Sunday, April 21, 2024

Day 21 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024


Once again, a quoted intro from this day in 2013:
Day 21. The card game Blackjack is sometimes called "21" because that's the score that trumps all others. There's the 21-gun salute in military honors for heads of state. 21 is the title of a recent album by Adele. If we put our minds together we could probably come up with 21 21s, but I bet you'd like to get to the poetry.

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a trope poem. For most people, tropes are common plot devices used in certain genres. In romance, for example, the 'different worlds' trope brings together two characters from different walks of life and/or cultures. Meanwhile, a popular trope in horror fiction is to split up, which usually doesn't end well for many of the characters. Mysteries frequently feature the 'unassuming suspect' trope. Pick a trope or mix a few in your poem today.”

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[W]rite a poem that repeats or focuses on a single color.”


I was tempted to choose blue as the "single color," but then thought maybe I should try something opposed to my favorite color. How about black? In today's curtal sonnet, I focus on an old standby, Frankenstein, and stuff in as many movie tropes as I could fit in from horror, science-fiction, and fantasy movies. The curtal sonnet, one of my favorite poetic forms to write, is rhymed abcabc dbcdc, using (as usual) 10-syllable lines. Enjoy!

Trope-icana in Black

Here I am again, Frankenstein's fiend, stuck
in a black cave, lumbering from one side
to the other. Why must I, a monster,
always lumber and stagger? Just bad luck.
In an alternate universe, I ride
a white horse, wield a golden sword, and swear

allegiance to my brother, the good king.
But here it's all black, black darkness inside
darkness. A mad scientist, my father,
made me one black night, a black magic thing.
                What do monsters say? Grrr.

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



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...

Rrrr, poem good! I like all the tropes you cite here. I tackled all three of the prompts I follow in one poem today, which is a kind of reprise of my Day 14 poem.




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