NaPoWriMo (Day 30): Darkling stars

For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

30
 
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show where every line originated. A cento might seem like a complex undertaking – and one that requires you to have umpteen poetry books at your fingertips for reference – but you don’t have to write a long one.
 
 

Darkling stars (a Cento)

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
did wander darkling in the eternal space. ¹
I imagined you a fellow traveller

on this arid ground. But there’s no thing

that resembles you on earth. ² 

To see a world in a grain of sand

and a heaven in a wild flower, 

hold infinity in the palm of your hand 

and eternity in an hour. ³

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!

So like, so very like, was day to day! ⁴

Sun glints from the frozen river.

This is the roof of the earthball.

Silence. ⁵

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

when the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

my father, digging. I look down. ⁶ 

Where sunless rivers weep

their waves into the deep,

she sleeps a charmed sleep: ⁷

“Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair   

and I eat men like air.” ⁸

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

licked its tongue into the corners of the evening. ⁹

The moon arose up in the murky East,

a white and shapeless mass. ¹⁰

[The man] will fall asleep at last inside the shade of his blue lamp

as the islands crawl like huge moths over the globe. ¹¹

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, May 1, 2022

The poems selected:

1. Byron, Darkness

2. Giacomo Leopardi, To His Lady

3. William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

4. William Wordsworth, Elegiac Stanzas

5. Tomas Transtromer, Along the Lines

6. Seamus Heaney, Digging

7. Christina Rossetti, Dreamland

8. Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

9. Prufrock, TS Eliot

10. Shelley, The Waning Moon

11. Tomas Transtromer, Breathing Space July

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

NaPoWriMo (Day 29): The bracelet

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

29

And here’s our prompt (optional, as always). In certain versions of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, various fairies or witches are invited to a princess’s christening, and bring her gifts. One fairy/witch, however, is not invited, and in revenge for the insult, lays a curse on the princess. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as a “curse” you’ve lived with (your grandmother’s insistence on giving you a new and completely creepy porcelain doll for every birthday, a bad singing voice, etc.). I hope you find this to be an inspiring avenue for poetic and self-exploration.

The bracelet

 
There was a comet, they said,
crossing the sky on high with colourful
tail feathers, soaring and then disappearing
completely, scattered wide in the pitch.
 
I have no recollection, being newly born.
I still have a bracelet, so tiny I could never
imagine wearing it again. It’s silver and faded,
but it fitted snug on my arm at my christening.
 
Now it’s doll-size. The engraving is hard
to read, but it’s still visible. Minute ridges of
a pattern, weaving its way around the band.
It’s a small, treasured thing. It’s come with me
 
through my entire life, my silent companion,
living through all the things that make a person.
I lost it recently in a house move. I hunted all over
for this small remembrance of my childhood.
 
Just a bracelet, but meaning so much more.
A gift from family, a raw bond, a welcoming
into the world, a memory. I wanted to call out,
but never would there come an answer.
 
If only it could speak. But it is only metal.
Built to last an age.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 29, 2022

NaPoWriMo (Day 28): The glass

 

For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

28

Today’s (optional) prompt is to write a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem. For example, May Swenson’s poem “Women” mimics curves, reinforcing the poem’s references to motion, rocking horses, and even the shape of a woman’s body. George Starbuck’s “Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree” is – you guessed it – a sonnet in the shape of a potted Christmas tree. Your concrete poem could be complexly-shaped, but relatively simple strategies can also be “concrete” —  like a poem involving a staircase where the length of the lines grows or shrinks over time, like an ascending (or descending) set of stairs.

 

The glass

 

I’ll just pour myself a small glass, she tells herself,

but she’s finding she needs this escape, this step outside,

like the daily wrap of a warm blanket, extinguishing the cold,

a feeling she can rely on when nothing else is making sense.

She doesn’t mind if she drinks alone or in a heaving crowd.

In public or at home, this solace always tastes the same.

This blood-red liquid she has known since she was 12,

introduced by an old friend she’d rather not name.

He slowly vanished part by part, like smoke.

The truth lies at the bottom of the glass,

the wine, it never lies to her.

She doesn’t think,

never needs to,

polishes it all off

until there’s nothing

left at all. Staring

at the tired dregs

you’d think they held

all the answers, but she’s forgotten

the only question she really desired to ask.

