Flower Basket (2020) multi-media collage by Maria L. Berg
I did it! I made it through April with over thirty new poems posted, inspired by NaPoWriMo and the Poem-a-Day Challenge. Congratulations to everyone who met these challenges. It was very fun to see the winners posted for last November’s Poem-a-Day Chapbook challenge. Congratulations De Jackson!
At the A to Z Challenge there’s an after-challenge survey. I enjoyed using the challenge to explore Janus words and phrases in my poetry.
I also enjoyed discovering art, craft and design sites I hadn’t visited before along with other writing sites.
This challenge isn’t quite finished. There will be a reflections post sign-up on May 3 and a blog road trip starting May 10th.
It’s time to get back to revision. This week I’ll be posting about my poetry revision process. I hope you’ll join me and share your tips and tricks for poetry revision.
Over at the A to Z Challenge they have a word scramble. The Janus word for today is zip which can mean energy, vim, or nothing, nada, zero
Time To Go
Goodbye. It’s time for me to be on my way
If only I knew where I wanted to be
I would zip up the stairs and burst out the door climb into the car and back down the drive
I could turn right or left and loop directly back here somehow climbing uphill both ways
with water always at my right hand an eagle soaring overhead
and if I venture further past the pentacostals and jehova’s witnesses the elementary school or the gas station speed down the hill or up the road will bring me here again
larger loops radiating as if a stone dropped in the lake on a still day I might as well stay
Over at the A to Z Challenge they’re playing the Yes Game. My Janus word is yield which can mean; to give up, surrender, or relinquish, but also; to produce by natural process.
Today is Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub where you can share your best recent poem and read and comment on all the great poetry being shared.
This is the window
with the slightly broken sill covered in flakes of pop-corn ceiling with semi-sheer blinds that when open tuck up all wrinkled on one side through this dusty, cobwebbed window revealed by off-white sheers belted to hooks where a speck of a beige-dotted bug climbs there’s a once thought impossible view
because for my whole life it was blocked by next door’s tall firs providing cool shade lakeside my great aunt told me she did it on purpose to hurt her brother next door a family feud of unnatural proportion wielding God’s power one sibling on another imagine each day’s hurt never recovered
But they’re all gone now and I can finally see past the iron railing, the rhodie, and the hedge to the rippling water, a dock, and a buoy to the houses and the park, but above that what this table was so long deprived is the sky filled with mountain– ignore the threatening volcano inside– massive contrasts of blue and white glacier and rock, snow blanketed slopes it’s never not amazing, not one single time I look, even hiding behind complete cloud cover when a stranger wouldn’t know it’s there
I tried to think of any other window where I would rather look and suddenly, I am in the international space station, looking down on Earth my body is confined, but my view through this small portal is as if the eye of God. To see the sphere its atmosphere floating in the void to know the glorious insignificance of momentary stresses, bringing overwhelming strife, but seeing all connection of a day in life
But there’s no coming back from that I’ve already known what new seeing can do, would I want to add that fractured knowing too?
I only have this window for a ticking-clock of time, I want to be aware, to take in each tick of this view while it’s sublime, the years of firs blocking the way flew so quickly by knowing there are limits, a coming end erases the flaws in the pane, even the baked-on bird gifts that won’t scrape with a blade, all I see gleams this view holds a vivid shine
Some fun products from my RedBubble store with my question mark bokeh design.
The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write a poem that poses a series of questions. The PAD prompt is to write a remix poem. These should work well together. It’ll be interesting to look back through this month’s poems and see which questions spring to mind.
My Janus for the A to Z challenge is the letter X which can mark a spot, or delete it.
At the A to Z Challenge they are turning their thoughts to what’s next. At the end of the challenge in May, I’ll be back to my revision focus. What is your revision plan? What is your revision process?
The Janus phrase for today is wind up meaning (1) To start; (2) to finish.
The poetics prompt at the dVerse Poets Pub today is about poetry as a bridge and includes the puente form. Here’s hoping it will help me bridge all my ideas.
To Know Every Heather Flower – by Maria L. Berg 2021
Overwhelming Possibilities
Each time I try to imagine the life of every human I wind up faced with the limitations of my perception I thought I might start with those in the houses I see, try to have empathy for their children and spouses a plot at a time, from the blue rambler to the three-story brown but that’s already too much, overwhelmed I shut down
~because I don’t believe it’s possible~
to know every tiny blue flower along the drive or each of the purple heather visited by bees it would take all my time to give each a name recognize each quality that is not the same and that’s but the surface, as precious and delicate as we are we may as well be numerous as the heavenly stars
Over at A to Z Challenge there’s a challenge to add some variety to the day. One of the options is to try a new kind of exercise. I saw cardio drumming for the first time on a mystery show from New Zealand. I have a yoga ball and drumsticks. I think I’ll give it a try.
The Janus word for today is vault (1) A small locked box; (2) the expanse of the heavens.
My parody was inspired by a silly thing Larry Kudlow said. After watching the segment, he may have been making fun of “plant-based” as terminology and not saying the ridiculously stupid thing he appears to be saying, but my poem’s a parody and the idea is funny, so his original intent can linger as nonsense either way.
