Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Day 10 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024


Day 10 . . . here's a fun intro from 2015:
Day Ten. Yesterday was 30%. Somehow, though, part of me wants to think the tenth day is 30%, not the ninth day. For a guy who had once strongly considered a math major — can you believe it? — that's terrible. Yeah yeah. National Poetry Month is 33% gone. (Actually 33.33333333333%.) The great thing, though, is that there is still 67% poetry to go. (Yeah, I know . . . 66.66666666667%.) Extend those 3's and 6's as far out as you want!
And now, today's poetry suggestions. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[T]ake the phrase ‘(blank) Better,’ 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: “Ezra Pound famously said that “poetry is news that stays news.” While we don’t know about that, the news can have a certain poetry to it. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on one of the curious headlines, cartoons, and other journalistic tidbits featured at Yesterday’s Print, where old new stays amusing, curious, and sometimes downright confusing.”


Well, folks, those prompts aren't doing it for me today. So I'm going rogue (as my old buddy Thomas Alan Holmes always called it), going off the prompts.

Total Solar Eclipse 2024

We traveled 444 miles
to witness the total solar eclipse.
An epic drive? No. Bumper-to-bumper
for the final three hours, 100 miles.
We stopped in a graveyard, with our eclipse
glasses in hand. The city park we were

heading for had been closed, full up. The moon
crawled across the orange sun, slow time lapse.
When at last the sun was fully covered,
a bright aura flamed out, circling the moon.
                                Magic, glory, wonder!

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

Photo from USA Today, in Evansville, Indiana.


I'm glad I had a chance to write a poem about the eclipse that more fully captures my experience. My eclipse poem from the other day was too focused on the two-persons-or-things-ill-met prompt and didn't reflect my actual feelings about the eclipse. This poem by the way, is a curtal sonnet (rhymed abcabc dbcdc, in decasyllabics or 10-syllable lines).


Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks!

Ingat, everyone.   


NaPoWriMo / PAD 2024 • Pick a day:
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1 comment:

Bruce Niedt said...

Nicely done - I'm reall enjoying these sonnets. I struggled with the prompts today too, but I did write on in response to Maureen's prompt.




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