I was inspired by a couple poets sharing abecedarians in The Stafford Challenge facebook group to write one, on my midday breakfast. “Under the Sea” Crepe
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Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo suggestion: “here’s our daily prompt, optional and once more taken from our archives. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “take the phrase ‘You Are (blank),’ replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: ‘You Are My Only Hope,’ ‘You Are Really Pushing It,’ ‘You Are in the Wrong Room,’ and/or ‘You Are a Poeming Machine.’” An abecedarian poem today, by necessity because of the index mode. Both prompts as well. You Are Lost Alan's poem is also an abecedarian poem You Are Desperate: Quotidian Items Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo suggestion: “here’s our prompt for the day, once again taken from our archives and, as always, optional. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. ” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, we have our third two-for-Tuesday prompt, which means you get two prompts, and they are: Merging all three prompts again: the single NaPoWriMo and the double PAD. So, an abecedarian that is about both love and anti-love. Springtime Alan's poem today is a reverse abecedarian, starting at Z and working its way down to A. The crowning achievement here is that Alan uses only one word per line! Counterintuitive Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: "[T]ake the phrase "The Last (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: 'The Last Word,' 'The Last Dance,' 'The Last Poem,' and/or 'The Last Time Was Better.'" Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents — like a good singing voice — or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as a 'curse' you’ve lived with (your grandmother’s insistence on giving you a new and completely creepy porcelain doll for every birthday, a bad singing voice, etc.).” Melding today's prompts gives me an opportunity to write an entry for a call-for-poems by the science-fiction poetry magazine Eye to the Telescope on the topic "Veterans of Alien Wars." In fact my Brewer-style The Last Veteran of the Alien Wars
This Pixabay image is reminiscent of the xenomorph character from the Alien motion-picture franchise but not an exactly similar rendition. Although I use the word xenomorph in the poem, the Alien movie xenomorph is not exactly how Zukola[click]lia probably looks, and this particular graphic may come somewhat closer, though missing two limbs, as an insectoid organism. By the way, the phrase "bug hunt" is uttered, unforgettably, by Corporal Hicks (Bill Paxton) in the first Alien movie (1979). And the literary DNA for that particular use of the word bug for alien probably goes back to the 1959 novel Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. Contemporary aficionados of the bug hunt undoubtedly know the 1997 Starship Troopers movie better than the novel. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, take the phrase ‘How to (blank),’ replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: ‘How to Win at Life,’ ‘How to Cook Lasagna,’ ‘How to Fall in Love,’ and/or ‘How to Write a Poem.’” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, in honor of the potential luckiness of the number 13, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like the example poem here, joyfully states that ‘Everything is Going to Be Amazing.’” Fulfilling both prompts, today's poem is another episode in my novel-in-poems about Filipino aswang (mythical monsters). The speaker is Clara, a manananggal, whose body can split at the waist, grow wings from her shoulders, and fly in search of prey. Today, however, we see another kind of flying, brought on by Clara's fear that neighbors will discover she and her son are aswang. She is more afraid for her son's welfare than for her own. In the poem, "mga salamangkéro" and "mga albularyo" are Filipino for shamans or folk healers who perform white magic. The word "mga" (pronounced "mah-nga," where the ng sounds like the central consonant digraph in singer) indicates the plural. "Diwata" are spirits of many types, but in this case unbound spirits, i.e., not bound to a particular place or thing. How to Fly Outside Your Body
