Day 30 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 104

Greetings, everyone, for our last day in April! My poem today is #104 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #469, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a harvest poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: a “poem that discusses a real or mythical being or profession (demons, firefighters, demonic firefighters) with [a] musing yet dispassionate tone." Combining both prompts successfully for the last time. Thank goodness I was able to complete the whole month combining all the prompts. Philippine Flying Dragons             —curtal sonnet Draco volans — famous flying dragons of Mindanao soar from tree to tree like nine-inch-long miniature pterodactyls. Male dragon flies down to a tree trunk and waits there for a line of red ants, then strikes! Harvest of insects, a nearby anthill’s bounty. Female dragon descends to earth and excavates a hole with her head like a shovel, lays five eggs, and then tamps soil back in. For one whole day, this mom will guard.                                           Flying dragons rule! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source And here is Alan's last poem for the month, combining both prompts in an unusual fashion once more. Baby Potatoes I stand confused in the produce section by baby potatoes. They suggest that some people have a sense of inexhaustible plenty, that it makes some sense to consume the young, the tender, the underdeveloped to suit appetites of those who cannot appreciate how fulfilling the maturely developed can be, how what will be gone in one or two bites could with patient and nurturing stewardship fill a hungry belly and provide for the next planting instead of appealing to privileged preference who expects always to have access to a gulped taste that never sates it, grabbing for more. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] The notion of "harvest" is implied by the poem as a whole, and the tone achieves the dispassionate feeling suggested in the prompt. Thanks for coming by the blog all month, everyone. It's been fun poeming with Alan and, of course, with you. See you in April next year. Friends, today, 30 April 2026, is the last day of my two-year term as Poet Laureate of Iowa. It was a wonderful two years, traveling to different parts of Iowa and giving poetry readings, poetry workshops, and poetry lectures at colleges and universities, town libraries, bookstores, literary festivals like Poetry Palooza, churches, Rotary Clubs, the Iowa Veterans Home, various groups of literary lovers, and writers' groups. I had the privilege of being commissioned to write (and completing) the official sesquicentennial poem for the University of Northern Iowa's 150-year anniversary. I was also glad to be asked to write several ekphrastic poems on artworks on the Iowa State University campus as well as do a "Poetry Walk" visiting those artworks with an audience and reading those poems aloud there. Thanks to all the lovely audience members and event organizers. Best of luck to Paul Brooke, the incoming Poet Laureate starting on Mayday. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 29 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 103

Hello, everyone! My poem today is #103 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #468, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a pocket poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[C]ompare your everyday present life with your past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of your past and present in the reader’s mind." Combining both prompts, as usual. I hope tomorrow I can finish the whole month combining all the prompts. My Pocket Poem Tomorrow is “Poem in Your Pocket Day.” The last pocket poem I wrote was 14 years ago. My life was so different then. I was married, but a couple of months from moving out. Like many Aprils before, I was also having bad hay fever . . . springtime, so much pollen in the air. Those days were notoriously unhappy. But today, thanks to allergy shots, I’m free from hay fever. More important, the biggest change of all is, I’ve met the love of my life. Renee and I have had a happy couple of years. Blissful years. That’s our sweet pocket! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] And here is Alan's pocket poem, combining both prompts in an unusual fashion. The Watch Pocket Naive university freshman, grandparents’ first-generation student, living away from home for the first time, you decided to use a pocket watch your parents had given you for fun. It was louder than you realized, and, during an in-class examination, your professor said to put it away, and you wore a wristwatch from that time on. You flattened your nasal intonation by speaking from your chest almost like hums, and you made fewer one-syllable words shift tone and pitch midway through. I don’t know where that watch is now; when I get tired, though, that tone shift returns with a worn tenor, and my watch pocket holds two guitar picks, and I teach literature about the folks we learned to hold inside long years ago. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source Don't you think that's actually a self-portrait? Very interesting way to fulfill the past-and-present life prompt. Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 28 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 102

Hello, everyone! My poem today is #102 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #467, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For the fourth and final Two-for-Tuesday prompt:  1) Write a love poem, and/or . . . 2) Write an anti-love poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, try writing a poem [with] three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion." Combining all three prompts . . . a very small space to get all this in. True Love She to him: I love you and I don’t love you. He to her: is that true or is that not true? She to him: either/or; He to her: both/and. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan very successfully combined all three prompts. Bravo! The Haters Want Us to Love Them They bought a warehouse, replacing goods with people. See how a bully calls foul when he's called "bully"? He insists on love when all we want is justice. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 27 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 101

