What happens when people stop talking about the event you chose?Or both events.
If your event is long, long ago, what happened when it was discovered–that excitement.
Write about the ensuing silence as the event fades in importance.
This poem might refer back to, or continue, the aftermath poem from day 8.
Here’s my favorite line from yesterday’s poem:
The ban lifts, a heavy book put back on a shelf
What was yours?
For today, find a text about your event, or a text for each event. It can be a news story, a quotation from a book–whatever catches your attention.
What does the text tell you? What do you think it’s leaving out? Write a poem that looks at both the text’s surface and what you think lives underneath.
Can you start today’s poem with the last line from yesterday’s poem?
Yesterday I was looking online for images, and I found the photo from which the painting I used for Saturday’s ekphrastic poem was based on. Awkward syntax–and just plain awkward.
That image, and the others I found, flew in the face of the image I’d harbored. So my poem became a response to my naivete. Here’s my favorite line:
For now the windows hold
What was your favorite line from yesterday?
What are you thankful for?
For me, it’s been an interesting week. I overslept on Monday because I forgot to set my alarm. On Wednesday I slept through my alarm. But I managed to get the Poetry Month prompts up every morning. And I’m always thankful for sleep.
I’m thankful for my morning pages–even though they’re short and I do them on the computer. They give me a chance to hash out and rehash all my doubts and insecurities, in private.
I’m thankful for the chance to read to about 50 people at a retirement home, and thankful I beat the storm on my way there. (This is what comes of being paranoid about rush hour traffic and the possibility of getting lost–it worked out.)
I’m thankful for a chance to read Wednesday as part of a Floating Bridge Press reading. I’m thankful for the press and the long, ongoing relationships they cultivate in the poet community. And I’m SO THANKFUL my mom came. What a surprise! What a treat!
I’m thankful for my mom and dad.
I’m thankful for the dinner my son made on Wednesday. Imagine coming home from a reading to a warm plate of food and a glass of wine. Again, what a treat!
I’m thankful for a fun dinner with friends on Friday night. Good food, meeting new people. Although I always say I’d like to stay on my sofa, it’s good to get out, and I’m thankful for the opportunity.
And I’m thankful for afternoon sun–after drizzle and real rain, the sun came out and felt warm. I saw the forget-me-nots beginning to bloom and the bleeding heart already bleeding. Yes, what a treat!
Open the door. Open my heart.
Tags: gratitude
Today, we’ll start another sequence. If you’ve already written about two different events, here’s a chance to knit them together, to further explore what resonates between them. Or you can choose a new event.
Think about where your event took place. This might be the same place you explored in day 11, or it might be somewhere different.
Now imagine the most specific location possible–not a city, but a room in a city, not a forest, but a specific tree. Choose something small enough that you could see all of it at the same time. How was it before? How is it now? Describe what’s lost and what’s left, or what’s gained and what’s forgotten.
If you’ve been exploring two events, can you look at two places and tie them together?
It took me awhile to find a painting to use for yesterday’s poem–and I haven’t been able to find out much about the painting or the painter, who uses a pseudonym, but here’s my favorite line:
all angles and gold nostalgia
Did you write an ekphrastic poem yesterday? What was your favorite line?
Day 20! Two-thirds of the way through–after today’s poem, and here’s the prompt:
Choose a piece of art that’s associated with your event (or your first event). Photos count (although I’m hoping to find a painting).
Write an ekphrastic poem–a poem that gives the reader a sensory anchor to the artwork but also explores beyond that–into your experience of the artwork and the event that inspired it.
This is a stand-alone prompt, not part of the sequence (although it could be).
I admit I’ve been looking forward to this prompt all month. Now I need to find the art.
My poem from yesterday still needs a lot of work, but my favorite line is:
the empty halls, four walls for a heart
What was your favorite line from the poem you wrote yesterday?
