April keeps moving along. We have no choice but to go with it. Three more days of National Poetry Writing Month, with three more poems.
4.19 The Pitch: Today
we challenge you to write a paragraph that briefly recounts a story, describes
the scene outside your window, or even gives directions from your house to the
grocery store. Now try erasing words from this paragraph to create a poem or,
alternatively, use the words of your paragraph to build a new poem.
My response: These prompts get more
and more baroque. Here's my story.
Obstacles Everywhere
It's not
easy to get from my house to the grocery store. First there's the cat, prowling
and mewling with a perennial air of cruel neglect. What are you doing for me?
she whines. Don't forget my bag of treats. Then there are the birds, queuing up
beneath the feeder. You think it's easy? the blackbird squawks, to find another
seed in the this pecked-over feeder? That's black oil sunflower, got-it?
Got-it? Got-it? I turn away to face to face with the neighborhood urchin, with
his bowl-cut hair and his heavy eyes, kicking a stone down the gutter on his
daily slog unwillingly to school. He glares at me: why do I have to walk while
the likes of you get to ride? The lover is next, gazing longingly into the
trees, his lips moving no doubt in some complaint of the coolness of his
beloved's glance -- er, actually, is that some kind of wire planted into his
ears.
I back the
car slowly from the drive, but am compelled to brake as the warrior roars in to
the curb-cut on his unmuffled scooter and lets the engine throb in passion of
enmity for the unseen foe. Old Natter, the councilor at extra-large, catches me
then, unpacking his bag of wise saws on the sins of municipal spending, until
the letter-carrier snags his attention. I button up the window swift, but a rap
on the passenger side glass delivers me to the presence of Mistress Godzip, who
opines on the recent goings-on in the halfway house, sprinkled with a few
choice requests: just ice, just tea, just everything... Breaking away, at last,
free at last, only to find the power grid people in their silly orange hats
laying cones across the road while the time-and-a-half detail cop inspects his
phone: No Exit today!
Here's the poem:
The Seven Stages of
Delay
Prowling and mewling, the cat bars my way
'What are you getting for me?' she whines
'I'm due another treat today'
Birds queue up at the feeder, syncopating beaks:
'Got-it?' 'Got-it?' 'Got-it?' sparrow squawks and mousie
squeaks
The put-upon urchin dragging his frown unwillingly to school
The lover croons with soundless lips, plugged into his
heart's device and reads a text from Lady Cruel
The warrior in leathered black racing the engine of his self-esteem
in defiance of a world not what it seems
The local expert, a talking head, judges and begrudges
what is wrong and what is right
expounds all-a-day and sometimes night
Old Mother Godzip, out of all but breath,
needs a few things at the store:
just ice, just tea -- just wait a tick --
I'm sure I'll think of something more
Till I break free and corner round, to find my egress
blocked
by mocking orange cones freely strewn:
I'm going home to sleep till noon.
4.18 The Pitch: "Find
a poem.... Use a piece of paper to cover over everything but the last line. Now
write a line of your own that completes the thought of that single line you can
see, or otherwise responds to it. Now move your piece of paper up to uncover
the second-to-last line of your source poem, and write the second line of your
new poem to complete/respond to this second-to-last line. Keep going,
uncovering and writing, until you get to the first line of your source poem,
which you will complete/respond to as the last line of your new poem. It might
not be a finished draft, but hopefully it at least contains the seeds of one."
My
response: This one was impossible. I chose a poem I have long loved, so
dismembering it to infiltrate into its bones a wholly contrary message was pure
poetic sacrifice. William Blake's famous widely loved poem
"Jerusalem" has become a kind of an unofficial national anthem in
England, particularly the England of old institutions such as the Church of
England and, apparently, the army. In addition to re-ordering his poem from
last line to first, the only change I made was to add the word "New"
before the word "England" wherever it appeared.
Here's the
poem.
Upside Down in New 'Jerusalem'
In New England's green & pleasant land
Wood chippers grind and whine all day
Till we have built our new Jerusalem
in Amazonian Mammon by the Sea
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have turned our fruit to rind
Nor will I ease from Mental Fight
While birds still flutter in my mind
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
Bring me my gardener's unwieldy hoe
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me the fool who sooth-sayed so
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Let my rich branch and brand aspire
Among these dark Satanic Mills
Men man machines, their secret thrills
And was Jerusalem builded here
Beyond the ocean, let new fear
Shine forth upon our clouded hills
And in our heart dark secrets trill
And did the Countenance Divine
Rejoice on deserts, no more to smile
On New England's pleasant pastures seen!
Where ax and saw become the style
And was the Holy Lamb of God
That now doth scream, once free to
Walk upon New England's mountains green:
And frolic in the fresh spring stream
And did those feet in ancient time
Pace through death's universal dream?
4. 17 The Prompt: "...Write
a poem re-telling a family anecdote that has stuck with you over time. It could
be the story of the time your Uncle Louis caught a home run ball, the time your
Cousin May accidentally brought home a coyote and gave it a bath, thinking it
was a stray dog, or something darker (or even sillier)."
Response: I couldn't
think of anything silly. The poem:
A Family Anecdote
My father had no anecdotes
He folded wrapping paper carefully
after opening each present
upon our Christmas times
My father had no wish for gifts
Don't buy me anything, he'd say
Better keep your money
I responded childishly, what would I keep it for?
My father had no money
He had simple tastes in food
He shared no childhood memories
of what life was like at home
My father had no home
His parents had to sell
Depression prices at their ebb
Where was he to go?
My father had no parents
when I was very small
He never spoke of his own father,
not that I recall
My father's father left no tracks,
not that I can see
My father's father had no name,
the name he gave to me
To check out the full
spiel at National Poetry Writing Month for yourself, here's the link:
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