The word “question” comes up often in the Nov/Dec 2019 Poets&Writers Magazine. The editor’s note starts with a question, “What is the future of independent publishing?” He writes, “That was the question I asked the eight industry leaders whose answer-essays are featured in this issue’s special section. It was, of course, a rhetorical question. . . .” There’s a Q&A with Reginald Dwayne Betts who is the author of A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison (assoc link). His son who had to come to his poetry event asked, “Is there a toy for me in the poem?” Now, that’s a good question.
In the Reviewers & Critics section, Michael Taeckens asks Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post, “What is your reading process like?” He answers, “It’s long and slow, unfortunately. I go through each book three times. . . .By that point I might have built a three-thousand-word file out of a three-hundred-page book, with quotes and ideas and questions I want to explore.
In the first answer-essay in “The Future of Independent Publishing section, Richard Nash writes, “But one reason I became a coach is because it is a profession with a methodology that is fundamentally about asking questions, not offering answers . . .when the author needed—and I was able to offer—challenging, powerful queries.”
And speaking of queries, in the Small Press Points section it says, “Unnamed Press accepts queries and submissions via e-mail, and is open year-round” keep in mind that’s from 2019.
And in Jennifer Lee’s response to The Future of Independent Publishing, she writes, “We’re beginning to see more and more attempts to resolve the licensing quandaries characteristic of digital works.”
Whether question, query, or quandary, poems are about pondering the unknowns, whether arguing for, against, or both sides of an issue, the poem brings new questions, and answers to the discussion.
While searching the Poets and Writers Magazine for images and text for today’s collage, I started by looking for questions in medium type, but as I searched I found the imagery brought up more questions than the text. Every object in a picture of a bookstore was full of questions: Where did it come from? What is it’s function? Why is it placed where it is? Every picture of a place brought up questions: Where is that? Do I want to go there? Would I like it there? What would I do there? What would happen. Once you’re in question mode, everything is a question.
On the A to Z Challenge site today, they also chose “question” for Q. I really like the question they end their post with, “What question do you want your readers to answer today?”
What’s the question that you keep asking? How can you answer it with a poem?
The Prompts
NaPoWriMo : What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.
PAD Challenge : pick an emotion, make it the title of your poem, and write your poem
Poetry Non-stop : focus on your daily environment and reimagine its importance to you
Today’s Poem
Desperation
The sun is out, and it’s warm in the living room
I search the giant wood beam of my high ceiling
remembering how the stain dripped onto the light carpet
as I tried to battle with spray, then soapy water.
It hunts me, last summer’s invasion.
After I thought I had won,
once I destroyed the nest,
the daily swarms like a writhing alarm clock
attacked the roofline in wave after wave
crawling through the window seals,
trailing along the beam
to what end? With nothing sweet to eat,
it felt like revenge.
It hunts me, last summer’s invasion
the tiny white eggs under the wood
in the window sill, giving birth
inside the house! They were in the walls!
Coming out of electrical outlets.
But it was the trail along the beam
that broke me. Rust-stain proof
that I couldn’t win. I saw some
climbing up the chimney
through the window.
They hunt me.
Experience Writing 