National Poetry Month / NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2021

Welcome, everyone, to National Poetry Month . . . our annual April poetry celebrations. This is the TENTH year in a row I’ll be doing NaPoWriMo and Poem-a-Day, since 2012. I even published a collection of these April poems in my 2019 book The Coolest Month. Check it out! I’m very pleased to have my old poetry sidekick, Thomas Alan Holmes, writing poems here this month again. Last April, when I welcomed Alan to the blog, I said,“the coronavirus pandemic is keeping us sheltering at home, so why not write a few poems?” Well, it’s a little better now, folks. We’ve got vaccines and the national project to vaccinate is running great. Anyway, welcome back once more, Alan! For you new readers, Alan and I look at the daily April prompts put out by Maureen Thorson at NaPoWriMo.net and Robert Lee Brewer in his blog Write Better Poetry (formerly called Poetic Asides) and write a poem inspired by one or both of the prompts. If that doesn't work, we usually “go rogue,” as Alan puts it, writing a poem without regard to the prompts. Okay, allons-y!   Robert Lee Brewer’s first-day Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, write an introduction poem. Introduce yourself, introduce a friend, or introduce a stranger. If you don’t wish to introduce yourself, consider writing a persona poem (a poem in which you write from someone else’s point of view like Emily Dickinson or a bumblebee). Of course, you could also introduce a problem, solution, or just a situation. Have fun with it!” Maureen Thorson’s Day One NaPoWriMo prompt: “I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by this animated version of ‘Seductive Fantasy’ by Sun Ra and his Arkestra. If you don’t feel after watching it a little bit like the top of your head’s been taken off, and your thoughts given a good stir — well, maybe you are already living in a state of heightened poetic awareness!” Above we have a still from the Sun Ra Arkestra video recommended by Maureen. Parts of this film reminded me of the great Filipino pool champion, Efren Reyes, whose unearthly billiard skills make him, according to some experts, the greatest pool player of all time. In today’s poem, I am merging the two prompts in an acrostic, where the first letter of each line, read together going down, spells out something. Seductive Fantasy Pool  S un Ra’s animation introduces  U s to a psychedelic multiverse of N acreous opalescence and light.  R ainbows of melting shapes   A re the soft flowing bedrock.  A t times these spheres and planets R esemble doughy billiard balls, K icking off a fantasia:  Introducing E fren Reyes! Only he could play these S oft pool balls, carom and careen across T he sky’s velvet felt expanse and R everse pockets. Play on, Brother Bata, A nd show us you’re the Magician here too! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan worked with only one of the prompts today. He told me, “I managed the ‘introduction’ part but will not attempt to claim that the renewal theme of that Sun Ra video influenced the notion of new beginnings in this poem.” Daytrip Elopement Those three hours we drove back to my daddy’s house—our place in Holly Pond back over the state line, two-lane road from Iuka, Mississippi, I thought about Beta Club and how mad Momma would be when I dropped out on Monday, making me go in instead of letting me stop going and start life. My Mr. Holmes, now I was Mrs. Holmes, leaned over for a kiss, with me right next to him, carseat big as a sofa, Sunday clothes so handsome, that skinny boy. My sister ran in and out, and Daddy stood on the porch in tears, relieved to see us, hugged my neck. He called him “Son.” —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? We would love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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