Day 17 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024

Day 17. Today is National Haiku Day, but alas! not writing haiku today. Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[W]rite a poem that is inspired by a piece of music, and that shares its title with that piece of music.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[T]ake the phrase ‘Not (blank),’ replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.” Tall order today. In order to merge the prompts, I had to find a song title that begins with the word "not." Well, found one: "Not Fade Away." A triolet today playing with the original song lyrics as well as the bands and artists that have covered the song. The triolet is an 8-line form where the first and second lines come back at prescribed points in the poem, with only two rhymes. I cheat quite a bit in bringing back the lines as needed by altering them slightly and more than slightly. Not Fade Away You know my loving not fade away. My love bigger than a Cadillac. A song by Buddy Holly back in the day: Buddy forever — not fade away. Done by the Stones, the Dead, and hey, Some women: Tanya Tucker, all in black, Florence & the Machine. Not fade away. This song is bigger than a Cadillac. —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.  ヅ

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Day 16 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024

Day 16. "It’s Selena Day, National Orchid Day, National Librarian Day, National Eggs Benedict Day, National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day . . . and much more!" Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does. The ‘surprise’ ending to this James Wright poem is a good illustration of the effect we’re hoping you’ll achieve. An abstract, philosophical kind of statement closing out a poem that is otherwise intensely focused on physical, sensory details.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's Two-for-Tuesday prompt: 1) Write a poetic form poem, and/or . . . 2) Write an anti-form poem.” My poem today merges the two prompts. It is a haibun, a Japanese poetic form that yokes a haiku with a prose paragraph — Brewer's form and anti-form in one poem. À la Thorson, the poem describes a location and then transforms into something else at the end. The speaker of the poem is the mythological Philippine sea dragon, Bakunawa, who strives to eat the sky's seven moons and almost succeeds until people figure out they can stop Bakunawa by making loud noises — banging drums or pots and pans — ultimately saving the last moon, which we still see in the sky to this day. (Wikipedia) Bakunawa the Sea Dragon Desires the Seven Moons in High Heaven I look around my domain, blue and black and glorious. Water flows through all my doors, while my eyes pierce the darkness. Schools of fish swirl like spirals of glinting light in the distance. I often swim up to the surface of the water and point my snout towards the heavens. Up there in the firmament, I glimpse against the sea of bright points of light, the faraway stars, seven spheres gleaming in the night. Every time I do this, the number of spheres changes, sometimes just two or three, other times six or seven. These moons glimmer in different shapes, from curving slivers to crescents to full roundness. I hunger for them. Below the surface, I feast on whales and massive clouds of shrimp, but there is nothing like the seven spheres here. During the day, there is the fire of the one sun when it rules the sky. The sun is too hot to eat. But when the sun is gone away each night, the seven moons shed their delicious light, and I want to eat them.                             I will launch myself                                     into the star-riddled sky,                                             eat all seven moons. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] "Bakunawa" by Vince Gotera Here is a phone-drawing I made some years ago of Bakunawa eating a moon. The dragon is in the national colors of the Philippines: red, blue, and yellow. (Click on the sketch to see it larger.) If you google "Bakunawa art" you can find plenty of artistic renditions of the Bakunawa. In this poem, I allude to one of my favorite poems, "Morning Swim" by Maxine Kumin, which has the lines "water fell / through all my doors." Incidentally, a poem of mine on a similar theme, "Bakunawa the Sea Dragon Eats the Fifth Moon," was published yesterday in the Eye to the Telescope magazine. Go over and read that poem to compare with today's poem? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 15 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024

Day 15. Here's an intro from Day 15 of 2013: Tax day, everyone. Hope you didn't forget!   ;-)   Also, "the ides of April." And exactly halfway through National Poetry Month. Can you believe how quickly it's gone by? Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo suggestion: “we’d like to encourage you to . . . become inspired by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps. . . . [S]tamps are a quasi-lyrical, quasi-bizarre look into what different cultures (or at least their postal authorities) hold dear.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a middle poem. Some people feel stuck in the middle; others like being in the middle of things. There are foods that are known for their middles (like jelly doughnuts and empanadas). So poem your way to, within, or away from the middle today.” I found a postage stamp that features the axolotl, a Mexican salamander. Axolotls are renowned for their cute smiles, and they are sought after for aquariums. My favorite are the leucistic axolotls, who are pink, like the one pictured below. They are sometimes called Mexican walking fish, though they are not fish at all. They have three pairs of reddish external gills that form a kind of halo behind their heads. Here's the postage stamp: Today, I'm not using a received form but rather quatrains rhymed aaaa, almost — a form invented for the occasion. This kind of rhyming is called monorhyme. As usually I'm also melding the prompts. The Axolotl Curious indeed is the little axolotl: a so-called walking fish, but not a fish at all. He sports a glorious, pink-fringed, feathery wattle, and lives his days and nights underwater. But if he finds that his water is no good, or other misfortunate conditions, you’d be shocked to see the axolotl shed his gills, grow lungs, and move up on the land. It’s rare, but it can happen. The axolotl can straddle different environments. Little shapeshifter, tadpole to lizard, a middle creature. Mighty indeed is the axolotl. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's another bit of trivia . . . the 50 peso Mexican bank note features the axolotl. Click on the image below to see it larger. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 14 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024