 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 28, 2022

 

NaPoWriMo (Day 27): Invasion

 
 For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

27
 
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a “duplex.” A “duplex” is a variation on the sonnet, developed by the poet Jericho Brown. Here’s one of his first “Duplex” poems, and here is a duplex written by the poet I.S. Jones. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has fourteen lines. It’s organized into seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.
 

Invasion

 
You can feel the chill of death divide the sky.
From dawn til dusk the cruel torrent falls.
 
There is never a pause from dawn til dusk,
as we listen for the siren call to pierce the quiet.
 
The sirens and the bombs pierce the night,
down to the metro, where we hide our heads.
 
We hide our heads hoping for a new tomorrow,
but this has been our dismal fate for months.
 
This cannot be our fate, to have to suffer like this;
we are bombarded, tortured and intimidated,
 
but still we stand, bombarded, intimidated as we are.
Some of us have lost our fathers, our wives, our babes.
 
Only yesterday we embraced our fathers, wives, our babes.
You can feel the chill of death divide the sky.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 27, 2022
 

NaPoWriMo (Day 26): A flash of orange

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

26

And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). A couple of days ago, we played around with hard-boiled similes. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that contains at least one of a different kind of simile – an epic simile. Also known as Homeric similes, these are basically extended similes that develop over multiple lines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have mainly been used in epic poems, typically as decorative elements that emphasize the dramatic nature of the subject (see, by way of illustration, this example from Milton’s Paradise Lost). But you could write a complete poem that is just one lengthy, epic simile, relying on the surprising comparison of unlike things to carry the poem across. And if you’re feeling especially cheeky, you could even write a poem in which the epic simile spends lines heroically and dramatically describing something that turns out to be quite prosaic. Whatever you decide to compare, I hope you have fun extending your simile(s) to epic lengths.

 
Flash of orange
 
As the train trundled out of the grey station,
the eager man in his orange, reflective vest
blazed his way through the carriage
like an orangutan swinging between branches,
looking for the swiftest route through
the fervent foliage and busyness of leaves.
 
He grasped each metal pole as if it were
a leafy rope of green, bristling with burs,
dangling from the gasping trees of the
languid rainforest, his skin sweating profusely
in the sauna-like heat of the black tunnel.
 
The other passengers veered backwards,
into the recesses, not wanting to make contact
or slow him down, so candidly intent was his
expression on becoming the king of this
urban metal-can jungle.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 26, 2022

NaPoWriMo (Day 25): Aisling

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

25

Today’s (optional) prompt is based on the aisling, a poetic form that developed in Ireland. An aisling recounts a dream or vision featuring a woman who represents the land or country on/in which the poet lives, and who speaks to the poet about it. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that recounts a dream or vision, and in which a woman appears who represents or reflects the area in which you live. Perhaps she will be the Madonna of the Traffic Lights, or the Mysterious Spirit of Bus Stops. Or maybe you will be addressed by the Lost Lady of the Stony Coves. Whatever form your dream-visitor takes, happy writing!

 
Aisling
 
She walked in on spiral shells
the tide had spat out,
water circling the indentations,
inviting her reflection.
 
Her footprints in the silk sand
ran like dots along the length
of the surf. She hummed a song
as it ebbed and flowed
in a rhythm at one with her voice.
 
She showed us the horizon,
a far-off scrawl of mauve crayon,
and waved how far she’d come
to tell us such a small thing:
 
the light on the ocean is forever;
it will never fade,
never blow out.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 25, 2022

NaPoWriMo (Day 24): Season's tunes

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

 
I didn’t do the prompt today, but went with the repetition prompt again.
 
 
Season’s tunes
 
Sounds of the summer,
laughter in the park, wiles of
dogs barking lively.
 
Sounds of the springtime,
lemon daffodils through grass,
a half-light of sun.
 
Sounds of winter spun,
thick crunch of snow, icy sleet,
winds blowing full force.
 
Sounds of the autumn,
flutter of leaves floating down,
blackbird song on high.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 24, 2022

NaPoWriMo (Day 23): With time

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

23

And now for our daily (optional) prompt. Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay. They also have a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms. Once you’ve read a few, you’ll see what I mean. Here’s her “Token Loss,” “Blue China Doorknob,” “Houdini,” and “Crustacean Island.”
 
