Day 18 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2025 // Stafford 92

Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a response poem. In many ways, every poem is a response poem as it's a response to something, even if it's that hard-to-explain sense of inspiration many poets feel. For the purposes of this prompt, your poem could respond to a story in the news (or just a fictional story, for that matter), a conversation you overheard in public (also called eavesdropping), or another poem (written by you or another poet).” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo suggestion: “And now for today’s (optional) prompt. Like our villanelle prompt from a week ago, this prompt plays around with song lyrics, but in a very specific context – singing while riding in a car. Take a look at Ellen Bass’s poem, “You’re the Top.” Now, craft your own poem that recounts an experience of driving/riding and singing, incorporating a song lyric.” My poem today features two people talking and responding to each other, for the Poem-a-Day prompt. For the "response poem" NaPoWriMo prompt, the poem also incorporates a song lyric from Santana's song "Evil Ways," though the poem is not about singing, as suggested. This is a curtal sonnet. And the Car Radio Said . . . “You’ve got to change your evil ways, baby, before I stop loving you.” And she said, “Well, that ain’t gonna make me change my ways, evil or not. Men think they got maybe some God-given right to tell women what to change.” And he said, “It’s not all of us. There’s good ones in the world. Take me, for one. Take me, sometime! Ha!” “I ain’t taking squat,” she said, “though you are easy on the eyes.” He looked out the window. And she said, “Hon,                             it’s not enough, those eyes.” —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Santana, first album by Santana (1969) Here's Alan's poem. Like yesterday, Alan hewed closer to both prompts by including singing (which I did not). The true merging of prompts is in the responsive bit near the end of the third section. Bravo! The Three Stages of Listening to Song Lyrics Containing the Word “₣Ω©₭” While Your Kids Are in the Car, Generation Jones Edition 1.  You’re listening to the album cut of Steely Dan’s “Show Biz Kids” from 1973’s Countdown to Ecstasy, not the radio-friendly version, and you know precisely where the once-offending term lies, because when you were fourteen, you sang that line with all the emphasis having a bedroom at the far end of the house permitted, never mind the next-door neighbor was always sitting out on his patio and may have heard you, but he was such a committed alcoholic that no one would have taken him seriously if he had said something about it, and, only years later, when you were listening to James Taylor’s “Brother Trucker” from 1979’s Flag, your mom got upset with you until you showed her the lyrics printed on the inner album sleeve to calm her down. 2.  You haven’t had the chance to listen to Jason Isbell’s Southeastern (2013) yet, and the songs are just getting better and better, making you think about how much you want your dad/garage band to play “Traveling Alone” because it just suits your vocalist’s range, and then it slides into “Elephant,” and you get so caught up in the story that the once-offending term rolls out naturally and organically in the lyric and you figure that there has to be some latitude permitted for artistic license, even around tweens, and, let’s face it, they may not have heard you say the word, but they must have heard it regularly among classmates since the sixth grade. 3.  Still being a disc purchaser, you get a copy of Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023), partially because the single played by the radio pop station selected by the university gym you frequent reminds you of Cyndi Lauper and Lena Lovich with a trace of Stevie Nicks and maybe some Lorde, and you discover that like many other pop performers marketed for young women in our third decade of the new century, Roan sings the language of the people, and your kid, already giggly delighted that you know the hand gestures to “Hot to Go,” asks that you make a mix CD for when you’re together for a road trip, and you find yourself singing along with your kid to "Red Wine Supernova." —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023) Everyone, I want to send you to my friend's blog that's always a treasure in April: Orangepeel by Bruce Niedt. Bruce also does a magnificent job of mashing up prompts. And he's the most faithful reader of this blog in April! Go check him out! Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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