Day 4 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 78

Thanks for coming back! Today's Day 4 poem is #78 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #443, including last year's poems). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to craft [a] short poem that involves a weather phenomenon and some aspect of the season.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write a friend poem.” As usual, I'm merging both prompts in my poem. I refer here to Persephone, the Greek goddess of spring, who is also the Queen of the Underworld, where she spends winter. Spring             —curtal sonnet Our old friend Persephone has come back — well, really our ever-young friend, graceful and lithe, bringing with her from underground daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, bouquets of light, as well as spring showers, gentle rain though sometimes too lightning and thunder. But, alas, for me Persephone is not always a good friend like most people think. With pretty flowers comes pollen and sneezing, runny nose, itchy tearful eyes.                             I'm glad it’s not year-round! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo by cenczi on pixabay.com. Introducing his poem today, Alan wrote, "In his essay for The Rag-Picker’s Guide to Poetry, Maurice Manning describes his invented form, the 'honky tanka,' as six lines, five words per line, mixed-up meter, and maybe a rhyme, all inviting vernacular speech. I’m following today’s prompts with a honky tanka." Renewed Vow Sweetheart, it’s been fifty years since we first met—suppose on our upcoming fiftieth anniversary it rains hard in August, enough for a deep puddle— together, let’s dip bare toes. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Lovely poem, Alan. Wonderful love poem too. I appreciate how you got in one rhyme, as Maurice Manning suggests: "toes" and "suppose." Thanks for coming by and reading our poems, everyone. Hope to see you tomorrow! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 3 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 77

Glad to see you back! Today's Day 3 poem is #77 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #442, counting last year). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which a profession or vocation is described differently than it typically is considered to be.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “[T]ake the phrase 'Open (blank),' replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.” Here's my poem today, melding the two prompts again. Back to my usual go-to: the curtal sonnet, decasyllabics, some slant rhyme. Open Season on Weathermen             —curtal sonnet Have you ever wondered why the weather seems so unpredictable, the season notwithstanding? Meteorologists are not, as you may have thought, predictors of weather. They instead are magicians who witchcraft the weather, not scientists. You ask why are their forecasts not always right? They’re fiendishly clever, weathermen are. They fake errors! Make intended missed forecasts. Say one thing, hex another. Ways                           they keep you sheep confused. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] https://www.sciencing.com/info-12112230-meteorologists-daily Alan's poem today also melds both prompts, with a title borrowed from The Boss. Open All Night Imagine leather patches on tweed sleeves, a leather wing-backed chair, a cup of tea, and book-packed shelves with some few spaces free, a well-lit desk—Professor Me conceives well-crafted prose by hand because he leaves transcription and revision all to be light labor of the morning; he will see, well-rested, to each insight as it weaves persuasive, certain, masterfully sure, self-deprecating, honest, true, and pure. I wake. The text from automated thieves, promoted as the stressed-out student’s cure, shifts burdens from enrollees it relieves and makes an AI slop cop out of me. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Yes, indeed, our profession has changed. I had those same images you started with when I began my career in the '80s. I'm glad I'm now retired. Sorry, Alan. Thanks for coming by and reading our poems. See you tomorrow? Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day 2 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford 76

Hello again! Today's Day 2 poem is #76 in the Stafford Challenge this year (and #441 overall). Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem in which you recount a childhood memory. Try to incorporate a sense of how that experience indicated to you, even then, something about the person you’d grow up to be.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “For today's prompt, write an express poem.” Okay, here we go, merging the two prompts today. My First Poetic Expression I’m sure I titled it “The Sun”—my very first poem. I was probably six or seven. I was on an outing with my dad on a ferry boat, a bright morning with a blazing sun. I remember looking up at the cloudless sky, intensely blue, and musing, wondering, what the sun was. I knew it was made of gas, though I didn’t know “plasma” or “hydrogen” yet. When we got home, I wrote a poem in three quatrains, alternate rhymes, ABAB. My mom sent the poem to my elementary school, and they published it in the family newsletter. Fascinating I was at that time already a formalist, maybe from nursery rhymes. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Photo by alimison on pixabay.com. Here is Alan's poem today, also merging both prompts. My Aunt NotHerName Teaches Me about How to Express Contempt without Being Wordy Let’s say I’m six or seven—I can read and recognize the brands my mother bought and those she didn’t, Wonder bread, the dots like circuses, the Bama mayonnaise, of course, less eggy than the other brands, and I was feeling shy at first, the first and only time we ate at NotHerName’s and T-Bone’s place, the only meal I shared with her outside reunions once or twice a year, although they lived just twenty miles away. She seemed so old to me back then, her cheekbones, just like Pawpaw’s, shelved beneath her deep-set eyes like Disney villains have, the cigarettes she puffed between each bite. So, we were having sandwiches, thick ham on Wonder bread she sopped with mayonnaise, and I could not bite through the salty slice and tried to grip it through the bread and failed. I felt the meat droop to my chin and froze in my aunt’s gaze. Embarrassed as I put the ruined bread down on my plate, I pulled and bit the ham. I freed a chunk and chewed enough to swallow, washing down the gob with Coke. My mother sliced the rest, small bites, and then she whispered, “Leave the bread alone.” I don’t remember anything until we left and I, unprompted, thanked them for the meal. Aunt NotHerName took my chin in her palm and stooped to look me in the eyes and curled the right side of her mouth into a smile I did not understand until I learned that family and blood are not the same. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Wow, that's quite an incident, Alan. The last line is brilliant . . . yes, quite a distinction between "family" and "blood." Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