Lest a Green New World, All Must Fear the Plant-Based Beer
We’ve all been warned it was on the “news” from that treasured vault, got those TV views
Do not listen to scientists if they don’t agree but he says there’s a study that supports, soon we’ll see
They’re coming for our summer meats no more family bar-b-q’s We’ll be roasting brussel sprouts and then what chaos ensues?
That’s right! We’ll be drinking plant-based beers removed of all that tasty flesh or at least that’s what Larry hears
No more hamburger in our hops no more bacon in the barley no more yak shank in the yeast might as well cancel all the parties
No fermented flank steak or bubbly buffalo wings Absent the Angus ale and the joy a perfect pork-loin pint brings
How will we get a buzz without a beefy broiled Bud and what will tint the goggles if there’s no sirloin in the suds?
*After writing my poem, I found this post about beers that are brewed with meat. Gross, but I felt it should be included.
The occasion prompt inspired me to head over to National Day Calendar and see what kind of National events and “days” are happening. I was surprised by what I found.
A few of those got me thinking. National Work Zone Awareness might be difficult if you are observing Sky Awareness. And Every Kid Healthy may conflict with National Princess Week. However, Sky Awareness could combine with Princess Awareness if you see castles in the sky, and Medical Laboratory Professionals can be appreciated for keeping Kids Healthy and Infant Immunization. Lots to think about, but I’m kind of stuck on Sky Awareness Week. The idea that people might only be aware of the sky for one week in April is interesting and surprising. 🙂
An Offered Palm – by Maria L. Berg 2021
Nephelococcygia and the art of sky awareness
It’s finally here the nationally recognized week I’ve waited for all year
Those seven days to lay down outside and shift my gaze
up to the sky and become aware of things that fly
like jets and seaplanes eagles and ducks pleasantly observed until it rains
and clouds in layers creating shapes for nephelococcygian players
shifting and forming fantastical beasts and faces and castles before the storming
when I’ll run inside but still be aware the sky will abide
above and at week’s end when awareness shifts back to the earth to tend
sky unobserved like a falling tree in the forest, eyes closed no clouds to see
NaPoWriMo has a fun prompt where I’m to find an article about an animal and replace the animal name with an abstract or other specific concrete noun. The Poem-a-Day challenge is to write a question poem and my Janus word for the A to Z Challenge is unbending; meaning both rigid, inflexible, refusing to yield or compromise, as in “his stance against reform was unbending”; or becoming less tense, relaxing, as in “unbending a little, she confided…”
Capturing Rainbow Butterflies (2020) bokeh photograph by Maria L. Berg
Flying Dream Felons?
Though flying dreams are not endangered, they are vulnerable because their habitats are vanishing
a concerned citizen called authorities after noticing boxes– flying dream traps– on trees in Florida
Americans aren’t the only ones who find dreams adorable they’re small, furry exotic notions valued and thought of as pocket pets
while it is legal to breed flying dreams, in most cases, it’s illegal to take them from the wild and sell them to wildlife exporters
and flying dreams make awful pets unbending in their nocturnal enterprises, they make a lot of noise at night and they have sharp teeth
imagine how the dreams must feel taken from their homes and sent to foreign lands
Inspired by “Flying squirrel felons” by John Kelly, published in the Washington Post April 13, 2021.
My Janus word for the A to Z Challenge is terrible which can mean formidable, or lousy.
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt inspired me to head over to ModPo on coursera to listen to and read some of the poems discussed there. In the resources section, I took a look at ModPo Plus (part 1) and found “Popcorn-can cover” by Lorine Niedecker.
I really love how Niedecker created this connection for me: an image of the cold, scritching and scratching a hole in the wall to squeeze its whiskered nose and furry body through. So for my response, I want to try a few of these to see if I can create some great imagery by turning a noun into a verb. Plus it will have to be a terrible verb that has an appointment. 😉
Inflatable sea-turtle raft launched from the terrible, slippery ramp so she can merganser all day
Glittered Seahawks flip-flops slipped under my soles to cover my delicate skin so those sneaky shards of glass from last winter’s storm can’t tiger-muskie in
This shock gasp squished into a swimsuit has an appointment with the chilly water so the dread can’t eagle down
A Feather in His Cap – bokeh photograph by Maria L. Berg 2021
Today NaPoWriMo,s challenge is a metonymy prompt: “write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.”
The Poem-a-Day prompt is to write a nature poem.
Today’s Janus word for the A to Z Challenge is screen which can mean to conceal with or as if with a screen; or “to display prominently” as in screening a film.
A Feather in His Cap
There was a time not so long ago when a man would not leave home without his hat
the rounded dome with a short curved brim made famous by a tramp of a comedian on the silver screen
but is that a bird feather in the band of that bowler tucked with pride, showing off kills or vanity?
as he fashions that fedora that flash of color never seen in black and white on the small screen while detecting
but that ptarmigan is thrilling as he tips his trilby and has her all aflutter
the ostrich dances as he bows low and swirls his cap with foppish aplomb
as history and etiquette melt away or we forget caught up in the spectacle of millinery
Experience Writing 