Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt is “once again pulled from our archives. Today’s prompt is a poem of negation – yes (or maybe, no), I challenge you to write a poem that involves describing something in terms of what it is not, or not like. For example, if you chose a whale as the topic of your poem, you might have lines like ‘It does not settle down in trees at night, cooing/Nor will it fit in your hand.’”
Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “take the phrase ‘The (blank) of a (blank),’ replace the blanks with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: ‘The Beginning of a Story,’ ‘The Wrong Side of a Situation,’ ‘The Apple of an Eye,’ and/or ‘The Latest Excuses of a Continuing Problem.’”
This morning was strange . . . it snowed here off and on a bit even though we're several weeks into spring and the air temperature was not quite freezing. Not a curtal sonnet today! Some free verse instead, with lines of similar length. Both prompts as usual.
The Return of Winter?
Today was not the vernal equinox, but a month after!
Today was not a week since I put up the snow shovel.
Today was not temps below freezing, although close.
Today was not a snowy day, though it did snow some!
Today was not a slippery ice day, but I did slip once.
Today was not winter but felt like it, seemed almost.
Today was not usual April weather, but then it’s Iowa.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Image by SeagullNady (Надежда Зима) from Pixabay
Alan also worked with both prompts today. About the poem he told me "Lacon is a real place near where I grew up."
The Mispronunciation of “Lacon”
The cashiers at the Love fueling station just off Exit 322 on Interstate 65, the
Falkville, Alabama, exit, will be able to tell you are not a local if you say it
the way it looks.
It does not rhyme with “Macon.” It does not rhyme with “bacon.”
The first part sounds as if you are getting the lay of the land,
but the second part sounds as if you are a dupe to its con.
And those two parts are equal, what a literature professor would call a “spondee,”
the way most folks would say “Walmart,”
but the Laconians would say “the Walmart,”
because they are Laconians,
as my linguistics professor back at Alabama taught me,
having published a definitive guide to Alabama place names
the year before I left Tuscaloosa.
Professor Virginia O. Foscue—I haven’t thought of her in years—gracious, kind,
patient with my rough edges—my wife and I still have the set of sterling
salt shakers she gave us for a wedding present—
she determined that one of the Lacon founders named the small site after
his hometown in Illinois,
which was, in its turn, named after the region on the Peloponnesian Peninsula
once controlled by the terse, pithy Spartans,
who would not recognize how this ghost town has named itself for generations,
as laconic as they may be.
—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks!
Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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3 comments:
I got surprised by this attempt. Virginia O. Foscue wrote Place Names in Alabama (The University of Alabama Press). It was a pleasure to have the excuse to pull that book down again. She was one of the kindest professors I knew back in my Tuscaloosa days.
I don't think we ever had snow in mid-April here in Jersey. Early April, yes, but never quite this late. Good poem, and I like Alan's rumination on the pronunciation of a small town.
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