to write a poem using it. The idea of the ‘Personal Universal Deck’ originated with the poet and playwright Michael McClure, who gave the project of creating such decks to his students in a 1976 lecture at Naropa University. Basically, you will need 50 index cards or small pieces of paper, and on them, you will write 100 words (one on the front and one on the back of each card/paper) using the rules found here.

Don’t agonize over your word choices. Making the deck should be fun and revealing, as you generate words that sound ‘good’ to you. The fact that the words are mainly divided among the five senses should be helpful in selecting words that you like the sound of, and that have some meaning personal to you. For example, my deck contains ‘harbor,’ ‘wool,’ ‘murmur,’ ‘obsidian,’ and ‘needle.’

Once you have your deck put together, shuffle it a few times. Now select a card or two, and use them as the basis for a new poem.”


Alan's poem today comes from the Thorson prompt, which he called a "creativity card exercise." The words that were drawn were blow, notch, useless, and whistle.

Cornus

Ten years have passed, the cherry
tree gone after fierce wind,
fallen, grazing our neighbor’s
house, its trunk big around
as a VW bus,
and today, the dogwood,
its petals not yet pure white,
blooms its greenish yellow,
precursor to its creamy
blow. So crooked, useless,
lacking even one firm twig
straight for a finger’s length
to notch a willow whistle,
its trunk has turned as leaves
so many summers soaked sun
through months of afternoons,
from Easter to Hallowe’en,
out of the cherry’s shade,
its uppermost twig reaching
straight as Heaven’s plummet.

—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]

Here’s my 100-word “personal universal deck” from the Thorson prompt. . . . I bet this lexicon would be completely different on any other day!
cerulean
shh
run
guitar
umami
funky
blue
slippery
rain
splash
whoosh
vinegar
gold
purple
wine
rose
wave
glass
paper
tink
click
oily
sampaguita
rock
vermillion
fuck
sand
perfume
indigo
bamboo
sleep
tick
gritty
molasses
kahlua
stinky
ridged
obsidian
penis
orange
thrum
silky
yellow
bass
lily
skin
syrupy
kiss
vagina
wood
green
lazy
sweaty
dusty
breast
shimmy
salty
venus
sawdust
emerald
mars
plastic
pussy
clang
shitty
boom
violet
burny
cock
dance
steel
petrichor
sperm
drive
grrr
devil
whir
white
careless
saturn
hiss
liberty
sour
pissy
silver
earthy
aluminum
whistle
walk
dragon
bang
soil
siren
cream
shake
bitter
angel
pheromone
black
sweet
Probably did this wrong. Too programmatic. Too generic in some cases. Not enough of my bad side, surely. Next time.


Here is today’s poem, a curtal sonnet depicting another narrative development in my novel-in-poems, the aswang mother with her aswang son moving to the Philippines. I skipped the Poem-a-Day prompt today, though of course one could maybe see this poem as a communication of the pair’s life transition. I followed the NaPoWriMo 100-word prompt, and I successfully used ten words from my “personal universal deck”: bamboo, oily, orange, salty, sampaguita, steel, sweet, thrum, vermillion, and wave.

On the SS Gabriela Silang

Mother and son hold hands as the steamship
sails outward under the vermillion span
of the Golden Gate Bridge, Clara’s last view
of the States the same as her first: curveship
in orange steel. Pacific sunset again,
but this time their destination, anew.

Before, Santiago and she had fled.
Today, she and Malcolm head for haven.
Oily, salty waves the ship’s thrum cuts through
presage a sweet sampaguita beachhead,
                                    young shoots of bamboo.

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


A couple quick notes: the passenger ship is named after a female hero of the Philippine revolution against Spain in the 1700s, Gabriela Silang, called the “Joan of Arc of Ilocandia.” Also, I offer tribute here to Hart Crane, who coined the word “curveship” for The Bridge, his book-length poem on the Brooklyn Bridge. I have long been intrigued with the parallels between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, both trailblazing suspension bridges in major American cities. The word “curveship” appears in the last line of Crane’s poem “To Brooklyn Bridge,” excerpted here from The Bridge.


Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks!

Ingat, everyone.   


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1 comment:

Bruce Niedt said...

Love your word list - I felt mine came out too "generic" but still fairly satisfied with my poem. I can't wait to read your "aswang" book once it's complete, with tasty samples like this one.




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