Greetings, friends! My poem today is #101 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #466, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a fan poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: write a “poem in which all the verses contain the same number of lines (whether couplets, triplets, quatrains, etc.) and in which you give the reader instructions of some kind." Combining prompts again ... had good luck with that this month so far. Rhymed couplets and some mentions of "fan." Adventures in Dentistry I walked into the dentist’s office this morning with no ideas about today’s poem. None brewing, even simmering slightly. As the hygienist was scaling — scrape scrape — I began to realize I have more than a few stories about dentistry. (How do you rhyme that? Palmistry? Fancy-free?) When I was in the Army, I was in the dentist’s chair and went “Ow!” while he was drilling. With a glare he growled, “If it hurts that much, I’ll just pull it.” I gotta say, I didn’t make any more noise. Just took it. Not a fan of that chairside manner. When they pulled my wisdom teeth, they gave me IV Valium. The oral surgeon was doing whatever (I wasn’t knocked out) with all sorts of crunching, grinding, and other loud sounds, but I couldn’t care. I was floating somewhere near the ceiling, a peaceful summer cloud, not a care in the world. At some point, he said, “Okay, you are done.” I remember being baffled. “Did you do something?” When I was three or four, my dad took me with him to the dentist for whatever odd reason, and I ended up having to sit in the treatment room while the dentist was pulling a tooth. He couldn’t extract it and actually put his foot on my dad’s chest! That’s my nightmare memory about visiting the dentist. A lovely memory about dentists centers on a hygienist, actually. In my late 20s, after an appointment, I asked the hygienist out and she said yes. Paula, rodeo rider, art history major in college. She became my girlfriend, and I recall wondering how someone could fall for a patient after scaling their teeth! Still a fan of Paula, a beautiful redhead. So what’s the moral of this long poem? Next time you’re in the dentist chair, don’t obsess on the scraping and whirring. Just let your mind drift over everything! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo Source Alan's poem takes on the perspective of an English professor reading student essays; there's a mention of characters from James Joyce's short story "The Dead." The Five-Paragraph Essay Must Die These twenty-somethings enrolled in any upper-division literature class should all know better than to follow that familiar pattern of tell them what you’ll tell them, tell them, tell them what you’ve told them. Well, now, God damn it, Gabriel Conroy has just realized his wife, Gretta, has not loved him as much as a youth she’s known as a girl, who’s died in part of knowing he will not live hers. But these enrollees submit chickenshit formulaic gobs of labels, Goddamned generalities, and dead, cold, safe hearts. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan is combining both prompts here: the fan aspect is covered by the speaker not being a fan, quite strongly, of the five-paragraph essay; the NaPoWriMo prompt is satisfied by the poem being in quintains, so that all the stanzas have the same number of lines: five. And clearly the poem is instructional in an entertaining fashion. It's also quite clever that the poem rails against the five-paragraph essay format but uses five-line stanzas. Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 26 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 100

Hello, friends! My poem today is #100 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #465, including last year's Stafford Challenge poem count). So that's 100 poems since January 17, William Stafford's birthday. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, take the phrase 'Last (blank),' replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we challenge you to write your own ars poetica, giving the reader some insight into what keeps you writing poetry, or what you think poetry should do.” The term "ars poetica" is Latin for "the art of poetry." Combining prompts as usual. A little background: my term as Iowa Poet Laureate is ending on April 30. It has been a great run. The Last Ars Poetica             —curtal sonnet At least my last as Poet Laureate of Iowa. My main message has been to champion light poetry. Often poets can look down upon, denigrate light poetry as weak, something to shun. As if somehow, it’s not good to have fun with poems. Poets are too serious sometimes. Light poems can be genuine and profound. For example, satire and parody: play plus outrage, furious.             Weight with sparkle . . . write on. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Turns out Alan and I both wrote a "last ars poetica." So he is also combining the prompts. Last Ars Poetica of the 2025-2026 Academic Year Because last fall semester saw two colleagues urged to walk away from their lives' work because each made in public comments of offense, because selective boundaries between a private life and job, regardless of its level, blue- or white-, professional or day-, an academic or a pope, some words get targeted, yet words intended never to deceive remain reliable when thoughts, emotions, gestures do not always serve in public, far too vulnerable, we are all too vulnerable, so let me delay exposure for a while and take some private time to offer explanations to myself, as best as I can say how I might understand the truth that might be factual or truth as I distill it from experience outside the hard, invasive, cold, unceasing blast of monetized, manipulated messages intended to entrap my time, my hard-earned life, my hard-worn love, this intimate, spontaneous, authentic urge to share at last a testament of loving truth. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Alan, great close . . . "a testament of loving truth." What more can we do? Thanks for coming by the blog, everyone. See you again tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