 
With time
 
With time
we take a trip so shallow,
so deep, so rhythmical,
without pattern or scheme,
something unseen,
down, down, sinking in sand,
treading without knowing
into a trippy sleep
while waking,
not doing anything at all,
without consciousness
of being here,
but wily wishing on stars,
collecting shifting shapes,
a colourful coalescence
of smiles.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 23, 2022
 
 

NaPoWriMo (Day 22): Haiku of the south sea

 
I couldn’t write yesterday, cos I was working all day, went out to see a band called The Mission and came home at midnight, so I’m catching up by writing two today.
 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

22

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). In honor of today’s being the 22^nd day of Na/GloPoWriMo 2022, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things.

Haiku of the south sea
 
The south sea roars out,
a cage of wet, rolling sound,
peters in and out.
 
The south sea soars out,
catching surfers in its net,
a tunnel of love.
 
The south sea soothes out,
ebbs and flows insouciant,
funnelling the blue.
 
The south sea roars out,
catching dolphins on the sly
riding the high waves.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 23, 2022
 
 

NaPoWriMo (Day 21): From school to Florence

 
Starting this one at 945pm, after commuting, an exercise class and dinner. My brain is melting!
 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

21

Today’s (optional) prompt is one I got from the poet Betsy Sholl. This prompt asks you to write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.

From school to Florence
 
Janet C was my best friend at infant and junior school.
We’d play and dress up, walk home together, and were
inseparable. We stayed in touch when I changed schools,
but then I moved away, and it was impossible back then –
not like today with mobile phones and the internet
to stick you together like glue. We’d have to beg our fathers
to use the house phone to make “daylight robbery”-priced
conversations that everyone could hear from the hallway.
 
Those were the days. I once worked in a supermarket
at the weekends at uni. Cue a dizzy day from 7am to 7pm.
One lady used to put a sweet on the conveyor belt for me,
and another would ask me to look after all her bags
while she looked around. Then there was the man who asked me
to marry him just because he was “useless” at shopping.
And lastly there was the very angry woman who swung for me
after I charged her for a carrier bag. It was company policy.
 
There is a bronze copy of Michelangelo’s David at the crest of a hill
in Florence. From the piazza, he watches the sun set in the evening
and rise in the morn. He times every tourist who attempts the climb
from his majestic pose, gazing out over the whole of the city below,
taking in Forte Belvedere to Santa Crose, the bridges of the timeless Arno,
and the hills of Settignano and Fiesole in the misted backdrop.
 
Do you think he’s wondering if there’s life on Mars?
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 21, 2022

NaPoWriMo (Day 20): Daily bread

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

20

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food. It could be a favorite food of yours, or maybe one you feel conflicted about. I feel conflicted about Black Forest Cake, for example. It always looks so pretty in a bakery window, and I want to like the combination of cherries and chocolate . . . but I don’t. But how does the cake feel about it?

Daily bread
 
I am rising.
I feel myself almost risen,
bubbling below the surface,
indents and permeations.
 
I smell warm and cosy,
of balmy vanilla and tangy lemon.
My crust will soon have a crispness
that tempts without crumbling,
my middle softly melting,
something to be savoured.
 
I am rising,
and falling, resting almost.
Tiny currants decorate me,
little eyes looking out.
 
Hands remove me from the oven,
place me on a metal tray
and I breathe more freely,
happy to escape the sauna
and cool down, the heat bubbles
evanescent from my pores.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 20, 2022

NaPoWriMo (Day 19): The things your mother used to say

 
 For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

19

Today’s challenge is to write a poem that starts with a command. It could be as uncomplicated as “Look,” as plaintive as “Come back,” or as silly as “Don’t you even think about putting that hot sauce in your hair.” Whatever command you choose, I hope you have fun ordering your readers around.

 
The things your mother used to say
 
“DON’T PLAY WITH YOUR BELLY BUTTON
OR YOUR BELLY WILL POP!” she said.
 
I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I
received this, the biggest “don’t do it” of my life.
If I was in the bath and my mother was there,
then I must have been very little. This warning
scarred me for life. I never touched my belly button
again. It remained totally unexplored territory.
 
“DON’T SWALLOW THOSE PIPS OR
A TREE WILL GROW INSIDE YOUR BELLY!”
 
Well, that stopped me dead from eating the pips
of oranges and apples, and I still spend an eternity
picking them out. I dreamed of some monstrosity
growing from the pits of my legs all the way up to
my neck, taking up the entire in between with branches
and leaves, little twigs twisting into my arms.
 
“DON’T PULL A FACE LIKE THAT OR
THE WIND WILL CHANGE AND IT WILL GET STUCK!”
 
