Today’s new word:

yapok n. a semi-aquatic opossum of Central and South America also known as the water opossum. The only living marsupial in which both sexes have pouches.

National Poetry Writing Month prompt:

Write a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully.

Writer’s Digest April PAD (poem a day) challenge:

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Again,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write your poem.

My poem

Hagridden Again

In search of new knowledge,
my perpetual motion,
ambushed by yapok.
A disconcerting combination
of water and land,
of fingered and webbed,
of cute and horrifying.

I contemplate forewarning.
But I am not a gate keeper.
Who am I to impair the stun
of this captivating truth?
Once known, yapoks cannot be unknown,
once seen not unseen,
once imagined, forever a menacing possibility.

I am bewitched by potential,
spellbound by the shiny new tidbits of discovery,
and plunge into inquiry enchanted.
I contemplate a flustering illustration
of its thick tail tightly constricting a branch,
a bewildered bird in its mouth.
I ponder another unsettling engraving
in which it crawls ashore with a discombobulated fish.

In my image it circles you as you work your stoke
like a Labrador preparing a rescue.
In my depiction it perches on your shoulder;
its tail crawls into a coil on your arm;
it gorges on your harrowed head.

Today I am aware of the yapok,
surprised by its revelation,
alarmed by swimming teeth and tails,
mesmerized by adaptation.
I am under the spell of spelling.
Five letters ordered to an unexpected meaning,
leaving me fazed.

Reading

Today’s poetry book for inspiration is The Pushcart Book of Poetry: The Best Poems from Three Decades of the Pushcart Prize by Joan Murray (2009-04-03).

Happy Reading and Writing!

Today’s new word:

xenium (plural xenia) n. a present, gift, especially one for a host or vice-versa. a compulsory gift.

National Poetry Writing Month prompt:

“Remix” a Shakespearean sonnet. Here’s all of Shakespeare’s sonnets. You can pick a line you like and use it as the genesis for a new poem. Or make a “word bank” out of a sonnet, and try to build a new poem using the same words (or mostly the same words) as are in the poem.

Writer’s Digest April PAD (poem a day) challenge:

For today’s prompt, pick a direction, make that the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. There are so many directions: north, south, up, down, left, right, over, under, etc. But there are also more specific directions like “Across the Way,” “Through the Woods,” and “Beyond the Clearing.” Or give directions like “Clean Your Room,” “Tie Your Shoes,” or “Get Over Here.”

My poem

Inward and Outward

Plastic-coated self untouched by any
precious xenium though unprovident
impenetrable walls keep out many
voluptuous luxury evident
voice lost in fear and fires of hate
bodies dance vinyl and satin conspire
bouts of cold murderous shame ruinate
ridges of almonds swimming in desire
delicious knowledge but also fear mind
washed with a certain Merlot love
an imperfect actor thinks she is kind
invigorate sweet moments not to prove
how many layers of onion to me
Oh! learn to read the stains you can see

Reading

Today’s poetry book for inspiration is The Sonnets and a Lover’s Complaint (Penguin Clothbound Classics).

Happy Reading and Writing!

Today’s new word:

wamble v. 1. to move unsteadily. 2. to feel nausea. 3. (of the stomach) to rumble; growl. n. 1. an unsteady or rolling movement. 2. a feeling of nausea.

National Poetry Writing Month prompt:

Write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a word, or phrase. You can even repeat an image, perhaps slightly changing or enlarging it from stanza to stanza, to alter its meaning.

Writer’s Digest April PAD (poem a day) challenge:

Write an evening poem. A poem about or during the night. Or take evening a completely different direction and think of evening the score or making things more even (or fair or whatever).

My poem

You Come in the Evening

I wamble toward the evening
after pushing to exhaustion
exhausted muscles slack warm and heavy
heavy lids gather darkness as
darkness gathers along the horizon
horizontal pink and orange candy-floss clouds cling

clinging bits of nature hitch a ride inside
inside I want to fall into the cushions
but cushion that temptation until after a rinse
but before the rinsing waters can cleanse I see you
you wait patiently by the door
the door slides and I lift you to nuzzle at my neck
my neck vibrates with you and the sweat collects your hair
shedding, sticking hair covers me and joins the twigs and grass and leaves
and hairy nature greets the evening softly

the smell of gasoline leads to wamble
you push on into the evening
I let the warm and heavy water
wash the evening into night

Reading

Today’s poetry book for inspiration is The Tradition by Jericho Brown.

Happy Reading and Writing!

Today’s new word:

taboret (tabouret) n. 1. a low seat without back or arms, for one person; stool. 2. a frame for embroidery. 3. a small, usually portable stand, cabinet, or chest of drawers, as for holding work supplies.

National Poetry Writing Month prompt:

Write a poem about an animal.