Once again, an intro from before — Day 14, 2014 — double 14 today, like our double 13 yesterday! Day 14. A fortnight in. I've always found it interesting that "fortnight" and "fourteen" share the same opening sounds. Is there a connection there, do you think? A shared root sometime in the past, perhaps. And now, today's prompts. Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[W]rite a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word (e.g., 'Because,' 'Forget,' 'Not,' 'If'). This technique of beginning multiple lines with the same word or phrase is called anaphora, and has long been used to give poems a driving rhythm and/or a sense of puzzlebox mystery. ” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite an ekphrastic poem. An ekphrastic poem is a poem inspired by a piece of art, whether that's a painting, a sculpture, mixed media, or something beyond all that.” Most ekphrastic poems you'll see are connected to visual art, but they can also involve other arts; poet Maggie Queeney says ekphrastic poems can also "describe durational art that engages multiple senses, such as plays, videos, music, or installation art" ("Across Genres"). The other day, I wrote an ekphrastic tall tale using an art piece by my daughter Amelia Blue Gotera. Since one of today's prompts calls for an ekphrastic poem, I'm going to do it again with her sculpture "If You Build It" (2022). This was on exhibit in Cedar Falls's Main Street for a year. I'll start off today with a photo of the sculpture that will be my model. From this angle, I almost see a dog sitting, though of course the sculpture is not representational. Once again, a curtal sonnet (abcabc dbcdc, with 10 syllable lines). Amelia Blue Gotera, "If You Build It" (2022) After Amelia’s Sculpture Yellow sculpture, welded aluminum. Yellows — glitzy goldenrod, daffodil. Yellow, the gleaming glory of our sun. Yellow dog, sitting quietly, so calm. YOLO — you only live once — seek a thrill. Jello, island pineapple and lemon. Yelo — Philippine ice — for desserts like Halo-halo, tropical fruits and gels. Cielo, the sun’s blue sky kingdom, heaven. Yellow — vibrant dynamo, electric.                                   Voila, Mia’s bright fun. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Well, that was a blast. To satisfy the anaphora prompt, I started each line with "yellow" or a sound-alike word, even the ending "voila" which, admittedly, is quite distant but nevertheless an echo. Here are a couple more photos of the sculpture, first, with Amelia, and then second, at night. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Day 13 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024

Continuing to quote fun blog intros, here's one from Day 13 of 2013 . . . double 13! As I'm certain you're aware, some people consider 13 an unlucky number. "Friday the 13th" is thought by many a particularly unlucky combination of day and date. In my hometown of San Francisco, there is no 13th Avenue; between 12th and 14th Avenues lies Funston Avenue. Some buildings around the US have no 13th floor, a fact that led to the name of one of the early psychedelic bands, The 13th Floor Elevators, who had a hit song titled "You're Gonna Miss Me" in 1966, one of my favorite rock songs ever. Not many people know the song features the jug as an instrument, the electric jug. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a living poem. What makes a living poem may be different for everyone. Some people may like to live it up, while others may focus solely on being alive.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: "[O]ur optional prompt for the day asks you to play with rhyme. Start by creating a “word bank” of ten simple words. They should only have one or two syllables apiece. Five should correspond to each of the five senses (i.e., one word that is a thing you can see, one word that is a type of sound, one word that is a thing you can taste, etc). Three more should be concrete nouns of whatever character you choose (i.e., 'bridge,' 'sun,' 'airplane,' 'cat'), and the last two should be verbs. Now, come up with rhymes for each of your ten words. .&nbsp.&nbsp. Use your expanded word-bank, with rhymes, as the seeds for your poem. Your effort doesn’t actually have to rhyme in the sense of having each line end with a rhymed word, but try to use as much soundplay in your poem as possible." Here's my word bank. Each category below shows the initial words I chose in the first line and the corresponding rhyme words in the second line. Sense   Verbs   Nouns moon strewn flame came fly why thunder wonder wings things roar more musk brusque scales fails salt fault bark spark The character I was thinking of was a dragon, and that influenced some of the word choices. Okay, today's poem is again a curtal sonnet (abcabc dbcdc, with 10 syllables per line). I was able to use 11 words from the 20 words in the word bank. This poem merges both prompts, as usual. Dragon Flight Under the salt moon, I fly up, feather- light and musk-scented. Thunder is a brusque intruder in my reverie. My wings pivot me into lightning, the ether blazing across the wingtips, electric flame in my wake, fiery spitballs spinning. The sky strewn with pebbled clouds, rough tree bark wind buffeting my scales, glowing coals like gold-vermilion blossoms. I roar loud, sing arias into brisk air, bright blue sparks.                                       Ain’t this some living? —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] "Dragon Flight 1" by Vince Gotera I used to have a phone that had this great drawing app in it. I've forgotten the name of the app. Anyway, I often made these little drawings, frequently of dragons. Here's another one of a dragon flying. "Dragon Flight 2" by Vince Gotera Yesterday, I featured my daughter Amelia's art, and today we have a couple of mine. Incidentally, I've written two poems about flying on two consecutive days. I seem to do that fairly often. My ex-wife Mary Ann is a lucid dreamer and can fly in her dreams at will. She trained herself to do that with dream journals. I hope to learn that sometime! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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