How we’d check the mirrors in trepidation.
Would our expressions take on odd contortions –
eyeballs raised to the sky, noses screwed up,
our ears wiggling and tongues stuck out?
It turned out we were only impish for a minute
before normal facial services resumed.
 
“EAT THE CRUSTS ON YOUR BREAD COS
THEY’LL PUT HAIRS ON YOUR CHEST!”
 
I was never sure about the point of this one.
It didn’t make me want to gobble up
every little portion of my spam sandwich
as I didn’t dream of having a big, hairy chest,
being a girl and all. I carefully trimmed off
all the crusts and never looked back.
 
“DON’T STARE AT THE GROUND OR
YOU WON’T SEE WHERE YOU’RE GOING!”
 
Well, this one turned out to be true one day,
when I was walking home from school,
daydreaming and watching my feet
as if they belonged to someone else –
up, down, up, down… SMACK!
I walked straight into a lamppost.
 
“NIGHT, NIGHT, DON’T LET
THE BED BUGS BITE!”
 
As a kid, I had no idea what a bed bug was.
I thought it was a giant, hairy monster,
cos that’s what I hid from when I went to bed,
pulling the covers way up over my head
and being careful not to peek out,
just in case one happened to be passing…
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 19, 2022
 

NaPoWriMo (Day 18): Five answers to the same question

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

18

Here is today’s prompt (optional, as always). It’s based on Faisal Mohyuddin’s poem “Five Answers to the Same Question”. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that provides five answers to the same question – without ever specifically identifying the question that is being answered.

 
Five answers to the same question

1.
There was no filter
when we played,
splashing each other
with a snaking hose
all over, cold water
kissing sunburnt skin.
 
2.
I remember twisting leaves
spilling from the sky.
A resurrection of hope.
Reds, yellows, the burnt
orange an echoed sun.
I gathered them, overflowing
in my upturned palms.
 
3.
I don’t really have a favourite.
I like all four of them. I can’t
choose. Each one is different,
showing me something new,
a uniqueness. I look forward
to each one the same.
 
4.
Daffodils nod in the breeze.
Puffed-up bees bounce between them,
snorkelling in the lemon horns,
vibrating gently inside petals,
little legs poking out,
striped bellies stuck.
 
5.
We built him in the backyard,
rolled him up from nothing,
stuck round head to torso,
wrapped with a deep, red scarf.
Carrot nose, twiggy arms,
a hat that had seen better days.
We named him Cyril.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 18, 2022
 
 

NaPoWriMo (Day 17): Two poems about dogs

 
For the month of April, I’m writing a poem a day from prompts on https://www.napowrimo.net. You can click on the headlines (Day One, etc) to view/add comments. There’s also a list of participants’ sites below the site header.

Day 17

Here’s our daily (optional) prompt. This is a fun one – it’s a prompt developed by the comic artist Lynda Barry, and it asks you to think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you.

 
Let’s talk about dogs
 
Let’s talk about dogs, baby,
what they mean to you and me - 
to all the dogs we’ve ever known
and cherished down the road.
 
They bark a lot, as we know,
roll around in fox poo and dribble, oh,
eat you out of house and home,
and chew your favourite high-heels,
 
But with a big, brown-eyed stare,
they’ve really got you there,
and you can’t ever say no
to wherever they want to go.
 
You’re sucker-punched,
and you know you’re all theirs.
there’s a lead on the back door
and it’s time for walkies.
 
Vickie Johnstone, April 17, 2022

 
 
It’s time for walkies
 
I’m pointing to my lead on the back door
because I wanna go for walkies.
 
I’ve been taking up your entire bed
for the whole morning long,
 
but now I want some exercise,
and I think it will do you good.
 
I wanna go sniff the road
and inspect it for other dogs’ doo,
 
smell the roses and the bushes,
and every thing in between too.
 
Maybe bring the frisbee
so I can show off my prowess,
 
with a jump and a leap and a twist,
to impress all the lady doggies.
 
But, hey, we’re too late for the school bus.
I won’t be able to chase it,
 
which means I won’t pull you flying.
I guess you’re relieved about that.
 
Come on, Bob, the afternoon’s young.
We gotta get going. Don’t be a lazy human.
 
I’m a young, strapping Labrador,
and I need my daily exercise,
 
or I’m gonna chew something up,
and you’ll give me your evil glare
 
that I’ve dared do something mean
when really I’m your best, best friend.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 17, 2022