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Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite an active poem. That could be a poem comprised of active (vs passive) verbs. But it could also be about exercising, playing a sport, or keeping your mind active. Any activity would do, I suppose, even watching the paint dry.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “In honor of the always-becoming nature of poetry, I challenge you today to select a photograph from the perpetually disconcerting @SpaceLiminalBot, and write a poem inspired by one of these odd, in-transition spaces. Will you pick the empty mall food court? The vending machine near the back entrance to the high school gym? The swimming pool at what seems to be M.C. Escher’s alpine retreat? No matter what neglected or eerie space you choose, I hope its oddness tugs at the place in your mind and heart where poems are made.” Alan worked with both prompts; he told me, “I have an action poem set in one of those liminal spaces.” I am inserting that image below the poem. On the Border Alan, wow, that is one weird story, very nicely told. It goes very well with that eerie photo. Bravo! I am working today only from Brewer’s prompt. Since my novel-in-poems is about Philippine monsters, specifically the aswang, the phrase “aswang activity” came to me. That both words began with A led to this abecedarian poem as I strived to come up with two Bs and two Cs, etc. The entire poem morphs pretty quickly into an exploration of the activity of a “babaylan,” which is the social role Clara takes on after returning to the Philippines with her son Malcolm. So what’s a “babaylan”? According to Carlos Villa, “Babaylan is a Filipino word that refers specifically to an individual or a group of healers, mostly women, who were acknowledged by friends and family as possessing extraordinary gifts The Center for Babaylan Studies further defines: “Philippine indigenous [precolonial] communities recognize a woman (or man) as a Babaylan, someone who has the ability to mediate with the spirit world, has her own spirit guides, and is given gifts of healing, foretelling, and insight. She may also have knowledge of healing therapies such as hilot, arbularyo. She is a ritualist, a chanter, diviner. She has the gift of traveling to the spirit world or non-ordinary states of reality in order to mediate with the spirits.” (What is a Babaylan?) While I’m at it, a “barangay” is a Philippine district or village (or, in a town, a neighborhood), akin to “barrio.” A “hilot” is a Philippine healer who specializes in massage and manipulation of the body. And a “diwata” is, in Philippine mythology, a lesser god or goddess. Okay, now you’re ready. Enjoy the poem! Babaylan Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo suggestion: “Today’s (optional) prompt is to write a poem that Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, take the phrase ‘Complete (blank),’ replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write your poem. Possible titles include: ‘Complete Best Day I Ever Had,” ‘Complete Guide to Writing Poems,’ ‘Completely Wrong Way,’ and ‘Completed Set.’ ” To merge the prompts, I looked up complete in a thesaurus, which was cheating, a little — I didn’t use a random page but rather the spread that had that word. Today, I’ve got an abecedarian list poem for you, a kind of mini-thesaurus of words related to complete in its different guises: to finish (verb), total (adjective), and so on. I used my dad’s Roget’s Thesaurus, inscribed on the inside cover with Martin Gotera, Dec. 8, 1959 in my mom's handwriting, or printing, actually. As much as it pleases me to use his book, which I remember seeing and even using as a child, it did mean that more recent usages are not there. So while the majority of the words are below are from those two pages, I did have to go out on the internet also. Complete Vocab
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Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write an abecedarian poem — a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. You could write a very strict abecedarian poem, in which there are twenty-six words in alphabetical order, or you could write one in which each line begins with a word that follows the order of the alphabet. This is a prompt that lends itself well to a certain playfulness.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today’s prompt, write a license poem. There are many different licenses available to people. Fishing license, driver’s license, license to plate, license to kill, and marriage license. Poem doesn’t have to be about the license, but it could mention a license, happen at a licensing office, or well, use your poetic license.” No Poetic License Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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Day Thirty. Another National Poetry Month for the history books. I hope, if you were writing a poem a day, that you succeeded. If you didn't, that's perfectly all right. You'll be able to do it next time! Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo prompt: "I’d like you to try an odd little exercise that I have had good results with. Today, I challenge you to write a poem backwards. Start with the last line and work your way up the page to the beginning." Robert Lee Brewer's PAD prompt: "take the phrase 'Bury the (blank),' replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Some possible titles include: 'Bury the Hatchet,' 'Bury the Body,' 'Bury the Past,' 'Bury the Hate,' and 'Bury the Acorns.'" I made my Thorson upside-down poem an abecedarian to keep control of the composition. I would know that the first line would start with a Z and then I would have to lead somehow to a Y and then to an X, etc. For some reason, I decided to up the ante by making each line only one word long. I started writing the ZYX words at the bottom, working backward, but then simultaneously worked on the ABC words to make sure it made sense going down the page. I found myself essentially writing two poems that would meet in the middle (around M and N), even though they were the same poem, the same column of words. So I had inadvertently doubled Maureen's prompt. Turned out I had upped the ante a bit. The Brewer prompt entered in with the poem's sense-making. I'm a fan of The Walking Dead show and comics, and Brewer's word "bury" somehow brought "zombies" into the poem, even if the word doesn't appear. I didn't plan to do that; it just somehow happened. Fun, I hope. Bury the Zombies At first I typed the draft poem out A-Z, with instructions to the reader to also read the poem from bottom to top. I left off punctuation so as not to limit sense-making in the two directions. Then I decided to make it easier on the reader by also typing out the word list flip-flopped (Z-A, in a second column). But then I noticed that the lack of punctuation made the meaning ambiguous in places. Eventually, I realized that punctuation had to be inserted and different in both columns in order to guide flow and meaning. I call the form a somersault abecedarian because of how the A-Z sequence is turned over in the second column. You should try to write one. They're fun but also the devil to carry off. Okay, on to Alan's last poem for National Poetry Month. "I went a bit rogue with this one. Brewer's prompt about burial suggests that a literal burial was not necessary; I was thinking about what gets revealed when cleaning out a drawer. Why this poem turned out a sonnet, I don't know." Mercurochrome These details bring me back, Alan. Mercurochrome was the first-aid wound treatment I preferred because the other option, Merthiolate, stung. A lot. A LOT. I also remember Paregoric, for gastric distress and other ailments. Another item I could imagine in this drawer is Vicks VapoRub, though Mentho-Lyptus is reminiscent of it. Also, at the dinner table sometimes, my dad, a devoted Democrat, would rail against John Birchers. I used to think when I was little that Birchers had something to do with tree branches. ヅ Friends, won't you comment, please? Love to know what you're thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don't find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
Day Twenty-Two. It's Earth Day, everyone! Both our official prompts are connected to that celebration, I think. Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo prompt: "Today is Earth Day, so I would like to challenge you to write a 'pastoral' poem. Traditionally, pastoral poems involved various shepherdesses and shepherds talking about love and fields, but yours can really just be a poem that engages with nature." Robert Lee Brewer's PAD prompt: "write a nature poem. For many poets, the first thing that may pop to mind includes birds, trees, waterfalls, rivers, and such. But there’s also human nature, nature vs. nurture, and other things natural, including natural selection and being a 'natural' at something. Let your nature take it where it will today." I gotta confess, I'm not very nature-oriented, and pastorals don't come easily to me. I have lots of allergies to pollen and other plant-y whatevers, and so spring is not my favorite season, by a long shot. In fact, while probably many of you are happy that here north of the equator spring has sprung in the springliest fashion, I was up most of last night with painful sinuses, a congested head, and heavy sniffles — the antihistamine and painkiller I took not even making the littlest dent in the discomfort. So while probably many NaPoWriMo/PAD-ers wrote about flowers and such today, I did not. One thing I've wanted all my life, though, is to be able to fly. (I'm still upset about why we haven't gotten — as we were "promised" when I was a kid — jetpacks and rocketpacks available in stores and also flying cars like the Jetsons had. What's up with that?) Anyway, I wrote about natural creatures that can fly. I really wanted to slip dragons into the poem, but I'm told they've never existed in nature. You'll see how I solved that problem, though. Flyers About his pastoral/nature poem today, Alan said, "This one hurt me." I'd be interested to hear why you think he says that. Here's the poem.
This is an excellent example of alexandrines, also called dodecasyllables Friends, won't you comment, please? Love to know what you're thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don't find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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