Directions to Poetry Month

Day 30, 2021 NaPoWriMo

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Directions to Poetry Month

Start on April first (no joke)
Read the prompt
Open Google docs
Create a new blank document 
Stare at the white page
Wait. Wait.

If nothing comes to mind,
And document is still blank
Take a detour to the left
Read featured poets and poems
If you get an idea, a phrase to play with
Open up rhymezone; open up syllable counter
Start writing, see if phrases translates into a ghazal, or
A haiku, a tanka perhaps, or a prose poem.
Not happy with what you got on the paper?
Roll the paper in proverbial wad and toss it into the garbage can
(i.e. delete Google doc and create another blank document).

Need more inspiration; take a detour
To the right and read others who have already posted
their finished work.  Anything, anything?
Almost time for dinner, if panic sets in, turnaround
And visit more poetry sites.

Have dinner.  After, dinner when it is 8PM Pacific time, 
Within an hour a new prompt will drop,
Panic. Jot something.  Panic some more.
Got something, good, now 
Go straight to Unsplash or to Pixabay
Find a picture that semi-fits your written verse
Write up the post on the blog, hit publish.  
Phew! 59 seconds to spare.  
Ahh, and there it is - a brand new prompt.

Rinse and repeat for the whole month of April.
And on last day of April, in tow, you’ll have:
some ramblings, some indecipherable musings,
And maybe something interesting.
Some of the nice, fellow travellers may even read
Your stuff, and give you compliments, and feedback.

After lots of false starts, 
lots of detouring and 
lots of meandering,
After 30 days and 30 nights, 
You Have Arrived.
Remember, it is not the destination, and it is the
Journey that matters.
(PS: Remember to say thanks to Maureen).

Notes:

Another April’s come and gone. I got to 30 for 30 again this year. Definitely a good feeling. As usual, time is such a constraint, with barely enough time to write something and regrettably (as always) not enough time to read so much good work that other poets have posted. And as always, thanks to Maureen Thorson for providing the space, the reading material and the prompts for the journey.

Full prompt from napowrimo.net:

“Today’s featured reading is a live event that will take place tomorrow, May 1, at 3:30 p.m. eastern. Poet sam sax will be reading for The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in New Jersey.

And now for our final (still optional!) prompt. Today’s prompt is based on a prompt written by Jacqueline Saphra, and featured in this group of prompts published back in 2015 by The Poetry Society of the U.K. This prompt challenges you to write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place. It could be a real place, like your local park, or an imaginary or unreal place, like “the bottom of your heart,” or “where missing socks go.” Fill your poem with sensory details, and make them as wild or intimate as you like.”

From my window

Day 29, 2021 NaPoWriMo

Photo By Aashish Vaidya

From my window

Whispering wind in my hair,  the scene of the sea is the view from my window.
A best seller in hand, perched high on a sill, worries are few, from my window.

In the neighbor’s yard, I hear much laughter and noise, but I can’t say hello. 
The view is blocked by the hedge of Japanese yew from my window.

If I had the dough, I would stay in the best suite of the Waldorf with view 
of Central Park. And I’ll spy the glitterati on Park Avenue, from my window.

Grounded by the virus, trapped in endless cycle of zoom calls, I daydream   
 the panoramas and imagine vicunas on the terraces of peru -  from my window.

The Goan air, infused with frangipani, us infused with cashew feni; we watch
the skies feature many colors including the hue of cerulean blue, from my window. 

The voyeur witnessed a murder from the rear one; but what would you find ‘Mirage’?
Something real, something imagined, what is within your purview from my window?

Notes:

The prompt was to write “in the window” poem. I didn’t stopped at a single window, stringed a few couplets together in a ghazal. Feni is cashew liquor produced in the western state of Goa in India. The last couplet references Hitchcock’s thriller Rear Window.

Full prompt from napowrimo.net:

“Our featured daily reading is a pre-recorded one, which you can peruse whenever you like. It’s a video of Victoria Chang reading for Berry College in November of last year.

And now, for our prompt (optional, as always). This one is called “in the window.” Imagine a window looking into a place or onto a particular scene. It could be your childhood neighbor’s workshop, or a window looking into an alien spaceship. Maybe a window looking into a witch’s gingerbread cottage, or Lord Nelson’s cabin aboard the H.M.S. Victory. What do you see? What’s going on?”