National Poetry Month / NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2026 / Stafford Challenge

Welcome back to the blog, friends, for a new National Poetry Month. Like before, we will be writing a poem a day and posting those poems here. "We," being Thomas Alan Holmes and I, will be writing from prompts at NaPoWriMo and Poem-a-Day headquarters. I hope you'll keep coming back to read our poems this month. My poems this April are also continuing my participation in the Stafford Challenge, where poets around the world are writing a poem a day for a year. This is actually my second year with the Challenge, and today's poem is #75 this year and #440 over those two years. Okay, here goes . . . Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own tanka – or multi-tanka poem" (technically called a tanka sequence). The tanka is a Japanese poetic form: traditionally, in English, five lines with 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today's prompt, write a seed poem. So many plants start from a tiny seed and (hopefully) grow into something much more substantial, but there are also other ways to come at this prompt. Some people are considered good seeds ... or bad seeds. Some run-down, disreputable places are labeled seedy. Many competitive tournaments are seeded. So take a moment to consider seeds and then write your poem.” Here's my first April poem, combining both prompts, as I always try to do. I'm writing about Artemis II, the NASA mission heading to the moon later today. ’Round the Moon and Back Artemis II — seed to revive our space program with crewed flights? Drones sent to other planets seem more sensible, less dangerous . . . but less romantic. Later today, one woman and three men blast off for the moon’s far side we can’t see from Earth. Excelsior! —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] And here is Alan's poem, also merging both prompts: Sprout “Johnny Appleseed” in elementary school the day I went west, teachers found me blocks away, pants pockets full of acorns. —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Back to Artemis II: Good luck and Godspeed to the four astronauts heading to the moon today! Google today is celebrating the moon flight with a Google Doodle: (For more on this Google Doodle: https://doodles.google/doodle/nasas-artemis-ii-mission-around-the-moon/) Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Poet Laureate 9: January 2025–May 2025

My last poet laureate post was for an event dated in early January 2025, but I realize that I had missed an interview that took place in December 2024: an interview by Tony Robles for Listen and Be Heard Radio. This interview can be seen here: On 29 January 29 2025, I was interviewed by John Busbee for the Culture Buzz Show broadcast on KFMG radio in Des Moines. That interview may be found as a podcast here: https://archive.org/details/vince-gotera-poet.-dragons-rayguns.-ia-poet-laureate.-jan-2025-online-audio-converter.com On 5 February 2025, I had the pleasure of meeting with a high school freshman class at Bedford Elementary School in Bedford, Iowa, via Zoom. That was a fun event. On 6 March 2025, I was honored to give a poetry reading at Iowa State University, sponsored by University Museums. On the next evening, 7 March 2025, Poetry Palooza (an Iowa poetry nonprofit organization) sponsored me to give a reading at the RAYGUN store in Des Moines. On 9 March 2025, I was privileged to serve as a judge for Iowa's Poetry Out Loud finals in Des Moines. I opened the event with a brief poetry reading. It was a treat to watch the participants — high school students from around the state — performing famous poems. On 18 March 2025, I was honored to give a poetry reading at the Iowa Veterans Home, where I read poems about my military service and my family tradition of soldiering, especially from my collection Fighting Kite (which is available to be read here in the blog — see the link at top left). Here's a newspaper article about this reading, from the Marshalltown Times-Republican: https://www.timesrepublican.com/news/todays-news/2025/03/iowa-poet-laureate-vince-gotera-reads-to-ivh-residents-and-staff/ On the weekend of 4-5 April 2025, I was a featured poet at the Poetry Palooza celebration in Des Moines, where I gave a poetry reading with the other featured poets, gave a workshop titled, "Exploring Hay(na)ku Poems," and participated in a featured-poet panel. As part of this event as well, I visited two classrooms — 7th graders at Humboldt Middle School in Humboldt, Iowa, and 4th graders at Clarion-Goldfield-Dows School in Clarion, Iowa. The photos above show the two visits to the 7th-grade and 4th-grade classrooms. If you look on the board behind me in the picture with the 4th graders, you'll see round faces I drew on the board, a boy and a girl, then had the students draw features on them, eyes, ears, accouterments, etc., and then we all wrote poems about those faces. It was a lot of fun. On 6 April 2025, I did a "Poetry Walk" at Iowa State University. This event, sponsored by University Museums, had me visit, with an audience, several works of art around the campus, about which I had written ekphrastic poems. At each location, I read the poem out loud and then discussed the poems and the art with the audience. On 13 April 2025, I gave a reading at Beaverdale Books in Des Moines. Here's a TV news report from Local 5 (WOI-TV) about the event: On 28 April 2025, I had the privilege of giving a poetry reading at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City. That reading was a blast . . . great crowd. On 17 May 2025, I gave a poetry reading at the Coralville Asian Fest. That was a fun event. My reading was sandwiched between Korean dancers and a kids' choir. On 19 May 2025, my interview with Becky Parker of Briar House Writes appeared on YouTube. That was a great conversation. Check it out: That's all the Poet Laureate news to date! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