Tag: creativity

Day Eight: You Call Yourself A Poem?

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Today’s prompt was to write a poem that uses a repeating phrase and then goes on to contradict itself.

You call yourself a poem?

Look at you.  Your lines are

stubby and you lack

imagery.  The reference

you make to the peach

is too soft, too sweet, its

sides mushy and shapeless.

You call yourself a poem?

Take a good long look at

your form.  It’s as brittle

as a dead tree.  If you ever tried

to hold an idea, your

branches would just sn-ap.

You call yourself a poem?

Where is the beauty? I can

see the cracks, now where is

the light? The words that form

you have been scraped from

underneath a mossy rock.

You call yourself a poem?

Shake yourself down.

Adjust your ideas.  Take

this graveyard of broken

phrases and dig it over.

Mosaic the words until

it gives us something

that feels more like truth.

NaPoWriMo Day Three: The Kitchen

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Today’s prompt was to write a poem in which the subject of the poem has an unusual reaction to their job, inspired by Treasure Hunt by Prabodh Parikh.

The heat of the kitchen is enough

to put some off; those that remain are

tossed straight into the maelstrom.

This job is not for the faint of heart.

Today’s menu is a typical mix of

piquant nouns and zesty verbs in

surprising combinations. 

Check out our starter of the day

– a delicious little tanka filled with

the creamy song of a nesting thrush.

Or try our conceptual soup: a unique

blend of ideas and spices, designed

for the discerning poetic palette.

Come here.  This will be your station.

You’ll finely chop dreams and mix

them with a sense of longing, before

steeping them in the strongest

poetic juice locally available.  A tiny

pinch of self doubt. Season generously.

Today’s main course is, of course,

our show-stopping sestina – 39 lines

of pure lyrical elegance with our

own lemony twist.  People come

from all over the world for its

unexpected word combinations.

It isn’t an easy job, working in our

poetry kitchen – but it’s one that will

reward you with a life of flavour.

Day 25: Let’s Write A Song

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Let’s write a song together.  We’ll soak

the world in a feathery blue dye.  You strum up

a riff steeped in They-Might-Be energy

and I’ll scribble out some words

with a Giants vibe.

Let’s write a song together.   We’ll build

something new that clacks and jumps

like a robot army.  We’ll stitch in notes

that divide and spill and run

into the cracks we’ve created.

Let’s write a song together.   Throw it

against the wall of the birdhouse and we’ll watch

it sloop down, leaving a silver trail.  You’ll

finger-pick the remnants which have

gathered on the sandpaper floor.

Let’s write a song together.  Let’s wring it

out for good sounds and intentions, which

puff out from it like blue spores.  You’ll

provide a fine bass-line and I’ll rustle up

a crunchy lyrical side salad.

Let’s write a song together.  We’ll create the

thing that lights up somebody’s shore.  It’ll have

the rhythm of rocky sand and glow

like a night light.  Let’s write a song which buzzes

and sings and fizzes on the tongue of the world.