It’s hard to believe we are already over halfway through the month and these challenges. Even if you’re just joining now, there’s still plenty of time to get some fun, spooky writing done and face your fears through your poems. Feel free to link up to any of the prompts so far as well as the rest as we go. Are you getting excited for Halloween?
OctPoWriMo 2023: Facing Our Fears
Fear of Change: For today’s poem think about transformation: physical, situational, or otherwise.
Now that we’ve made it through half of the month, I thought it could be interesting to do another mind map around “Fear” and see if things have changed, if we’re making different connections, if new things come up. You may also want to do a second mind map around “Change” to explore ideas for today’s poem.
A concrete poem or shape poetry might be a fun way to express this poem. Here’s the concrete poem I wrote in April 2022.
Writober 2023
Today’s image prompt looks like a very bad laundry day.
I’m afraid I confused myself (that’s what I get for trying to schedule ahead) and wrote to this image last week with my story The Washing Machine is Out of Order instead of the Gregory Crewdson photograph, so I guess I’ll be writing to that image today.
Halloween Photography Challenge
The first image at the top was made by taping a lazer-cut wooden puzzle piece of an astronaut onto a plastic filter over my camera lens and taking a picture of a white light. The other two are pictures of the moon.
Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Are any of you planning for NaNoWriMo? I’m having trouble deciding what I want to do this year. I love writing a brand new novel draft, and really want to try a genre I haven’t tried yet (maybe magical realism, fantasy, or horror) but I also need to finish my novels, so I may want to use NaNoWriMo to write a new draft of the thriller I started last year, and revised the outline during camp. Working on the thriller and working toward finishing it will probably be more rewarding in the long run, but writing something completely new sure sounds like fun.
Experience Writing 
Ornery Owl responded to the OctPoWriMo Transformation prompt with a poem about body acceptance: http://poetryofthenetherworld.blogspot.com/2023/10/not-here-to-please-you.html
Check it out when you get a chance.
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Laura De Bernardi
Orbits
The moon revolves around
me while I pivot the sun
the two of us locked
in a moving embrace
The moon does not change
while my perceptions of
her shift, from full to half
to waning to new, when
she cannot be seen at all
The moon is reborn then
into a waxing crescent
dimly lit, a clever illusion
as she’s always there
whether I see her or not
The moon teaches me to
perceive myself in a like
state of transformation
the same and changing
seen and not seen
The moon is lightless
as I am, a refracted glow
of others’ minds and dull
when they cease to flow
through me, also
The moon is an object
DH Lawrence hated
smashing its reflection
in the pond, for how it
bore down demanding
The moon is static
caught in ceaseless
transformation going nowhere
achieving nothing hanging
just hanging around
** Maria, I also wanted to say that I read your poems and enjoy your creativity, your linguistic flourishes, your broad range and the wit you bring to your poems, writing and spectacular artistic and photographic ingenuity. I haven’t commented for the simple reason that I have done so much of that over the years at ModPo, and felt it was right, for me, here, to just try the act of poetry for myself, with no other expectation than that. So, wanting to clarify, it’s not that I do not read your blog but that I am kicking up my heels here and allowing myself the freedom to do only that. All the best, Laura
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Wow, I enjoyed this poem. Every stanza adds so much to the speakers relationship to and with the moon. Thank you for your comment. I’m so glad this OctPoWriMo is inspiring you to kick up your heels and feel free.
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I’d like to try NaNoWriMo this year, I’ve made some starts at it, but for some reason I never do it. Maybe I’ll try it this year.
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Would you write a horror novel?
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