Day 30 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a palinode – a poem in which you retract a view or sentiment expressed in an earlier poem. For example, you might pick a poem you drafted earlier in the month and write a poem that contradicts or troubles it. This could be an interesting way to start working on a series of related poems. Alternatively, you could play around with the idea of a palinode by writing a poem in which the speaker says something like ‘I take it back’ or otherwise abandons a prior position within the single poem.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “write a surprise poem. This prompt was actually changed at the last minute after reading Laura Shovan's ‘How the Neuroscience of Surprise Can Improve Your Poetry Practice,’ and it got me thinking about all the good and bad surprises we encounter on a daily (or almost daily) basis. Let's finish this month by focusing on one or three of those.” This Shovan article is quite a good one and gives three suggestions for writing surprise poetry. On Day 17, I wrote a curtal sonnet called "The Dandelion Wars," in which I imagine a speaker with a vendetta against dandelions. In this palinode, the dandelions talk back. The surprise theme is encapsulated not only by the unusual point of view in the poem but also by what this speaker says in the final line. The poem's title is borrowed from Robert Silverberg's short story "Sundance," in which a Native American scientist dances with aliens on a distant planet, an image and narrative that inspired my characterization of the dandelions here. Again, a curtal sonnet on both prompts. Sundance: The Dandelions Speak We dance in this field of eternal green, we dandelions, heads like glowing suns, blossoms of lemon-colored light, our leaves blowing in the gentle breeze, communion of water climbing our stems, oxygen and chlorophyll, sacrament with the trees, our brothers, all of us rising to sky, ocean of blue, bright heaven. You humans misunderstand us, you do not believe we are beings with purpose and love. Why                                 not — surprise! — let us live? —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             Image by Marc Pascual from Pixabay And here is Alan's last poem for the month, with a surprise at the end. April, I Surrender Every year the same jokes among literature professors about your cruelty, forcing us to complete so many tasks, but I made my own mess this year, wanting to engage with writers, going to extra readings, presenting some of my own work, and taking a graduate course in “Appalachian Foodways,” too. Who knew you would grant me food poisoning on your last day, saving your cruelest April Fools for when I least expected it? You win, you win, you win. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I hope you recover soon, Alan. Thanks so much for being my April poem buddy again! I always enjoy the poems you write during April. Good luck with the end of the semester. Some great poetry news: my poem "Old Soldier, New Love," which was one of 102 poems under 50 lines nominated for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Associations' Rhysling Award (best poem published in the previous year), has been chosen by a jury as one of the 50 finalists. The association membership will vote in July to select the award winners. You can read my poem here, in the journal Eye to the Telescope (issue 46) where it was first published. It's the 10th poem down. You can also read it here; just click on the image of the journal page directly below and you'll see it enlarged. Enjoy! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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