Writer’s Digest April PAD (poem a day) challenge:

1. Write a free poem.
2. Write a not free poem.

My poem

Future Fangs

Yapping portent of yet to come
diabolical free-range ne’er do well
leashless barker admonishing
my trespass upon my porch

She pounces, lunges
knocking over the taboret
splaying my tools and supplies
then ducks through the bushes
and yawps at her own surprise
enclosed in a safe cage
of briars and branches
invisible and out of reach

If not free, she would still
pollute my peace
behind panes once within my domain
once friendly, warm and welcoming

Diminutive fanged snarler, aggressor
will I match her need to dominate?
Will they wander over before
or after she bites?

Reading

Today’s poetry book for inspiration is The Spite House by Elizabeth Knapp .

The Planner Pages

I apologize to all of you who are part of the planner experiment. I didn’t get the pages out for the first time this year, but things came up and I had to let something slide. Since the planner experiment is about creating an informative and motivating daily planner for 2020, I figured being off by a couple days this week would be okay. I’ll post the rest of April’s pages later today with an update on how the experiment is going.

Happy Reading and Writing!

Today’s new word:

salvific adj. Having the intention or power to bring about salvation or redemption.

National Poetry Writing Month prompt:

Write a poem that engages with another art form – it might be about a friend of yours who paints or sculpts, your high school struggles with learning to play the French horn, or a wonderful painting, film, or piece of music you’ve experienced – anything is in bounds here, so long as it uses the poem to express something about another form of art.

Writer’s Digest April PAD (poem a day) challenge:

Write a correspondence poem. Maybe write a poem that would fit on a postcard or in a letter. Or write a poem about correspondence school. Or jump into newer forms of correspondence like e-mail or text messaging. Of course, not all correspondence is connected to communicating; sometimes one thing corresponds to another by being similar.

My poem

Correspondence

Crumpled correspondence tops the stack of junk
piling monument to passing days
a mountain from the mole hill
of the ignored

I light the old, unwanted, local rag
delivered, though I asked them not to
It ignites the dry wood of the limbs
from the last wind storm

Smoke sneaks into the living room
and collects halfway down the stairs
where the temperature changes between two worlds
in summer

The flame grows and I throw
the unopened envelopes in
salvific fire cleansing, protecting everyone
from my potential clone

A multiplying identity
participating in false economy
capitalist societies
of the imaginary

Reading

Today’s poetry book for inspiration is Collected Poems by W. H. Auden.

Happy Reading and Writing!

Photo by Jennifer Regnier on Unsplash

Today’s new word:

National Poetry Writing Month prompt:

Write a poem that “talks.” Write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life.

Writer’s Digest April PAD (poem a day) challenge:

For today’s prompt, write a dark poem. Cave poems, poems at night, and no electricity poems–these are all appropriate for today’s prompt.

My poem

The Cave Wall

ruddle marks flurry along the cave’s wall
my only message
my only proof of existance
I mark the days, months
at first I doodled to pass the time
flowers, spirals, a cat, a little stick person
but this cough is more urgent
what to say?
not some old quote
someone else’s words
a legacy
meaningful wisdom
what has life taught me
to pass along?
Don’t get stranded
and die in a cave
wouldn’t be helpful to many
nor the next poor soul that sits here
reading my message
I decide
and the ruddle marks the wall
I doodle some spirals
I mark the days

Reading

Today’s poetry book for inspiration is The Rain in Portugal: Poems by Billy Collins.

Happy Reading and Writing!

Today’s new word:

quires n. 1. a set of 24 uniform sheets of paper. 2. Bookbinding . a section of printed leaves in proper sequence after folding; gathering.

National Poetry Writing Month prompt:

Yesterday’s poem, Little Bee, is the featured poem on NaPoWriMo today. So exciting. Thank you.

Write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. You could write a very strict abecedarian poem, in which there are twenty-six words in alphabetical order, or you could write one in which each line begins with a word that follows the order of the alphabet. This is a prompt that lends itself well to a certain playfulness.

Writer’s Digest April PAD (poem a day) challenge:

Write a license poem.

My poem

Now I lay me

acidic
bile building
calcium can’t conquer
dull drunks don’t drown
effervescent ellipses emit
fidgety film
gross
heart hurting
illicit illness insists
jerking jolting jarring jog
killing kiln kicks
license lost
morning
never new
obsess over oddities
plentiful patience, peeking peepers
quires quell quips
ruin reams
sleep
tortured tether
under urban upper-crust
vaulting value vanishes virtues
wintered wandering wonderment
x-ray xenomorph
yawn
zzz

Reading

Today’s poetry book for inspiration is A Trio of Tolerable Tales by Margaret Atwood.

Happy Reading and Writing!